When we hear the word fashion, we immediately think of major fashion houses such as Versace, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton. Their style is distinct, and each collection they introduce to the market makes people fall in love with it. These are the brands that are usually in charge of the entire show throughout fashion week. It’s fantastic. Do you ever wonder what helps these brands in achieving such prominence? It wasn’t just their products that helped them conquer the fashion world; their marketing strategies were also. Their creative marketing efforts capture their clients’ attention in such a way that they consider it a significant deal to include these brands in their lives.
It’s time to take a deeper look at fashion marketing.
What is Fashion Marketing?
Fashion marketing is the process of promoting your fashion business to the relevant audience at the right time with online and offline marketing tools like print media, the internet etc.
This area deals with the strategies to popularize one’s clothing and accessories line to maximum customers by keeping their demographics in mind. Not many people are aware that marketing is the most crucial part of fashion. It is the only way to increase your fashion brand awareness and show the uniqueness and style of your products.
Let us take an example of the most popular fashion brand Zara here. Founded in 1975, its market value was approximately 13.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2021. The major reason for Zara’s success is its customer-centric marketing approach helping the brand to have higher visibility and customer loyalty.
What Type of Skills are Necessary for a Fashion Marketer?
Fashion marketing might sound fun and very interesting, but it requires more skills than just visionary talent. A successful fashion marketer needs to have the following skills for creating an effective brand image:
A Business Intellect
Marketing is a pretty complex process involving analyzing the results and efforts to check out what is working for your brand. Therefore, it is crucial to have a business-savvy mindset to comprehend and create marketing strategies that bring unstoppable interested traffic to your fashion brand.
Creative
Most company CEOs consider creativity as the #1 factor for business success. Marketing is not just about logical analytics; a creative campaign plan that convinces your buyers to make a purchase from you is equally important.
Consistent
Fashion marketing is a competitive industry; one needs to put continuous and consistent efforts to leave a mark on the field. From writing a fashion blog to other extracurricular activities, one needs to go the extra mile to keep up with the pace.
Curious
Another skill is curiosity which can help you keep up with the newest trends and include them in your marketing strategy. Always seek more information via pop culture and current affairs to make your brand stand out from the rest.
These skills and qualities in a fashion marketer can help them create innovative strategies that can increase their brand’s visibility and sales.
Strategies That Can Help you Run a Seamless Fashion Marketing Campaign
Out-of-the-box content that communicates your brand value and engages your customers in a captivating way can boost your business revenue. You must include the following strategies in your fashion marketing campaign for a skyrocketing shift in your business.
Offer your product description in a storytelling format
Storytelling is the best way to convey your brand message. In this manner, you can create an emotional bond with your potential customers. When you try to convince people to buy your product using a real story, they are more likely to show more interest in it. In addition, user-generated content like product reviews, questions and ratings automatically reduce your website’s bounce rate.
Example
In the year 2018, Air Jordan celebrated its 30th anniversary. During the NBA All-Star Game, Jordan Brand created a campaign that included an AR (augmented reality) experience that fans could enjoy on their mobile phones. The video portrayed Michael Jordan flying away from the free-throw line in a vintage dunk contest reminding people why they loved the brand in the first place.
Keep the look of your brand consistent on all the marketing platforms.
The best method to maintain your brand’s style is to unify its appeal across all marketing platforms. Brand coherency offers a consistent experience to your potential customers. They can acknowledge your brand across all channels, and your brand gets the robustness it was looking for.
Example
When talking about brand coherency, Nike will always top the list. Even today, when we think about Nike, its athletic and sporty look and essence is the first thing that comes to our mind. By celebrating athletes, they can get remarkable results for their business.
Include relevant and high-quality blogs on your website
In 2018, half of the Fortune 500 businesses maintained a corporate blog. Blogging is the first step one needs to take in their content marketing strategy, and it is a must-do, especially for fashion brands. Blogs are a source of information for your audience through which they try to figure out why your brand is best for them. It is a compelling way to maintain brand loyalty and increase your website traffic. And if your brand has introduced a new style, your blogs will spread the news about it.
Example
Forever 21 tries to separate it from the other brands by targeting younger demographics in their blogs by using different hashtags and abbreviations. They even mention some of their interviews with various creators and designers in their blogs. One of their blogs on selfie tips successfully gathered the attention of a huge number of millennials.
Promote your brand by partnering with influencers
In 2022, the influencer market is about to reach $16.4 billion. Influencers have a deep reach into your niche marketing and can form a strong connection with your potential customers. Fashion brands are leveraging the most success with the help of this marketing. When influencer die-hard followers see them wearing your clothing line or accessory, it will automatically pique their interest in your brand.
Example
BECCA Cosmetics collaborated with Chrissy Teigen, the American model with 37M followers on Instagram. This model then posted a video about her partnership with the brand on Instagram, highlighting what they will do, and how she has always been a huge fan of the brand, encouraging her fans to buy their products. This video got around 5M views.
Remarket your products
Remarketing increases brand awareness by 70%. It is the process of bringing your products in front of those people who have already visited your website. You capture the attention of those customers who left your website due to one or another reason. Remarketing reduces cart abandonment by 6.5%. So it’s a great way to target people with abandoned shopping carts through abandonment emails.
Example
Ralph Lauren’s ‘two-cycle remain’ remarketing technique helps them stand out from the crowd. They tempt those customers by sending their international templates to show them their global reach.
Personalization
90% of the customers are more likely to purchase your brand that offers personalization. Personalization is not just about addressing your customers by their names; it is about offering them relevant services. By offering your customers the style they are looking for, you customize their experience and increase your website’s customer engagement.
Example
In 2016 Victoria’s Secret Pink line launched a chatbot to help women find the best bra for them. It offers them recommendations for every occasion by asking them feedback about their measurements. This feature is now available in messaging format allowing new customers to use it without installing the app on their mobile phones.
Increase your website traffic with the help of SEO
A strong online presence is crucial for your fashion business to bloom in this competitive industry. For that, you have to take the assistance of SEO to rank your fashion brand on top of search engines. With proper keyword-optimized content and effective CTAs, your website will reap the long-term benefits of SEO for a longer period.
Example
What are The Perks of Fashion Marketing?
Everyone has access to the internet these days. Every company that wants to grow to the next level uses the Internet to the fullest extent possible. The fashion world is no exception here. Marketing is the only way to spread the news about your new clothing and accessory line. It’s time to learn more about the advantages of fashion marketing.
Help you broadcast your creativity
Marketing is the most effective strategy for getting the most people to notice and appreciate your creativity. Even if your business has the most stunning design, it will be useless unless you get it in front of the right audience. Tools like television, radio, and internet media can help you pique an audience’s curiosity and enhance conversions.
Connect your brand to your target audience
Through your content, you can execute a story behind your clothing and form an emotional connection with your customers. It is an excellent strategy to form a long-term relationship with them and make them the advocates of your brand.
Boost your brand’s image
The fashion world is ever-evolving, and more and more designers are trying their level best to stand through the means of media and the internet. However, with the help of a strategic and clear marketing approach, you can boost your brand image and outrank your competitors.
Demonstrate your brand value through social media
Social media channels like Instagram, Facebook help you to connect with your audience at a deeper level. Social media trends are followed at a pace faster than Cheetah. Through features like IGTV and reels, you can help your customers understand your brand value and why they should choose you over others.
Bring maximum traffic towards your website with SEO
SEO is a fantastic way to boost your fashion brand’s visibility and reach. When there is unstoppable traffic to your website, the effectiveness of your business grows. Better conversion results in a higher return on investment for your company.
How is Fashion Marketing Different from Other Forms of Marketing?
Fashion marketing, like fashion itself, can’t be old-fashioned. It has to be one-of-a-kind and stand out from the crowd. Moreover, to stay on-trend, one must change its efforts regularly. On the other hand, other forms of marketing can use the same marketing strategy for a long time.
The difficult aspect is coming up with new concepts and ideas to promote one’s business regularly. In addition, every fashion marketing concept is temporary. Thus, it’s critical to maintain the floodgates of ideas open at all times.
In addition to all this, they must continue to monitor their growing sales to strike the correct balance between originality and profitability.
What are the Challenges One Experiences in Fashion Marketing?
Information overload
Every day, a fashion marketer must filter through massive amounts of data and information to develop a successful marketing strategy. This stage is exhausting and difficult because there are occasions when some information is overlooked, and brands are mistaken for one another.
A few brands give discounts to win in this game, which may appear to be a fantastic trick at first, but it may be a significant problem in the long term because price cuts can devalue a brand.
Solution
It is necessary to save one’s brand from the ravages of identity crises. The only way to overcome these obstacles is to preserve your brand identity in any manner feasible, such as through influencers.
Take, for example, Gucci, which is quick to adapt and mix with each age. In these changing times, it understands how to keep its brand identity.
Gucci recently debuted a 300-piece 80s-themed partnership with hip-hop design legend Dapper Dan that got a remarkable response from the audience.
Multiple marketing channels
Working across various channels can result in multiple flops for your business. To prevent your brand from collapsing, you must have a marketing strategy and a proper multi-channel approach.
Solution
No matter the marketing medium, one thing that you need to care about is consistency. Make sure your brand message has coherence across all channels. Try to figure out your demographics first. Search for the channels that your target audience is most active on. Then create a consistent marketing strategy around that so that wherever your audience sees it, they get it immediately that it’s you.
Many top brands like Levi’s, Nike, Jordan, etc. follow the same rule.
5 Best Fashion Marketing Campaigns That You Need to Know About
H&M
H & M garnished the world’s attention with its ‘Close the loop marketing campaign,’ showing fashion to be more sustainable. This ad featured Muslim model Mariah Idrissi and plus-size model Tess Holliday celebrating different cultures in fashion. Its message of sustainability was received well by its customers.
Marc Jacobs
Marc Jacobs used Instagram to advertise its Autumn/Winter collection, encouraging fans to share a photo of themselves wearing it with the hashtag #castmemarc. The contest was for brand recognition, and they performed some model scouting as part of it.
Nike
There is no way we can overlook Nike when discussing the best fashion marketing campaign. In 2015, Nike launched a commercial called “Better for It,” which depicted the inner feelings of every woman while participating in sports. It was the most well-known commercial that demonstrated the link between women’s self-esteem and sports.
Jigsaw
Jigsaw’s ‘Love Immigrants’ campaign was a daring move in highlighting the importance of immigration in the fashion industry. It even portrayed the love and openness that British fashion aspires to.
Ted Baker
Ted Baker created an eight-part sitcom called ‘Keeping up with the Bakers’ in 2017 for its spring/summer ad on Instagram. Every episode presented a fresh challenge to its users, encouraging them to interact with the business playfully. Their theatrical approach set them apart from the competition.
All in All,
Fashion is a creative industry in which everyone contributes to creating something extraordinary. Marketing is essential for this innovation to reach the intended audience. You not only get applause from your audience when you expose it with a strategic marketing plan, but you also obtain the desirable advantages that you were hoping for. Marketing not only raises your brand’s visibility but also helps you build long-term relationships with your audience and turn them into brand ambassadors.
Bring your fashion brand under the marketing umbrella and taste the sweetness of success!