Marketing in Fashion: 7 strategies to elevate your clothing brand
Fashion in Marketing: Unless you are a nudist, it is likely that clothing is a pretty important component of your day to day life. That makes fashion and clothing branding a part of your life. This widespread need makes fashion a big industry to be in, challenging your Fashion Marketing strategy.
Fashion in Marketing
If you own a clothing brand or are in the fashion marketing business, you have a tough task ahead of you. Developing a marketing strategy to compete in the ever-changing fashion industry can be challenging.
Fashion in marketing involves the application of marketing techniques focused on the fashion consumer and the potential fashion customer. The goal is to create a relationship with the products offered by the apparel brand.
Fortunately, we spent quite some time analyzing the fashion marketing strategies of several companies in the fashion industry. So we have put together a list of 7 tips of clothing brands and their fashion marketing strategies so you can create a successful fashion campaign for your brand.
#1 Your online and social media brand
Shopping habits have changed and consumers increasingly prefer to shop online instead of going to a physical store. For you, this means getting a website or having an online store on social media. This means moving from being a fashion brand to a fashion e-commerce brand.
Social media marketing for fashion brands is absolutely essential. Not only can you use them to connect with your audience and establish a relationship with them, but you can also use certain platforms like Instagram to showcase and promote your products. In addition, you can integrate your store with certain channels such as Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, which means that if your audience sees something they like while browsing your catalog, they can buy it right then and there.
#2 Invest in photos and video
Good photos are a must for all companies, but even more so for clothing brands: the fashion industry is all about looks.
If you have an online store, shoppers can’t touch or try on your clothes as they would in a physical store. To compensate for this lack of experience, you have to use high quality photos and portray the items from all possible angles.
The models
If you have the budget, arranging a professional photo shoot is the best way to get photos for your store. The models can show your clothes at any angle you need and bring your pieces to life.
Do the photo shoot with a white or gray background: you will get elegant images for your product pages. It is also a good idea to organize a photo shoot in a natural environment to bring your photos to life.
In case there is no budget…
Model your own clothes! If you could be the target of your own clothing brand, you can also serve as a model for your collection. Another option is to use a mannequin. The best mannequin is the one that helps to shape the clothes realistically but remains somewhat invisible.
Prepare the clothes
This is an important step. Clothes should look as good as possible for a photo shoot. No matter how good Photoshop is, it’s always a good idea to remove wrinkles or stains before the shoot.
Thoroughly examine your clothes. Iron or steam iron them if you see the slightest wrinkle. Remove dust. Fold the sleeves consistently. Your task is to prepare the clothes so well that you only need to use Photoshop for the finishing touches, such as color or contrast correction.
Attention to detail
High-quality close-ups are always a good idea. Since your customers can’t physically touch the clothes, you need to help them visualize as much detail as possible. Photos should also reveal the “feel” of the material. Show things like whether a garment has a zipper or buttons. Also, the more detail you can include, the fewer questions you will receive in customer service.
Video
If you’re looking to complement your photo catalog, video is the way to go. Apparel brands that use video increase their revenue 49% faster than those that do not.
There are many ways to use video in fashion marketing. Whether it’s modeling your best products, showcasing your summer collection with a haul, or giving a sneak peek of a new line. Video marketing can be useful for social media ads, your website, e-mail marketing campaigns, etc.
Learn more about how to create a fashion haul for your clothing brand.
#3 Select your audience
Selling to everyone is selling to no one.
Before you start promoting your photos and clothing brand, you need to define your target market. You need to know who you are going to sell to in order to do it right.
Just because you sell skirts doesn’t mean that all women can be your customers. They all have different tastes in fashion. You have to narrow down your audience in order to invest in advertising efficiently. These are the main questions to ask yourself when thinking about your target audience:
- What are they interested in?
- What do they do?
- What is their age, gender and location?
- What fashion brands do they like?
- Where do they connect?
Google Analytics or professional Instagram accounts give you clues about the characteristics of your audience.
#4 Make giveaways
Whether it’s to promote a new product, celebrate a holiday or just for the heck of it, contests, giveaways and sweepstakes are great ways to attract new customers and engage with existing ones.
This type of initiative is perfect for building brand awareness and growing your audience and business. Aside from the expectations that your brand and clothes will generate, you can engage participants in the promotion by subscribing to a newsletter, following your social channels or tagging friends. This will give you valuable audience data that you can use to adapt your fashion marketing strategy later on.
#5 Let your fans be heard
Would you go to an empty restaurant or one that’s full of people having a good time? Chances are you’d choose the one that’s full of people: the food must be great, right?
We are likely to follow the actions of many because we think that mass interest signals the right choice. This lesson works for your fashion brand as well and how you should leverage your fans’ comments and content for your strategy.
User Generated Content
User-generated content or UGC can help you turn your customers into brand ambassadors. You can get your fashion store in front of your target audience and gather authentic content.
Learn how to turn your customers into brand ambassadors
Product reviews
Reviews are important. It is probably the most direct form of feedback from your customers. Ask your customers to write you a testimonial whenever you have the opportunity.
For example, you can send automatic emails to your customers once they receive the clothes they bought from you. You can encourage them to write a review just by asking them nicely, or you can offer them a small discount on their next purchase.
#6 Consider industry influencers
What if your brand doesn’t have fans yet?
Influencer marketing can save the day. However, our honest advice would be to go for several micro-influencers instead of hiring one big influencer. A micro-influencer is someone who has between 10,000 and 100,000 followers.
Microinfluencers tend to focus on a specific niche, so you can be sure you’ll reach your target audience. In addition, microinfluencers’ followers are more engaged.
In this case, being able to rely on a tool such as VoxFeed, will allow you to get to know these profiles and launch your campaigns with microinfluencers.
#7 Hashtagging strategy
#Hashtagging may seem like a useless tool, but it’s definitely part of a good fashion marketing strategy. Why? Because hashtags can help you reach new people, connect with others, create contests for your brand, and so on. If you’re just getting started in the hashtags game, here are some recommendations.
Instagram allows 30 hashtags per post. Our advice is to use 5 hashtags with a high volume and 5 hashtags with a small volume per category. This way, you will be able to increase your chances of appearing on the explore page on Instagram.
And, the truth is, there is no definitive set of hashtags that you can copy and paste every time for different posts and get great results every time. You have to find the right hashtags yourself to sell clothes on Instagram.