MARKETING Archives | FASHION CROSS FUNCTIONAL

July 5, 2016

MARKETING: The Basics Of Your Fashion Brand Marketing Strategy

Hi Guys,
Start writing your marketing strategy by positioning your brand.
Where would you be?

This step is key since your whole strategy (the quality of your products, your collection, your price points, your promotion and your distribution) will depend on your positioning.
Remember our last article regarding Haute couture, before putting your brand in this category.
So choose well!

Credit: Photo by fervent-adepte-de-la-mode edita_v-md-5

*******************************************************
How to define a proper marketing strategy to raise capital for your fashion brand?
Find more tools to help you through your fashion business plan, with the number one FXF guide. “The Fashion Business Plan” by Bako Rambini is available on Amazon.

*******************************************************
To receive more sales & marketing related articles as well as fashion designer tools, follow us

June 14, 2016

MARKETING: Criteria To Check Before Calling Yourself A Haute Couture Brand

Hi guys,

today we are going to address a rather sensitive area. Nothing makes me loose interest faster in a brand than when I read its description self-labelling itself as a Haute Couture brand.
I know how tricky it is to find your own brand segment. But you should be careful with the Haute Couture label and here’s why.
1. Haute Couture is a highly protected and strictly regulated label
The Haute Couture label is protected by law. The label is regulated by the chambre syndicale de la haute couture. Each year, it determines which fashion houses are eligible to be true haute couture houses. Their rules state that only those companies mentioned on the list drawn up each year by a commission domiciled at the Ministry for Industry are entitled to avail themselves of the label haute couture.
Then they invite guests to showcase their designs. Those are designated as Couture houses.

So if you have not been officially granted the Haute Couture label for the ongoing year, you cannot use the Haute Couture to label your designs.
2. In practice, several criteria and signs enable to recognize a Haute Couture label
Naturally, Haute Couture is not just an empty label. There are actual features like uniqueness, rarity, exclusive quality just to name a few.
In her book called “Couture Sewing Techniques”, Claire B. Shaeffer listed a few signs that differentiate Haute Couture from for example high-end ready-to-wear.

Photo credit: shakko – Eigenes Werk – CC BY-SA 3.0

*******************************************************

How to position your fashion brand?

Find more tools to help you through your fashion business plan, with the number one FXF guide. “The Fashion Business Plan” by Bako Rambini is available on Amazon.

*******************************************************
To receive more sales & marketing related articles as well as fashion designer tools, follow us

June 7, 2016

MARKETING: How Can A Small Fashion Brand Best Define Its Marketing Strategy?

Hi Guys,
We know how being a small brand competing can feel challenging sometimes. You have the impression to compete against giants who have all the means to launch the campaign you can’t have to sell the clothes in the boutiques you don’t have. So you end up focusing on all the things you can’t or don’t have.

And what if you focused on what you actually have?
Because as an independant small brand, you have a voice and unlike many large brands that will be tied by policies and money at stake, you have the entire freedom to express it and translate it into something different and exclusive.
To help you think about your marketing strategy, here is an extract of an interview of Karan Khurana from The Fashion Business Plan by Bako Rambini.

What makes you unique?

In spite of the ever increasing share of fast fashion in the pyramid of segmentation I believe that there will always be space for small fashion brands which have very strong reason to sell. In the last decade we saw that brands with sustainability as a tagline got substantial share in the fashion market. The consumer began to buy more sustainable brands instead of fast fashion ones. This is an example which highlights a very old marketing strategy of developing a Unique Selling Preposition (USP) in terms of the 4P`s (Product, price, place, Promotion). For a small brand this could be a very competitive advantage as when the marketplace gets crowded with repetitive product there’s always a niche consumer market looking for variety, novelty and most essentially a meaning attached to a product. A USP immediately helps a brand to develop differentiating features then other and hence a brand identity. In many cases it’s observed that consumer gets attached to a small brand and even pays a premium price. To elaborate a little more here the luxury brands of today were the small ethnic brands of yesterday such as Hermes, France or Bvlgari, Italy started off with very small but products of very intricate design detailing which became their USP and are bestsellers as they have maintained it over generations.
Get inspiration from other consumer brands
In order to develop a winning market strategy small fashion brands should keep a very close watch at other consumer brands such as electronics or may be any range of fast moving consumer goods companies such as Unilever or P&G. These companies keep on trying and testing on various USP`s and you shall be surprised to know that many of such experiments fail miserably but at the end it keeps the brands moving in the market place and secures a place in the mind of the consumer which is also a big challenge in the huge market sphere for a small brand.

Source/Photo credit: Anja Rubik & Iselin Steiro, Hermes FW 2006 fervent-adepte-de-la-mode – Creative Commons

*******************************************************

How to define a proper marketing strategy to raise capital for your fashion brand?

Find more tools to help you through your fashion business plan, with the number one FXF guide. “The Fashion Business Plan” by Bako Rambini is available on Amazon.

*******************************************************
To receive more sales & marketing related articles as well as fashion designer tools, follow us

April 6, 2016

MARKETING : 7 secrets to sell luxury pieces

Hi all,
after exchanging with a few customers who explained to me their strategy to get into the luxury market, I thought it would be good to write another article with a few key elements that work for that segment.
Let’s assume your product is good enough to make the cut of the luxury standards. The whole environment you create around your brand needs to perpetuate uniqueness, timelessness, excellence; exclusiveness. Your marketing strategy should create a proper atmosphere and deliver the necessary attitude to sell in this segment.

Here are a few tips you can think of, from “The Luxury Strategy” by J.N. Kapferer and V. Bastien:

Be unique – as usual, my number one advice says to create a unique identity and make a bald fashion statement about who you are as a brand. As for your strategy, do not copy what other brands do. Make the necessary adjustments to tailor your strategy to serve your vision: always be faithful to your brand identity.
Find the flaw that adds character to your brand – of course, impeccable craft and excellence are obviously expected when buying a luxury piece. However, if you can think of small flaw that can be explained by the way your craft or your brand story, assume it and like for luxury watches that lose two minutes every year, make a charming trait out of it as well as a way to guarantee your piece’s authenticity.
Stick to your target customer – since luxury fashion is all about being exclusive, you don’t chase clients so you won’t redesign your pieces in order to make them relevant for other customers. Be faithful to your vision and let people come to you.
Resist the demand – when you sell a limited edition, actually limit the number of products. Luxury is about uniqueness and exclusiveness : do not try to make volumes. Follow what Hermes CEO once stated: “When a product sells too much we stop producing it,”.
You distribute rarity: make your brand desirable – the perfect craft takes time. Make your customers wait for their product.
When advertizing, show a dream vision – advertizing is another means to talk about your creative vision and set up your ideal environment. Luxury advertizing is not about selling, it’s about pursuing a dream.
Have a part of your product handmade – use a traditional craft that is maybe passed on from a generation to another and have it made by hand and look exceptional, even if we are speaking about a small part of the product.

So when you enter the luxury segment, besides serving your brand vision, the decisions you make need to help your line sell excellence while being unique, timeless and exclusive.

*******************************************************

Did you find this article interesting?

Find more tools to help you with your fashion business in the number one FXF guide. “The Fashion Business Plan” by Bako Rambini is available on Amazon.

*******************************************************

To receive more fashion sales and marketing articles and fashion designer tools, follow us