MARKETING STRATEGY-Why Instagram and Facebook should be a part of your Marketing Strategy.

MARKETING STRATEGY-Why Instagram and Facebook should be a part of your Marketing Strategy.

In ⁣the very competitive fashion industry, a good Marketing Strategy is what sets you apart from the pack especially with the advent of numerous marketing means.

It is very easy to get caught up in what other brands are doing but the truth is one cannot do it all. As a business owner, you can’t explore all the marketing strategies at once, you need to decide which one works best for you, as result, channel your effort into it.

We have found that one of the fastest and easiest ways to make your mark is with Facebook & Instagram Ads. ⠀

# Brand Awareness

When done correctly, it gets your product in front of your ideal audience so they become aware of your brand. They purchase your products and ultimately turn into brand ambassadors.⠀Hence it increases Brand Awareness.

# Increase Sales

Not only can it improve brand presence, but it can also increase sales, easily tracked, and more importantly, can help you determine if you are using the appropriate strategy.

# Active Users

As of the fourth quarter of 2020, Facebook has about  2.8 billion monthly active users. The bottom line, your potential customers are already active and engaged on both platforms. You just need the right strategy to  reach them

Lastly, you can choose your advertising budget, choose your audiences, add shoppable links/call to action and track the performance of your ads.⠀

In a nutshell, Facebook & Instagram Ads have the power to transform your business into a powerhouse. Both can generate a lot more than you can imagine if done correctly.⠀You can delve into the endless opportunities of Facebook and Instagram Ads and have a successful result.

Have you been able to  Develop your Unique Selling Proposition? Found your marketing strategy? Do you utilize Facebook & Instagram Ads for your business? What have your results been like? Let’s discuss….⠀

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3 Things you need to know before starting the Business Of Fashion

3 Things you need to know before starting the Business Of Fashion

An overwhelming number of startup fashion businesses fail after they get started simply because they failed to figure out some basic things required to run the business successfully.⠀

In the last few years, South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria have become the hubs of startup establishment. According to the Venture Capital Report of 2019 by WeeTracker, Nigeria has the maximum score of Venture Capital followed by Kenya and South Africa.

However, in terms of trends, Nigeria has experienced more startup business shutdowns at 61.05%, Kenya at 58.73%, and South Africa at 54.39%.

According to the data from the US Bureau of Labour Statistics, 20% of small businesses fail in the first year, 30% in the second year, 50% in the fifth year while 70% fail within the first ten years. These statistics show that there is an increase in the failure rate hence it is a global concern.

Your business does not have to be on the list of the failed business.

 
Here are 3 things you need to know before you start the Business of Fashion;

 

⠀1. Know Your Niche Well

Firstly, you need to determine the niche you want to focus on in the Business of Fashion and avoid pivoting frequently. This will help you establish your brand and be known as an authority in that area. For instance, if you’re launching a plus-sized women’s wear brand or Corporate Clothing Retail, focus on selling those items only.

 

2. Identify Your Target Audience

Many fashion brand startups fail because they do not know their target market.  This article on How to define your target market explains what you need to do before starting.⠀

A successful fashion business requires an understanding of one's target market.

Avoid making this mistake. Research your target customers’ social, financial, educational, and other backgrounds. This will help you deliver the choice and needs of your customers. For example, if you identify pregnant women as your target consumers, then you should create fashion items as per their choice of colors, trends, comfort, etc.

 

 3. Know What It’ll Cost

Lack of funding is surely one of the reasons many businesses fail without realizing their full potential. In order to avoid such a situation when starting out, have a realistic budget of how much money you need to set up and run your business. After you have your budget ready, work on getting a significant portion of it ready.⠀This article on important costs to plan for will surely help you.

Starting a Fashion business

Starting any kind of business requires tenacity, endurance, and dedication. Setting up the business of fashion is all the more challenging because this is a hyper-competitive industry and a very complex one as well even at the smallest of scales that’s why you need to be prepared from day one.⠀

What are your thoughts?…. Let’s discuss …⠀

P.S.

Do you know we offer Online Courses in Sewing and Patternmaking, Pattern-making only, Sewing Techniques for Perfect Finishing, Origami Patternmaking and so much more?  And you can register anywhere in the world! ⠀⠀

Check out our Online Courses Here: https://martwayne.com/online-fashion-courses/

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Fashion Business Ideas – Fabric Shopping

Fashion Business Ideas – Fabric Shopping

Do you enjoy shopping? Are you knowledgeable and passionate about fabrics? If yes, then fabric shopping might just be perfect for you. ⠀

You might probably ask yourself if there is a market for it in Nigeria. Yes there is. We had a client in Canada who placed an order with us last year @garmentproductionhouse . We don’t so sourcing so recommended #martwaynestudent @kqj00 of @kqj.apparel , not just to create the illustrations for her but also to source her fabrics. She took on the task, meticulously worked with the client, bought the fabrics, delivered them to us and got paid for it. She also sent the clothes to her in Canada when we were done. So there is a market for it.

While shopping nonstop isn’t good for most people’s bottom lines, it’s possible to actually make money shopping by becoming a fabric shopper.

A fabric shopper helps clients who don’t have the time, interest or ability to shop themselves by doing it for them. The main task of a fabric shopper is to source, purchase and deliver required fabrics to clients. For the client who does a proper analysis of the opportunity costs, paying someone to do the work might be way better and cheaper than spending productive hours in traffic or haggling with a vendor.

While it might sound straightforward, fabric shopping can be quite complex with multiple variables including vendors, shipping, timelines, and more. Before you get started, ensure you learn as much as you can. Create great relationships, benefit from discounts and offer a great service to your client.

Can you think of any more fabulous fashion business ideas? We’d love to hear about them.⠀

Don’t forget to visit www.martwayne.com for other great fashion business ideas.

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Fabulous Ideas to Market Your Clothing Brand Online

Fabulous Ideas to Market Your Clothing Brand Online

The online clothing market is undoubtedly saturated. With so many clothing brands launching every day, it can be difficult to stand out from the pack and be noticed by consumers. But one of the best ways to make your mark is through online marketing, as it can help increase brand awareness, and you can easily track if your efforts are working or not.

As mentioned in our ‘How to Define Your Target Market’ post, it imperative that you tailor your marketing and sales efforts specifically to your target market in order to generate sales. Here are some tactics you can try out:

Highlight inclusivity

Inclusivity is not something to be seen as a trend—but a movement. It’s something that all brands must try to embrace and celebrate. Fashion brands, especially those that sell clothing, should have a wide range of sizes to accommodate most, if not all customers. And of course, your marketing should also reflect that with your choice of models.

If you’re selling dresses for small-framed women, your marketing materials should have “real” models in them instead of mimicking stereotypical ads that only feature models of one size. Pretty Me’s guide to the best dresses for petites notes that petite girls have a very beautiful and unique body structure, and it’s only right that they are represented. Tailor-fit some designs for the petite body structure to really make the match stand out. On the flip side, if you offer plus-sized clothing, the models you hire should not make your market feel alienated. At the very least, the clothing pieces you have should be worn on at least three types of models so customers can have a realistic idea of how the product will look on them.

Collaborate with an influencer

If you’re trying to target or cater to a niche market, it’s better to work with influencers like fashion bloggers and vloggers who have a considerable following. These people have a large following for a reason—their audience looks up to them and they respect their views and opinions. Influencers can do wonders in increasing your sales by recommending or even just reviewing your items.

When looking for influencers to collaborate with, A Small Business Trends article notes that you must first check their relevancy so you can be heard by the right audience. Have a look at the topics they write or talk about, the content they share, the brands they have worked with, and if their followers are in your target audience in terms of demographics and location. It’s an extra step, but choosing the right influencer is crucial so you can ensure that they can help you drive engagement and conversations.

Host a giveaway

Conducting giveaways, especially when properly done, can result in a lot of exposure for your clothing brand during the first weeks of launch. The initial period is critical because it’s all about gaining brand exposure, so you have to make sure that you come up with unique ideas for giveaways. It can be your own slate of products, or it could be other prizes. The only thing to keep in mind is that you should be promoting the giveaway as hard as you can on your website, social media channels, and other PR.

It would also best if you made it unique so more people would be compelled to join. For instance, a brand called Ringly that sells fitness trackers modified their giveaway by raffling off two products to the winner and their BFF. The giveaway became more fun because it was a shared prize, thereby increasing the number of winners and doubling engagement, too.

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This article was written exclusively for martwayne.com

by Abi Cooker

Recommended Resources

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5 Rookie Mistakes to avoid when starting a Fashion Business

5 Rookie Mistakes to avoid when starting a Fashion Business

, iSo, you have creative ideas for your fashion brand and are looking to start a fashion business soon or might have already launched. If yes, that’s wonderful, but that stage you’re in is a delicate one.

An overwhelming number of fashion businesses fail during the first two years of operation, and roughly half of all of them don’t survive past the fifth year. These brands launch with so much enthusiasm and fire, but when you check back in a year or two, they seem like they’re barely surviving.

How do you successfully launch and grow? Here are 5 mistakes you should avoid when starting your fashion business.

 

1. Launching without learning, research & proper planning

I know you might be tempted to ‘wing it’ and start with whatever you think will be fast-selling, but that’s not the way to go about it. If you’re going to succeed in business, you need to do proper research and planning. Start by educating yourself about the fashion industry, learn about the creative, technical, and business side of fashion. Study other fashion businesses, find out where they excel, where they are lacking, and then you can now come up with a solid plan.

 

2. Trying to be for everyone

When it comes to business, you can’t please everyone, don’t even try to. Find out the gaps that exist in the market and select a niche. When you choose a target audience, make sure you stick to it. For instance, if you pick a large target market it won’t necessarily translate to more customers. You might have to spread yourself thin and under-deliver, so don’t be tempted to change your target market every three months because you think a different one is better.

 

3. Start too big

You don’t have to start with 30 styles, a professional photoshoot, or a big fancy store in Victoria Island, especially if all your money will be going into it. You need money to run and scale the business; if you expend all the money at the start, it will be hard to grow and scale the business.

 

4. Underpricing or overpricing your products

Pricing is a powerful yet overlooked pillar of every fashion business. Alot of new fashion business owners make the mistake of pricing their products too low, hoping to increase it after they get alot of customers. However, this plan usually backfires. You need to find the right price point, either by calculating or using a pricing tool. That is why, we created an affordable pricing calculator that does the job effectively.

It not only helps you know exactly how much to charge your customer but also enables you to analyze discounts, track expenses, and set targets for yourself. Awesome right?!

 

5. Failing to invest in marketing

The business world today isn’t what it was five years ago. There are thousands of fashion brands coming up with products just like you are. To reach your customers, you need to invest in marketing and brand awareness. They can’t find you where you are, that’s why you need to go to them. There are a variety of marketing strategies you can implement. You can try; influencer, affiliate, email, referral, and social media marketing. Pick anyone you think will be the right for your brand and get started. What other mistakes do you see new fashion business owners making? Let us know in the comments.

 

If you want to learn how to build and grow a successful fashion business, we have online fashion courses for you. 

Lessons from the House of Deola Sagoe & Clan at the Business Side of Fashion Annual Symposium 2014 – The Legacy Edition

Lessons from the House of Deola Sagoe & Clan at the Business Side of Fashion Annual Symposium 2014 – The Legacy Edition

 
 
Hello everyone!!!  It is the 3rd week in January already (can you believe it?!)  Looks like this year plans to fly by so quickly it will be overwhelming.
 
I’ll get started on a long overdue post that I am certain you will learn a lot from!  
 

Now some of you may have heard of the Business Side of Fashion (BSOF) Annual Symposium.  It takes place every year and is organised by the Fashion Management Agency run by Mrs. Bamitale Kevin-Agono.  
 
I had attended about one or two of them previously but the Legacy Edition to me was THE BEST of the lot and a great way to wrap up the Symposium!
 
The BSOF Symposium was Tale’s initiative and her way of bringing industry experts to help budding fashion designers with their businesses.  For her, “it was a zealous adventure with a motive to see if I could make a difference in the fashion industry“.  And she sure did!  
 
I recall the previous ones I attended had Mrs Nike Ogunlesi of Ruff N Tumble, Ituen Basi, Folake Folarin-Coker of Tiffany Amber, Lisa Folawiyo of Jewel By Lisa, Mai Atafo…. and even the Bank of Industry in attendance, sharing from their experiences and teaching the delegates about how to run a fashion business in Nigeria.  
 
And the Legacy Edition of the BSOF Symposium was no different.  First I was the host 😀 😀 😀 (haha…. yes I have to celebrate myself now n’est ce pas?!).  Granted I had no clue what the host was required to do but I learnt quickly “on the job”.
 
And then we had the Keynote Speakers Mr. Clement Mudiaga Enajemo of MUDI Africa and Ms. Deola Sagoe of the House of Deola Sagoe.  You guys have no clue how long I have wanted to meet these 2 people in person!
 
Images from: http://millarefashion.blogspot.com/2013/04/mudi-tale-of-artistic-expressions.html 
http://theeagleonline.com.ng/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Deola-Sagoe.jpg
THEN there was the David Wej Competition where David Eweje of David Wej (another fashion guru who I totally respect in so many ways) handed out prizes to the winners of the Competition.  
 
Followed by a Panel Talk by 3 industry leaders – Mrs. Funmi Ayanbadejo of Patrick Ayanski, Mr. Ibikari Alwell-Brown of Fetoru.com and Mrs. Tewa Onasanya of Exquisite Magazine (now called EM).  Oh I learnt a lot from them, particularly in the area of e-commerce from Ibikari who used to Head the Fashion Units at Jumia and Konga.
 
And then the Grand Finale was (drumroll please…..) the lecture by the 2nd Keynote Speaker, Deola Sagoe.  And I must say I was in total awe of her!  Very soft-spoken, no airs whatsoever!  Honestly, I just kept staring at her and remembering the first fashion show I attended where I saw her work!  I love her and her work to bits!
 
Lucky for us, she also brought her daughter, Temi Sagoe of Clan and honestly, you guys have no clue how much she had to offer.  Thankfully, I passed up on Tale’s offer to interview them and settled down to listen and learn… which was the best decision I ever made.
 
Funny…. as I listened to them, they both spoke a lot about what I have often spoken about in the past about the design process, pretty much what I teach my students and anyone who cares to listen.
For me, what was very enlightening was that despite the success of the House of Deola Sagoe and Clan, they still admitted they were making steps to expand and create a more profitable business.  No stories of how they had hit it big, no “bobo” stories, nothing!  No making the audience feel like they had “been there, done that”.  Just plain hard facts!  
 
Teni actually came prepared with a list of the different steps in the process with clear explanations on how you move from the design stage to the runway!  It really was Fashion 101, taking each stage at a time with detailed explanations!  It really was a “no holds barred” session. 
 
Lucky for me – and you guys, I took some video clips but to be honest I edited a whole lot out of the clips!  You can watch them on the “Martwayne” You Tube Channel at the following links and PS… don’t forget to Subscribe to the Channel [of course, I had to chip that in there :-D] – more videos coming up!  
 
Now there are 5 different clips and it took ages for me to edit them but hopefully you can learn even if just a bit from them and hopefully use that knowledge to restructure your fashion businesses.  I gave the different clips titles.  You can click on the links to watch them.  PS.  Forgive some shaky parts in the video, I shot the clips with my phone and it was so not easy to keep my hands steady. 
 
Part 1: Fashion is Serious Business!  
 
 
Part 2: How the House of Deola Sagoe Started:  
 
 
Part 3: How Clan Was Born:  
 
Part 4: The Process at the House of Deola Sagoe: 
Part 5: About Bespoke Clothing…: 
Honestly, if you were not there, you missed a whole lot and I plan to rub your faces in it!  Did I add that we got freebies from Patrick Ayanski and EM?! 😀
 
BUT!  There is hope!  Well… not regarding the freebies though… BUT  
 
You can and SHOULD get the full DVD!  These clips are nothing compared to the full DVD of an event which started at 8am and ended at 3pm.   You can get the DVD by contacting the Fashion Management Agency @: 
 
 
Honestly this will be like the best gift you can ever give yourself this year!  I, for one, learnt a whole lot from Deola Sagoe & Clan and from Ibikari about e-commerce, which is a new area I have started to explore for myself.  I am so glad I was a part of the event I tell you and I will also get the DVD for myself!   
 
I can go on and on about this event but I will stop here.  Sadly the Legacy Edition was the last of the BSOF Symposiums and it will no longer hold but you can still learn a lot from the Fashion Management Agency by registering for their Course – Fashion the Business which launched at their Fashion Business School.
 
And yes! I am one of the facilitators and I handle the creative aspects of fashion! 😀  The Course really does have a lot to offer including how to define your business, how to present your collection, how to position your brand, publicity and marketing and of course the accounting aspect of fashion!  
 
For more details, do check out their site at www.fashionmanagementagency.com or call 0703 002 3333 or 0810 337 9553.
 
Now I’ll sign off here now and leave you to enjoy the pictures…
L – R: Mrs. Funmi Ayanbadejo, Mr. Ibikari Allwell-Brown, Mrs. Bamitale Kevin-Agono & Mrs. Tewa Onasanya 

 

 

 

Ms. Deola Sagoe & Teni Sagoe receiving their award

 

Ibikari & Deola Sagoe

 

 

The Participants

 

 
Left: Strategic Partner Mrs Ayanbadejo of Patrick Ayanski & Right: Kola Kuddus, one of the esteemed guests

 

AND it’s a wrap! 😀

 

Yes it really was a good day!

Hope you enjoy the videos, don’t forget to get your DVDs.

Have a great day!

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