How Small Fashion Brands Can Design Strategies to Succeed in the Online Marketing World

These days, marketing small fashion brands is about more than tying up celebrity endorsements, working a few catwalk shows, and leveraging your creations in high street stores (although these things are, of course, important!). The rise of the web and search engine marketing has changed the rules of the game.

Creating gorgeous garments and draping them over similarly beautiful models isn't enough. Now, a small fashion retail brand has to know how to  rise up search engine rankings, both for mobile and computer-based traffic. It needs to know about using online maps and directories, how internal linking can generate traffic, and much more besides.

In other words, brands need a fashion content marketing strategy. So here are some tips from the team at greatcontent about how to establish one which matches the flair and sharpness of your apparel.

Adopt a multi-channel approach

In today's online fashion world, you can't stick to one boutique website. Instead, working various different channels is essential to promoting your designs effectively.

Many retail brand stores (like J Crew, for example) have successfully adopted a blog-centred approach, and this can work well. If you can commission stylish writers and couple that with professional editing and proofreading services, you'll find it easy to populate a blog with ?how-tos? and product suggestions.

But to really propagate your message, you'll need an Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and even a Snapchat presence. That's where the audience is, and reaching your core audience is absolutely essential. So, post across platforms and make your channels work together. You'll find that growing an audience is much easier if you work multiple platforms.

Stay in touch with purchasers to foster relationships

If your blogging and social media work goes to plan, you'll rack up sales. But fashion content marketingdoesn't end there. Staying in touch after purchases is incredibly important, and that's where newsletters are invaluable.

It's easy to setup a newsletter signup field on your home page and to supply the link with order confirmations -- and every fashion retail brand should do so. Newsletters let you convey up-to-date images and info about new product lines or events, and they target people who have already shown an interest: the core group of consumers no brand can ignore.

Use your newsletter to promote new collections or mentions from celebrities. Run contests (preferably with an Instagram tie-in), and highlight blog posts. But keep the content up to standard, and don't get lazy. Commissioning professional writers to cover newsletter duties can be a real help here.

Know what type of content your audience will respond to

When your newsletter, social media accounts, blog, and (maybe even a) YouTube site are up and running, the next task is to understand which forms of content are most effective. This varies between brands, as every brand has a slightly different audience.

If your core demographic is males in their late 30s, wordy, in-depth style articles might work. For teens, Instagram Stories and short, punchy, image-heavy blogs might work best. 

Use analytical tools to assess which content has the highest return on investment (ROI). Which blogs are the most effective at attracting engagement? Do Twitter likes correspond to conversions? The aim is to get a feel for where your time and money should be directed.

Again, this varies between brands, but every successful marketing campaign needs to bring it into the picture.

Analysis can allow you to plan your content creation. It lets you know what energises your audience and where your strengths lie. 

Get the SEO basics right with every piece of content

Finally, it's vital to keep an eye on Search Engine Optimisation. Beautifully written blogs can disappear without trace if they are not laced with the correct high-value keywords. Sites with few internal links, or poorly organised linking strategies can easily be passed over by search engine bots. And wordy titles or meta descriptions can shove great brands down the search listings.

These practices are not second nature to all fashion brand marketers; for smaller brands, they can become an unnecessary distraction which leads to confusion and misallocated resources.

So, instead of wading into SEO without the required expertise, outsourcing those tasks to experts makes sense. At greatcontent, we offer a range of fashion content solutions. We can knit together compelling blogs, linking strategies, social media posts, newsletters, and SEO practices -- propelling your brand into online success. Get in touch with our team to find out more.

Text: Sam Urquhart
Image: unsplash.com