It’s not About the Outcome, its About the Journey and What it Took to Get There

Dear Lululemon,

The job that Lululemon does at marketing itself online through various forms of social media is incredible. Between Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Blogging, or any other social media platform, Lulu strongly appeals to it’s ideal buyer’s persona and never fails to draw in their attention. Whether Lulu has created a relatable story for its internet users to admire, had a photo shoot doing the popular activities that its buyers do, or promoting its products, Lulu always draws into its user’s best interest and wants nothing but to see them expand their knowledge about health, fitness, and emotional well being. While Lulu’s center focus is around the mind, body and soul of the practice of yoga, it promotes so much more beyond that. There is a story behind every post that Lululemon does. It’s not about the outcome for you, Lululemon. It’s about the journey and what it took to get there. One area that Lululemon needs to improve on their sales is to men. Women are the dominant gender of Lulu purchasers so they did what they do best, and fixed that problem.

Lululemon owes most of it’s success to its inbound marketing strategy. Lululemon creates a specific buyer persona about a man named Luke. They have collected information about this buyer through a series of online survey questions that they collected from their current customers. Luke is a younger man, he is single and in his mid 30’s. Luke makes good money but lives by himself and has a more bachelor style life. Luke’s daily routine consists of working from 9:00am-5:00pm at his well paying job and then leaving and heading straight to the gym. There is the occasional day during the week that Luke gets an overload of work and finds himself too stressed out to do the things he enjoys. Once a week Luke goes grocery shopping for himself and usually makes a healthy meal every night after the gym only to wake up and do it all over the next day. Creating this buyer persona that Lululemon has of a man named Luke is fascinating. I personally couldn’t think of a better way to dive into the ideal Lululemon consumers mind.

Lululemon offers content based on their ideal buyer persona. This content consists of the promotion of healthy living, and time management. The healthy living content that Lulu offers is recipe suggestions, workout routines, breathing exercises, inspirational self empowerment quotes, and healthy living tips and tricks for the busy, yet successful, individual. The time management content offer relies on Lululemon to really dive into their buyer persona and ask themselves “what is it exactly that these people are struggling with?” The answer that Lululemon came up with is what is most fascinating. Lululemon knows that their buyers are busy, they are driven, they are successful, and they are focused on improving their lives through the practice of their daily tasks. Lululemon helps Luke calm his mind on those stress filled days from work and whatever else is going on in his mind and relieve it through the practice of fitness and they do this by inspiring Luke.

So you thought you were just being sold another overpriced T shirt didn’t you? Think again! Lululemon is notorious for catching their buyers eye is their blog posts. Lulu actually does blogging right on their website. Under the tab called “Community” that is listed on their home page, it consists of blog topics, real life stories, and ambassadors and events for the yoga community. A few topics that you can find Lulu blogging about are healthy eating which would post about tips and tricks of how to eat clean and emotional awareness and well being. This type of blog post might have an inspirational photo of a Lulu ambassador practicing or teaching yoga along with an inspiring quote to help improve our daily lives.

Email marketing is another strong suit that Lululemon uses in support of their inbound strategy. As Lulu collects their current customer’s emails, they can conduct research to help create, or in this case help improve their buyer persona for the individual that they wish to target. They use these emails to connect to their buyer on a deeper level. They use Luke’s email to target a man, well, exactly like Luke. Gathering customer emails help Lulu receive actual data about their buyers by conducting detailed question surveys. Some of these questions may consist of things like; What is your job role? Hobbies? Interests? Challenges you face?

Lululemon does a wonderful job at analyzing their ideal buyer and diving deep into what they are actually looking for. This company is not about selling a product, it is about inspiring individuals to be happier with themselves and improve their lives one small step at time.