Beyond Digital: Offline And Inbound Marketing For Your Fashion Business

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brand consultant, digital marketing, fashion, fashion brand, Fashion Business, fashion consultant, fashion designer, fashion marketing, inbound marketing

Digital marketing may sure be the only way to get the attention of an online audience. However, does this mean that merely by betting on it, you’ll be able to get your brand visibility and sales? The truthful answer is, no.

For one, online shopping is just about catching up, and before buying clothing and accessories (beyond the t-shirts and tunics), most people would want to experience the product, especially if they’re new to the brand. It is thus safe to say that just as brands and retail are present both offline and online, marketing efforts should be directed in both channels. In an earlier article, we have spoken about digital marketing for fashion brands.

In this one, let’s discuss offline and inbound marketing.

Today, most marketers understand inbound as a subset of online marketing, specifically, emails. However, anything that actively brings customers and their buying intent into your store is inbound, and this can be anything from a store level event to a pop-up. Without further ado, let’s look at some offline methods you can use to market your brand.

1. Go Beyond The Billboards. Today’s customers are bombarded with static and dynamic billboards wherever they go. This influx of information does nothing for brand recall. Instead, focus on value. What can you offer through your advertising that is useful to a potential customer? This can be anything from a lookbook to a consultation. “But how do we get them to come to us first?”, you may ask. Online advertising is an excellent place to begin.

2. Level Up Your Ideas. For brands that are beginning to sell in multi-store settings like malls, it is essential to direct the attention to yourself actively. Remember a decade ago, when mascots would be standing around to guide you to a place? You need to do something similar, but make it much more sophisticated. What if you could organize a treasure-hunt around the mall, with simple cues in the elevator or stairs? Marketing has long moved past flyers and bills.

3. Make Packaging Awesome. Many lingerie brands do this, as do perfumeries. Make the packaging so attractive that people feel like they’re giving themselves a present. Chances are, they’ll share it online and tell more people about it. In any case, it doesn’t hurt to add a small CTA (call to action) on the box asking people to share their experience online.

4. Look At Pop-Ups and Collaborations. Pop-up stores are insanely famous today because they offer an element of the unexpected. Make your pop-ups interesting, but not intimidating. Depending on your brand’s core audience, loud music may or may not work. Likewise, look at collaborating with other stores to conduct events on grooming and makeup, or to educate people on the different kinds of handbags. You’ll be surprised by how many people look for such advice.

As you can see, offline and online marketing today do not exist in two separate vacuum containers. They go hand-in-hand to help you gain more out of your efforts. For example, an event could be offline, but its promotion takes place online.

What is the most exciting marketing campaign you’ve ever encountered? Tell us in the comments.

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Supriya Ghurye is the founder and owner of Fuel4Fashion. She is a Freelance Fashion Designer and Brand Consultant helping fashion brands to create great products from idea to launch. Fuel4Fashion social links: Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram

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6 Ways To Leverage Digital Marketing To Get Your Fashion Brand The Visibility, And Sales, It Needs

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digital marketing for fashion brands, email campaign, fashion, Fashion Branding, fashion brands, fashion influencers, fashion marketing, hashtag, host giveaways, Retargeting, social media marketing for fashion brands

Once you set up your fashion business and work on branding yourself, marketing your products becomes almost an immediate concern. And why not? It is only if you sell sustainably that all of these efforts will come to fruition.

Today, everyone knows that there is such a thing as digital marketing and that they should somehow find a way to use it. However, how does digital marketing work specifically for the fashion industry? In this article, we’ll give you insights into a few things you can do right away.

Digital Marketing for Fashion Brands

1. Make Retargeting Your Friend. Ever Googled for something, only to find a relevant ad pop-up on Facebook? This handy trick is known as retargeting and works as an efficient combination of a website’s cookies and Facebook’s Ad Exchange platform. To retarget effectively, you need to install a cookie on your visitor’s browser- ask your web developer to help out. Once this is done, set up your Ad Exchange and begin retargeting those people who have visited your site but left too soon.

2. Make The Most Of Holidays. Different regions have different periods that are best for shopping. In India, it is Diwali, while in Europe and the US of A, it is the Christmas season. Depending on where you sell to, create online sales during holidays and promote extensively.

3. Create Content. Apart from your store experience or your social media presence, it is always a good idea to offer your consumers a bit more. Many brands use social media as a boring dump yard for their products and descriptions. Instead, what if your Facebook page offers fashion advice, or if your Instagram handle showcases your clothes in action? Think about ways of adding value to the customer.

4. Host Giveaways. Instagram is particularly popular for hosting giveaways on. This is because, with the right hashtags, you can reach a wider audience. Host an exciting giveaway- you can ask people to share how they’d style a particular piece or the song that a product reminds them of. When hosting a giveaway, one rule always remains- ask those participating to post with a hashtag that you decide upon.

5. Use Fashion Influencers. Influencer marketing is growing, and how! Especially in the domains of apparel and accessories, it seems like Instagram has created stars overnight. You can use platforms like Influencer to find someone who aligns with your brand’s purpose. Share your brand guide with them so they can keep the content relevant. However, influencer marketing can be expensive.

6. Get Their Email Addresses: This is, by far, the most important thing you’ll do for your marketing efforts. By capturing email addresses, you are guaranteed someone’s attention, at least until they choose to unsubscribe. In what is known as Inbound Marketing, we will discuss in the next article how to do it right. But first steps first, set up a pop up on your website, or offer gift cards in your store, to those people who provide you with their email address.

Which of these approaches have you already tried, and which ones would you like to explore now? If you have questions on any of these aspects, drop a comment below, and we’ll get back to you soon.

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Supriya Ghurye is the founder and owner of Fuel4Fashion. She is a Freelance Fashion Designer and Brand Consultant helping fashion brands to create great products from idea to launch. Fuel4Fashion social links: Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram

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What Your Branding Kit Is Made Up Of

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branding, color theory, Fashion Branding, fashion branding kit, fashion brands, fashion designer, logo design, style guide, Type direction

This month, we’re talking all things fashion branding. If you haven’t yet seen our first article on what branding means for you, take a look here.

Once the process is out of the picture, it is time for the outcome. A fashion branding kit can, in essence, be considered the end product of a branding exercise. It includes all the information you need to represent your brand across different media correctly.

Image courtesy: Gafferitsolutions

As with any good kit, a branding kit has certain key components. In no particular order, they are:

1. The Style Guide: A branding style guide is the comprehensive account of everything that your brand stands for. Often a thick book or a bulky file, this is where you will come to refer to what you must and must not do for a social media post, or how small your logo can be before it becomes too small. Use the style guide as a reference point more than a hard-and-fast solution. When in doubt, always use your own judgment.  

2. Logo Guidelines: These guidelines specify what your logo should look like in a host of situations. Think of printing the logo on labels vs. putting up a billboard, or designing your office space. Dimensions are just one aspect of the logo guidelines- they also account for the many different surfaces and media that your logo might eventually play on.  

3. Color Theory: As the name suggests, this set of visual cues is meant to help you decide which combination of colors best represents your brand. Not just that, say you have four color guidelines. Should you use all of them in one go, and in every possible situation? How can these different colors be used to represent your brand? Moreover, how can these colors be used to generate quick recall? These are some questions that the color theory can answer.  

4. Type Direction: Your typography is as powerful as the text itself. Imagine using a powerful quote, except you type it in Comic Sans. The effect is drastically different. Fashion brands, in particular, should focus more keenly on this aspect, because it will impact everything from clothing labels to corporate presentations. As the name suggests, a type direction is flexible with fonts to the extent that they evoke the same reaction.  

5. Fifth Element: In the world of branding, a fifth element is a visual cue that is as powerful as the logo in representing the brand. This element is often used when a logo might feel too repetitive, or too obvious. For example, ‘Conscious’ is H&M’s fifth element for their clothing recycling program. What’s more, the fifth element can also serve to illustrate your brand’s values in a manner that people can easily connect with.

These are often the essential components, and depending on the scale of the business, social media guidelines can also be created. A branding kit serves as the starting point of the actual design. Why is it important to have this kit? So teams make as few mistakes as possible at the execution stage.

Some companies may choose to go through a rebranding exercise as they scale and gain more clarity on their priorities. Whatever be the case, a professional fashion branding agency is your best bet to succeed.

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Supriya Ghurye is the founder and owner of Fuel4Fashion. She is a Freelance Fashion Designer and Brand Consultant helping fashion brands to create great products from idea to launch. Fuel4Fashion social links: Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram

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The Stages Of The Fashion Branding Process That Decide Your Brand’s Position

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brand colors, brand identity, brand style, branding, corporate kit, fashion, fashion brand, Fashion Branding, Fashion Business, fashion designer, Fuel4Fashion, logo, logo designing, style guide, visual elements

In the world of branding, the terms used to refer to different processes can be confusing and frustratingly similar. So, before we discuss the stages of fashion branding, let’s get the jargon out of the way.

Branding is the umbrella term that refers to the process of coming to a consensus on a brands style, design, and purpose. In a way, branding is a verb, an action item. Brand identity design is the actual use of all of these conclusions to design the logo, decide the type, etc. A brand style is all of these elements like logos and packaging put into action across media, and a style guide or a brand guide is your one-stop reference point for all of these attributes.

Now that that’s understood let us look at the six key stages of the fashion branding process.

1. Who Is Your Business? The ‘who’ is important, because every fashion business represents a distinct personality. Many people confuse this with, “who are you?” and quick ironically end up transferring their own personality to their brands. Branding professionals spend most of their time digging out this aspect- workshops, questionnaires, interviews are all a part of this process. This is also the stage where you define how your fashion brand’s personality aligns with business goals. For example, a house of fashion always puts quality over numbers.

2. Where Is Your Market? In the second stage of the process, you need to understand if your business goals align with who you think your audience is. And for that to happen, you need to know your audience. Market research can be conducted through surveys, interviews with real people, designing consumer personas, etc. Your brand’s design eventually needs to appeal to these people.

3. Designing The Logo. Most branding agencies design the logo before moving on to other visual elements. This is because your fashion brand’s logo has the highest recall value among your audience. A lot of thought, therefore, needs to go into it. Quick example: Think Forest Essentials, Nike, Good Earth. Surely, the logo popped into your mind with no effort involved.

4. Designing The Visual Elements. Using the insights from steps one and two, and using the logo as inspiration, the visual elements are born. For example, think Zara. The typography used to represent the brand is recognizable in almost every language. Likewise, every fashion brand has elements other than the logo, such as what goes on a shopping bag, that help reinforce the brand’s image.

5. The Corporate Kit. Once all these elements are in place, they still need to make sense to a designer, or a production manager. Most branding agencies also help with designing the visiting cards, letterheads, bags, boxes, etc. to depict how the branding elements must be used across different elements. Needless to say, this is also the aspect that most clients look forward to seeing.

6. The Style Guide. This is like the bible of a fashion company’s branding exercise. A style guide is often a very comprehensive document, developed to serve as a future reference. Some branding agencies may pass on the mantle of advertising after a while. In such a case, the style guide helps all stakeholders use all of this material correctly.

As you can see, the first two stages of the branding process can seem like a black box to those just beginning to contemplate branding for their business. This is also why experts come into the picture at these stages- because a keen understanding of the industry and prior experience with niche branding always helps you come to more accurate conclusions.

Overwhelmed? Why not take a look at this article we did on branding secrets to know what you need to, and need not, do?

And as far as branding your fashion business goes, you’re in good hands because

a) We’re fashion branding experts, and can help you make the process seamless. Get in touch at supriya@fuel4fashion.com for a consultation.

b) We’re dedicating the entire month to discussing all things branding and style. So, do drop in your questions, subscribe to the blog, and sign up for our newsletter (businesses, here and students, here) to learn more.

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Supriya Ghurye is the founder and owner of Fuel4Fashion. She is a Freelance Fashion Designer and Brand Consultant helping fashion brands to create great products from idea to launch. Fuel4Fashion social links: Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram

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