Isabelle Quinn - Case Study

 

Overview

Beautifully elegant and powerfully feminine, Isabelle Quinn creates fashion for romantics. Each piece reflects serenity straight from a dreamscape, complete with alluring details and thoughtful fabrication. Made for the contemporary woman, Isabelle Quinn has been empowering individuality for over seven years and is renowned for breathtaking silhouettes and sophisticated festival wear.

 

The Goal

The Creative Director of Isabelle Quinn engaged pland to introduce storytelling into their campaigns, enhancing brand identity and connecting their products to exciting imagery through playful language.

 

Strategy

Phase 1: Copywriting Engagement
Initially, Pland was engaged to execute Product Descriptions, refresh website copy and commence campaign story-telling. This helped to open the storytelling conversation with the IQ Audience. Two of our latest collections with IQ are Poppy & Francesca. 
 
 
Phase 2 - Marketing Campaign Strategy: (Ashton X Isabelle Quinn)

 

To increase the brand's reach, Isabelle Quinn joined forces with influencer Ashton Wood to design a limited four-piece collection. pland assisted to conceptualise the full marketing campaign and shoot imagery, also producing product descriptions, the campaign story, and handwritten notes for PR gifting.
pland also structured the collaboration to ensure KPI metrics were established for both parties. This campaign had one of the highest sell-through rates of any previous collection by the brand, selling 80% of quota within four weeks.
 
Performance Targets Collab

 

Tier 1: Compensation Payment
 
To ensure Ashton was looked after for her time, the Minimum Fee Paid to equal to her ordinary rate for shooting a campaign as the model and compensation for at least one post. This would be paid regardless of the performance of the campaign.
 
Tier 2: Performance Payment
 
When planning the logistics of the collaboration, it was established that if the campaign exceeded breakeven sales then Ashton would be paid a per-piece rate for each item sold (10%-15% per product). This worked as an incentive to continue design and sales efforts.
 
Tier 3: Create Hype Payment
 
The collection budget allocated room for paid advertising in line with previous campaigns. A contingency plan was formulated where if the collection sold out, 50% of the remaining funds would be redirected to Ashton as an additional promotion incentive.
 
A timeframe of three months and continuous reporting processes ensured transparency and organising throughout the entire campaign.
 
 
Phase 3: Analysis and Execution on Back Of House Clean Up

 

pland assisted Isabelle with buying plans, cash flow forecasting, inventory planning and resourcing. We worked on digital marketing solutions and found the right people to assist in establishing consistent growth. We worked on cleaning up the IQ gross profit and net profit margins, providing IQ with the clarity in understanding breakeven points and sales targets for levels of profitability desired. Ultimately, this allowed us to combine our back of house strategy and understand the brand's numbers so we could clearly communicate to suppliers and third-party agents what we could reasonably afford and the results we needed to meet for scale/growth.
 
We implemented inventory planning software to further assist and track growth. We evaluated our current value chain and created efficiencies by identifying and rectifying bottlenecks. We created an organisational chart to understand the necessities in the business and mapped out our hiring plan and employee goals. We introduced Cashflow Forecasting tools to help with growth and expansion, working in tandem with the inventory planner tool and accounting system.
 

 

Phase 4: Accountability (Back Of House)

 

We are currently engaged as an accountability mentor and virtual Chief Financial Officer (CFO), assisting with:
  • Working through cash flow forecasting and controlled budgeting.
  • Better resource planning and cleaning up HR bottlenecks (time blocking).
  • Future planning for collections/sampling.
  • Reduction in overall returns/discounts.
  • Introduction of a Loyalty Program for customer retention.
  • Scaling, growth and consistency.
  • Balancing stock outs and ensuring correct inventory on hand at all times.

  

 

Results:

 

Timeframe: 6 months
Overall improvement by 10-15% in Gross Margin with correct pricing/positioning. Improvement of overall CPA to align with our 20% Marketing Budget. Strong Marketing Campaigns and better time management for ongoing collection launches allow for more appropriate resourcing.
Both Francesca and Ashton were two of the most successful campaigns and collections IQ has launched since its opening. Both collections sold out and were waitlisted and restocked to meet demand. Francesca sold out in selected styles on Pre-Order within 2 weeks.

 

 

Testimonial:

 

"We couldn't be happier with Courtney and the team. Since we've started working with Pland, the business has so much more clarity and structure. We are continually implementing new processes and seeing results. What I love about Courtney is her innovative and reliable ongoing support. Her strong industry knowledge and passion really shine through in her work. I highly recommend the services of Pland Studio if you are looking for innovative business guidance and support to take your business from one level to the next."
Isabelle Powe founder, Isabelle Quinn