Promoting a Clothing Brand: How to Increase Your Fashion Sales (and keep them coming back)

Hey, fashion founder! Are you starting a clothing business and looking for help to promote your new clothing brand successfully — well if you’re wondering how to increase sales in your clothing business, you’re in the right place.

In this guide, we will dive into the best-proven strategies to engineer your new business for repeat and continuous sales. Whether you are looking to make your 1st sale or your 131st we are here to elevate your sales game and best drive sales during your early stages of growth.  So, let’s get started!

#1: Get to Know Your Target Audience

You may have heard this before (and if you’re prepared, you have this jotted down in your business plan. Before turning up your sales strategies, you must first understand who your clothing brand is selling to. To build an audience of target customers, you need to get ultra-specific about your customer: down to the personal details.

Build Your Clothing Brand’s Customer Persona

Visualize the ideal shopper that represents your customer base. Where do they live? Who are their fashion icons? What stage of life are they currently in, and what do they value most? What lights a fire under their belly, topics they can talk about their friend with for hours over a meal? Can they happily afford your price range? The answers to these questions make up a profile called a customer persona, which represents a group of people your clothing company is geared towards.

To build your persona, don’t just look inwards. Do some research, conduct some interviews, and find the reflection of your customer base. Don’t worry about perfection – it’s normal to see your target audience evolve with time. The most important is that you have a starting point for your clothing brand today.

So, now that we understand who your online clothing brand will be marketed to, it’s time to structure your brand identity that will shape your sales strategy.

#2: Build a Strong Brand Identity

With a new vantage point on your customer base, use this information to build your brand’s identity. In any business, especially fashion brands, a strong and cohesive brand is what makes you stand apart from the competition in the fashion industry.

As someone who has studied and helped early-stage companies with branding for years, let me distill my knowledge in one simple phrase: tell a story! We are all natural storytellers. Stories are easier to connect to emotionally, especially when they resonate with us.

Let’s apply this powerful tactic to your clothing brand. If your business was a story, how would it begin? What three words (values) describe your brand story? What is the purpose of telling your brand story with your clothing line? (hint: do not say your purpose is “to make money”! Instead convey value, like “because everyone deserves to feel beautiful”!)

String these details into a story that you understand inside and out. It should also resonate with your target audience, and instantly forge that emotional connection. This isn’t woo-woo marketing, this is a strategy that works! Tie your brand identity into your professional website and Instagram, and watch your fashion brand come to life. A strong brand identity draws in more loyal customers, all leading up to predictable and consistent sales.

#3: Take Social Media Seriously

Your social media accounts will be your most powerful tool to grow in the fashion world (or for any business really). If you are opening up your own clothing brand startup from scratch, then using social media channels is non-negotiable. The best social media platforms for fashion marketing are TikTok, Pinterest, and Instagram. Since each app is highly visual, your pictures and videos of your products will be at the forefront of your marketing content. Create content that lines up with your branding, and be patient as you share engaging content of your designs.

#4: Choose a Marketing Plan

Ramping up your sales is not always passive. You cannot just click “publish” on your clothing company’s website, sit back, and wait for orders to roll in. Take an active role in your marketing strategy, focusing on where your time is best spent. As an entrepreneur, we know you need maximum results with minimal input, and you don’t have time to grow a following passively. To help, here are the best marketing strategies to sell more fashion products in an accelerated timeline.

Affiliate Programs

What if you could skip the line and sell to an already established audience? This is the power of affiliate marketing. It’s like influencer marketing without the big price tag. When you start an affiliate program, your fashion industry content creators market your products for you – in exchange for a percentage of sales.

Embrace affiliate marketing to fast-track your sales. We seriously cannot recommend it enough. Read more about how to start an affiliate marketing program here.

User Generated Content (UGC)

Too daunted to film, edit, and post? Hire a professional UGC creator! User Generated Content is a great way to show your clothing line in action, in a format that sounds less “salesy” than paid ads. This method is the most sustainable way to bring stunning, engaging content into your branding. To be clear, this is not the same as influencer marketing. Instead, you own the content and can leverage it on your platform. Shift your customer’s attention from your social media posts to clicking “Place Order” in your online store.

Email Lists

What’s the most sustainable and most profitable marketing strategy that is not a full-time commitment? Sending out promotional emails for your fashion brand, of course! The upside is that the information belongs to you. Since you collect the names and emails, the social media guys cannot gatekeep the audience from you. Hello to off-platform targeting and repeat business! Sign up for a free email tool like ConvertKit or Mailchimp and send marketing emails on autopilot.

#5: Create a Luxury Customer Experience

The sales process does not stop at marketing. Your fashion brand is selling in every interaction, from start to finish. A strong sales strategy means your website is easy to navigate, you are listening to customers attentively, and you track your analytics for future tune-ups. Your customers will notice these touches and build brand loyalty to your online clothing brand.

TLDR:

There is not just one factor that influences your clothing business’ sales. Your sales strategy begins with a crystal clear understanding of your target audience and your branding. Using your customer personas and the branding for your fashion business, you can follow the proven strategies to turn social media scrollers into returning customers. With a little bit of planning, this guide is the starting point that can help you launch your fashion startup sales!

Entrepreneurs weren’t meant to do this alone! Keep in touch and take advantage of all our startup resources at FoundersGoHere.com, including Top 7 Fashion Incubators and Accelerators for Fashion Tech Startups.