By PAGE Editor

The ethical fashion industry is currently worth about $8.2bn, making it a lucrative business to jump into. But with the prospect of high profits comes a whole lot of competitors looking to mark out their success in exactly the same spot you’re eyeing up. So, how do you differentiate yourself?

One answer is with a solid digital marketing strategy, helping you use visibility to gain traction for your brand - and the sooner you get started, the better.  It’s worth understanding clothing brand marketing plans to get ahead with labels.

1. Create a Sleek Online Shopping Experience

The center of your digital marketing campaign is your online shop. You can have a flawless social media strategy and a blog that beats the competition, but if your shop isn’t up to scratch then your audience isn’t likely to convert from browsers to buyers.

75% of consumers will judge how credible your brand is based on your website and 94% of those initial impressions are design based. In other words, your website needs to look the part if you want to make a profit.

For startup brands with a healthy budget, find a reputable web developer that suits your style to create a sleek site. For startups on a shoestring, use a third-party website builder like Wix or Squarespace to make web design easier. Read up on plenty of web design tips before you begin and make sure you know what your audience is looking for.

2. Get to Know Your Target Audience

Speaking of your audience, every part of your marketing strategy should be focused on the people you’re trying to attract. If you want to become a successful fashion brand, you need to pinpoint your ideal consumers before you get started.

To find your market, here are some tips:

• Find similar brands on social media and analyze their followers

• See who is actively buying from similar brands (e.g. who’s wearing what on the streets)

• Survey people on whether or not they’d buy from your brand based on your business model

• Define who definitely isn’t your target audience

• Use analytics to learn more about the people already shopping with you

This is a pretty simple way to start locking down who your ideal customer is. As you grow your brand, you can become more specific by using a prospecting and lead generation platform such as Outbase that find, test, and engage the right markets, saving you time and ensuring your messaging reaches the right people. 

With the right lead-generation software solutions, you can better tailor your marketing efforts and improve the effectiveness of your campaigns. Just make sure to regularly analyze and update your target audience as your brand grows and evolves.

3. Make the Most of Social Media

Social media marketing has been a breakthrough for startups. When you don’t have a multi-million dollar budget to play with, these platforms create a more level playing field where you don’t have to invest any money to grow your audience. The one thing you will have to invest, though, is time. 

While social media is a fantastic platform, it can be tricky to use as a marketing tool if you’re not experienced. Put in the hours to get to know how it works and learn smart techniques that’ll gain your profile more visibility.

As a clothing brand, we recommend starting your social media marketing campaign with Instagram. A visual-focused site, it’s fantastic for showing off your pieces.

4. Get Technical With SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a strategy you can implement that’s budget-friendly and will gain you a lot of visibility. Essentially, SEO compiles a range of techniques that make your website appear more relevant and trustworthy to Google who will then push you higher up their search results.

Considering that over half of all Google clicks go to the first 3 search results, you can see why moving up is important. 

Some key SEO tips include:

• Add relevant keywords and phrases your target audience is searching

• Target low-competition keywords that have a high search volume

• Use keywords in headings (H1 tags, H2 tags, H3 tags, etc.)

• Add links to trustworthy websites from your own site (a blog helps with this)

• Encourage links from other websites to your own (guest posts can help with this)

• Improve your website’s load speed

• Use internal links to high-priority pages

5. Team Up With Relevant Influencers

Influencer marketing is a smart way to quickly grow your audience. Be sure to team up with an influencer who is:

1. Relevant to your brand

2. Trusted by their audience

In terms of relevance, as a sustainable fashion brand an influencer that creates either eco-friendly or fashion content (or both for a win-win) is likely to be your best bet. You can gauge whether they’re trusted by checking out engagement on their posts. A good influencer to team up with should see a high number of both likes and comments in relation to their following.

6. Budget for Paid Ad Campaigns

As a startup, you might not have a huge marketing budget to go on. That being said, if you can afford to put some money aside for paid ad campaigns it could drastically speed up your path to success. 

To create a profitable paid ad campaign, be sure you choose a platform that your target audience also uses. For a sustainable fashion brand, that might be Google, Instagram, or YouTube, for example, depending on your ideal customer.

Create high-quality copy and content that engages your audience, makes your brand identity clear, and includes a call to action. Try A/B testing, too, in order to refine your paid ads or you can also create banner ads to see the highest return on investment (ROI).

7. Create a Mailing List

As you begin to build an audience, you should be compiling a mailing list at the same time. This is a list of email addresses for people who are already interested in your brand and can be used to retarget them and help you create more personalized, tailored marketing. 

Build your mailing list by collecting emails from customers who make a purchase (always ask permission first). Or, encourage browsers to sign up with an offer, such as a 10% discount code sent to their email inbox when they join. We’d also advise you to look into data protection laws at this point, just to make sure you’re storing and using customer information legally. 

Once you’ve built your list, it’s time to start email marketing.

Final Words

For any modern fashion brand looking to make their mark on the industry, digital marketing is a must. Hopefully, these tips have given you the ideas you need to get started. Just remember that the more research you do, the better your campaign will be, so don’t be afraid to put in those hours if you want to see results. 

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