Published on September 6th, 2021 | by Sunit Nandi

Instagram Marketing for clothing brands: Best Practices

Instagram is a showcase for the panache world of fashion. A humongous brand like Channel is also the latest label that has employed a dedicated Insta team to start selling online.

It makes sense. If you think more about it, Instagram is a perfect platform for the style and fashion brand to showcase their latest collections and show off their new lines. Instagram gives all those savvy customers a chance to buy with a click.

The way Instagram has been created in its visual nature is a digital catwalk. Instagram is the go-to place for mobile users shopping for fresh and latest styles from all their favorite labels.

The new features of Instagram have made it a glorified online marketplace for clothing brands. Story Swipe ups send the user directly to the sales page and its ability to tag prices directly on Instagram posts makes it into a favorable shopping experience.

Clothing brands have created a community and work on building real connections with their followers. It is communication with millennials and targeting the right audience with the right content is the key.

Innovative ways for clothing brands to use Instagram to drive sales and marketing.

User-Generated Content is the most powerful content

Today it is the age of selfies- most of the population claim to upload selfies to social media. Almost all millennials do it for sure. Instagram is one sure app on which they share their selfies. The point is people love to share a photo of themselves in cute and happening outfits that are in short access to user-generated content that clothing brands have. Clothing brands can share such content with their target audiences and rewards customers for self-identifying.

Consumer-driven pics can give a boost to conversions. User-generated conversion is five times more likely to convert customers as compared to non- user-generated content.

It is a win-win situation for all. For example, a clothing brand company feed can include a curated mix of pics of original clothing uploaded by themselves and of the customers who themselves then become micro-influencers, encouraged to create user-generated content.

The domain of Influencers influence

Influencers are key helpers in the decision-making of buying by customers these days. Influencers are going to influence, they are set up above user-created content. Brands bring in popular industry personalities and trendsetters on their Instagram marketing to share their latest line of products.

The clothing brands following Influencer marketing strategy gets access to an already established audience, the right targeted audience thus boosting their exposure in the fashion world.

Generally, micro-influencers do this in exchange for products. More established celebrities charge a huge sum for posting.

An example of well-known influencer marketing is posting, resharing and story ups by a number of microbloggers which are followed by your targeted customers. Returns as compared to costs to the clothing brand are nothing and benefits are huge. For example, if you want to market your custom-made jeans, then a macro influencer doing the special ordering, the opening of the package received, and showing off the custom jeans worn will boost sales. Custom jeans are the latest fad and many influencers are promoting them.

Go behind the scenes

A glimpse of what is going behind always makes people inquisitive. What happens backstage always creates curiosity. Allowing the followers of your brand to learn more about you and what goes into the process of designing and making clothes – or untold stories of new lines of clothing. When a celebrity dresses in your line of clothing, attends events, deepens fan’s connections, builds trust and nurtures loyalty in the follower community.

Many prominent clothing brands do that in their Instagram account. They post styled pictures of the latest clothing lines, share photos from the awards, events, red carpet events, and their stores. Non- clothing-related happenings also should be posted to which customers relate.

Personality Pop

Instagram is more than photo sharing. It is more about expressing a story about your product. Instagram is not about posting random pictures or videos of your product. But it is a tool of storytelling where you have to make your personality pop with a careful narrative that expresses the brand’s personality and builds through trust.

For example, if you are an outdoor clothing brand, posting pictures of people wearing your gear while traveling will make people connect to your brand in a much better way. Great outdoor landscapes will resonate with your target audience.

Feature more Instagram’s Features

Instagram launches new features over time and you need to use them to your best. The popular 24 hours disappearing story element is what people check much often. With Stories, you can drive the audience to your sales page with the Swipe Up Feature.

With See It, Buy It culture brands are able to tap instantly into customers who want immediate gratification.

Clothing brands use the Swipe Up feature to let the audience land on their Sales Page or New Collection Page.

These features are great for announcing the new product lines, promotions, and sales, events and also give a boost to conversions.

The highlights feature allows you to group your similar Stories and these stories are then available longer than 24 hours.

Tag It to Bag it

Product Tagging is your one true friend. Instagram has introduced a Shop Now feature. Now you can tag products.

You can tag products in a new post, or now in old ones too. Add tags up to five products in one post or make 20 multi-image posts.

From the Instagram feed itself, your target audience gets the low down of your products. If they like it then they bag it! As they like it, by clicking on the tag you can be taken to a separate landing page where they can choose to buy the product.

Movement in style

Instagram launched a video back in 2013 as people love moving images to keep them glued. Instagram has seen a tremendous increase in the number of videos shared.

The power of video to show some movement has great potential.

With the movement, you can show the flow of the clothing, color, style and give a big part of the appeal to the outfit as it’s seen better in the video than a still image.

Activewear clothing line shows people doing headstands and different poses while wearing activewear. You let people know what these clothes will look like in action.

Reels

Reels are best. If you are trending on Reels you are going to have huge benefits of followers, likes, shares, and definitely a better conversion rate. Using the latest trending Reels you can make yours and reach out to your audience much quicker and better.

Use Instagram Ads to retarget Website visitors

Stats are showing that. 72% of the users have bought products they saw on Instagram.Need we say more? Clothing is easiest to sell on Instagram.

The point is people don’t buy it just as they come across it for the first time. So here is when retargeting comes.

Use Instagram Ads to remind your target audience about the specific clothing they saw and voila you might soon have ordered from them.

Instagram is one of the best social platforms to sell clothing. So get going and choose whatever features you want to use. Playing around and doing so will get you far.

Tags: best practices, clothing brands, instagram

About the Author

Sunit Nandi I'm the leader of Techno FAQ. Also an engineering college student with immense interest in science and technology. Other interests include literature, coin collecting, gardening and photography. Always wish to live life like there's no tomorrow.