In the film The Devil Wears Prada, icy cool fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) declaims her views on the merits of cerulean, one of many shades of blue. She could, of course, have simply said “blue,” but that wouldn’t have captured the panache that’s essential to successful fashion marketing.
Fashion marketing is intricate. It can set trends and influence the masses—it can distinguish blue from cerulean. Learn how fashion marketing works, and how to direct the attention of consumers to the unique merits of your fashion brand.
What is fashion marketing?
Fashion marketing is a subset of marketing related to the fashion industry—it’s the process of promoting a fashion brand or retailer and selling fashion items, like clothing, accessories, and footwear. It concerns product sales, company profitability, and creating a compelling brand image.
Clothing brands and fashion companies use many of the same marketing strategies as other industries, often involving a combination of traditional and digital marketing techniques tailored to the fashion industry’s unique needs and consumer behaviors. Digital efforts include email marketing campaigns, social media marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO) strategies; traditional techniques include print advertising placements, brand activation events, and personal selling.
Fashion marketing isn’t just one job—there are various roles within the industry. Fashion marketers’ jobs can include everything from content creation to market research. Marketing team members work together to drive sales and support fashion business goals.
Fashion marketing vs. fashion merchandising
Although fashion marketing and fashion merchandising overlap, they’re different in a few key ways. Both involve identifying the needs of a fashion brand’s target audience.
Fashion merchandising does this by sourcing and purchasing products, planning for upcoming seasons and trends, and selling products (whether in-store or online).
Fashion marketing is all about promoting those products. Fashion marketers capture the attention of potential customers via ad campaigns, events, PR, and promotions.
Fashion marketing skills
Whether you work for a local brick-and-mortar boutique or an international fashion ecommerce brand, the following competencies apply to the wide variety of fashion marketing roles:
Trend awareness
Understanding new trends is one of the most important aspects of working in fashion. Even though marketers don’t design apparel, keeping up with pop culture and fashion trends can help you understand the competitive landscape and create culturally relevant marketing materials.
Trend awareness might involve watching prominent runway shows or following street-style photographers on social media platforms. Marketers aren’t just concerned with current trends, they also try to stay ahead of the curve by trend forecasting.
Research skills
Research is the foundation of a solid marketing strategy in any industry. Market research provides data about consumers and competitors. Reports may include demographic insights, information about where potential customers shop, and competitor engagement rates. Members of the marketing team may use this data to help inform everything from pricing strategies to campaign design.
Creativity
There are plenty of fashion products available on the market—marketing teams convince consumers that their brand’s items are the best choice. Creative thinking can help fashion brands break through in the crowded fashion market. Developing visually striking, memorable campaigns that excite customers while remaining true to brand values often requires a motivated creative mind.
Hard skills
Fashion marketing isn’t all about the latest trends. In addition to an interest in fashion, you need to be familiar with the business side of online marketing. This includes setting goals, managing budgets, and tracking campaign performance.
This may involve developing and monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) and managing marketing budgets. To assess the results of your marketing efforts, use reporting features in tools like Google Analytics, Google AdWords, search engine optimization (SEO), and email marketing tools.
Interpersonal skills
Building relationships and working well with others is an advantage in any field. In fashion, marketing teams often bridge the gap between creative teams and company management. These divisions rely on marketers to help them achieve their goals, whether profitability or creative expression.
The ability to work well with various personalities may make it easier to balance these demands and develop fashion marketing strategies that keep both teams happy.
Tips for fashion marketing
The ultimate goal of fashion marketing is to promote profitability. Marketing team members work together to create demand for their products and drive sales. Here are general principles for creating compelling campaigns:
Understand your brand
Recognition and brand loyalty are prized in the marketing world, and your team can work toward those goals by crafting marketing materials and campaigns with an evident, distinctive personality.
Think about your product and its intended use: Do you make expensive, elaborate gowns or rugged leather streetwear? Create campaigns that reflect your brand’s unique identity. You can use brand archetypes and style guides to shape your messaging and create a consistent public image.
Know your customers
Who is buying your clothes? Consider how your customers see themselves and how your product contributes to their identity. Conducting or studying consumer research can help you develop messaging that connects with buyers emotionally. Your target customer can inspire your creative messaging and delivery. Copywriters and designers focus on creating content that sells a specific image.
Once you develop a strong marketing campaign, ensure it reaches your target audience. Certain demographics may be more active at specific times or on different platforms. For example, if data reveals that your audience loves to shop online and is primarily based on the US West Coast, you might choose to schedule emails so that they are delivered during the prime shopping hours in that region.
Collaborate
As a marketer, you’re responsible for designing campaigns that represent the brand accurately and motivate customers to purchase. Collaborating with other departments can help you understand company priorities and develop effective marketing materials.
Imagine that your company launches a new line of pineapple-printed resort wear. After speaking with the designers, you learn that this collection was inspired by the founder’s childhood on a pineapple farm.
You could use this information to create a marketing campaign that tells the story behind the designs. If the sales team tells you that customer acquisition is a priority, you could choose to direct these materials toward new customers using ad targeting and paid social media placements.
Fashion marketing FAQ
What does fashion marketing involve?
Fashion marketing involves developing and executing campaigns to promote sales. Fashion marketers use digital marketing techniques, such as email marketing and search engine optimization, and other brand-building strategies, like coordinating events and placing ads in fashion magazines.
How big is the global fashion industry?
For the global fashion industry, revenue is predicted to reach $670.9 billion in 2024, growing at over 9% annually until 2029. Thanks to these trends, large brands and fashion retailers continue to employ marketing managers, social media marketers, public relations specialists, brand managers, and event planners to help expand their market share.
What are the challenges of marketing fashion products?
Marketing fashion products can be difficult due to market saturation and entrenchment of global brands—especially those that sell products made in countries where labor is cheap. Fashion marketers can compete by focusing on a clearly defined target audience, developing a unique value proposition, and offering something no other competitor provides.
