Cheap, cheeky route to success

By ELLEN READ

Sometimes less is definitely more in marketing.

Take, for example, lingerie e-tailer JenniferAnn.com.

It does not spend thousands of dollars on print ads or radio and TV spots, which would be wasted on its overseas customers. Instead it sponsors shows or sports events and pulls stunts, the most famous being when founder Jennifer Ann Hannah renamed her home town of Pokeno JenniferAnn.com for a year.

"We like to be seen as cheeky and a bit controversial," Hannah says.

She should know what works. Hannah and husband Martin Rotteveel also own an advertising agency - Pop Advertising.

To help make it in the US, the site downplays its New Zealand origins, in line with research which suggests US consumers do not like buying from foreign sites.

Similarly, JenniferAnn shied away from using a .co.nz domain name.

Marketing is important to drive people to the site, and Hannah is keen to "think outside the square" to attract attention.

Renaming Pokeno was one idea. Refining the company's search engine positioning was another (the words "lingerie" and "fuller figure" tend to pull up X-rated sites).

The firm has a full-time employee occupied solely on search engine work. The search engines change their rules constantly, so the company must continually tweak its site to ensure it gets good placing.

JenniferAnn.com is also relaunching its website in the next couple of weeks, a move aimed at tripling turnover because of a better search facility and updated look.

It targets repeat business. Customers are invited to leave their email details so they can receive emailouts of specials, sales and competition details. The firm has tens of thousands of names on this database.

"We haven't had millions to throw at advertising so we've had to be a bit creative with our own marketing," Hannah said.

A popular source of sales for the company is expat New Zealanders ordering their favourite brands while off on their OE. The addition of Bendon lingerie to the site will boost this.

Since it became the first company to gain the rights to sell Bendon lingerie on the web last October, demand for the popular label has come from the UK, US, Australia, South America, Japan and Germany.

Bendon's New Zealand general manager, Howard George, says one of the big benefits of going online with JenniferAnn.com is that it has opened up the company's brands to the global market.

"Expats living in the UK and other countries are buying our products through the site," he says. "Mums used to send over our lingerie but now women have the advantage of personally ordering it over the internet. This has meant our brands are becoming known worldwide."

Bendon is one of several major lingerie brands to join the JenniferAnn.com website, which has been selling lingerie online since September 1999.

Others include Triumph, Berlei, Expozay, Valisere and Lovables.

The addition of Bendon to JenniferAnn.com has bought a steady rise in customers for this country's only online lingerie store.

"We've reached two million hits per month and this keeps on growing - there's been an increase of 10-20 per cent each month," says Hannah.

George says Bendon joined the site after JenniferAnn.com had proved its credibility. It plans to expand the products on offer.