Warby Parker: Revolutionizing the Eyewear Industry

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Not Your Typical Eye Experience

Going to the eye doctor is a daunting task that many undergo annually. Schedule an appointment, take time out of your busy work day to attend said appointment, try on chic frames to discover the astronomical price tag, settle for something cheaper and more basic, wait two weeks for the glasses to arrive. Enter Warby Parker, the optical company started by four Wharton School students looking to disrupt the ophthalmic industry as we know it.

A New Shopping Experience

As students, the founders of Warby Parker quickly realized this old-fashioned routine did not work for a new generation of adults. People don’t have the ability to fork out thousands of dollars on frames and office visits or travel long distances to even see a doctor, not to mention having to schedule appointments far in advance when you don’t even know what you’re doing Friday night!

Warby Parker took an innovative approach with their new company, creating products that are sold directly to consumers cutting costs significantly while meeting their buyers on their turf. As with new products, consumers were hesitant to stray from the norm and the founders needed to find a way to connect with customers and change the narrative of direct-to-consumer eyewear.

Leveraging Social Media to Boost Business

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With the development of their home try-on feature, Warby Parker turned to social media to engage with customers, enlisting them to help influence the digital world to give this new company a shot. The company consistently interacted with users online, responding to comments and tweets and encouraging people to share their experiences with the company by writing reviews or posting their own photos wearing the organization’s products. Warby Parker also posted their own content featuring product reviews and informational videos about the products in addition to the customer-generated posts. These videos and posts can be found all over social media, including on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and more.

Warby Parker utilized transactional communication on social media, increasing business while boosting brand loyalty with new and existing customers. The company was able to reach a wider audience with the use of social media while helping to reduce the dissonance for consumers, using them as influencers to break through the uncertainty with trying a new product.

Get Engaged – With Your Customers

Social media is a powerful tool that allows marketers to connect and build relationships with a much larger audience. Besides giving a humanizing factor to a business, it allows for customers to express their true thoughts, both positive and negative, and gives businesses an opportunity to hear directly from them. Warby Parker executed their social media strategy to enhance their brand by interacting on all social media channels, creating a virtual database of customer feedback for those who are on the fence about purchasing, all by being active and present on digital platforms.

Take a page from Warby Parker’s playbook and don’t just post on social media, but engage and build relationships with your most important stakeholders – your customers!

Learn more about Brittny Hatfield here

2 responses to “Warby Parker: Revolutionizing the Eyewear Industry”

  1. Chanel P Avatar

    Wow, your blog is aesthetically pleasing ! I loved how organized you were with your approach to the Warby Parker case study. This was an easy to follow post and kept me engaged. I also loved how you tied everything together in the end. Customers truly are a business’s most important stakeholders, without them there would be no business! Do you think there is anyway they could have made their business model better?

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  2. Rachel Avatar

    Hi Brittny! Great post!

    I like the design of you blog along with your thought out points!

    I agree with you here – Warby Parker’s approach to revolutionizing the eyewear industry by directly engaging with consumers through social media is everything here. The company’s ability to lower costs and more accessible without lacking on on style or quality is quite impressive.

    The use of social media for genuine interaction with customers shows how much they value feedback. I said this as well – it makes the brand feel more real and authentic.

    It’s interesting to see how they’ve used communication to not only build brand loyalty but also to ease the uncertainty from new customers (Goh et al., 2012). Warby Parker’s direct engagement through posts (like their August 12, 2024 tweet) shows their commitment to customer satisfaction (@warbyparker, 2024). Engagement and building relationships with customers is key for success today.

    References:

    References:

    Goh, K. Y., Heng, C. S., & Lin, Z. (2012). Social media brand community and consumer behavior: Quantifying the relative impact of user- and marketer-generated content. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 65, 177-183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.11.105

    Warby Parker [@warbyparker]. (2024, August 12). We’ve always believed that buying glasses should be easy and affordable. That’s why we’ve cut out the middleman… [Tweet]. X (formerly Twitter). https://twitter.com/warbyparker/status/1234567890

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