Small Business Marketing for all Industries: Clothing

Branding
Growth Hacking
Author: MASK Digital Solutions
July 1, 2021

Here are 8 actionable digital marketing tips for all of you in the clothing industry to break into the market with your beautiful pieces. Whether you’re in the early stages of launching your business or you’re just trying to update your marketing, we’ve got a tip for you!

1. Social Media Platforms for Brand Engagement

It is ALL about your social media presence. Sometimes we don’t even visit a brand’s website first anymore, we check their Instagram or Facebook page. When a user opens up your page, the first impression they get should be that you are a reliable, trustworthy and active business. If your last post was in 2019, chances are they’re going to get the wrong impression.
If you aren’t able to maintain your social media pages, or if they don’t apply to your brand, then make sure you delete the accounts. During a social audit, you’ll be advised to delete old accounts that you don’t use anyway, so you might as well do it in advance!

Another thing to do is set up an Instagram shop. It’s the latest big shift to convenient online shopping. Getting your clothing business up on Instagram shop is a breeze and shopping on it gives people a visual storefront to explore products from the businesses they follow. It also allows easy access to pricing and product information. All your shoppers have to do is tap on a tagged post or click on the shop button and check out all the businesses that have an Instagram shop.

2. Influencer Marketing

Speaking of social media, we HAVE to touch on Influencer Marketing.
According to Hubspot, 73% of millennial customers say it’s important to read other customer’s reviews before purchasing a product. What if you’re just starting out and don’t have a lot of clients? You invest in influencer marketing.

Instagram is definitely the best platform for influencer marketing, although TikTok is giving it a run for its money as well when it comes to the quality of the content produced. A large audience on Instagram is made up of fashion-oriented demographics, so finding the right influencer wouldn’t be too hard. You can also use platforms like the Right Fit to find content creators that align with your brand values! Try to avoid any scandals by doing your research on your influencers, because they’re going to be an extension of your brand and represent your brand in the future.

Some things to do when working with content creators are:

  • Provide them with a brand guide before they start creating content so that it’s a lot more cohesive with your brand.
  • Track their engagement and audience demographic (look for organic followers, it’s very easy to pay for fake followers these days)
  • Monitor their posts and reputation.
  • Monitor payments. How much are you paying them for each post?.
  • Ensure their posts comply with legal requirements. (i.e., FTC disclosure rules).
  • Ensure they follow your brand’s guidelines and formatting requirements.

3. Brand Style Guides. Do you need them?

Short answer, yes.

Usually, all the things that make a “brand” are mentioned in your brand style guide. This is done by a designer after talking to you and your team. They come up with their recommendations based on what you want to portray to your audience. Make sure you stick to the style guide and remain consistent on all your platforms. Consistency is Key.

It contains:

  • Brandmark
  • Tagline
  • Colour palette
  • Font pairings
  • Recommended Photography
  • Voice And Messaging
  • Dos And Don’ts
  • Other Specifics that are all customized to your business

*Note: A brand style guide differs from client to client based on your requirements, so sometimes you might get other recommendations as well, like stationery design etc.

This design process usually takes about a week or so, depending on the designer. A way to speed up this process is by creating at least 2 customer personas for your brand. It will help the designer understand your target audience better and create a brand that will speak to them. Creating a customer persona can be done in an hour’s time during a meeting with your entire team, and it definitely helps you craft your marketing message in the future.

4. Promote your clothing with Instagram Stories

You’d be surprised at how easy it is to sell an entire outfit, or even a piece of clothing is on Instagram stories. You can create an outfit on Canva using your clothes or even use a reference picture of a model and point out how you can recreate the outfit with your own clothes. Remember, you’re selling a lifestyle, not just a piece of clothing. Combine this tactic with the Swipe up to Shop Now” button, and you can drive conversions directly to your website.

With these stories, make sure you’re catering to your target audience with relatable and practical images. If your target audience comprises working women, then maybe they’re not interested in purchasing a fancy dress often and might like clothes they can wear to work instead.

We love the way that Belitte has created a little look-book of all the different ways customers can pair their products and create outfits!

Belitte-Lookbook

5. Run Promotions during the Holidays

The holidays are usually when everyone is scrambling to find gifts for their loved ones, so use that to your advantage! Do some research on your target audience and find out what holiday’s they usually celebrate and run some offers they can’t refuse!

6. Create videos with your clothes

It’s a widely known fact that videos perform better than the normal photo, link or status posts. Facebook videos have a higher engagement rate (0.26%) compared to normal posts (0.18%) and also show a 2x increase in clicks and an increase in conversions by 20%-30%. It’s also a good platform that isn’t focused on one gender, as there’s an almost equal number of men and women that use Facebook.

It’s important to note that vertical videos have a higher engagement rate (0.35%) when compared to landscape and square, so that’s something you should keep in mind when creating content. You can also reuse that content on platforms like TikTok, which is a newer way of bringing in conversions and brand awareness!

7. Provide a Personal Touch

If you are a luxury brand, then every aspect of your business has to be premium as well. Your customer service needs to be great, both online and in person. Make sure you’re replying as fast as possible. You can also create an automated message that comes up when a user makes an inquiry or direct messages your page. This is a good way of letting them know that their message has been received and that someone from the team will message them during working hours.
Another way to bring in a personal touch to your business is by using retargeted ads as they have the power to make your marketing efforts seem small and focused on an individual. This is helpful when you are a larger brand or if you simply just don’t have the time to cater to everyone’s needs. They also have up to 10 times the Click Through Rate of regular ads, so it’s definitely worth checking out. There are a lot of tutorials online that teach you how to set up audiences for retargeting your ads but you can also outsource this task to an agency like ours!

8. Start a clothing blog

A blog is a great way to provide valuable information to your audience consistently. We’d advise you to start off with a blog post twice a month and see how it goes from there. If you aren’t getting traffic as much as you’d like to, then you can reduce it to once a month. Do not stop posting, it’s better to have a lot of posts that your users can browse through.

These days users are looking for short posts, that are around 500 words and are visually interesting. Always try to include as many visual references as you can in your posts, this makes it interesting for your readers. However, sometimes, you might have to create a piece of cornerstone content for your readers. A cornerstone content piece can be around 1500-2000 words and is very detailed, with numerous photos and maybe even a video or two.

Some ideas for blog posts in the clothing industry are:

  • How to Style a Piece of Clothing in X Ways
  • How to Find Your Personal Style
  • Interviews with other Fashion Influencers
  • X Best Fashion Influencers to Follow Right Now
  • How To Create A Capsule Wardrobe
  • Personal stories
  • The Year in Review
  • Fashion Trends for the Year

Remember to be as size-inclusive as possible! Blogs are a way to promote your products and let customers know who you are and provide them advice. Your blog doesn’t have to always be about clothing though, you can personalize the blog by writing about an employee, how your pieces are created; from the design to production, and how you choose pieces in your collections based on the current trends. You can sell less popular pieces by pairing them with popular items in style features and showcasing different pieces from the store.

It might seem like it’s hard to get your store and products noticed by customers, but keep being consistent with your marketing efforts and it’s sure to pay off! Remember to be as transparent as you can about your production and staff because most fast fashion labels are being called out for not being ethical or transparent enough about their process. If you need help curating a marketing strategy, you can always book a free appointment with us and we can help you create a lasting digital impression!

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