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Marketing for clothing brands is different from marketing other kinds of products or services. Clothing lines face the difficult task of having to market their brand as part of a lifestyle or aesthetic, which can be much harder to accomplish.
While there's no magic formula to guaranteeing success, there does seem to be a common thread among popular clothing brands with a strong audience and engaged customers—and that's experiential marketing.
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Why Experiential Marketing Will Benefit Your Clothing Brand
As you might imagine, this form of interactive advertising has the power to draw in customers by giving them the opportunity to experience your brand first-hand. There are many benefits experiential marketing can elevate your clothing brand, here are just a few:
- Generate word of mouth and buzz - You're getting people interested without selling anything at all because you're showing people what it's like to use your product or engage with your brand; this makes creating relationships easier and more natural.
- Give life to your brand identity - Your brand is everything you can't touch, and while you can capture some of that through copy, social media and other marketing efforts, the most powerful way to truly communicate it is through experience. Once customers experience your brand, they'll have a stronger understanding of what it is. This also helps you stand out amongst your competition.
- Stronger brand loyalty - Experientially branded products encourage people to be more loyal and committed because there is a strong emotional bond between them. Experience can also help increase customer lifetime value because they will have a greater emotional attachment to your brand and product.
- Build consumer trust - With experiential marketing, consumers feel like they're getting access to something exclusive without being sold anything at all; this builds their trust for both your product and company.
While you can see the benefit of a live event or interactive experience for major corporations, it might be hard to imagine what experiential marketing looks like for clothing brands.
The possibilities for interactive campaigns are virtually limitless, but many of our clients have found success by hosting virtual sales summits. TPA put one together for athletic adventure-wear company Fjallraven to highlight their Spring 2022 clothing and accessory line.
Here are some other examples of ways clothing brands can include experiential marketing in their brand strategy:
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How To Begin Experiential Marketing For Your Brand
Experiential marketing can help you connect with customers on an intimate level that traditional advertising could never accomplish. But if you want to start focusing your advertising efforts on experiential marketing, there's one key thing to remember: you have to be consistent.
Your brand won’t reap the benefits from a one-off event. This kind of marketing can only help you grow your business and expand your brand awareness if you do it consistently over time.
When you're building out these interactive campaigns, think about the kind of emotional connection you wish to be with your audience (i.e., how you want to make them feel), and what type of events you want your brand to be associated with. Don't be afraid to push the boundaries and try something different for your industry.
The more you host these, the more people will flock to your business to see what you'll do next.
