| |
Scott Rogers, far right, met with Dalton State College marketing
students to the discuss details about a joint
project between those students and David’s Bridal, a
full-service bridal retailer that has around 360 units
nationwide. |
Scott Rogers, Director of Strategic Planning for David’s Bridal,
met with students in a marketing research and analysis class at
Dalton State to kick off a research project which he hopes will
benefit his company and help prepare business majors for the
workplace.
Rogers, who was invited to campus by Associate Professor of
Marketing Dr. Stephen LeMay, has asked students to create a
questionnaire/survey to gauge prospective brides’ wedding gown
style preferences and their emotional attitudes toward wedding
ceremonies.
“Demographically, these students are closer to the subject than
are many of us in the industry,” says Rogers, while meeting with
about eight female students to discuss the project. “It’s easier
for them to understand the importance of the wedding gown and
its meaning to their lives than it is for them to understand the
relevance of laundry detergent to their lives.”
Rogers has seen David’s Bridal grow from 75 stores when he
joined the company in 1999 to 360 retail units today. He says he
hopes that students can create a questionnaire that will help
identify a prospective client’s style.
“We want to know what words, or descriptors, we could use that
would resonate with that potential client,” he says, “not only
with respect to style but also with respect to the meaning of
the dress itself.”
For example, he says that some questions about a potential
bride’s attitudes toward her gown might focus on whether quality
or value is most important to making a sale.
“Once the surveys are completed and we have the responses, we’ll
do a cluster analysis and come up with four or five different
groups, or segments, of the wedding gown buying public. We are
looking for something predictive that will give us a better idea
of a bride’s style based upon the process of planning a wedding
and what about that experience has meaning for them.”
Because this generation is so adept and comfortable with the new
social media, Rogers encouraged the students to create surveys
and questionnaires that could be completed through media such as
Twitter and Facebook.
“We have found that when we send out surveys via email following
a bride’s wedding, we receive about a 15 percent response rate,
which is a good response rate, even though those surveys are
typically long – they take between 30 to 40 minutes to complete.
“We feel that many brides are willing to participate in the
survey because weddings are an emotional topic. Many young
brides are willing to spend that amount of time answering the
survey because their wedding is so important to them.”
|
|
