What retailers should know before investing in brand marketing

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By Marcy Medina | for The SKUpe

Melissa Skoog, founder of Skoog Co., has worked across nearly every facet of branding—from editorial roles at Condé Nast and Hearst to merchandising under GAP’s Mickey Drexler, to marketing and communications for Prada. After forming her own agency in 2012, she moved from New York to Chicago, where she handled regional and national coverage for luxury brands like Hermès and Ralph Lauren. “The pandemic made us realize that we were just as effective remotely, so I got rid of my office and moved to Florida two years ago for my family,” she shared. "I still have the same team. Some are based in Chicago and some in New York, which... in addition to Miami, [is where] we work most.” Here, she shares what companies should know when considering hiring an agency or in-house marketing person.

Describe Skoog and what you do.

The simplest way of saying it is that we are brand storytellers. We do this through content marketing and communications, brand partnerships and events, and influencer marketing. I recently extended our services to product development, merchandising and creative direction for clients such as Mark Cross and Cartolina. Having served as a merchant at Banana Republic and working with product-forward companies for 15-plus years, I realized that where my passion lies outside of storytelling is in the product itself. I wanted to get my hands dirty in product again because that’s what informs the storytelling. 

If an SMB retailer or founder is considering working with an agency or in-house marketer, what questions should they be asking themselves and what should they know?

It’s important that skillsets align and compatibility is there, meaning if you work with an agency, you need someone on your team dedicated to managing them and providing internal information to them. Anybody who’s looking to invest in either a full-time or fractional person or agency has to be setting aside those dollars for the long-term and not anticipating a short-term gain because the payoff is typically not immediate. There’s no set path to going viral and PR [public relations] alone is not going to sell your business. It’s also important to measure your growth goals and assess your internal capabilities and assets and see where there’s white space or where you could use an added push.

What advice can they follow now if the they’re not ready to make that investment yet?  

This might seem obvious, but make sure you are leveraging your social media channels and test different channels depending on the formats you like to use. It’s really a way forward for a lot of brands because so many are being discovered this way and it’s also a major avenue for growth. The other hot topic is newsletters. If there are certain ones you’re enjoying, could they be a good distribution channel for you, too?

What nuances have you discovered in Chicago, New York and Miami that affect how you work there?

It doesn’t matter where you go; each city has its behaviors if you don’t play into those it’s not necessarily going to go well. Especially for a shopping event or trunk show, really understand how to read the room. If you’re not based there, have an informant on the ground to help you determine the time, place and audience for what you want to do. For example, I didn’t know until I moved to Miami that the minute school gets out, everyone leaves and doesn’t come back until August. Summer is a dead zone for events.  

Also important is understanding attrition, or the percentage of people who say they’re attending an event and then don’t. I learned that in Miami, the traffic is so bad you should anticipate roughly 75% attrition, or 50% for something that is highly anticipated. Chicago is super polite–it’s more like 25-30%.

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The SKUpe is curated and written  by Marcy Medina and edited by Bianca Prieto