If you want to reach your intended target group and increase your conversions on your clothing webshop, marketing is a very good way to do this. It is also largely free to use. So to get more customers and increase customer value, you can use the tips we tell you in this blog. Especially in the fashion industry, these are good to use because this industry is of course quite specific. In this blog, we tell you our best tips to use marketing optimally for your clothing webshop.

Target audience

Before you dive into the marketing section, it is wise to map out your target group. Your target audience is the group of people you want to buy your clothes. For example, when you sell children’s clothing, it is the intention that children will wear these clothes. But here the target group is the parents of the children, and not the children themselves. Or when you sell women’s clothing: then you focus your marketing on women, but within this group, you can specify even further. For example, if you focus on young women between the ages of 20 and 30, the marketing strategy is different than if you focus on an older target group. An older target group has different (online) preferences than a younger one. That is why it is important to first map out your specific target group before you continue to fill in your marketing. What can help with this is creating a persona or multiple personas. This means that you describe a person who you think represents the perfect customer.

Online presence (corporate identity)

The atmosphere in a physical store can have a lot of influence on the customers who walk into the store. Is there hip-top 40 music being played? Then the target group is in all likelihood relatively young. Is the use of color in the store quiet and not striking? Then the store is probably aimed at slightly older people. The same applies to visitors who visit your clothing webshop online, here too atmosphere is of influence. It is nice if your online presence matches the atmosphere of your physical store, if you have it, and if you do not have this, then your online presence remains important. Provide a corporate identity with elements that fit together and ensure that the house style appeals to the target group. When you sell women’s clothing for older ladies, for example, it is illogical to work a lot with trendy bright colors, while this fits in with a younger target group.

Recognisability & reliability

What should come back to the design and your corporate identity is recognisability. As mentioned earlier, it is important that when you have a physical store it matches your online clothing webshop. But even without a physical store, creating recognisability is good for your webshop. When visitors are recognized, trust grows, and reliability is a big factor when people want to make a purchase online. A large part of online shoppers indicates that they are more likely to make a purchase when they trust the webshop. In addition to a recognizable corporate identity, this reliability can also be increased by, for example, showing customer reviews on your webshop. In addition, it also helps when you are transparent in your marketing communications to the customer. For example, if a T-shirt is smaller than normal, tell this in the product description. This way you avoid disappointment and you are honest with your customers.

Social media

It has already been told that a consistent corporate identity and recognisability are important for reaching your target group and staying top of mind with them. This also applies to social media, but this is a different area than your webshop. You have many different social media channels. The most popular in the Netherlands are Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. On all these channels you can promote your clothing webshop well. For example, by posting content where you let the models wear your clothes and tell them what size they are wearing so that visitors know what the clothes look like. If you have a younger target group, you can also use TikTok. On Instagram, you can link products to your posts. In this way, people are immediately redirected to your web shop and you make making purchases easy.

Influencers

The use of influencers is becoming increasingly popular. Influencer marketing means that a person with a lot of reach on social media posts a photo or video in which they promote your clothes. This happens on almost all social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Promoted content can often be recognized by the #spon (which means ‘sponsored’). As a result, people who see the message are aware that the influencer is paid for posting the message. Now you might think that influencers will always say that the product is good because they are paid to wear it. This is often not the case.

When you are looking for an influencer who has a reliable image and is known for his or her honesty, you get the most out of a possible collaboration. For clothing, there are many possibilities for using influencers. For example, sending a few items to an influencer and asking if they want to do an unboxing video on YouTube or you send them an outfit and ask if they want to post a photo with this outfit on social media and then tag your brand.

 

ALSO READ: 3 Reasons Why Buying Clothes Abroad Is Better

 

SEO & SEA

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEA stands for Search Engine Advertising. Actually, they are ways to score high for free or paid on Google. Optimizing these parts can ensure that, for example, if people search for ‘flowered summer dress’ on Google, your webshop will be at the top of the list. For SEO, there are many things you can do that will help increase your ranking in the search engine like building 백링크 (backlinks). It’s important to start with keyword research. Think about which words you want to be found on. Keep in mind that a term like ‘summer dress’ is very common and you probably have a lot of competition. For example, on ‘flowered summer dress’ the competition will already be a lot less. So be specific.

For SEA, you can advertise on the keywords you have drawn up. By advertising, you are often guaranteed a higher position Please note that there is the green block ‘ad’ in the search overview so that people can see that it is an advertisement. You can also advertise visually by using banners. For the SEO part, there are many things you can do on your webshop yourself, such as having the keywords come back in your texts or linking internally to pages on your webshop.

Measuring your performance

When you use SEO and SEA or use social media a lot, it is useful to occasionally take a look at what the results are. When you integrate your webshop with Google Analytics, you can create many reports here in which relevant information can be found. Such as through which channel do people most often come to your webshop? Or which click path do people go through the most before they make a purchase? In this way, you gain insight into the road that your customer travels and you may notice that some parts of your webshop are experienced as thresholds by your customers. With this, you can then get started to optimize your webshop and hopefully also increase the conversions. On social media, you can ask your customers’ opinions by asking them a question or conducting polls. With this feedback, you measure how people experience your webshop and you can also implement optimizations based on this.

Size guide

Many online clothing shoppers indicate that they attach great value to a size guide. A size guide is not only nice for your customers but also for you as a webshop owner because this is a good way to reduce or even prevent returns. As mentioned earlier, being honest about, for example, the sizes and how they fall is nice for the customers. This also applies to a size guide. This can be used in different ways. You can individually indicate how each product falls in different sizes, but you can also show a general size guide. By means of a general size guide, you create a kind of filter where people can, for example, enter the centimeters so that they automatically filter on their size. You will then be able to upload this yourself to your webshop.

Packaging

Unboxing experiences are increasingly shared on social media when they are surprising or beautifully formatted. This is one reason why packaging is important for the customer experience. For example, when you sell beachwear, it is nice to make sure that the paper in which you put the clothes gives colors that match a beach and, for example, to put a few shells in the box. In addition, people always like it when they get something ‘free’. These can be the smallest things, for example, a small bracelet or a discount voucher of, for example, 5% or 10% off your next order. This increases customer loyalty because it is more likely that these customers will return to your webshop for their next purchase.

Recognisability is also a component that influences the unboxing experience because when it matches the house style of your store or webshop people recognize this and this sticks. What is also nice to add to your packaging is a business card with the most important information. If you want people to share your packaging on social media, come up with a # that fits your brand and put it on that business card. When people post something on social media and use the hashtag or tag you, you can share it on your own social media. This promotes customer loyalty and gives you fun new content.