The fashion industry is known for its cultural and artistic innovation. However, fame and recognition don’t come without high competition. Luckily, small-time designers can hone in on targeted audiences to showcase their original garments with the help of a few marketing tips.
How Small Fashion Brands Succeed
Sometimes, designers have excellent ideas but aren’t sure how to apply them to the real world. Creating prints, tote bags, and zines are all fun ideas. However, working with fashion opens up a world of possibilities for designers.
Once you have decided to get into fashion, you need to consider a few things before diving into the design process. For one, know your distributor. Where many beginning fashion designers often miss the mark is choosing platforms to both sell and print their merchandise, such as Redbubble.
Although Redbubble isn’t bad, it isn’t the best choice if you want more control of your business. That’s because it handles both front-end and back-end. The front-end includes uploading products on the website and managing payments and back-end management, and the back-end has everything to do with shipping and delivery. Since Redbubble has so much merchandise on its platform, designers struggle to stand out.
Alternatively, you can work with a fulfillment company, which only does back-end tasks like printing, delivering, and distributing garments. Working with a fulfillment company would allow you to handle your front-end tasks, including website building, orders, and payments.
Taking control of the front end adds a bit of extra work but offers many advantages. For one, you don’t have to compete with similar merchandise on the same page. The only products on the website will be yours so that you can enjoy your customers’ complete attention. Secondly, you can design your website to represent your brand, enhancing the user experience.
Follow the tips below to ensure your website, marketing, and products succeed.
Know Your Audience
Since the beginning of time, clothing has been a marker of status. Even minor details like how people accessorized indicated certain things, like ladies in the 19th century who would tie their hats in specific manners to show whether they were married or single.
There was a certain etiquette to how people wore clothes and where they wore them. Casinos, for example, have varying sets of etiquette depending on where the casino is. The famous Monte Carlo Casino expects its patrons to arrive in jackets and ties, whereas other casinos allow patrons to come in shorts and flip-flops.
With this in mind, it’s essential to consider who your customer will be. Studying your customers’ demographics, behaviors, and pain points help to create an ideal customer profile. ICPs will help guide you on what products to promote and how to plan your marketing strategy, including web design, social media practices, and outreach. In short, ICPs are an excellent tool for developing a cohesive, unforgettable collection for which customers will return.
How to Market Your Brand
Promoting your brand is paramount to growth, but how you promote depends greatly on who your customers are. Thanks to trackers, you can study your ideal customer’s favorite brands, social media channels, and influencers. Tracking involves various techniques, including gathering your customers’ emails, finding out how they heard about you, and conducting surveys. Getting familiar with this information will be critical to making an effective marketing strategy.
For example, if you are trying to reach Gen Z, it makes sense to go on Instagram or TikTok rather than Facebook or LinkedIn. On top of that, if your customers enjoy specific trends, collaborating with influencers who like to promote your product would be a smart idea organically.
Most importantly, you must listen to your customers’ wants and act accordingly, which can be as simple as interacting with your customers online, with social media comments or participating in polls. Especially in the beginning phases of your business, listening and interacting will play a significant role in gaining new audiences. It builds trust and makes customers more likely to buy more things from you.
The Bottom Line
Starting a clothing line can be a lot of hard work, but the payoff is rewarding. It allows designers to share their work with the world in a creative way. By managing the front end of your small business, you can hold the reins for how you interact with your customers and what products to create for them.
