Are you a new apparel store owner looking for ways to scale your startup organically? Content marketing, when done right, can give you a great heads up in your eCommerce startup journey.
With the appalling amount of competition present today in the online apparel world, it’s imperative to adopt marketing strategies that would lay a sustainable foundation for your eCommerce business’ journey ahead. According to Google, more than 55% of customer purchase journeys begin via a Google search. This is why content marketing can be a super-powerful marketing strategy to scale your newly found apparel business.
Let’s look at some effective and actionable content marketing hacks that can help you scale your online apparel startup.
1. Curate and Share Latest Fashion Trends
Trends are the most effective and fastest way to drive massive engagement amongst your audience. Everyone wants to stay updated with fashion trends, hence creating content based on the latest trends can be very beneficial for your brand’s reach.
Unfortunately, many online apparel startups end up making the mistake of creating lookbooks, blog posts and curating social media content that they think their users would like. Guessing what you think your audience will like is a risky business, especially when you are starting out.
For fashion startups, the safest way to scale their business organically is to stick to content that is trending. Here’s what you can do:
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- Do extensive research on top brands and influencers in your sub-niche. For example, if your store is about winter clothes, then you can research top brands and influencers who are the most popular in creating trends related to winter clothes.
- Next, brainstorm and come up with ideas for content such as blog posts, look books, videos, and other types of social media content that can feature your content.
- Create a content plan and put out content based on your ideas on all possible platforms.
- And lastly, it is super important to promote your content using strategies such as SEO, social media marketing, email marketing, paid advertising campaigns, and similar more. Remember to use the right hashtags while posting content on social media platforms to gain more followers.
2. Leverage User Generated Content
Using user-generated content can be a brilliant content marketing strategy because you are essentially using content generated by users – something that can seldom go wrong.
Although user-generated content seems like a no brainer, not every online fashion startup seems to adopt this strategy, probably because it’s not every brand’s cup of tea. Planning your user-generated content marketing campaign requires strategic planning and careful implementation to make it a success.
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- Create a hashtag and a hook to use for your user-generated content campaigns. Ensure that these are captivating, engaging, and create curiosity amongst users who are unfamiliar with your brand.
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- Go all-in on promoting your campaign along with hashtags on your website and all social media profiles. Encourage users to post content along with your hashtags while wearing your products.
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- Shine the spotlight on these users and feature them on your website and social media channels. Make them feel special and valued.
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A perfect example of effective use of user-generated content strategy would be Barts, a Dutch fashion brand, that increased their conversion rates by 9.19% and average order value by 20.49% using user-generated content!
A successful user-generated content strategy can increase your brand’s popularity, create a great social media community of loyal customers, understand your audiences’ needs better, and help you quickly scale up your fashion startup.
3. Rope in Top Influencers
Roping in top fashion influencers to create content for your online apparel startup can lead to massive improvements in your business’ growth. The power of influencers, especially in the fashion industry, is huge. Most fashion influencers have a massive following on social media platforms such as Instagram. Hence, just one piece of content on these influencers’ social media can completely transform your brand.
You can either invest in top influencers in the fashion industry, in which case you would have to invest in a sponsorship fee. Or, if you are tight on budget, you even can try to rope in influencers with small to medium-sized followings.
4. Prioritize SEO
Search Engine Optimization or SEO refers to the process of optimizing your website to drive higher quantity and quality organic traffic. SEO is a huge umbrella topic that consists of many smaller strategies on both your website and also outside your website.
As mentioned earlier in this article, the majority of buyer journeys begin from a simple Google search. By implementing SEO the right way, over time you’ll be able to rank on the first page of Google when users search for terms related to your eCommerce store.
The first and foremost thing you must do is create a blog for your store. This is because not all buyers will search on Google with purchase intent. Instead, they will most likely search for content related to their interests and eventually end up making a purchase from you.
For example, when users search for “autumn 2020 trends for women in Sydney” on Google, through SEO you can rank your blog posts related to falling 2021 trends. This way, your potential buyers will discover your brand and are likely to make a purchase from your store.
SEO is a vast umbrella topic consisting of many strategies that can be implemented such as keyword research, competitor analysis, on-page optimization, link building, guest blogging, and many more.
Over time all these strategies will improve your rankings in Google and you’ll start getting more and more visitors through Google. Because of its vastness, creating SEO content might seem overwhelming, hence you can consider hiring an SEO services agency to build a strong foundation for your brand.
Wrapping it Up
To sum it up, creating consistent, high-quality, and trendy content on all the platforms where your target audience is likely to hang out is the best possible way to scale your online apparel startup from scratch to a popular brand.
Do not shy away from making wise, strategic investments in content marketing strategies such as influencer tie-ups, SEO services, and more. In due time you’ll stand out amongst your competitors and emerge as a popular online apparel brand.