When customers start interacting with products they love, good things can happen. This was the case with Australia-based LaRoo, a privately held maker of mobile-phone accessories founded six years ago by Lara Solomon, a former brand manager with Conair, SC Johnson and Vidal Sassoon.
Ms Solomon hit on a product idea that was both quirky and inexpensive—colourful sock-like covers for mobile devices, which she dubbed Mocks. The products are made in China but are small enough to send anywhere in the world, and thanks to the easy ability to tap online communities.
LaRoo has gone global rapidly. In the last few years, it has built up a surprisingly large online community—the Mocks Facebook page has nearly 17,000 followers. LaRoo's annual top line sales are about US$1m, and the firm has sold 1.6m Mocks to date. LaRoo's marketing budget is AS$100,000, one-half of which goes to social media. Given her widely dispersed customer base, she calls her company a "global boutique".
"A lot of companies don't know how to integrate social media into a marketing plan," she says. And data from interactive channels are "just sheer numbers" until they are linked to traditional channels.
Ms Solomon and her three employees manually monitor customer interaction and hold contests to encourage repeat business and boost customer loyalty. The company is quickly developing a cult-like following: one customer recently purchased 250 Mocks. "That amazed me," says Ms Solomon.
