[00:00:00] Hey friend, real quick before we start today's episode. So if you are someone who has always wanted to start a fashion brand, or maybe you've already started, but you just want it to get off the ground and you are looking to do so in a way that's meaningful, I want to invite you to a special workshop I'm hosting that teaches you how to start a fashion brand with purpose and profit in mind.
I'm going to be sharing the three foundational must haves to build a business that not only, makes impact, but also makes you money.
So make sure to reserve your seat today at makegoodfashion. com slash workshop. Again, that's makegoodfashion. com slash workshop. You're not going to want to miss this and it's absolutely free. /
Jasmine: welcome to Make Good Fashion, the podcast that's all about starting, launching, and growing impactful fashion brands. I'm your host, Jasmine Rennie. /
hello friends. Welcome back to the make good fashion podcast. I hope you guys are all doing well. I am having an [00:01:00] interesting week, but I am so happy to be on here. It truly brings me joy to just. To talk with you guys and have these intentional conversations about the fashion business. And so I hope you're enjoying it as much as I am. And yeah, we're just becoming great friends.
So anyways, let's hop into this episode. So today I want to talk about. Y. Most brands never get off the ground. I'm sure you've seen it before, maybe a friend or a family member. Once they start a new fashion business or a t-shirt line or something like that. And you know, you see them rocking their product, but it never really gets off the ground. And I come across this a lot, like, I think fashion is a business that. Kind of everyone secretly wants to, to have at some point, you know, whether it be their own product line or they want to come up with a t-shirt idea. Or a full-on collection. I think fashion is so [00:02:00] desirable for people to want to do because we as humans love self-expression right.
We love to express ourselves using clothing and. To make a statement. And I just think that fashion is like the best way to, to do so. And I think it's the way that a lot of us know how to do that because, you know, you can kind of form the identity that you want to portray with the clothing that you decide to wear. And so I think that that is part of the reason why many people try to start brands. Yeah. And so anyways,
you see it all the time. And I know I see it all the time. And oftentimes I. I, when I do my consulting, I see brands that come in and. They've they're fairly new, but they haven't seen any sales and they're wondering why their product is not moving. And they want marketing strategies and all of that. And the thing is, this is something that you should be thinking about before you even create your product.
Of course, you can always go back and refined your brand idea and. [00:03:00] You know, kind of revisit all of that, but it can sometimes be really costly because you have to create a whole new concept or. Pivot to attract your ideal customer and all of that. So I want to save you some time. And energy. And money. By talking about. Y most brands never get off the ground and what you can do to prevent your brand to staying in this like failure to launch space. So the first thing I want to talk about is the product first approach, which I believe is not the right way to go about things, but this is the way a lot of people. Start their brands. They have a product first approach, meaning that they're focusing on the product before anything. And so for example, they will. Have this great idea. Four. A line of addresses and then they just start designing the dresses and start getting those produced, which you would think isn't that what you're supposed to do. If you want a [00:04:00] fashion lines, shouldn't you produce? The clothing.
Yes, eventually, but there's a lot of groundwork that you should be doing before you even get to producing the product. And the reason why is because if you produce a product and you have no direction for it, You have no idea who you're creating this product for what they actually need. Your product's probably not going to sell, because you haven't thought about these things yet.
You haven't thought about the customer yet. And. We need to shift our perspective from a product first approach to a customer first approach. It's all about our customers, our target ideal customers that we. Want shopping form art brand. Because if you don't have you don't have customers.
You don't have a business. And so for a lot of people, this is a hard shift because a lot of people who step into the fashion business are very creative and they want to get all that creative stuff out first. But again, it's really important that we take a step back. And we think about. Customer first [00:05:00] approach. So, how do we do that?
How do we peel it back before we even think about product or start getting products made in thinking about a customer? Well, first of course, you need a brand idea. Like what type of brand you can, even though we're not going to focus on product first, you can start to envision what you kind of want that to look like.
And. You know what , the concept of your brand, the aesthetic of your brand, all of that you can think about that. And you can think of generally. Who you would want to serve with your brand. Right? So whether that be, are you going to make things for women? Are you going to make things for men, kids, pets, like who is your person?
Right. So when you have your idea of like, what kind of brand you want to do, so maybe it's a woman's wear. Dress line or leggings line, whatever it's going to be. So once you have that idea, Now you're going to think about, okay, who would be my ideal customer? What kind of person do I want to target?
And when you're considering this, there's a couple of things, factors that you want to consider when discovering who your target customer is. Right. [00:06:00] So what kind of dress line do you want? Do you want a premium dress line? That's more of designer has a higher price point. Do you want something that is budget friendly?
Do you want an eco-friendly line? Which, you know, when we're working with sustainable fabrics and techniques, sometimes that can raise the price a little bit more when you're doing premium, that's going to raise the price. So think about that. Because then you're going to want to think about, okay, what type of customer can afford that?
You know, what kind of, if you're doing a premium product, what kind of customer can afford that product? Maybe someone who was living in regions. Are more costly to live in. Right? And then you want to identify who that person is like, what are their interests? What do they need? What, you know, what do they desire?
Because you want to create a product that is fitting for their lifestyle. So, for example, if you're going to do a premium dress line and you're specifically wanting to create a dress line to serve moms, right. What are the needs of moms? I know for a lot of moms that I know. They [00:07:00] need something that is going to be breastfeeding friendly.
So I'm going to consider like the type of neck lines that I'm going to do and you know, just making the product very functional. Maybe they need something to run after the kids. And so when, you know, they're chasing their kids or bending down, picking kids up that everything's not showing, so maybe you want to do product that has like a lining under it, or some shorts under the dresses or something like that.
So you want to think. From very functional approach for that. And then also, you know, how you can serve that customer better because everything that you do in your business is going to be about your customer, especially the product. And that's why we don't. Go ahead of ourselves and make the product first or focus on a product first approach.
We think about the customer and then we think about their needs. And I think that people don't really realize that when you were in fashion business, And you were trying to actually create a line that generates income and you have to consider all these things that it's a very selfless act, you know? It's not about you and what you want to [00:08:00] design and what you. Like and what you need, unless you are your target customer, you are your ideal customer and you can find other people like you, but it's all about what the customer desires likes and wants because they are the ones who are actually buying the product.
Right. So that's not only when it comes down to. Marketing pricing and creating the product that we're creating also the branding. Right? So. The branding, the colors that we use for the brand, all those things need to attract that customer too. And so my motto in business is always. Everything we do is for the customer.
So every decision I make, I have customer in mind, my ideal customer in mind. So that is one thing that you want to focus on. If you want your brand to get off the ground. A customer first approach. As opposed to a product first approach. The second reason, the second thing I want to talk about. And why most brands never get off the ground is because no one knows they exist. Right? So we have a lot of brands that start and, you know, they have awesome [00:09:00] product.
They've worked really hard developing this amazing product, but no one knows they exist because they failed to develop. A marketing strategy and they failed to identify who their ideal customer is. And that is what we just talked about.
So once you have that first step of defining your ideal customer and their needs, then you can create a marketing plan. You can't create a marketing plan. If you don't know your ideal customer. And the reason for that is because. If you create a marketing plan, who are you marketing to? If you don't know who your ideal customer is, you create a marketing plan to speak to your ideal customer to attract them. To draw them in to what you're creating to say, Hey. Ideal customer.
I know what you need. I've seen your pain points and the thing that you're asking for and have created a solution to your problem, right? And so. You need to make sure that you got that first step first. And so after that, you know, you want to start with that marketing plan. And the thing is, again, People are so product focused. [00:10:00] That they don't develop that marketing strategy.
And then they launch their brands and it's crickets. Like there's no one there to buy it, except for a couple of family and friends that are supporting you because they feel bad for you. And you don't want that. You want to see sales coming through. And you know, you want to start a marketing strategy beforehand before you even have the product.
And I know a lot of people are like, well, how do I do that without product to promote? Well, If you've done the first step of defining who your ideal customer is, then you know, the things that they like and, you know, the concept of your brand, you can start creating promotional content based on that.
Right. So for example, Let's say you're doing an athlete your line, and you're doing a line of like some cute at leisure wear fitness wear. And you don't have your product made yet, but you want to start marketing your brand before you even come to market so that you make sure that you've already formed community so that when you launch that there are people anticipating your product.
Right. So that looks [00:11:00] like maybe you're going to create content. Let's say you're doing this on Instagram, right? And you're starting a community on Instagram for fitness enthusiasts, because that is your ideal customer. Right. And. So you want to start maybe posting different, healthy recipes on there.
And you're obviously going to post coming soon of your brand. And you know that this is a brand page, but you can do lifestyle content, so healthy recipes, different workout plans. You can even show the behind the scenes of your products being manufactured in the whole process and invite your community into that process.
People love seeing the behind the scenes content so you can show them. You know, here's our first prototypes, all of that. And you can even start creating some. And that will even create some buzz around that product and get people anticipating in waiting to have it. Right. And so you want to make sure that you were out there. Before hand and not a week beforehand, two weeks beforehand, you need time to start building community [00:12:00] months. And advance. Even, I would even start it a year in advance if I had the time to. But really, you should start that before you have product.
You can also even create a campaign over a with user generated content, influencer marketing. So. You know, you can allocate a budget aside to create a couple pieces that you will just give out for free and put it into your marketing budget. Right? So let's say you produce a hundred of those, a a hundred of leggings for your athletes, your wear brand, and actually. Girlfriend collective.
I don't know if you guys know of a brand called girlfriend collective that you're a sustainable. I'm at leisure, wear a brand. And they did this masterfully. They came out with this campaign where. All you had to do is sign up with your email and pay for the shipping. And they would send you a free pair of their leggings when they came out.
So they were basically pre-selling these leggings. That weren't even produced yet. They just probably had a sample and. You know, had the models [00:13:00] wearing the samples and they mostly did theirs through Facebook ads. So they paid for Facebook ads and started advertising to everyone, not just influencers. If you just sign up, we will send you and pay for shipping.
We will send you free leggings, which was amazing for them because so many people signed up. Obviously it's going to take a little out of their budget and you can do this on a smaller scale. Like I said, you can produce only a hundred pieces that you give out for free or 50 pieces. Whatever's feasible for you. Just starting out, you know, girlfriend collected probably had a bigger budget and investment money, so. You know, you have to take everything in context and do what works best for your budget at this time. But the thing that was great about this campaign is that not only did they get their product out there and get their product on people all over the world before they even produced. They were also getting emails and with emails.
What's great about that when you're capturing emails. Now they have a direct line to these customers, everyone who opted in to get [00:14:00] free legging. And the great thing about email marketing is unlike social media email marketing is always going to land in your inbox with social media. The algorithm can be funky.
Sometimes you don't know what's going on. Sometimes you see people's posts. Sometimes you don't. But with email marketing, you have more control where you can get directly into your customer's inbox. And if you have SMS marketing, which is the new thing, now that is. You know, even better than email marketing, because it's going straight to your phone and we're always on our phones. Then when the product actually releases to be able to buy and they come out with new collections, they can email these thousands of customers who opted in for free leggings and then turned them into buying customers.
And so. This was a great way to get the word out and, you know, They obviously did paid ads and you can start off organically. If you don't have a budget for paid ads. But I don't want you to be scared of the idea of paid ads either, because I think a lot of times we just focus on an organic approach [00:15:00] and not realizing that organic is great.
Yes. But when we put a little money behind something, it will accelerate the speed of whatever we're doing, if we're doing it correctly. So. Yeah, I think. Exploring. Boosting your marketing efforts with ads are always great when you're ready for that. But I digress anyways. Like I said, one of the reasons why most brands fail to get off the ground is because no one knows they exist. So make sure that you are creating a strategy. And getting up in front of the people, your ideal customers. Marketing to them, not trying to market to everyone. We can't be all things to all people, but being really strategic about putting out content, that's going to attract them.
And. Even before you launch and if you've already launched and you kind of like skip this whole step, you can always pivot on, you can always pivot. So. Start now start going backwards. If you haven't done these steps, start thinking [00:16:00] about your ideal customer and who you really want to sell to. That is not. Just yourself that there's proof of their existence.
Right? And this is an audience, not just one individual person, but multiple people within a segment. And that you make sure that they know you exist. That you get in front of them, whether that means engaging with their content following. Making your own content that speaks to there, to that niche and to who they are and who your brand is and getting in front of them, sending them product or whatever marketing strategy you're going to come up with. So those are my tips for today. Make sure that you don't skip those steps. You guys, these are fundamental. And if you want to hear more about this and more about how to build this brand, that is actually going to make some sales and some profit, because they know who their customers are. And there actually going to get off the ground and see some success.
I want to invite you to a workshop. that I'm hosting and it's called how to start a fashion brand with purpose and [00:17:00] profit and mine. You guys. Know I'm all about creating prints that have a mission that have a purpose behind it. And I'm all about actually making your brand work for you and make you sales and turn into a business and not just product.
And so in this special workshop I'm going to teach you those fundamental things that you need to really get your brand off the ground to really get that attention and to really see some success. So this workshop is completely free. So there's no excuse that you shouldn't be there. And I'm just like so excited for it because I've been wanting to really teach on this and really help people to see some results in their business. And really start a brand. That's not only going to be impactful, but that makes you money because let's face it.
You guys, we can not be impactful if we don't have the funds to do so. So it's really important. That you get those fundamental things down so that you can position yourself to start making money in your business. It's just going to be a good time. So again, no excuse you. Shouldn't be there. It's [00:18:00] completely free. The workshop is on
thursday, March 14th.
So make sure to save the date on your calendar and make sure to register. You have to register to be able to get the link, to get into the workshop. And you will just go to make good fashion.com/workshop to register. Or check the link in the show notes so I'm so excited. To have you join me in the workshop and to get those fundamental things down that you absolutely need to have in your business. So I hope that this episode was helpful to you and that you took some nuggets from it. Thanks so much for spending time with me on the podcast. Make sure to leave us five star rating. And a review. It helps us get discovered by more people who are trying to pursue their dreams and fashion. And so we want to make sure that we help our friends out to. Anyways, have a wonderful day.
Love you guys so much. See you next time.
