Congratulations on your pursuit of finally getting those clothing sketches you’ve always dreamed of bringing to life, now a reality. Starting a clothing line entails a lot of passion and when you have that, it’s already a good enough start. When you love what you do, you can be more inclined to giving it your best shot all the time.
To make a profitable business out of your American startup clothing brand, however, goes beyond simply having the passion for it. You need to think as an entrepreneur does, to establish and strengthen your startup to make your products go viral. Otherwise, without an adequate effort, you may risk your clothing brand becoming like all those others that failed shortly after starting.
No success ever came easy, and you need to be willing to put in so much effort in marketing your clothing brand, so you can make your new name be well known in your market. In this guide, you’ll come across five of the best ways to market your startup clothing brand, so you can get it off the ground successfully.
Build A Website
Let’s first start with one of the most important strategies to market your startup clothing brand, in today’s digital age. No startup will ever be complete without a website. An online site can house your e-commerce clothing line where customers also have the convenience to shop online. Also, it can be used to house a catalog and other marketing paraphernalia. In conclusion, a website is definitely a must-have for budding businesses.
As basic standards, do ensure your website has clear images of your clothing pieces, a background of your brand, and also easy-to-find contact information. Other key tips you have to remember when designing your clothing line’s website include:
- Keep it simple. No one wants to go through a website that’s messy, confusing, and the worst of it all: too many pop-ups. It’s said that the simpler your website is, the better. That way, the focus is on your brand name and images of all the clothing pieces you’re selling, not the distracting design elements.
- Put yourself in the shoes of a website visitor during the design process, so you can fully understand from that outside perspective what a pleasing design is, and what isn’t.
- Use high-quality images all the time to give your target market can have a clear idea of what your clothing pieces look like before they even shop physically.
A website is a very big component of your brand’s marketing efforts simply because shoppers today are spending a lot of their idle time on the Internet. Before they may even be able to walk into your physical store, your target customers will have already searched for information online, to view your collection and price range, among the many other decisions that can shape their buying decisions.
If you don’t have a website, you’re going to find it extra challenging to stand out from the competition. In fact, it’ll be so challenging for you to stabilize your brand’s existence when the absence of a website will also render your brand identity invisible in the online community in different states nationwide.
Build Your Branding
Even if some of your clothing designs look slightly similar to other brands in Oregon and other states or even if you’re focused only on the basics, there are still so many ways for you to strengthen your business startup.
This, you can successfully do by building your branding. Focus on your name, theme, and even your design facets so that eventually, your name will be etched in the minds of those buyers in your niche such that those buyers will now choose to purchase from your brand.
You can easily find more information here about the essence of branding and how it can help you be noticed. By following the advice of skilled experts, you can be sure that your brand will stand out from the competition.
To achieve the mentioned goal, here are a few useful elements for branding tips you may want to apply:
- Choose a branding image and theme that reflects who you are as a clothing line, so you can instantly have that sense of originality and set yourself apart from the competition;
- Know your audience to help you focus your branding identity with design facets that resonate the most with your target audience; and
- Highlight your products’ best features all the time, such as your clothing line coming from sustainable and eco-friendly materials, or that your brand supports people with disabilities as employees or members of your production team. Don’t fail to mention other unique features like if your clothing line has well-made prints and embroidery from local suppliers like this screen printing & embroidery in Portland, for instance.
You can start with a strong branding strategy by designing a logo. No clothing line is ever without a logo. The reason for this is simple. As your target customers try to remember your brand name, it’s your logo that’ll stick to their minds the most. Human beings are said to be visual individuals. Hence, your goal by having a logo should be that whenever potential buyers spot it, they’re able to immediately associate it with your clothing line brand.
Venture Into Influencer Marketing
In keeping with today’s digital age, on top of having a website, you may also want to use social media to your advantage by starting with influencer marketing.
In the world of social media, there are celebrities known as influencers. These are ordinary individuals who have made their claim to fame through gaining a lot of followers on their social media accounts. Because of the influence they have over their respective followers, many brands, especially startups, are reaching out to those influencers to market their products.
As a startup clothing line, you should start collaborating with influencers. It’s as straightforward as reaching out to influencers on social media within your clothing line niche and sending them samples of your trendy clothing pieces. Influencers can then wear it and promote it on their social media accounts for all their followers and supporters to see.
There are many reasons why influencer marketing works great especially for startup businesses and these reasons include:
- It increases brand awareness and reach, as you now have visibility over each follower that each influencer has, on social media, without having to do a great deal of the marketing effort, from your end;
- It boosts your return on investment, as with the wider customer reach, it necessarily follows that you may also now have higher product sales; and
- It’s a cost-effective form of marketing, which is another advantage for clothing businesses like yours that’s still in the startup phase and may have very limited financial resources.
Start Guest Blogging
Once you have a website, you can now start with content marketing. This means coming up with articles regularly on fashion and inserting links to your products on those write-ups. Apart from performing content marketing on your website, you can take it one step further now by also guest posting on other websites.
Content marketing is king, in today’s digital age. And, it’s through your content that you have the avenue to expound more about your clothing pieces like how they were made, the story behind it, and even tips and tricks on styling with an emphasis on the pieces you’re selling. It’s up to you to be strategic enough with your content topics so it meets the standard of creating hype and buzz in the online community.
The more active you’re with writing and guest blogging, the more you’re also making your clothing line’s brand name be known. With persistent effort, you’ll be able to convince new buyers that your clothing line is worth spending money on, even if it’s still a startup.
You can have insights on how to start with your fashion content or a blog by going on an established fashion site to look for inspiration.
Go Forth With Email Marketing
Email marketing today is what SMS (short message service) marketing was many seasons back. The rise of smartphones has made individuals spend so much more time on their phones than they may have done so in the past. Smartphones are so advanced that they can almost anything you’d ask them to. Deviating from the usual calls and texts, modern phones are also now used to browse on the Internet, linger around social media, make video calls, and even check emails.
So, it makes sense why beginner clothing line brands like yours should also strive for better email marketing strategies. This makes you more aggressive with your marketing efforts when, through emails, there’s one-on-one personal communication between you and your target customers now. Even if at the beginning, they may not purchase any item from your brand yet, at least you’ve done your part of making your clothing line’s brand well known.
If you still need any more convincing, email marketing drives in benefits, like:
- It strengthens brand recognition;
- It may boost your sales especially when your email already contains links to your fashion brand’s online shop; and
- It may increase traffic towards your clothing line’s website, thereby improving brand visibility as well.
Clothing is a part of the day-to-day lives of individuals. More than a necessity, however, clothing pieces today are a form of art, fashion, and self-expression. Individuals buy clothing not just to cover their body up, but to look good. Hence the demand for clothing items, and the coming in of so many clothing startups, perhaps like yours, too.
It’s an advantage on your end that the demand is there, but this also means stringent competition. This fact poses the challenge for your business to strive harder to earn a more significant market share. As you turn your sketches into real-life clothing pieces, don’t forget to focus too on the business side of marketing to make your clothing brand a success.
