If you want to get by in the highly competitive modern fashion world, you have to be online. If you want to be successful, you have to give your all to online marketing. This is the key to getting noticed by the big name critics, buyers, fashion houses and customers alike. How you market your brand will depend on your individual style and the particular people you’re most keen to reach, but there are certain basics that everybody needs to get right.
The basics of online marketing
Online marketing starts with your website: it’s your front office, the center of your online activities and the point towards which all your activity elsewhere should point. Make sure it looks good and functions well, regardless of the device people are using to access it.
Alongside your website, you’ll need a Facebook page, which you should update at least daily – three to four times a day for maximum impact. You’ll also need to be active on other social media. Twitter is good for reach, but in order to show off your designs, you should be using visual media outlets such as Instagram and Pinterest.
Building up your online presence
Once you’ve got the basics down, you can look at ways to beef up your online presence. One very effective way to show off your work is to make short videos – catwalk shows, for instance, films of your team at work or mini adverts – which you can distribute via YouTube and Vimeo. You can also try promoting your work through apps. The trick is to provide a useful, fashion-relevant facility for users so that they’ll check these often and think of your brand when they do.
What the professionals say
If you check out Bob Parsons Godaddy on WSJ, you’ll see that he sets a lot of stock in measuring the productivity of your different activities and learning from this. As someone who has made billions trading online, he knows what he’s talking about, and when it comes to marketing your fashion brand, you should be collecting information wherever you can so that you can determine which approaches are connecting most effectively with your customers. There’s no one size fits all solution to this kind of marketing, so it’s up to you to design your own based on this kind of feedback.
Mixing sales and marketing
If you’re selling clothes, bags, footwear or accessories online, you can combine this with your marketing. Even if you have your own online store, placing some items on eBay can do a lot to get your brand name out there, especially as you can associate it directly with other keywords and categories, helping you to target it at the right demographic. Invest in professional quality photography and get your best work out there. Don’t forget to tell the story of your brand alongside your designs, helping people to identify with who you are and what you’re doing.
Using these techniques, you can do a lot to boost your online presence and give your brand worldwide visibility.
