Services Microsite
Neiman Marcus is a luxury fashion retailer. Experiential shopping, backed with innovation, is the key to stand out from the pack today. Exceptional service and those personalized touches are not negotiable. Welcome to the journey to build a hub and campaign showcasing services designed for you.
The ask
How might we make Neiman Marcus’ experiential services a marketing tool centered around you?
Services designed around you.
Let’s roll up our sleeves and create a hub showcasing Neiman Marcus’ services like digital stylists, shipping solutions, beauty advisors, restaurants, alterations and fur services…to name a few. Being that experiential destination—the extra za za zu on top of scoring the latest couture.
My role as lead Creative Manager was to spearhead a team of two Senior Designers, two Copywriters and our UX Creative Director to re-evaluate current services landing page and user experience. Before meeting with our internal services creative team, I built a mood board and accessed the competitive landscape. What is our competition doing well? How can we establish a content strategy that is added value and a marketing tool?
To scroll, or not to scroll.
To prep for our first design thinking session and brainstorm, I printed out the services page that scrolled to China. Broke it apart by cutting into strips. Now each section could easily be moved around on black board and pinned for sorting.
The goal: Cluster top services to prioritize while eliminating anything that was not a “true” service.
Let the brainstorm begin! Breaking apart the landing page was an active way to pull the team together to restate the problem. This is how the team aligns our objectives for rebranding, and improving the user experience.
Key takeaways:
The continuous scrolling could be improved.
If a user clicks on left navigation category, user lands to the relevant content on page. Is there opportunity to improve here?
Is a cookie recipe a true service? No, I think we can all agree it not a service. Maybe a famous part of brand heritage, it is definitely not a service.
Key services fell into shipping solutions, gifting solutions, personal shoppers, restaurants, and VIP in-store events.
Modernizing the creative moving from illustrations to photography with unified lighting and monochromatic scheme to pop key service elements.
Services Ecosystem
Where does this all go?
Step 1
Perform site audit to see current linking strategy. Find ways to go down to one click, Remove outdated content, and simplify the path for the customer. Any places where content can be consolidated?
Step 2
Collaborate with Marketing and Producers to plan photography shoot with holiday to maximize talent, timing and budget. New simplified left hand navigation emerges for 5 service pillars with sub-categories.
Step 3
Know your user. Initial creative exploration definitely elevated the experience and storytelling. Scrap that. It is important to know a user looking for support is laser focused on their area of need. Don’t get in their way with the fluff.
SERVICES CAMPAIGN EMAIL CONTENT BLOCKS
Services as a marketing tool.
Not only was it important to clean up the website linking strategy. What about the drivers for in-store experience to generate that traffic? The next step was to involve marketing to prioritize the left navigation and to map out a strategy to trigger email content blocks.
It is important to understand key timing for buy online pick up in-store/curbside, or simply those opportunities to schedule appointment with a digital stylist.
A content calendar was mapped out to email the right service to the right occasion - 1) delivery solutions, 2) personal shoppers, 3) gifting solutions, 4) in-store events, 5) restaurants and catering and 6) beauty solutions.
For instance, a holiday dress up email would end with beauty services or pick up in store in time for your event. Or maybe, an appointment with digital stylist to dress you from head to toe for that holiday party.
Make it stand out.
Now the look and feel for the creative is starting to come to life. After working closely with UX Creative Director, the services landing page was simplified to just a single hero image. Let the left navigation on browser be the guide. Typically, a user seeking support or service has a mission and needs a direct path.
This is not the place for heavy editorial content or non-direct tone. Keep it simple for the user. During the holiday timing, it was decided to give a little more prominence to the delivery and gifting solutions for the main landing page.
NEIMAN MARCUS CHRISTMAS BOOK SPREAD
Consistently, consistent.
Creating a holistic and branded 360 journey happens with photographic style and campaign tone. In the photography, there are simple pops of red to pop to signify specific service. An extra bonus is this photography can extend past holiday to Valentine’s - eliminating additional shoot costs and talent time. The voice of the campaign was all centered around you. Services designed for for you. This gives a feeling of personalization knowing everyone’s needs are a little different.
The famous Neiman Marcus Christmas Book even finished with the services and same branding.
SERVICES LANDING PAGE DESKTOP
SERVICES EXPERIENCE ON MOBILE WITH PERSISTENT FILTER
This big project’s challenge was collaborating across marketing, UX and creative teams. It presented an opportunity to push Senior Designer (who is a rock star) to shine in unchartered territory for her. When it was time for the first big reveal in our VP Marketing Review, we presented the competitive analysis, the new user experience, new style guide and the new creative execution. The VP of Marketing commented that this team “raised the bar” in this well thought out revamping of services. Cleaning up all the places the services page linked, and removing unnecessary site content was a big win not only for creative but our customer too!