8 Elements to Power Up Your Fashion Marketing and PR

There’s no magic spell to getting fashion press and buyer attention. In my work promoting independent fashion designers, I experienced alongside designers the disappointment when there was no response from media and buyers despite repeated pitches. The fashion and media industries have undergone seismic changes, and traditional approaches do not necessarily work anymore. Brands need to be more aggressive in their creative presentation in order to demand attention.   

We started Moda 360 to give independent fashion designers an unique opportunity to meet with buyers during LA Market Week. In addition to a trade event, the Moda 360 gives participants a platform to craft a message and create content for marketing campaigns to press, buyers, public and professionals, and connect with other creative industries to push the envelope.  Moda 360 provides long term support for those campaigns, continuing to promote participants after the event ends, pitching brands and artists to media outlets and stylists, and keeping buyers updated about collections. Because of the work we do on behalf of the participants, we rely on innovative visuals and interesting stories in order to be effective. While results are never guaranteed, we have found greater success for those companies whose outreach follows a few guidelines, so if we tell you what we need to help designers, you will have important elements to make your marketing effective.

1.      A creative concept that can go the distance. Fashion changes every season. What was in six months ago, is out now.  You can’t rely on your fashion items to be the sole driving idea behind your business because they have a short life cycle. Your concept is the core style inspiration behind every piece you create, making your collection cohesive and unique. For example, one Moda designer draws inspiration from 1930’s and 1940’s Hollywood. The collection is contemporary, incorporating current trends, with vintage touches from that era. This concept is able to continue long into the future while being reinterpreted each season with a freshness and modern sense. 

2.      A creative concept that leads to marketing campaigns. Bring the concept of your collection into the lives of your customers. If you design for the working woman, then you weave your fashion into social media and marketing campaigns that focus on issues that working women embrace. Patagonia’s core concept is the love of outdoors. Their campaigns are powerful because they focus on that shared love, as well as the importance of preserving the environment, an issue that resonates with their audience. Fashion is about lifestyle. Find the lifestyle in your fashion and share that with your audience to gain new followers and customers. In the case of the Hollywood Moda designer, the look and history of Old Hollywood is infused in visuals and outreach, giving customers that era’s glamour and high style in their life today.

3.      A compelling story that captures interest. When I ask designers about their story, I usually get a simple history of the brand or a bio of the designer. While everyone loves a “how it happened” story, history is past. Journalists and media are looking for fresh content, stories that are about what is happening now, how a brand fits into the context of today’s news.  Show how the concept of your brand fits with changing circumstances we experience in life, and allow changing circumstances to evolve your brand. You don’t just “design for the working woman,” your brand dresses women to be successful, influential and comfortable in today’s corporate environment. Your collection evolves with the changes in corporate attire, and you share this evolution with working women, drawing them into your brand’s story.

4.      Compelling visuals that tell a story about the brand. Visual content, photo and video, is becoming more and more important –  the worth of pictures is probably up to over 2000 words. Sorry, there’s a limit to how much I can sell your clothes on a model against a white background. These photos are useful for your catalogs to see the details of an item, but you are competing with thousands of brands for a limited number of dollars. The internet has opened the floodgates for online media and social outreach, but competition is steep and everyone needs interesting content that will attract eyes and ears.  Visuals can be very simple, but powerful. You need to stand out and most of all, you need to help retailers reach the end consumer if you want to sell your collection.  Buyers look for “hot” collections - what consumers and media are talking about - for a very simple reason.  It sells product. If you want to sell your collection, create a visual conversation about your line that people will engage with and share.

5.      Collaborations that create content. At Moda 360, we encourage collaboration, and connect designers, artists and filmmakers to produce unique content at the event, giving participants more opportunities for exposure. We create events within the platform that give designers and artists new ways to present their work. One of our offerings this year is a partnership with the LA Zoo’s 50th anniversary ZooLAbration. We are creating a sustainable runway with a ‘life in the wild’ theme to present collections in a different context. When you collaborate with complementary brands or other creative artists, you step out of the fashion industry into new opportunities for outreach. You also give your collection a fresh perspective and context, create new stories and further illustrate your brand concept. Collaboration also infuses your marketing with new ideas and an added point of view. 

6.      A long term marketing plan. Moda 360 provides long term support for designers in their marketing and sales.  Along with the post-event promotion, we support the subsequent projects, social media, and marketing that designers set up, sending updates and news out on our network, pitching updates and stories to press long after the event ends. The best results come for designers who keep their brand active and interesting and keep us supplied with relevant updates and content we can share. If you don’t keep moving, you will not get anywhere.

7.      Campaigns that “mix it up.” There are only so many times I can retweet “We’re having a sale on our summer tees!” before I lose my audience. Rule of thumb for marketing, particularly social media marketing, is that only 30% should be hard sell of your products. 70% of the time you should be engaging your audience with what interests THEM, join with them in that interest and relate it to your company. 

8.      An understanding that marketing is not a straight line. “Life is what happens when you are making other plans.” This is very true in your business. Most designers participate in trade shows to write orders. If there are no orders, it was a failure. Same with runway shows. If press didn’t cover your collection – failure. However, the reality is that business is rarely done on site at these events unless a relationship already exists. Visibility leads to opportunities, so every event can give you some success, even indirectly. If you look for ways to maximize your exposure, use your participation to create content for future outreach, and plan a long range campaign (even a simple one), you will have a better opportunity for a return on that event. Most of the time, results are not what you expect and usually not what you plan on, nor do they happen in your timeline. Your approach to any event or campaign should be to maximize your visibility to the largest audience possible for as long as possible.

Every individual event you do or campaign you create is part of a bigger picture and if you connect the dots between everything you do over the long term, you will keep your audience consistently engaged and following you – and growing.  If you invest in a Fashion Week runway show, it’s not a one-off event. If you want it to work, then you have to approach it as a means to build your audience for your next event, trade show, pop up shop, and so on. If you keep the momentum going from each event, it will be easier to get press and buyers to seek you out at future events. When you look at each event as a single moment, you have to start promotion from the beginning with every event, lifting the same heavy boulder each time. A little thought and planning can, down the line, deliver much bigger results.