When it comes to promoting your clothing or accessory line, many businesses focus too much on just one or two methods of marketing, usually online advertising or social media marketing. However, a business owner or senior marketing manager might choose to adopt a more strategic approach, which incorporates several key elements. The following example will highlight one brand’s use of a marketing and promotion plan that was developed over a period of several months, beginning with a series of research studies and concluding with the drafting and refinement of a business strategy.

Marketing & Promotion Research

The first step in the development process was to conduct extensive research into the marketplace to identify the competition and gain an insight into consumer behaviors. The objective of this stage is to develop a clear picture of the market and the actions of those in search of your product. Your research should cover the following areas:

• The availability of your product in retail stores;
• The market share of your product in comparison to your competitors’; and,
• The future of your product in terms of sales volume and growth.

It is advisable to work with an established market research company that has access to the broadest database of consumer information, and which has the experience necessary to provide guidance throughout the planning and execution of your marketing and promotion strategy.

Product Launching

Once you have a clear idea of the state of the market, it’s time to launch your product. The objective here is to generate interest in your product among the right audience, leading to sales.

Your choice of product launching strategy will depend on several factors, including:

• The type of product you are launching;
• Its market size; and,
• The goals and objectives you have for your product.

The most common forms of product launches are online or offline events, such as trade shows, product demonstrations, and store events. However, you may choose to take your product directly to consumers via social media channels or through online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, and Google Shopping. Product launches through social media can be both effective and cost-efficient, as you can reach a broad audience of potential customers without having to spend on expensive trade show booths or on-site visits to retail stores.

Determining Consumer Behavior

The aim here is to gain a better understanding of your target audience, identifying their needs, wants, and behaviors. To achieve this, you will need to analyze the data collected from your marketing and promotion research. This stage is critical to the development of an effective marketing strategy. The following are some of the things you might find worth exploring:

• How are your target audience engaging with other brands and products related to your niche?;
• What are they doing to promote and sell your product?;
• Where do they spend their time and what interest them?;
• What are their needs and wants, and how can you meet those needs?; and,
• What are the most promising areas for your product, and what are the obstacles standing in the way of you achieving your goals?

There are several ways to analyze consumer behavior, which you may choose to incorporate into your strategy. For example, you can examine the competition’s online marketing strategy, reviewing their website content and social media activity to gain an understanding of their approach. You can investigate the methods that have proven to be the most effective for certain products in your niche, and utilize those insights to inform your own strategy. Alternatively, you can conduct interviews with key stakeholders, such as buyers and sellers in your industry, gaining an insight into their experiences and the factors that motivate them to participate in the retail clothing industry. A major advantage of this approach is that you can identify issues that may be impeding your own growth, as well as those related to the successful operation of your competitors.

Goals & Objectives

In a nutshell, your marketing and promotion strategy will help you reach your goals, which are:

• Generating interest in your product;
• Increasing your product’s awareness and visibility;
• And, most importantly,
• Creating a positive consumer experience, as soon as that brand or product comes into being.

Developing a clear picture of your product’s key performance indicators, such as sales volume, can assist you in determining whether or not your strategy is delivering the results you expect. It is also important to set measurable goals for your marketing and promotion efforts, so that you can track your progress along the way. For example, if you are seeking to increase web traffic to your site or social media accounts, then you can set up automated traffic metrics, such as Google Analytics, to track the progress of your efforts. The following example illustrates two important facets of a marketing plan that was developed for a luxury watch company:

Analytics

The luxury watch company identified marketing analytics as one of the most crucial areas of their strategy development, due to the overwhelming amount of data that could be mined from analyzing web traffic. In particular, the team wanted to gain an in-depth understanding of their site’s performance, pinpointing areas for improvement and growth. To achieve this, they turned to Google Analytics, the industry standard for web analytics.

Google Analytics offers an array of features, providing the luxury watch company with the information they need to take full advantage of their website. For instance, the platform can tell them how many people visit their site, how long they stay for, what device they use, and how they behave on the site. This information can be distilled into meaningful reports, enabling the team to get a vivid picture of the performance of their online presence.

Marketing Mix

The luxury watch company also wanted to experiment with several marketing tactics, wanting to see what worked and what did not. They conducted A/B testing, where they randomly assigned different versions of their site’s content to different groups of consumers, measuring which approach generated the greatest engagement and the highest click-through rates.

The results of their A/B testing showed that videos performed the best, gaining them 58% more clicks than a traditional web page. The video’s impact attributed to the fact that it allowed the customers to see how the product worked in real life, demonstrating its practicality and usefulness. Furthermore, the video’s short length made it easy for consumers to consume, generating a positive user experience and enticing them to click through to the company’s website. This research and subsequent action enabled the luxury watch company to determine the effective blend of marketing and promotional tactics that would be most beneficial to them.

The luxury watch brand also used SEO, or search engine optimization, to optimize their website content, tailoring their keywords and linking schemes to improve their SERP rankings.

Competitors

Now that you have a clear idea of your product and the direction you want to take with it, it’s time to look into the competitive landscape. You should conduct a thorough investigation into your competitors, gathering as much information as possible, including economic data, website content, and social media activity. While you may believe that your product is unique and has no direct competitors, this may not be the case. A lot can change in three years, as technological advancements and new product designs emerge.

To accurately identify your competitors, you may want to search for keywords and phrases that are relevant to your product, but which may also be used by those in search of a comparable product. Alternatively, you can conduct a broad Web search, using search engines such as Google and Bing.

Strategy Recommendations

Based on everything you learned about your product, its niche, and the state of the industry, you may now be in a position to offer some sound recommendations regarding the development of an effective marketing and promotion strategy for an online clothing company. The following are some of the things you may want to include in your plan of action: