Once you have designed your quality clothing brand and launched it successfully, the biggest challenge that follows, provided you’ve done it all within a budget and expected time frame, is to market it. Nowadays, if you’re working with a limited amount of money, the best promotion strategy is going online and fully engaged on social media. More and more people today are shopping for clothes online making it easier for you to reach your target buyers than if you had taken traditional retail paths. The field of brand marketing is vast and there are many strategies to choose from, but the following ideas could be something to start from on the spot.
USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO DELIVER YOUR STORY
The importance of social media in modern marketing has become common knowledge by now but many people still struggle with the right and effective use of it. Social media offers a very low ROI, particularly short-term, so if you’re in it for the long run, it might seem like a waste of time and money. Therefore, you need to consider social media as a marketing tool that will be your storytelling medium.
As a distance learning course in fashion marketing and communication shows, the entire industry is undergoing a profound transformation in order to adjust to the development of new technologies and the emergence of online consumers and sales opportunities. This calls for new approaches to branding and strategic marketing so that the communication process can be as efficient as possible.
The way to do that is to create a solid brand story and then come up with different ways of presenting it on social media channels. Consequently, everything you post, share, tweet or like has to be in alignment with your brand story and communicate its essence. This means you need to construct your brand story as a sequence of meaningful ideas.
CREATE A CATCHLINE
Something you can straight away is to create a catchline or a slogan that will help your brand stand out and, at the same time, connect with your target market on an emotional level. For instance, if your target market is the female population that loves to travel, think of ideas that would gather them around a common cause. It could be safety and freedom in travel, or the empowerment that traveling around the world can give you. So taglines such as “The Spirit of Travel” or “Travel is My State of Mind” could be a fantastic catchline that would captivate and add more dimension and depth to your core brand.
FIND A PROMOTIONAL PARTNER
It’s not only natural but it’s also wise to see the other players in your market segment as competitors, but if you go a bit deeper, you’ll realize that among them there are also eligible future partners. For instance, if you find a brand specializing in activewear but also has items similar to yours, it’s a great opportunity for cooperation and cross-promotion.
The power of partnership in the clothing industry is not something that should be underestimated, so you should be on active lookout for partnership opportunities as they can do wonders to your promotion and fundamentals.
HIRE A BRAND AMBASSADOR
In this day and age, leveraging the influencer system on social media has become more important than ever if you want to get your brand noticed. Gen-Z target audience relies heavily on social proof and recommendations so influencers play a crucial role in that respect.
If you have the budget to hire well-known celebrities, that is fantastic, but if you don’t, don’t wait till you do to consider celebrity endorsement strategies. Comb through Youtube and try to recognise the emerging and promising talents that align with your brand and present them with the opportunity of cross-promotion. Encourage and nurture them so once they succeed, your brand gets the valuable exposure that would otherwise be very hard to achieve. This may sound hard, but it guarantees phenomenal ROI.
There are countless examples of various brands partnering with Instagram influencers to get a wider reach. For instance, Footlocker sponsored the pop star Dua Lipa who has over 74 million followers on Instagram to endorse their brand.
INCLUDE A GIVEAWAY CAMPAIGN
Giveaway campaigns are very effective if done properly. They can result in huge exposure for your clothing brand within the first month of launch which is the most critical period. During this time, your priority is gaining brand exposure. Don’t make the mistake of orienting yourself only to sales, but rather try to think of the bigger picture. Sales are certainly important, but in the beginning, brand exposure should have an advantage over short-term sales.
Giveaways could be your own products or various other prizes, but what matters is that you promote your giveaway campaign heavily everywhere – on your website, social media channels and other methods of promotion.
Every good clothing brand needs an effective marketing strategy to be able to stay ahead of its competition and stay afloat in the treacherous field of e-commerce. With digital marketing changing drastically in the last decade, you need to be constantly prepared to adapt and evolve. Hopefully, the ideas listed here can help you do exactly that!
