Fashion is such an intuitive industry that doing marketing for brands in this field has always been a real challenge. In today’s article, we’ll explore the 8 most effective tips to boost online presence for fashion brands to grow their business continuously and sustainably.
Overview
Expand your e-commerce offerings
It is a fact that the retail apocalypse is lingering, and fashion retail is no exception. Women’s Wear Daily reported that more than 1,875 fashion stores closed in 2017. And this number was projected to increase at a rapid pace. However, according to Statista, revenue in the fashion segment is forecasted to reach US$664,474 million worldwide in 2020. Furthermore, it will hit US$1,003,541 million by 2025. This sounds like something wrong is here: how is revenue increasing when so many stores are closing?
The answer is the internet. In this helter-skelter era when technology is reshaping consumers’ preferences towards online shopping, expanding e-commerce offerings is the key. It can be done by getting a website (the OG of e-commerce), supporting mobile commerce, or engaging in social commerce.
Mobile commerce is a more versatile form of e-commerce. To support the mobile commerce of your fashion brands, there are 2 key things to keep in mind:
- Mobile-first design: As the name suggests, it means that we start the product design from the mobile end which has more restrictions. Then, expand its features to create a tablet or desktop version. This helps your content design appear proper and well-arranged on the mobile configuration.
- Mobile consumer apps: They are mobile apps specifically designed for customers based on customer unique needs and wants. In the commercial business, the purpose of consumer apps is to enhance the consumer shopping experience. And ultimately, get them to buy more.
Social commerce particularly matters to fashion brands. Not only can you interact with your customers in an active way, but you can also sell right when your customers encounter your products. Lately, popular social media platforms have introduced some functions to let retailers sell right on the platform. It definitely helps boost online presence for fashion brands
Start a blog
Starting a blog is one of the most mentioned must-dos to boost online presence for fashion brands. Clothing retailers can use a blog to disseminate and update any news or help your audiences with some style guides. As a result, fashion retailers can harbor a close-knit community and increase customer loyalty.
More than that, blogging is such an effective and powerful marketing tool. However, it doesn’t receive as much attention as it deserves. It is a form of content marketing that helps fashion brands with everything like improving organic search rankings. It assists in building your website’s SEO, leading to more free traffic.
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Additionally, every blog post creates a new landing page for your audience to find you with, which helps expose new users to your brand. Therefore, as fashion business owners and operators, it’s your benefit to ensure a well-managed blog. Such a blog is capable of maintaining a frequent and consistent publishing calendar with high-quality content. This helps keep your audience always intrigued and engaged.
Keep your brand’s look consistent across all your channels
Digital appearance is the first and foremost clue that customers have to evaluate your fashion brands. 81% of shoppers research a product online before buying. Particularly for fashion brands, not only does your design need to be aesthetic but it also has to look consistent across all channels. Whether it is Facebook, Instagram, or official websites, your digital CIP (Corporation Identity Program) needs to be uniform. CIP is a graphic representation of an organization’s philosophy and its corporate culture. This is critical to boosting online presence for fashion brands. And it ensures that your customers don’t feel confusing about your brand. You need to pay attention closely to the brand logo, typeface, tagline, imagery, color palette, etc.
The most successful fashion brands have a style that remains consistent across online channels. Take Ralph Lauren for instance. The brand’s look has remained consistent over its entire lifetime: Navy blues, whites, reds, polo, preppy, and classic. All come to mind when people think of this brand. The company has done a phenomenal job at keeping their brand style and marketing consistent year after year.
Adopt celebrity endorsement for your fashion brand
Celebrity endorsement is using a celebrity’s recognition on behalf of a consumer product by that celebrity appearing with it in an advertisement. It is a fact that some of the best fashion social media campaigns have influencers involved. Influencers are more than trend-followers, they are trendsetters as when an influencer posts, others follow.
Even though your fashion brands are not engaging in social commerce, it’s still fruitful to adopt celebrity endorsement in more traditional channels like TVC or even radio. Work with influencers who have followers that are similar to the type of customers you want helps focus on your target market more effectively. And boost online presence for your fashion brands.
Influencers are viewed as a trusted voice by their followers. They can help increase your sales by reviewing or recommending your products. It also allows you to have your products advertised to a different group of potential customers. If you’ve chosen the right influencer, it can lead to new customers as well as create a repeatable form of digital marketing.
For example, to promote your clothing line, you can get an influencer to post pictures of them wearing some of your clothes onto Instagram. At the end of the day, influencer marketing is like high school. Influencers are the popular kids and their followers are the other kids who want to be just like them.
Leverage the latest technologies
We’re currently in the midst of a technological revolution marked by rapid advancements in technologies. And one of the most commonly used technologies in the fashion industry is artificial intelligence (AI). The applications of AI in clothing retail are diverse, some worth mentionings are chatbots, product recommendation, and facial recognition.
Fashion is such an intuitive and time-sensitive industry that it requires instant assistance from apparel brands. That’s why chatbots were born. AI-powered chatbots act like 24/7 customer service reps that guide your customers through their journey. If your users have a question, they’re there to answer it.
Product recommendation is powered by machine learning which is a sub-field of AI. By adopting machine learning (a sub-field of AI), fashion brands’ websites or mobile apps can track and understand customers’ behaviors according to their previous purchase, searching patterns, etc. Based on that, they make personalized product recommendations for each customer. A retailer that has innovated its mobile app with AI adoption is H&M.
AI facial recognition facilitates the identification of new and old customers, detecting and tracking of known shoplifters, recognizing emotion, etc. These are facilitated by scanning and remembering people’s faces.
Leverage FOMO
FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), is social anxiety rooted in the belief that others might be having fun while the person experiencing the anxiety of being absent. It results in the desire to stay constantly connected with what others are doing. People who suffer from FOMO are fear of regret. They are afraid of missing an opportunity for social interaction, a novel experience, or a profitable investment. It is the fear that deciding not to participate is the wrong choice.
FOMO is a common worldwide phenomenon:
- 56% of social media users suffer from FOMO worldwide.
- 68% of Canadian Millennials claimed to make an unexpected purchase because of the FOMO effect.
- 50% of American adults experience FOMO at least once a month and 15% have weekly FOMO effect.
FOMO seems to be quite concerning to customers. However, to retailers, it’s such a golden opportunity to boost online presence for fashion brands. Having realized the practical advantage of FOMO, businesses have been using this psychological phenomenon as a social media trend in the commerce industry. Especially fashion brands because of its time-sensitive characteristic. If one of your favorite brands is running a 50% off sale, plus, handing out free shipping, you DO NOT want to miss out on the opportunity.
Encourage your happy customers to write testimonials
Reviews matter, whether you are solely an e-commerce business, a retail store, or in another sector of the fashion industry, or even in other kinds of business. Especially when it comes to clothing, no one wants to go through the hassle of visiting a store or purchasing clothing online then realize that the item is not what they expected. That’s why many shoppers use reviews as their first and foremost cue to decide whether to buy or not to buy a fashion item, and visit or not visit an apparel shop. Thus, it’s crucial for fashion brands to encourage their existing customers to write testimonials. It helps with boosting online presence for fashion brands
Organize a contest or giveaway
Finally, the last but not least marketing strategy for fashion brands we’ll cover today is organizing contests or giveaways. No matter what your purposes are when starting a contest or giveaway, whether it’s to promote a new collection, celebrate an anniversary, or simply just to gain new customers and engage the existing ones. It’s a fact that contests and giveaways are amazing ways to foster brand awareness and grow both your market segment and business. There are many entrances that your customers can participate in your promotion, including by signing up for an email newsletter, liking or sharing a social page, downloading the clothing store’s consumer app, etc. Furthermore, by such ways, you, as business owners and store managers, can obtain valuable consumer data you can use to tailor your marketing strategy down the line.
One of the most popular and fruitful ways to organize a contest is to launch it on social media platforms. Social media contests are a great way to get your audience involved with your fashion brands and expand your reach to new potential market segments. A contest can be as simple as tagging a few friends, sharing your post, or using your branded hashtag. Or, you could make it more complex, like requiring customers to make a purchase to enter.
Wrap it up
As we’re reaching the end of today’s talk, we hope that we helped with effective tips to boost online presence for your successful fashion brands. And if you’re interested in such topics about how to leverage your sources and abilities to enhance your businesses, follow us closely on our website for more insightful articles like this one.
Should you need any further assistance, don’t hesitate to contact us! We, ConnectPOS, will always be your tech-savvy companion on the way to your business success!