One sector of the fashion world a lot of aspiring fashion entrepreneurs consider on their entry into the fashion market is owning a clothing brand. Just like other aspects of the industry, owning a clothing brand has some challenges. Once you have successfully created and launched your brand, the next biggest challenge is marketing your clothing brand.
The fashion industry currently boasts of a large number of clothing brand owners and for this reason, marketing your brand should be your utmost priority. These days, (digital age), the common ways of promoting your brand are through online marketing and social media engagement, unless you have a ton of money.
Marketing your clothing brand is a very wide topic, however, I will start by listing five killer ideas that you can incorporate into your brand marketing plans today. In further series, we will discuss this topic more extensively.
- Create a Catchy Tagline
As outlined in the introduction above, there are lots of fashion brand owners in the market today and one way of distinguishing yourself is by creating a catchy tagline. A catchy tagline can include a slogan, brand logo, brand message, rallying cry or even your packaging idea. Your choice of a catchy tagline should connect your brand emotionally with your target market.
Here are some examples of great taglines of clothing brands when it comes to Marketing your clothing brand:
- LEVI’S- A style for every story – Levi’s is using the idea of storytelling as a catchy tagline. As a new fashion entrepreneur, you should also focus on the stories of your customers and their views of life situations.
- ALEXANDRA – Clothes that mean business – Alexandra is a clothing brand that specializes in workwear clothing. Their tagline simply means you want to mean business, you wear business!
- WHIPPED & CO- For girls who are confident, carefree and gorgeous inside and out. Whipped and co uses the attitude tagline. Their tagline simply means “you want to be confident, carefree and gorgeous? then buy our clothes”!
- Use social media to tell your story
In this digital age of ours, everyone knows about the importance of social media marketing to a brand. Most brands know the usefulness of social media, but they just don’t know how to use it to generate more sales. If you are new to social media marketing, then the best hack for you is to consider it as a storytelling medium. Doing this means formulating your brand story as a series of expressive ideas.
Here are a few examples of great brand stories by some popular Nigerian fashion brands:
- ZASHADU – Exploring the tension between quiet elegance and unabashed glamour using sustainable leathers. This Nigerian fashion brand uses social media to tell customers how they explore various mediums to come up with durable raw materials to make the best bag pieces for their audience.
- HERTUNBA FASHION- Sustainable women’s clothing handcrafted with love, dressed to conquer. -This female-owned clothing brand tells the story of how they handcraft their dress pieces in the best way ever; love!
- Launch your brand with a giveaway campaign
Launching your brand with a giveaway campaign proves to be a powerful marketing technique if done properly. It gives your new brand a ton of exposure and awareness, especially in the first few weeks. This increased exposure for few weeks is important because that factor trumps the short-term sales you want to make.
You can come up with different giveaway ideas and prizes, but it is very important you promote the campaign heavily on your website, social media channels and even hire the services of PR consultants if your budget allows it. Giveaway ideas can include:
- User-generated content
- Brand trivia
- Partner with other brands
- Coupons
- Branded item
- Find a promotional partner
Brand partnerships have proven to be one of the most successful ideas in the business industry and the fashion industry is not an exception. The power of partnerships in the fashion and apparel industry is worthy of note as those opportunities can bring the needed change to your promotion strategies. Asides from collaborating with other brands, you can leverage the influencer system on social media to drive awareness of your brand.
Consider some of these Nigerian fashion brands and their partnerships with social media influencers:
- Desireeiyamathelabel & Iamyeychii – Amazing YouTuber and content queen; Iamyeychii always delivers when it comes to influencing products from women’s fashion brand; Desireeiyamathelabel with her creative haul and styling videos.
- Roomxix & Jehocreated- When the Glee boy himself; Jehocreated started creating content for Roomxix, I knew it was one of the best decisions the fashion store could make concerning brand promotion.
- Find influencer talent on youtube to be your brand ambassador
Although as a new brand with a limited budget, this last option might be quite difficult. However, if you have to money to go after well-known celebrities, that’s a great marketing option. This method may sound like a difficult strategy, but it’s going to give you an awesome ROI.
Unless you have a huge marketing budget, then the best place to begin your brand marketing would be online. With some easy techniques and consistency, you can easily reach your target audience.
