The fashion industry has relentlessly evolved in the last decade and nowadays to have an ordinary marketing plan is not enough anymore. It is essential to have an effective online strategy. Ecommerce has revolutionized the mighty brick and mortar industry. All the signs and statistics do show that online shopping is increasing. Moreover, traffic and sales by mobile phone in fashion retail reach more than 50%, making mobile marketing a priority. In this article, 4 marketing professionals discuss the top tips to effectively promote a fashion brand online.

How Can You Promote Your Fashion Brand Online?

1. Open an Instagram business account

One of the best ways to promote your fashion brand online is to open an Instagram business account, look at your competitors’ followers and then follow those that you believe will be your ideal customers. Engage frequently with them on their personal accounts, offering likes to their posts and insightful comments. If you post beautiful, appealing product photos on your own Instagram Feed and have a message that connects with their values, they will soon become followers of yours and in time, buyers of your products.

2. Create a professional website

Make sure that you have a professional, engaging website that attracts your ideal customers. You should use professional models and photographers for your photos and graphics. Always have an “About” page on your site that tells your brand story. Your story should express how you got started, your reason for being, your mission, and any causes that you support. Your site should be easy to navigate and load quickly. Make sure that your website is SEO optimized (link to money page) with the right keywords so you can be found by prospective customers. Tie your website in with your social media platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn, making sure that your tone, colors, imagery, and brand soul essence are consistent. If you have a compelling website and are active on social media platforms, you will soon be found by prospective customers.

3. Engage with fashion bloggers

Look for influencers and fashion bloggers on social media and online fashion magazines that cater to your ideal customer. Follow the influencers and bloggers and engage with their audience. Send products to influencers and bloggers that fit your brand’s profile and style so they can wear your clothing or accessories and promote them on their sites. If you have money to invest, you can pay influencers or micro-influencers to promote your brand to their audience.

4. Make your employees brand ambassadors for your products

Make your employees brand ambassadors for your products. Have them post themselves wearing your products on your social media pages. Have them engage with your own posts and spread your brand’s mission. Nothing is better than having your own employees wearing and talking about your products.

Alison Larson, International Business Consultant, WordBlazer Consulting

5. Use high-quality imagery

Get your social media presence on point with high-quality imagery. This step is non-negotiable in this day and age. An easy to navigate website with clear information and eye-pleasing branding is equally imperative.

6. Make your Instagram shoppable

Make your Instagram posts Shoppable to push visitors through the buyer journey and convert them into customers quickly and easily.

7. Invest in Facebook and Instagram ads

You’ll need to invest in Facebook and Instagram ads to raise brand awareness to your target market. Test both platforms with low starting budgets to test which platform yields the best results for your brand.

8. Reach out to fashion influencers

Work with fashion influencers to help raise brand awareness quickly and more efficiently. If you don’t yet have the budget for influencers with 500K followers plus, look at the 10K to 50K threshold. Many influencers will post about you in return for complimentary pieces of their choosing if they like your brand.

9. Use email and SMS marketing

Invest in email and SMS marketing to increase sales and retain customers. Look at Fashion Nova for inspiration. They changed the fashion game and have (in my opinion) one of the most intelligent and aggressive marketing strategies I’ve ever seen.

Sophie Bowman, PR & Branding Guru, Brand Branding PR 

10. Make sure your website is responsive for mobile users

First of all, you have to make sure that your website is responsive because mobile users are increasing day by day, and if your site does not work correctly on a small screen, then you may lose any customers.

11. Take advantage of blogging

Yes, if you don’t have a blog for your site, then create it today because articles alone can increase the traffic up to 200x.

12. Use social channels

Social media plays a bigger role in brand awareness, either in the form of images, videos, promotion. Continuously engage with your audience to know their interests and what they expect from your brand. Paid advertising is a crucial strategy that should be applied time by time to reach the audience worldwide. Keep an eye on competitors and their audiences because they may take an interest in your products and vice-versa. Customers are the real promoters, so give them respect and quality product so to receive shoutouts.

13. Outreach to improve your SEO strategy

If you want your fashion site to improve further, you must have quality backlinks, pal! Getting a link back is important as selling products online because it improves Brand Awareness, SEO, and site authority. Outreach is the most accessible way to gain quality backlinks from media, journalists, and bloggers in your niche. Consistently reach out to relevant publications and ask them to link your page in a polite tone. Also, pick a nice anchor text where you want to link your site.

Noman, Content Writer, Film Jackets  

14. Post relevant viral/trending content

Social media is everything!! Make a page for your business and try to post every day! You can promote but don’t advertise too much. You can sometimes post a photo of your brand’s aesthetic to make people with similar interests want to follow your page and create brand awareness. You can go so far as to posting relevant viral content/trending topics to get on the explore page. Using this method I’ve been able to get 50,000 views on one video from the explore page alone and 30,000 views each on a couple of other videos.

15. If you don’t have a budget, use influencer marketing

Influencer marketing, you can do this even if you don’t have a budget!! Instead of paying for an influencer to post and talk about your product you can make a PR list with Influencers that have the same target audiences and ask them for their address and send them free products. They will often post on their stories thank you and a lot of micro-influencers will do promotional posts for free products!

16. Get your products to online retailers

Amazon, getting your products on Amazon is an awesome way to promote your fashion brand. Everyone uses Amazon, and they pay shipping!! It’s so helpful for my small company because you want to give your customers free shipping but in the beginning, you can’t afford that. Just make sure your products on Amazon are prime so you can compete with the competition.

Caroline, The Caroline Collection

A couple of decades ago, being featured on a page of a magazine was the ultimate target. Nowadays, it involves alternative methods and if used properly you might not need to be on any magazine’s page. If you use digital marketing in the right manner, it can make your brand stand out from the crowd and consequently increase your sales. Find what you can give that others are not offering, take time to engage with your audience and don’t forget to not only aim for better sales but turn users into your brand ambassadors too.

Natalia Monsalve