Ecommerce clothing businesses are a multi-billion-dollar industry, with ever-increasing pressure to stake a share of its potential. Your future customers are out there, and there are reasonably-priced ways to attract them and increase your revenue other than through brushing up on how to create effective Facebook or Instagram ads (although those are always good to have).
Your smartest plan is to acquire new customers without spending a lot -- thus increasing profit -- and to further increase those margins by making the most of the customers you have.
To sum up: find cheaper ways to attract customers, then continue marketing (remarketing) to those customers to ensure they come back!
In this post we provide specific strategies to optimize three different categories of your business: Products, Marketing and Remarketing, and recommend the tools and apps that we use ourselves.
Stand Out with Personalized Products
Getting creative with your products will help you stand out among competitors while adding more value for your customers.
How can I display options for personalization in my store?
We recommend Bold Commerce’s Product Options, a Shopify app that allows you to offer a wide range of personalized options for your clothing. It enables your customers to choose far more variants than what Shopify provides on its own, giving you the ability to do the following, for a start:
- Upsell personalized features like your customer’s name, favourite number, custom trim, special laces, buttons, company logos, etc.
- Upsell by adding a complimentary product alongside, like a hat for $30
- Add a personalized patch sewn onto a garment
- Receive a ‘surprise’ personalized gift for an additional $10
- Customized gift wrapping
How can I deliver on all these options and personalizations?
We created Exportify, a Shopify app that customizes your Order Exports to the format of your liking. It helps you stay organized with even complicated orders and gets the information your manufacturing and warehouse team need to ensure your customers get exactly what they purchased.
If you already have overwhelming Order Exports (congratulations!) or need to import orders into another system, Exportify is for you!
Harness the power of influencers
Now that you can customize products and deliver with confidence, it’s time to show off the new gear.
How can I get my new products out there?
Keep your marketing budget in check. Attract interest by sending select influencers a product from your store that’s uniquely tailored to them.
How do I start?
- Don’t be shy! Reach out to five influencers on Instagram DM (you likely won’t hear back from all five)
- Ask them if you can send them products that you will customize for them
- Ask them a few questions about themselves, like their full name, home city, favourite sports team, favourite number, horoscope sign, etc.
- Ship them your product with a note that asks them to talk about your brand and its personalized touches, like the one(s) they received
- Feature these posts or stories on your social accounts and website.
Engage your existing customers with automated email marketing
Once you have simplified your processes with Product Options and Exportify and introduced your cool new options to the world, create some effective, automated email campaigns to make the most out of the customers that already love your products.
How do I automate my email remarketing?
We recommend a tool like MailChimp or Klaviyo to create email campaigns that remind your customers to use your new service to order personalized gifts on key dates throughout the year. We’re talking December Holidays, Valentines Day, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, and even birthdays if you have that customer data. These dates present a great opportunity for your store to increase sales via customized gifts.
I have a clothing business; what can I learn from a flower store?
Callia Flowers, a Canadian company, does an exceptional job with this strategy. Callia sends out well-organized email campaigns for key dates and holidays, and allows its customers to customize gifts with a selection of cards, write their own message and enter the recipient's information on the product level.
Perhaps gifts with your brand could include custom cards, gift wrapping or unique touches to the garments themselves.
Conclusion
Growing your revenue without spending a lot in marketing takes more than a little bit of thought, ingenuity and hustle, but these three strategies are proven to pay off.
- Install Exportify and Product Options to manage the ordering and delivery of your customizable products
- Send personalized products to influencers for promotion
- Set up an email marketing tool like MailChimp or Klaviyo to automate campaigns on key dates to promote your new line of customized gifts.
We hope we’ve provided some food for thought and that you’re inspired to explore these strategies and apps to improve your business! Good luck!
Able Sense. We’re Shopify experts for Clothing Businesses. Start your customized Ecommerce Action Plan here.