Just because you’ve heard the phrase “content is king” a hundred times doesn’t mean your fashion startup is ready for the content wars. Jostling for one of the top 10 slots in Google for your relevant keywords has the potential to boost your popularity into the stratosphere, and producing excellent content will make you an authority among your followers. With the right application of effort, content marketing has the power to spread awareness of your brand and get your fashions the attention they deserve. Check out our top tips for effective content marketing when you’re starting your own clothing line.
1. Choose Your Content Creator
First, writing content takes time. You already have so many things to worry about that you can’t drop everything and take two hours to write a blog post.
Also, are you completely confident in your writing skills? With the help of the review tools in Microsoft Word and third-party applications like Grammarly, you can rapidly improve your writing, but unless you have a lot of experience writing content, you could make a big mistake.
The content that populates your site is the first impression you give your customers. If your content is filled with grammatical errors or it isn’t compelling, you might lose brand authority and deter customers from working with you. If you’re already a content whiz who can produce a 1,000-word article in less than an hour, however, writing your own content might be right up your alley.
However, these platforms aren’t great places for starting long-term relationships with dedicated content writers. Unless your content mill author goes out of his or her way to reach out to you through a back channel, your interactions with these content platforms will be anonymous.
The best way to generate reliable content in the long-term is to work directly with a content writer. While it’s possible to hire a content writer as part of your team, these professionals generally work independently. Most content writers post portfolios online, and you can find information on their experience and ways to contact them through their official websites. Here’s an example of a content writer’s website.
You can also try working with content mills to find the content you need. Sewport CEO Boris Hodakel says that platforms like Textbroker are great places to get quick content that fits your needs.
2. Publish at Least 2 Blog Articles Per Week
When you’re first starting out as a fashion brand, getting even a single article out there can seem like an incredible hurdle to overcome. The most authoritative content marketing sources, however, suggest that you post new articles to your blog at least twice per week and perhaps as many as four times per week. Coming up with ideas for all these blogs can be tough, but thankfully, there are plenty of tools out there that can help you generate blog prompts and headlines.
3. Learn from the ModCloth Blog
Does content marketing deliver results for fashion startups? Just ask ModCloth. This vintage fashion brand started with nothing, but it now has a huge following due to its beautifully polished blog. ModCloth provides value to its customers by generating unique and interesting content, and it benefits from this increased attention by funneling its readers to its shop.
4. Create Content That Appeals to Your Audience
Once you’ve established how you’ll obtain content, it’s time to determine the type of content that you’ll need. There’s nothing wrong with clickbait, and you might want to produce high-brow articles as well. It all depends on who you’re trying to reach.
Learn more about the desires of your target audience. Do they want DIY tips and tricks, or are they interested in the history of your trade? Are they the type of people who like to dedicate half an hour to in-depth articles, or do they prefer to skim listicles? You’ll need to learn a lot about your audience to sell your fashions effectively, so doing some research into the wants and needs of the people who shop with you will pay off big time.
5. Focus on SEO
Even if you have the best content on the internet, it will go to waste if you don’t focus enough on SEO. Optimizing your content for search engines like Google isn’t as easy as it used to be, and you might want to invest in a tool like Clearscope to make hitting the right keywords in the right densities easier. Other key factors like backlinks and interlinks will also help you make it into the top 10 slots of search results.
6. Share Your Content on Social Media
When you publish an amazing article on your site, make sure that your followers know about it. Share your content on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and remember to embed sharing buttons into your blog page.
Remember that just sharing isn’t enough to get traction on social media. You’ll also need to craft your content to encourage engagements, and a good social media post will give people who come across it an incentive to follow you.
7. Consider Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is a mixed bag, but if you hook up with the right Instagram influencer, your fashion brand will spread like wildfire. There are a variety of tools you can use to find out if an influencer is legit.
Instead of relying on random influencers on Instagram, you can also get a boost from players who are already established in the industry. Dozens of brands have dipped their toes in the arena of brand collaboration to boost their reach and brand recognition. When you’re first starting out as a fashion brand, brand collaboration will naturally benefit you more than your collaborator, but you can simply pay them back once you make it big.
