The sheer pace and competitiveness of the fashion industry makes it difficult to reach your intended audience. So, if you’re a fashion brand looking to make it big, you need a solid advertising strategy to stand out in the crowd.
That isn’t easy, especially without burning a hole in your pocket. That’s why we’ve put together 14 advertising ideas that’ll help you market your fashion brand the right way.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
- Why is fashion advertising important?
- 14 fashion advertising strategies that’ll help you stand out in 2024
- How to create a fashion ad using InVideo
- 4 pro tips to help you make the most of your advertising campaigns
Pro tip: Video ads have amongst the highest ROI for fashion brands and it should be one of the key strategies in your advertising mix. You can create stunning fashion ads in minutes using InVideo’s ad maker.
Let’s dive in.
Why is fashion advertising important?
Fashion advertising is promoting clothes or accessories of a brand through print or digital medium. It involves identifying the target audience and understanding their fashion preferences to market to them. This analysis helps you reach them with the right product and a compelling offer.
Advertising fashion is important to build a connection of the buyers with the brand. It communicates the story behind a clothing design and the message of the designer. Fashion advertising can be a way to deliver the brand’s values and establish it in the market with a strong image. Fashion advertising is driving targeted campaigns that can increase sales, boost awareness or achieve any other goal.
14 fashion advertising strategies that’ll help you grow in 2024
1. Create TikTok videos
TikTok is home to over 37.3 million Gen Z fashion lovers. If your brand caters to this demographic, you must make TikTok videos a part of your fashion advertising strategy.
The app’s fast-paced nature keeps users hooked, and its ever-changing trends leave plenty of room to get creative with your fashion advertising to attract more followers and drive engagement.
For example, here’s a TikTok with a popular audio clip from Shein. It shows off the company’s latest collection, piquing users’ interest in Shein’s products.
To create viral TikToks, take a look at the latest trends on the platform. Then, brainstorm ways to hop on these trends. Users creating fashion videos often use a lot of in-camera transitions to keep the videos interesting and what is helping them gain traction. You can then try similar things with brand employees or even work with influencers to get the ball rolling.
The best part is that InVideo creates templates for trending TikTok videos. You can easily use these, upload your media and create your trending TikTok video in minutes. Here’s a template you can get started with:
2. Use Instagram Reels
Instagram now prioritizes short-form videos through its Reels feature as it seeks to engage viewers and keep them on the platform. For you, this means greater organic reach and, consequently, a higher chance of being discovered by your audience.
Here’s a Reel from Highway Robbery Vintage for inspiration. It shows off the brand’s latest vintage peachy knit collection by showing users how they can style different outfits using the set. By showcasing the collection’s versatility using Reels, the brand grabs users’ attention, compelling them to check out the rest of its offerings.
Reels trends often work similarly to TikTok trends. So you could ideally create one video to use on both platforms. But keep in mind that your videos don’t have watermarks because these platforms tend to decrease the reach of videos that do.
To create a trendy reel like the one above, pick your most popular items and get someone to style them on camera. Take individual clips of each outfit change and simply put them together in InVideo’s Instagram editor to create a stunning reel in minutes. While you can upload the trending song to the editor to ensure you sync your clips to the beat of the music, while uploading, ensure that you use the song from Instagram’s music library to boost reach.
3. Get active on Instagram stories
Instagram stories are one of the best ways to build brand awareness, grow your engagement, and even drive sales. They also create an authentic connection with your followers because Stories allow you to show a not-so-polished side to your viewers. In fact most brands and creators use stories to develop a personal connection with their audiences and encourage participation.
Take a look at these Stories from The Drop. They’ve used question stickers to start an AMA session where they answered users’ questions about their products. This openness and transparency help customers trust the brand.
To make the most of Instagram stories, you can have AMA sessions like The Drop. You can also post polls, quizzes, reaction sliders, countdowns and other interactive elements to get viewers to participate. You can also share videos talking to the audience or showing the BTS of your brand. To create these videos, you can use story templates on InVideo and have engaging visuals ready in minutes.
4. Collaborate with influencers
Building relationships with influencers and collaborating with them is a great way to drive sales and conversions for your brand. The influencer marketing industry grew from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $13.8 billion in 2021! This is a testament to the fact that if you’re not investing in influencer marketing, you’re missing out.
The beauty of this approach is that it allows you to leverage audiences that these influencers have already cultivated. For example, Valentino collaborated with Zendaya to promote their bag collection. The post highlights their values and personifies these through Zendaya. Not only does this improve their brand awareness and recognition, but it also helps people relate to the brand.
Now, you don’t necessarily need to have access to Zendaya to make your influencer marketing campaign work. You can work with micro and nano influencers to reach their highly targeted audience and gain more traction. A great way to incentivize your audience is to give discount codes or special offers through the influencer.
Don’t forget to repost the content influencers create. You can also create a compilation video to showcase the different influencers you’ve worked with. Simply use slideshow templates from InVideo to do this quickly and easily.
5. Run fashion street shows at popular places
Fashion street shows are a great way to attract public attention and encourage people to check out your brand. Max Mara did this at the Milan fashion week for spring-summer 2022, helping the brand stand apart from the various other offerings at the event.
If you have the budget and can do it like Max Mara, that can be a great boost for your brand. But if you’re a smaller brand, you can still create an impact by hosting your show in venues that see a lot of footfall. You can also curate the clothing and theme of the show based on this to maximize the event's impact.
Don’t forget to promote your fashion show before and after the event. The best way to do this is to share promo videos before the event and highlight films after the event. You can create both of these using InVideo’s online video editor. Here are a few promo video templates you can check out.
6. Support a cause
According to a recent survey, 46% of customers expect brands they support to be socially responsible. If you stand for a cause, posts around how your brand serves this cause are a great way to build a better connection with your customers, establish your authority, and create more long-term loyalty.
This video ad by Levi’s introduces a new range of water-saving and waste-reducing sustainable fashion options to urge customers to practice sustainability. Not only does it help the brand differentiate itself from competitors, but it also allows Levi’s to build a following among people who are interested in sustainability.
Supporting a cause means that the way you practice business inherently accommodates that cause. So if you are a fashion brand that propagates and supports sustainability, then you will need to practice sustainability as well. Of course, you should also take inspiration from Levi’s to spread the word about your sustainable practices. A video is, of course, the best way to go about it.
To create a video like Levi’s, focus on showing the intended audience what you do for a cause instead of just telling them about it. Once your film is shot, you can easily bring it to life with InVideo’s ad maker. For some quick inspiration, check out this template below and add your own messaging:
7. Try a referral program
Referral programs incentivize existing customers to serve as brand ambassadors, improving brand awareness and sales in the process. Clothing brand WoolOvers does this well by offering a 20% discount to the person referring as well as the one who makes a purchase using the referral code. The program works because it incentivizes both parties, increasing the chances of successful conversions.
Source: woolovers
When creating a referral program, ensure that your referral offer has enough value to interest customers and also incentivizes the referee. You want to strike a balance between discounting and minimum order value so it benefits both the brand and the customer.
Pro tip: If you haven’t created a referral offer yet, you can create a video announcing your new program using referral templates on InVideo’s video maker.
8. Conduct giveaways
One of the best ways to keep your audience connected with your fashion brand is to do giveaways. It helps you increase your social media following, improve engagement, and reach a larger audience since everyone likes the idea of winning free stuff.
Dockers Europe, for example, offered people a chance to win a pair of joggers. All participants had to do was follow its social media page, tag two friends, and share their next holiday travel plans. This helped the brand gain more traction and increase page engagement.
Source: dockerseurope
To create a successful giveaway or contest, you need to be clear on your objective. For instance, Dockers wanted to increase engagement and grow its following. You must design your tasks to help you achieve your objective. For example if your goal is to get more followers, you could use that as a task to complete for someone to participate in the giveaway. And you can also create video posts to announce giveaways instead of creatives or still images. Here’s an InVideo template you can get started with.
9. Create a social media contest
If you want to create a buzz on social media while advertising your brand for free, you should try running social media contests. The easy and interactive nature of these contests increases your engagement and sales. The only caveat is that this spike is momentary, so it is not the best solution for long-term goals.
To make the most out of your social media contests, look at this H&M Malaysia challenge for inspiration. This launched when Covid-19 led to widespread lockdowns in Malaysia. H&M asked its customers to participate in the #AtHomewithHM by sharing how they style H&M clothes at home. The gift card incentive and the ease of the challenge helped H&M remain relevant to customers even though fashion was the last thing on most people’s minds.
Source: H&M
You can create a similar challenge for your brand and invite your audience to participate in it on social media. Ideally, the challenge must involve the use of your brand’s products. You can ask your customers to submit videos of them participating in the challenge so you can combine them into catchy compilation videos.
Pro tip: Edit these clips using InVideo’s online video editor and create an attractive contest post in minutes.
10. Leverage moment marketing
Moment marketing is when you use an event or a piece of trending news to gain traction and increase brand awareness. Brands do this by joining customer conversations on trending topics to garner attention. It's super effective as customers share the content, engage with your brand—whether they agree or disagree—and your brand gets to cash in with minimal effort.
Ralph Lauren used the Olympics as an opportunity to do this by launching its Team USA collection at the same time as the global sporting event. This drew the attention of sporting enthusiasts who might not have had an affinity for the luxury brand previously.
Pro tip: Use a major event or moment to market your products through an attractive video showing your fashion products and then edit it without any hassle on InVideo’s online video editor.
11. Optimize for google shopping network
A lot of potential buyers search for their fashion needs on Google. And the shopping section is optimized to provide them with the best option. Optimizing your products for showing up in this section can help drive higher sales and traffic. This is of course a paid advertising activity.
You need to set up a Google Merchant account, and then run ads for your products to rank in the shopping results.
12. Create shoppable ads on Instagram and Facebook
Around 130 million Instagram users learn about brands and products through the platform. The number of people who buy through Facebook is also multiplying. So, using shoppable ads on Instagram and Facebook to sell your fashion products should be a top priority for your fashion advertising strategy.
The option to instantly purchase something reduces the risk of a customer’s excitement waning and increases your accessibility. Shoppable ads have a better impact on the user experience and enhance the brand recall. So, you can have more conversions.
Here’s an example of a shoppable ad by Revolve. The ad has tagged the products in the post and clicking on it can directly take you to the website to buy it. This easier and faster purchase method ensures higher conversions.
Pro tip: You can also transform your video content into shoppable ads. All you’ve got to do is shoot a video promoting your clothing, edit it using instagram ad maker and add your products to the view products buttons.
13. Promote your best performing organic content
You can get your ads better traction by promoting your best-performing organic content. Focus on content that gets the most likes, comments, and shares, as this is likely what resonates with your audience. This content is more likely to work with newer audiences, too. Plus, you can lower your cost-per-click for your ads as social media platforms want to optimize for user experience and post quality.
Oscar, a fashion brand, did just this. The post—a popular one that showcased a top and trousers combination—was promoted, and users were redirected to Oscar’s Instagram page when they clicked on it.
Pro Tip: Videos perform better as organic content and give better returns as paid ads as they grab consumers’ attention better than static images. You can use InVideo’s video maker and choose from thousands of pre-made templates to create stunning, eye-catching videos.
14. Create brand loyalty programs
Acquiring a new customer is far more expensive and time-consuming than retaining the ones you already have. Loyalty programs are a great way to do just this. Brands offer customers loyalty points on every purchase to ensure that they keep coming back. Customers traded in these points for perks like discounts or free shipping.
Here’s an example of a loyalty program by fashion brand Nicce. They incentivize customers to sign-up for the program by creating simple, effortless tasks each customer can complete to earn loyalty coins that can be exchanged for vouchers. Remember to keep your loyalty program straightforward, so customers don’t think twice before signing up.
Make sure you promote your loyalty program as well because unless you spread the word, people will not be interested. You can create video posts and ads for your social media channels to talk about your loyalty program as well as partner with influencers. To create videos posts that help you get better leads, look no further than InVideo, where you get access to hundreds of templates to create videos for this and other purposes.
With that list of ideas in your kitty, let’s go ahead and see how you can bring these advertising ideas to life using InVideo
How to create a fashion ad using InVideo
Regardless of your chosen advertising strategy, one thing is inarguable—the importance of video. Fashion ads need to be eye-catching, and no medium is better for this than video. Here are six simple steps to create an appealing fashion video ad using InVideo’s online video ad maker:
Step 1: Go to InVideo’s online video ad maker and click on create video ads. In the search bar, type ‘fashion ads’.
Step 2: Select a template of your choice and click on the ‘Use this template’ button. You will also need to select the aspect ratio at this stage.
Step 3: Once inside the editor, start by editing the text. Double-click on the text and replace it with your own.
Step 4: Next, go to Uploads and select the media (images & videos) you’d like to use. Double-click the image on the template and drag and drop your image onto it. Click Replace when prompted.
Step 5: Go to the Music tab and select the background music you’d like.
Step 6: Click on download, select the video quality you’d like, and hit the Export button.
4 pro tips to help you make the most of your advertising campaigns
Now that you know some of the best fashion advertising strategies that can help grow your brand in 2024 and also know how to bring these to life, here are a few tips that’ll help you make the most of your advertising campaigns.
Tip #1 - Understand your audience
Before creating a great ad, you need to know your audience. This will determine your messaging and what ads you create. A good place to start is researching existing ads from competitors in the same category as yours. Look at their visual identity; how do their ads use color, images, and text? Are there any commonalities among them that imply themes or styles (e.g., punk-inspired imagery) that might work well for your brand?
The more familiar you are with how others in the same field have tackled advertising, the better prepared you'll be when trying something new yourself.
Tip #2 - Create a Custom Audience For Retargeting Campaigns
Retargeting allows you to reach out to people who have already visited your website. It's an effective way to remind them of the great experience on your site by showing them relevant products or telling them about upcoming sales that they might be interested in. Here’s a tutorial that can help you understand how to do this:
Tip #3 - Optimize for mobile
A study by Statista reveals that about 60% of organic searches happen on mobile in the US. That’s why optimizing your digital assets to be functional for multiple devices is imperative.
A great experience of the website on the mobile can help you bring back the potential buyers who left without making a purchase due to some reason. So, you have higher chances of converting them into customers. Websites optimized for mobile devices increase sales by giving more channels to browse through the products and buy.
Tip #4 - Offer limited-time discounts
With so much competition in the market, getting customers to make a purchase is getting increasingly difficult. Limited-time discounts can help you achieve this. It gives customers a sense of FOMO, pushing them to make purchases more impulsively. Remember to tell your customers why you are offering a discount. This will make your brand seem authentic rather than appearing to do this to boost sales.
Wrapping up
With so many fashion brands crushing advertising, you need to create campaigns that truly resonate with your target audience and help you connect with them. Advertising, however, isn't a one-and-done thing. You have to stay consistent with your advertising to remain at the top of your customers’ minds.
If you want insights on advertising with paid media, you can take a look at this clothing ads blog, and if you want to create organic videos for your brand, you can check out our fashion video ideas blog here. And if you prefer learning via video, check out our YouTube channel, where we share video creation tips and tricks, and more.
This post was written by Mrignayni and edited by Adete from Team InVideo
