The fashion industry is overcrowded with brands, influencers and celebrities all making a fashion statement. Fashion designers and boutiques who wish to stand out and garner a customer base that truly values fashion trends and tips, need to have a game plan in place to seep in through the fierce competition.
According to a report by McKinsey, the pandemic has done little to slow down the megatrends reshaping the industry. In fact, these have accelerated over the past year, with fashion industry leaders and media influencers. Though supply and demand across the globe came to standstill, fashion sales are expected to make a full recovery next year. However, the market environment will remain complex and inconsistent.
Changing fashion trends, and digital marketing algorithms too have altered post-pandemic. This is good news for fashion designers and boutiques that are preparing to equip themselves with digital marketing for success. These brands will have an upper hand in setting industry trends and curating digital-first strategies by keeping in mind the newly tailored algorithms by Google and social media platforms like Instagram.
As a fashion designer, your goal must be to become the most popular, first-choice fashion brand, attracting a customer base that becomes advocates such as celebrities and influencers.This article will talk about what a digital marketing for fashion designers and boutiques should look like in 2022.
Stating Your Purpose & Goal-Setting
Defining your goal is usually followed after you have stated your brand’s values, offerings and purpose. If you are just beginning to learn more about digital marketing for your fashion brand, you need to start out with well-defined goals.
Your brand’s goals will directly follow its purpose. Maybe its purpose is to have sustainable fashion trends by promoting recyclable materials. Or maybe your purpose is evolving the current fashion trends. Whatever the reason for establishing your brand is, your goal will quantify it.
For example, your purpose is to make ‘sustainable clothing’ a trend. In this case, your goal would look like this:
- x% market share of your brand by the first quarter of 2024.
- Increase in the number of customers.
- Number of earned media in 6 months.
- Brand presence in X number of cities.
Based on your brand’s purpose and value, your goals may differ and may be quantified in more than 1 way.
Once you have identified the goals for your brand, you have to prepare to attain them. In 2022, digital-first strategies have gained popularity to improve brand awareness and there are several ways you can do this. Let us look at the steps you need to take to reach the goals you have set for yourself.
Creating A Breathtaking Website
As a fashion designer or a boutique, your art will speak a thousand words. You don’t have to convince anyone to buy from you if you give your potential customers a glimpse of what you offer. The starting point for you will be creating a highly optimised website.
Remember that all your digital marketing efforts will be redirected to your website. This is why you need to have an exemplary website in place before you start any marketing or promotions. Building a website is imperative to having a successful digital marketing strategy in place.
It is also the place where you showcase your designs, flaunt your ideas and display all your services that will add value to your potential customers.
Blog Regularly But Optimize It!
Blogging is the best way to become a leader in the fashion industry. Most fashion influencers that are successful today, started with their own fashion blog.
A fashion blog is your way to communicate with your readers. Since your readers are reading a fashion blog, you know they are already interested in fashion. This is your chance to impress them with your ideas, critiques and trends.
A fashion blog is all about sharing unique values with your readers. Your goal is to make them curious about you and encourage them to learn more about you and your style. Starting a fashion blog would also give you a chance to become a thought leader in your community. Be candid and real about what you truly feel and why you feel it.
You may be a pro at winning hearts with your authentic content on your blog but the story does not end there. You need to make sure your blog is Search Engine Optimised (SEO), enough to rank on search engine pages like Google so that people find you. You can always trust a good digital marketing company to help you with optimising your website as well as your blogs.
Presence On Social Media Is Key
Social media marketing is an effective way to reach millions of people in due time. Social media’s capability to connect people with shared interests is what makes social media a popular choice for brands to showcase their offerings.
Starting your brand’s social media page is far from hopping on the bandwagon. It is an imperative digital marketing element that will integrate all your marketing efforts be it offline or online.
Social media marketing is more than just creating an appealing presence, your consistent effort to create original content is what will gain your viewership and eventually followers. With Instagram’s new algorithm that pushes original content to the top of the feed, you can use your brand’s unique selling propositions to create original content and engage your potential as well as existing customers.
A few tips to ace social media digital marketing:
- Have a strategy in place with well-researched hashtags that will provide you with the visibility your brand requires.
- Follow influencers and prompt them to follow you back.
- Create a social media calendar and post original content regularly.
- Mention your brand’s website in all your social media bios.
- Aim to become a trendsetter rather than a trend follower.
Reminders Never Hurt
Say you have a highly optimised website and publish written content regularly. Still, you need to optimise your content such that visitors come back to your website to make a purchase.
This is why you can leverage a variety of tactics such as putting up stories, posts, videos reels on your social media channels. Recreating a single content idea into different formats can help you create a fuller plan to remind customers of your products and services.
Reminding potential customers about your brand time and again will n enhance your brand presence and is a great way to generate valuable sales.
Gather Customer Data For Personalized Experiences
Even though people who visit your website might not make a purchase, prompt them to share their email address or phone number and add them to your subscriber list. Create an email series or communications that will gradually feed them new material.
You can also use customers’ data, sourced from the information they share with you, to personalise their emails and messages. Moreover, with personalisation comes warmth. You can write personalised messages and deliver them with any purchase they make. Personalisation only enhances a customer experience but makes them come back for more.
Incorporate the above-mentioned ideas into your digital marketing strategies and see how it miraculously helps you attain your business goals. With consistency in your digital marketing, you will be able to enhance your brand presence and leave a lasting impression on your customers.
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