Your target audience is a group of customers that you want to reach and who is the perfect fit for your clothing brand. These are the people you want to reach with your marketing strategy. It is important to understand that defining your target audience at the start of your business is going to help you tailor the rest of your business and set up the foundations for success. You may have a great idea for a product and there is probably a market for your product, but understanding your customers and their shopping behaviours will give you better tools to create a product that resonates with them.
When you have a more defined target audience, it helps you to understand the overall competition, focus on your direct outreach to these audiences, and identify gaps in the market that you can fill. By doing all of your research at the start, you can align your business plan with your defined target audience in mind.
As a business owner, you need to understand your fashion target market, otherwise, you could be marketing to the completely wrong audience and waste a lot of time and money. You should be looking at who you’re selling to, what forms of content they respond better to, what they want to understand about your products as well as the benefits you can offer them. There is no point in creating your clothes if you don’t understand your target audience as you may be creating a great product, but the materials or the price point may not be aligned the same. In this article, we will go through how to define your fashion target audience to make the best impression.
Define your products
The first step is to fully understand your product and what value you can offer to your potential customers. What makes your products different from all the other items available from your competitors? It is important to understand what attributes are going to encourage an audience to choose you over anyone else.
Some examples of products values include:
- Tech-inspired materials designed for sport and recreation
- Sustainable fabrics made from recycled materials
- Couture fashion styles at affordable pricing
- Products for an underserved market
- Products that offer a new function
- Versatility in your product
Define your target market
It’s best to start with the basics for now. What are your audience’s ages group? This includes who you are selling to, as well as the age group that you are advertising to as this can get more sales through gifts or other purchase styles. For example, if you’re selling a new streetwear brand, you will of course be marketing to 18-15, but you will also be targeting their parents as they will be buying them for their birthdays, Christmas and other occasions. What is the gender, are they specific to male or female, or are they unisex? Once you know these, you will find that you can niche this down further.
What is their income level?
Once you know your general target audience, you can now start to look at going in deeper into that audience. One of the most important factors to delve into is how much disposable income they have and how much they are willing to spend on clothing. Some items of clothing are essential such as a business owner will of course need a well-made suit, whereas children are constantly growing and growing out of their clothes quickly. Also, if you’re creating sportswear, you should be aware that these items wear out quickly, and will make purchases regularly. If you were selling sportswear, ensure they are durable as this can help with your product values. Fashion clothes are not essential, but this is where desire comes into play. If you were a streetwear brand selling the best premium hoodie on the market, this will entice a range of people, but not for essential reasons.
The reason why it is important to understand your target audiences’ disposable income is the fact that you need to be able to tailor the product to them and know that they can afford it. If you were a luxury brand, then you will need to target an audience that has the budget for this, but if you are wanting to appeal to people on a budget, then you will need to discover methods of marketing to them in a different way.
Learn about your target audience’s pain points
As you learn more about your target audience, you will start to understand what your product can do for your audience, and you will be able to notice what problems your target audience has, and how your brand can resolve these issues.
If you are marketing to a market that cares about the environment and sustainable living, but also enjoys fashion, then you want to embrace the fact that you use recycled materials, you have sustainable production methods, you pay the suppliers a fair salary whilst also being extremely fashion focused with the latest styles, or are a capsule wardrobe type of brand. This will encourage that type of audience to make their first purchase with you.
If you are targeting a more fashion-focused audience, then you should be showing off that you offer the latest designs and that you strive for quality and are always at the top of your game when it comes to the trends.
If you are a childrens wear brand, you should be showing off that your clothes are stain-proof, durable, and withstand heavy play whilst also being stylish. You could be solving a problem such as the item of clothing growing with the child so you get more use out of it. By ensuring you know your audience’s pain points, you can solve these issues and market to them better.
Consider what platforms your target audience will likely use
For you to market your product properly, it is essential that you look at the platforms that your target market is more likely to be on. How and where do they connect with their friends and family? What social media platforms are they on? Do they have any specific apps they prefer to use? What shops do they shop at? The more you know about your target audience in persona and online, the better you can create a marketing strategy to meet them where they are.
Defining your target audience is extremely important for your long-term success. If you understand them, you will be able to align them with your brand and market to them in a more personal way. This will in turn help to get more qualified customers.