Indie Designer Marketing

The other day some kids outside the supermarket asked me to buy a chocolate bar. It was a charitable purchase to maintain their afterschool music program.

“Aaaw sweetie… I don’t eat chocolate,” I replied.

“That’s okay ma’am. If you want you can also contribute $1 or any extra change that you have. Every little bit helps.”

I gave this little master of persuasion $10. 

And it struck me that his technique is absolutely usable online.

He asked me to purchase a $5 chocolate bar. When that failed, he asked for spare change - a much lower contribution.

Even if the average person says no to the chocolate bar, it’s much harder to say no to pocket change.

So how does this apply to selling apparel, jewelry and accessories?

Easy. Add a section on your site for items priced lower than your traditional price range.

So if you typically sell dresses that range from $100-$300, create a “$50 and Under” section.

These may be last seasons styles, or merchandise with minor imperfections.

Either way, it’s important that you not mix these items with your regular inventory, so that you’re creating a clear sense of contrast.

Potential buyers who love your stuff may not be ready to spring for a $300 dress. But a $50 dress appears much more do-able.

You’re able to get a new buyer over that inital sales hump. Plus it inevitably opens the door to additional profits.

Do you sell on Etsy?

I don’t care if you’ve got your own site, you should still be listed on Etsy.

They’ve got an ever growing source of traffic consisting of people who buy indie. And most importantly, the feedback feature makes buyers feel more comfortable about purchasing from a vendor they’ve never heard of. Validity is often very hard to get on your own site.

Besides that, if you’re an Etsy seller you can get listed in the Etsy Showcase.

The Showcase page is updated every 24 hours. It has one product photo from 36 Etsy sellers.

When someone clicks on your product photo, they’re taken to your Etsy store.

The cost for this service is $7 a day. Just two days worth of small latte’s at Starbucks.

It’s instant publicity for you. You’re paraded in front of indie product buyers for your 24 hours of fame.

Is it going to make you rich? You never know.

If there’s one thing that has made me very successful at marketing, it’s that I try everything at least three times.

The first time is just a test to see how it goes. The second time I’m fine-tuning. The third time, I’m in it to win it.

Are you in it to win it?

Before the Internet became the cha-cha-cha marketplace that it is today, old school promoters like me used to snail-mail press releases and call reporters on the (gasp!) telephone.

When I first got started doing marketing, I used to mail Rolodex cards to reporters in my niche. This way when they needed a source for a story they were working on, they always had my contact info on hand.

It worked like a charm. While I was still scraping together money to buy a computer, I had journalists calling on me.

Unfortunately, Rolodex’s are like dinosaurs nowadays.

But the technique of reaching out to reporters is just as usable today as it was 15 years ago.

Do you have a copy of my Indie Designer’s Online Marketing Directory?

Of course you can use it to promote your own merchandise.

But there’s another way to use it in order to stay in the forefront of fashion bloggers minds.

Every month, compile a list of 5-10 other indie designers whose work you like. Write a short description explaining why you like them - (I’ve purchased from them and they’ve got great customer service… their styles match perfectly with what you have on your blog). Now e-mail that list to targeted bloggers.

Not only are you helping other fellow indie designers, you’re becoming a trusted source for fashion bloggers as well.

I can tell you first hand (as a fashion blogger) that looking for great stuff to blog about can be quite time consuming. I typically write several weeks worth of blogs at once because it does take quality time to locate what I personally like.

Product suggestions are golden to me. If you can give me several product suggestions, the publicity factor for your own products multiplies by 10.

Remember one shot publicity is cool. But becoming a trusted source in this industry is money in the bank.

As many of you know I also write for the Indie Lust blog.

When I’m writing about a designer, I go to their web site, save the product photos to my hard drive, resize them, and then upload them to my blog server.

Would you like to know what would make my job 50% easier?

Make all of your product photos the same size.

If all of your product photos are sized 385×300 (for example), when I resize them, they will all be of equal size.

Whereas if you have one photo that’s 385×300, another that’s 300×287, and then one more that’s 401×431, I have a much more difficult time resizing them so that they look uniform in my blog. As a result, I usually don’t blog about a designer who’s photos are too time consuming to resize.

If you’d like to add another 50% worth of ease to the equation, then I would say photograph ALL of your products on a pure white background.

White backgrounds make it much easier to work with product photos. Even if they’re all sized differently, they’re completely manageable with a white background.

Remember, colored backgrounds may work for your site. But those colors may not translate well on a bloggers site.

So even if you do a color background, always consider the publicity angle as well, and do a second white backgroud shot.

Table Top Studio offers light cubes and tips to help you improve your pure white background product photos.

Curious as to how other indie designers baby step their way to greatness?

Here’s a yummy dose of inspiration to keep you moving.

For Clothing Designers…

Designed For Success: Five local fashion teams who want to stay by the bay
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/25/LVGU1OO1RM1.DTL

Mischa Barton Digs Her Muumuus: Brooklyn designer Caitlin Mociun turns her clothing into a canvas for bizarre—but beautiful—prints!
http://www.genartpulse.com/archives/2007/05/mischa_barton_d.php

Threads of SUCCESS: Where the fashion industry focuses on everyone but the runway models
http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzcov014912310oct01,0,4898909.column?coll=ny-business-columnists

Karen Walkers’ Fashion Design Success
http://www.thread.co.nz/article/485

A can-do attitude - fashion designer Karl Kani - Inside Track
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3514/is_n3_v43/ai_18163529

How-To’s For Fashion Business Success
http://www.fidm.com/academics/majors/fashion-design/articles/fashion-business-success/index.html

For Jewelry Designers…

CFDA Snapshots
http://www.fashionweekdaily.com/Fashion/fullstory.sps?iNewsid=429834&itype=8487

Success City Style
http://jewelrymaking.about.com/library/weekly/aa101701.htm

Making a Living as a Jewelry Artist
http://www.craftsreport.com/july02/insite.html