As every parent knows, kids grow out of their clothes in the blink of an eye. And they put the ones that still fit through the wringer too.
All this means that kids need new clothes regularly, which is excellent news for anyone selling children's fashion online. Annual spending on children’s clothing continues to rise every year, and Statista predicts that it will be worth £6.6 billion by the end of 2021.
Unfortunately, this is also a crowded market. And with competition from supermarkets and budget brands, like Primark, you’ll need to be strategic with your marketing if you want to grow your children’s fashion brand and sell more clothes online.
These five tips will help kickstart your digital marketing and boost your sales.
1. Know Your Audience
Before you can get into the nitty-gritty of marketing kids’ clothing, you need to take a step back and consider your target audience.
As we’ve seen, there’s plenty of competition for children’s fashion. So, you need to define your USP and identify who your buyers are.
Unless they are unusually precocious, it won’t be the kids themselves. Their parents still hold the purse strings. So, think about what kind of parent chooses your clothing.
Consider too whether it is parents you need to market to at all. Some brands will find that they are most popular with friends and grandparents looking for gifts for the little ones in their lives.
2. Leverage Word of Mouth
Parenting can be overwhelming, so most parents look for support from others in a similar stage of life. As well as building communities in real life, parents often look to connect with one another online. And that means there is a real opportunity for your brand to sell using word of mouth.
With so many options to choose from, parents will often look for personal recommendations from people they trust. That might be friends and family, or it might be parenting bloggers and influencers.
Your brand can take advantage of this through affiliate marketing, brand ambassadors, and paid collaborations with online influencers. You can also leverage your existing customer base by offering discounts when they invite a friend to try your brand.
3. Grow Your Email List
Email is a fantastic tool for marketing eCommerce brands. With a high ROI, email still sells, so make getting new subscribers a priority.
Offers such as free shipping or 10% off their first order are a popular way to encourage shoppers to subscribe. Giveaways and competitions can also help you build your list.
Once you have them, keep subscribers interested with an engaging welcome sequence, exclusive offers, and sneak peeks of new items.
4. Use Pinterest
Although it usually gets lumped in with social media, Pinterest is more like a visual search engine. This makes it a brilliant fit for aesthetic-driven brands, including children’s clothing companies.
Share your product shots and ad creative as a starting point. But you can also go further by sharing collections and shop-the-look posts to catch the attention of casual scrollers.
Don’t forget to add the ‘pin it’ button to your eCommerce site too, so visitors can easily save items that catch their attention.
You might also put some budget behind your Pinterest usage and launch paid Pinterest ad campaigns.
5. Concentrate on Facebook and Instagram
When it comes to marketing children’s clothes on social media, Facebook and Instagram are your best starting points.
Instagram’s visual format lends itself well to selling clothing, and it is popular with millennials, who are the age group most likely to have children of their own to buy for.
Facebook, meanwhile, remains the largest social media platform worldwide, with 1.6 billion users connecting with a small business via the platform. Facebook groups are particularly helpful for children’s clothing brands, many of which have built a loyal following via dedicated groups.
Making your children’s fashion brand stand out from the crowd can be a challenge. But putting in the work to identify your ideal buyer and create your marketing strategy with them in mind is sure to pay off.