On today’s episode of The Retail Experience Show, Bobby speaks with Matt Sutton, CMO at The Black Tux & Marke, a clothing brand for men that aims to offer more diverse, stylish options for life’s big events.
They discuss how The Black Tux balances their online marketing efforts with those of their retail locations and how marketing is tied into their customer experience. They also discuss how to be intentional about deciding where to put a new retail location.
Topics discussed:
- Why The Black Tux keeps inclusivity and diversity at its core.
- How they engage customers online and translate that to in-person experiences.
- Getting creative with customer experiences in retail locations by adding different activities for customers.
- Staying savvy about the economics of the square footage in retail locations.
- Having customer support that is so good customers even invite associates to their weddings.
- Being intentional about where new locations are opened.
- Thinking about what’s next, including marketing to different demographics such as Gen Z.
Guest Quotes:
“It’s a fun business because we are helping guys, and helping guys celebrate life’s biggest moments, whether it’s an interview or a wedding. And so you get to have sort of an outsized impact on someone’s life relative to most consumer products. Now, if something goes wrong, it’s a problem. Fortunately, we’re pretty good about that. And our customer service team literally has been invited to people’s weddings, no joke, and have attended.”
“We’re the first brand in the category, or certainly one of the first to have diverse representation, gender, and sexualities in our marketing. And it wasn’t because we were trying to appeal to a demographic, it’s because that’s who our customers were and it’s what we stood for.”
“We risked losing some of the folks who like the idea of filling out an AI-informed survey to get their fit, but at the end of the day, they want to be with someone in store and have a tailor measure them.”
“We have a handful of flagship retail locations–LA, Dallas, Chicago, and Brooklyn. And those we have complete control with experience because it’s a standalone retail store and it’s a little bit of a richer experience.”
“And so in concentric tiers of investment, we’re kind of looking at expansion in different cities and demos depending on where we have clusters of a heat map of customers.”
Get in touch with Matt Sutton:
LinkedIn:
Website
Get in touch with your host, Bobby Marhamat:
LinkedIn
Twitter
