MA+CH, formerly known as Marika Charles, is a women’s fashion collection that is designed and produced in Schenectady and sold at boutiques worldwide.
Logo Design
The MA+CH name and logo helped create a connection to the business’s former name, Marika Charles. The brushed quality of the lettering alludes to the hand-designed, original artwork that gives the collection its distinct look.
Business Processes
While making changes in how the business presented itself to customers, MA+CH also made changes to how they communicated internally. Setting up Google based business accounts allowed their staff to have shared documents, calendars, and contact books while also synchronizing communications with emails from their @marikacharles.com domain.
Beyond G-Suite, efficiencies were also gained in standardizing planning and ordering documents and functionalities across their sales materials, website, and email marketing systems, all improving ease of gathering information and sales.
Website
MA+CH needed a very powerful website, complete with integrations for their social media feeds, e-commerce sales to sell directly to customers across the United States, a store locator for over 100 boutiques that carry their garments, and registration mechanisms so people and stores could sign up for information about the collection.
Social Media
Social media accounts were set up for MA+CH on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter. The Instagram feed is also embedded into the MarikaCharles.com homepage so posts to the account are automatically integrated into the home page, which makes adding fresh content easy for the staff.
Brand sales profiles were also set up on Etsy and Amazon.
Email Marketing
Email marketing has become an incredibly valuable tool for MA+CH. They have built three lists that they email regularly to engage their customers. One list is for hundreds of wholesale buyers that purchase the collection for their boutiques. A second list is for over 1,500 of their eCommerce customers and is a major driver for online sales. The third list is for their Factory Store Sale events, which are held at their studio in Schenectady.
Sales Materials
Standardized sales documents were designed to create a uniform, streamlined process for MA+CH. The templates are updated by the sales team, quickly produced and printed in-house, and have improved the sales experience for buyers at showrooms and trade shows. The materials include brand cards, line sheets and order forms.
Photography
Photography is the most important mechanism in presenting the MA+CH brand to its customers. When designing the website and sales materials, original photography that displayed the brand and its products was carefully considered and captured.