Layout 2 - The Fashion Designer Guide

Marketing
Q. How do you put a Marketing Plan together and what should it include?
A. A marketing plan should include your objective - what do you want to achieve:
- Who - who is your audience for that objective?
- How - how can you get there? - this is usually a mix of tactics to achieve this and some commercial
analysis on how this is possible via media investment, etc.
- Measurement - what equals success? Sales? Brand awareness?
Jennifer Roebuck, Director of Ecommerce & Digital Marketing - frenchconnection.com
A. A giant spreadsheet. All the weeks and months across the top and ALL the activity that is customer
facing for the business plugged into it. Broken down into categories. Product launches, key events on
the calendar, what is happening that week, digital marketing activity, above the line activity, promotions
and last year’s history.
Julia Reynolds, CEO, Figleaves.com
Q. What advice would you give to a designer who is thinking about
launching a fashion label?
A. In fashion it is a lot about people you know and of course if you have worked in the industry for
someone else before you should always be thinking about how some of these people may be able to
help you in the future. Make connections and always think about the future.
You need to know your market and exactly what they want - not what you want for them. Depending
on what type of clothing-range you are starting you always need to look at your potential competitors
and finding out as much as possible about them. Price is your first indication of your competitors then
of course the style/fabrics/finishings.
Magnus Gjoen, Designer/Product developer - Vivienne Westwood
A. A new designer needs to find out if there is a gap in the market for the new product. Research can
be done by conducting surveys, talking to people, scouring the Internet, visiting stores to investigate
price points and competition, and new designers would benefit greatly from developing a business
plan. A business plan will help put a new business into perspective as far as cash flows, staffing,
competitors, short and long term goals, manufacturing, website structuring and on and on. Once a
new designer has decided to move forward on a new product, they should secure intellectual property
by buying every website domain iteration and secure coinciding social media: Twitter account and
Facebook fan page names for instance.
Courtney Blackman, Owner/Managing Dir – Forward PR
Mark’s note: April Dunford from Rocket Watcher has created a brilliant marketing framework - well worth
the read: http://www.rocketwatcher.com/blog/2011/01/a-startup-marketing-framework-version-2.html