How to Attract Customers in the Modest Fashion Market?
As a retailer, whether you already sell to the modest fashion market or are looking to target this trillion dollar market with your products, the business side of things can either be or become, excruciating and daunting. But this can be conquered if you know how to answer the question of how to attract customers in the modest fashion market.
Confidence in oneself and the product, using the right tools, and implementing relevant strategies that are available for finding customers will position you and your business to efficiently engage the market. And then as you build and better your brand, you can welcome new customers into your community while enriching your craft and business.
How to Attract Customers
Be proactive and be present. Whether you are a modest fashion regular or just getting started, in-person events are opening again while online events continue to flourish and maintain popularity. Go to as many as you can, start networking and build relationships with modest fashion influencers and use them as guides to the demands of the consumers within the market that you seek. Not only do they advocate modest fashion but they will certainly expose you to both budding and mainstream modest fashion design brands, government organisations, institutions, corporations, media sources, global conferences, events, and fashion weeks including potential customers.
Most importantly, you will be exposed to the individuals in the modest fashion industry who hold the values and convictions of modest fashion as a priority, while not compromising the fashion itself. Connect with the influencers, go to events, mingle, message, comment, and network, get a feel of what you and your brand can do by the examples of leaders in the industry so you can mindfully insert you and your brand into the modest fashion market.
How Can You Get to Know Your Customers? You Are a Customer, Too!
Just like you know the why, how, and what behind your design and fashion product, you also need to become familiar in the same way with your customers or potential customers.
If you are starting from scratch, take some time to visit brands, fashion designers, artists, and successful entrepreneurs that inspire you. Take a few weeks to analyse your own behaviour as a customer to reach more customers and empower your retail business. Because at the end of the day, you are a customer, too. Compare competing products and companies in your industry, look for what they do repeatedly when it comes to advertising and engaging their followers on social media and strive to do it better and with your touch.
Make It About Them, and Strive to Make It “Us”
Build You Brand: Digital Presence
This is where what you do needs to be about them, the customers. Your digital presence needs to cater to individuals in the modest fashion industry and demonstrate that your product is essential to their lifestyle and can seamlessly become a part of it, too. Do your homework about the industry, and adapt your brand and presence that shows an understanding of the modest fashion industry and the community’s values and mission. And given the industry’s global nature, the trends transcend borders. So make the effort to reach the customers where they are.
Attract Customers With Know-How: Product Demonstration
Present your product in a way that draws attention and has its own style. Be consistent in how potential customers interact with your media. Give it your brand’s own touch; colours, fonts, pictures, and videos. Make the product stand out, showcase your uniqueness while making sure what they see is what they will get. And if you are new to the modest fashion industry, adapting your product to meet modest fashion standards – familiarising yourself with cultural norms, trends, and nuances – is a must.
Attract Customer Online With Unique Brand Voice: Communication & Responsiveness
Many brands say they care and guarantee their product will enrich a customer’s lifestyle and wardrobe, but more often than not – communication and response times during the process from purchase to receiving the product can really damage your relationship with the customer. Knowing who your clients are, will allow your communications to be clearer (i.e letting them know about potential shipping delays or tax in their region) leading to more positive communication and response.
Give a Helping Hand to Support Customers
Obviously, we are human, and when actively pursuing new markets like the modest fashion industry, we are bound to commit some errors. Customer support is crucial to getting more clients and keeping them. When complaints come in, reach out to others in the fashion industry community to better field the problems. Your efforts in building a support network within the modest fashion industry will reflect in your engagements with customers which will encourage customers to trust your brand and recommend it to others. It will help you prevent the preventable and use new problems and complaints as moments of building a better brand and presence in the modest fashion industry.
Tools and Services
There are a plethora of tools and services that facilitate a digital presence. A few obvious examples are social media, email, podcasting, e-commerce (i.e. WooCommerce or Shopify). On the other hand, others may not be so obvious. Such are referrals (encouraging previous customers to share their experiences in IG stories or quotes on your website, etc.), partnerships with other brands, influencer marketing (reach out to those influencers you admire), and even affiliate marketing. Choose what fits your brand and digital presence best, and stick to them for enough time to properly analyse the results.
Targeted marketing campaigns
Choose 1-2 marketing plans to start with and master each. Don’t over distribute yourself and your resources. An online store is a key to connecting with the global market. It shows consumers you are willing to meet them where they are no matter what. Of course, be aware of shipping and delivery restrictions and learn how to engage those potential customers as well. Remember that using too many methods will keep you too busy to respond and depersonalise the opportunities of engaging customers. Keep it simple and effective so that they have the opportunity to become a part of your brand. Finally, their purchase makes them a part of Us, instead of remaining them.
Join e-commerce boom and personalise it
Learn the ins and outs of e-commerce and deliver what is experienced online. Online shopping is booming. Six out of 10 shoppers say that the possibility to shop on a mobile device is an important factor in deciding which brands to purchase from. So how your products are perceived online is more important than ever. People don’t want to experience a visual disparity between what they receive and what they were convinced to buy online.
E-commerce shoppers prefer personalised experiences, and this is no different for modest fashion. As fashion retailers continue to use more and more artificial intelligence and machine learning, we can see tools available for even smaller businesses to better personalise experiences for customers. Take Octane AI, for example, one can complete a short quiz to get a recommendation for businesses targeting niche markets like the modest fashion industry, facilitating the process of getting customers to join a community, becoming a part of Us, rather than just a consumer statistic.
Champion Consistency on Social Media to Build Trust
Consistency on your website and social media should display the same aesthetic. Images, fonts, and layouts should have a similar feel and quality. This goes for descriptions of products and calls to action as well. Even your email blasts should fall in line. Customers get more comfortable with a brand when they encounter a consistent tone, voice, and aesthetic across platforms and channels. This also includes, lastly, the timing and scheduling of posts and updates online to media and inventory. They must be consistent. Customers build trust when they know what to expect from the familiar voice that engages them from either your Instagram stories or email blasts. If you want to get more customers, they need to know what is on the horizon so that they will be prepared and inclined to not only buy, but recommend your brand to others with confidence and trust.
Think Circular: How To Keep Your Customers and How To Attract More Customers
Once you develop a consistent online presence, the work must be put in to translate it to the customer experience when users become customers, or when they begin to buy your products and hopefully recommend them to their networks.
If you think circularly, you will guarantee that them (customers) become part of Us (your business + customers + modest fashion industry). A circular plan and strategy is constantly considering self, others, and the community at large, always including the customer as part of the whole. A customer does not want to be burned or feel objectified. Our strategies for getting and retaining customers appear to be about the individual at the beginning, then prove to not be about that individual when they receive the product. Including all of the aforementioned, guarantees of your product and service are a way to assure the circular process does not unhinge.
Build a Strong Community
Going above and beyond in your guaranteed service can be essential to building a strong community of satisfied customers. Not only will they recommend you and help grow, but will speak to the quality of your product and service as a whole. When you put the customer first, they will feel more confident about buying your product. They will feel there is a lower risk to purchasing and recommending an overall positive experience. In this process, you gain confidence and trust, which will turn your customers into genuine supporters and participants in delivering your craft.
Engage Customers
Once you pinpoint your place in the modest fashion industry, you can better engage your customers so that they become a part of your mission as a brand. Self-awareness of your product in the context of the industry and how your digital presence adds up to competitors will allow you to gather your bearings as you begin to reach out to future customers with relevant marketing strategies, thoughtful online design, and personalisation of your customer engagement.
Offer customers a transparent and easy-to-understand e-commerce experience that prompts them for the arrival of the product. Set clear expectations that harmonise with your digital presence, creating an experience that includes the customer. Think of the entire process as circular, not linear, that way you give yourself and your brand a better opportunity to create a community of customers that feel part of the Us rather than just a conversion or sale.
Knowing your own process and product will facilitate a clearer path towards finding customers and keeping them happy. Networking at online events and in-person events will offer opportunities to create partnerships and find guidance within the industry. A commanding starting point can be Pret A Cover, which can help anyone start a business and guide a brand towards the first steps in reaching a new market and target audience in the modest fashion industry.
