Everyday hundred and thousands of new clothing line starts. But all of them do not remain in run. Alike any business, there is no short-cut of success in clothing business.
However, there are best practices and pieces of advise following which one can achieve new height of success in this business. Apparel business is very competitive. It requires lot of patience, perseverance and strategic approach to make a clothing label success. Here we share few points with the best of experience and hope it will be the success mantra for your line regardless the geography you operate in.
#01. Lack of Marketing and Promotion
Clothing business is like a show business. You have to create an aura behind your label. You need to create an emotional appeal around your clothing line. And that will happen only if you do good marketing and promotion. As many will tell you, good marketing and promotion can sell anything. If you have a clothing line and want to succeed be sure you have a budget to get product placement as well as have a budget for advertisements and promotion services. If you have the funding, try to sponsor events that cater to your clothing line′s target audience. Increase visibility of your clothing line name and logo. Popular celebrity endorsements do help brands sell better, especially overseas. Take advantage of legitimate situations, which give a chance to relate your clothing to a celebrity of any nature. Within the realm of marketing and promotion, press is included. Your clothing line can be grow faster than others simply by having an active press release / public relations team working with your clothing line. I once read that one press release per week for one quarter (3 months) is a proper start for a business in general. You need to actively pursue relationships with fashion, sneaker, and other trendy web sites and blogs that can help establish your clothing line and increase to your web site. Create social media pages for your label and remain active. At least one post daily is mandatory.
#02. Differentiate Or Die
Your label has to be distinctive. It should carry some story, appeal and persuasion. It should be taken as ‘just another label’ in the market. And how will you make all this? Through creativity, brand communication message and legendary customer services. A clothing line designer should be creative, keen to the target audience, and not afraid to try something new. If you want to create a knock-off clothing line, honestly you do not need to learn how to create a clothing line, you just need to build ties to stores that will sell the ′junk′ you are putting out.
#03. Absence of Virtual Infrastructure
Your presence in cyber space is your virtual infrastructure. This is the most common mistake of clothing lines is not having the proper web presence. A new clothing line must have a web site to be successful today. It does not matter who is backing the clothing line, how much money is behind a clothing line, or how hot the clothing line is. A clothing line without a web site today is missing out on all the advantages of controlling the attention of their target audience. The youth of the information era, or current day society, are always browsing things on-line and a good SEO plan and web site layout can help you pick up store accounts and direct consumers for no-hassle clothing sales. Content on your clothing label′s web site will help with the viral spread of your brand. Utilize free, self-publishing sites such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and others that can raise your clothing line′s visibility. Viral spread content is an easy, free, yet great way to market your clothing line.
#04. Not Choosing Right Clothing Manufacturer
Offshore clothing manufacturer may seem like a good option, but it is not that easy to find the right one for your Private Label Clothing. If you don’t have buying power don’t expect special treatment. They see a thousand of you every day. However, there are a ton of great independent manufacturers out there you can source from; but it takes time to find them. Get to know the operation before engaging in any transaction. Always try to find someone at the other end that is trustworthy and working on your behalf.
It’s worthwhile to mention - Billoomi Fashion is India’s leading private label clothing manufacturer and carrying rich history of working with many start-up as well as established clothing labels. The company is a full service unit which works right from scratch to pattern making to sourcing to sample development to production of your designs to door-step delivery across the globe. For more information, please explore: www.billoomifashion.com
#05. Not Learning From Mistakes
Mistakes are inevitable! The best is that you learn from mistakes. And not repeating the same mistakes again and again. Alike in every business, you need to keep your eyes and ear open. Taking feedback, testimonials and user experience in scheduled manner can give you a great insight which is mandatory for in fact every business. The internet has done great things for business and connected us globally. It has also given people a keyboard to hide behind. As your brand grows you will almost certainly end up dealing with people criticizing your vision, an upset customer defaming you online or general trolls looking for a reaction. It can feel horrible when someone tries to attack something you have worked so hard on but you need to develop thick skin and brush it off. Don’t let someone who is upset in their own life and had the time of day to get online and anonymously attack you get you down or make you give up on your goals. Hence the best is, you remain calm in all situation and learn from every mistakes / feedback and not only taking lessons but also keep improving your strategy and approach.
Last but not least, How to start a clothing line is not an easy question to answer but with above points, it will help you and your clothing label to grow.