The Guide to Fashion Content Strategy

The fashion and retail industry have gone through major upheavals over the past few years. From the shift to digital shopping, the rise of direct-to-consumer brands, and the impacts of Covid-19, the way people shop and engage with fashion brands is radically different than it was even 5 years prior. 

Many fashion brands have been quick to move towards this agile adoption of ecommerce, web content, and social media presence. As such, it’s given rise to a crowded marketplace with influencers, fashion lovers, and digital content that can sometimes feel oversaturated. 

But today’s consumers are smart and informed and therefore, look for genuine brands that put out engaging content. Regardless of your company’s industry, whether it’s children’s clothes, jewelry, luxury fashion, or leather goods, it takes a refined marketing strategy and utilization of various content forms to market your products effectively. 

In order to see increased reach and sustained growth, you need to stand out from the crowd. That’s where content marketing comes in. 

Content marketing for fashion brands is essential for both sharing your unique vision and showcasing your products. The verbal and visual content you put out into the digital world shapes the tone of your company and therefore, should be emotive, personal, and engaging.

But not all content marketing strategies are created equal. Fashion content marketing will greatly differ from how you’d market consumer goods or everyday products. However, it’s important to strike a balance between marketing strategies that chase the consumer (ie social media, paid ads, etc) while maintaining an elevated appeal to consumers. 

Not sure where to begin? In this article we’ll cover the fundamentals of fashion brand content  marketing and how that relates to your company, including:

In this article we will cover:

• Content Marketing For Fashion Brands
• Why Use Fashion Content Marketing?
• Best Fashion Content Types
• Content Ideas For Fashion Brands
• Fashion Content Marketing Agency

What Is Content Marketing For Fashion Brands?

Content marketing, at its most fundamental level, is the practice of telling a story that inspires an audience. That story can be told through videos, animations, blogs, social media posts, or ads. Think about it like this: prior to the internet, most brands relied on portfolios, billboards, or newspaper ads to communicate their work and vision. Content marketing in the current landscape is merely an extension of this practice but with the potential to reach a much wider and more detailed audience.

When using content the right way, this method opens up the opportunities for connecting with current and potential clients on a more personal level. However, it’s important to note that you don’t necessarily need to create content in every different medium on every platform available. 

It’s important to first set your target audience and understand where they spend their time. An upscale men’s fashion line for instance, might not see tons of return on creating TikTok videos whereas Instagram posts or guest blog posts might better suit your target demographic.

General marketing strategies often utilize several effective methods like SEO, social media, paid ads, or email marketing to attract a large audience. When it comes to fashion content marketing, the trick is to find a way to employ these marketing principles while simultaneously crafting an elevated story and telling it in new and unique ways.

Why Use Fashion Content Marketing?

Content marketing is key to both promoting your company and establishing brand awareness. While it requires expert planning and slightly time-consuming execution, the benefit is that to potential customers, this kind of marketing doesn’t come off as aggressive. 

Instead, when done correctly, fashion content marketing creates a means of building trust with your audience. It gives you the space and time to showcase your credibility, your strengths, the tone of your brand, and your products before ever trying to sell. In this sense, it becomes a much more authentic means of connecting and communicating with your target audience. In fact, studies have shown that companies which deploy content marketing strategies can generate 8x more traffic than businesses that don’t. 

This is especially important for fashion brands as you want to remain as unique and exclusive as possible without appearing that you’re “trying too hard.” One of the key characteristics of fashion content marketing is curating an experience. It’s less about telling or even showing, but rather, encapsulating a customer in the feeling and experience of your product or design. 

Think about a perfume commercial. The 30 second ad rarely mentions the actual scent. The ad doesn’t spend time explaining each ingredient or the smell of the top notes. Instead, these commercials are often pure fantasy. They highlight a party, a vacation, a romantic moment. They immerse the viewer in a specific place and even better, a visceral emotion. 

Fashion content marketing is less about highlighting the exact details of garment, and more about curating an immersive experience that tells a story. 

If your product’s emotion and story is executed correctly, your consumer should feel powerful when they are on your website, reading your blog, or watching your campaign video. 

Emotion is at the heart of the story in every marketing activity. For example, what does owning this product offer? Power, love, status, consciousness? In this way, customers will want to buy into the lifestyle they associate with your product, which is a much more lasting consumer connection than simply selling a physical object.

Best Fashion Content Types

SEO

When it comes to understanding Search Engine Optimization (SEO), many people mistakenly think it means simply tossing a few Google-friendly keywords onto a page. Even worse, throwing out numerous keywords (also known as keyword stuffing) at the bottom of each webpage. These types of practices are more likely to penalize your website. Truly effective SEO is much more nuanced. Since algorithms are always changing, SEO is an ever-evolving practice. 

While SEO content should be flexible, it’s important that you add search engine friendly copy on your site’s cornerstone pages and blog posts in order to improve your organic search rankings. Finding the right keywords is where things can get tricky. With keyword research, we can identify which search terms people are using to find products/services related to your company, how often they are using those search terms, and how difficult it will be to rank for those terms.

However, in order to see genuine reach you need to have a defined target audience and niche. For example, rather than using a keyword like “cotton sweatpants” it will be much more effective to use a keyword like “eco-friendly cotton sweatpants online.” 

When it comes to marketing fashion brands, it’s important to utilize SEO by understanding exactly who your audience is. The best way to do this is to create customer personas. Identifying personas is a way to get a detailed description of your ideal customer. It includes their age, job, income, demographics, online habits, hobbies, interests, and more. 

Essentially, creating a detailed buyer persona will help you understand where and who your customers are which enables you to craft a more effective marketing plan that specifically targets these people. For example one of your main buyers might be an older asian woman who earns over $200,000 a year, cares about status, loves to travel, has a graduate degree, spends 47% of her shopping time via desktop, and explores clothing primarily through search engines and ads. 

Once you identify these types of primary personas you can better craft a marketing strategy to target this audience in the best way, using the best SEO strategy for them.

Learn more about How To Create Quality SEO Content.

Videos

Similar to SEO, video-based content can help you achieve higher organic rankings. The benefit to videos is that they can work well through both traditional search engines like Google, but also through video search engines like YouTube.  

Videos are also quickly becoming the go-to medium for content. Many social media platforms, especially Instagram, are prioritizing video content via Reels, IGTV, and Instagram stories. The benefit to this, as an example, is that now the content you create for YouTube can be repurposed for social media, digital ads, and for your website. 

A brand’s visual identity is integral to a brand’s success and exceptional video content will set you apart from competitors. Having inspiring visuals with a consistent tone creates a seamless experience for your customers that exudes a subconscious feeling of connection and assurance. Every video, whatever length, should give the viewer a sense of what your fashion brand is all about and inspire them to live within the visual world you’ve created.

Copywriting

Copywriting is an essential element to both building and marketing your brand. Sure anyone can put a few words down on a page, but the art of copywriting combines the ability to generate traffic with the power of creating an emotional connection with your customers.

Storytelling should be at the forefront of any content marketing strategy. As opposed to mass-market brands, fashion messaging should be elevated and emotional, and immerse consumers in a different world. 

The first question to ask yourself is Why: why is your brand unique? Why is your brand different from competitors? Then you want to explain these why’s to consumers in a way that’s both genuine and engaging yet still aspirational. Regardless of the story you tell, the intention should remain the same. To create emotional connections with consumers and maintain brand equity. 

Good copy serves multiple purposes. It supports your SEO strategy, encourages sales, inspires calls to action, and establishes your social media presence. It also helps cement your brand identity, highlights your strengths, and tells your unique story. You can utilize this type of content through things like blogs, product and service descriptions, email newsletters, and social media posts and campaigns.

Learn all about how Web Content Copywriting Transforms The User Experience.

Social Media

Highly visual mediums, like social media platforms, are the perfect avenue to convey your aesthetic and inspire potential customers by marketing your brand. This doesn’t just mean posting a photo to instagram, anyone can do that. Instead, fashion content marketing via social media should be visually appealing, informative, and valuable. 

The first thing to nail down is the purpose of your social media presence, do you want to use it as a portfolio for your luxury designs? Educate them on your product lines? Once you understand the ‘why’ behind it, you can better implement a social media strategy which will in turn, impact the kind of content you create.

Check out How To Create Quality Content For Instagram to gain more insight.

User-Generated/Influencer Content

Speaking of social media, a huge advantage for many fashion brands is the ability to utilize user-generated content. Whether you want to venture into the world of influencer marketing or simply encourage customers to use a hashtag, you can use the images and videos of others on your website, social media, emails, and more. Not only does this practice further your reach, but creates a better sense of authenticity and relatability by using real customers.

Content Ideas For Fashion Brands

Creating meaningful content is at the very heart of any marketing strategy. Not sure where to begin? Here are a few quick ideas for creating engaging and informative fashion content for your audience.

• Images or videos of your work with context for each project
• User-generated content
• Email newsletters
• Guide on how to style your designs 
• Behind the scenes of your campaigns 
• Partner with influencers/leaders in your industry
• Social media ad campaigns 
• Blogs with inside looks at your products and world
• The making of a product
• The inspiration behind a pattern, print, or product
• Survey your audience
• Social media posts that drive visitors to your website
• Segmented Pinterest boards
• Product tutorials
• Share infographics and illustrations
• Videos tours of recent designs/projects 

Fashion Content Marketing Agency

Each of these different marketing strategies require a combination of expert know-how and a little bit of wizardry. Depending on your brand, not all these avenues may be the right fit and many will need to be tailored to your specific audience, product, and location. That’s why it’s helpful to find a knowledgeable partner to take marketing your luxury brand off your to-do list.

Hiring a professional content marketing agency is a smart way to create a plan of action that suits your goals, desires, and most importantly, your budget. Plus, their expert know-how and software will likely produce ideas you never even thought of.

Ready for someone to tackle all your fashion content marketing needs? We’re happy to take it from here. Contact ThoughtLab today for a free consultation and let’s tell your story the right way, together.