Online Marketing For Fashion E-Commerce: Permanent, Precise and Personal

A year and a half ago, my business partner and I launched the e-commerce website www.anonymousco.com in India - The portal is currently focused on pocket-friendly women's fashion apparel and accessories. Given the nature of our business, an online marketing presence is extremely vital for us to reach out our target audience. Not only do we want our target audience Pan-India to be aware of our brand and website, we also intend on expanding globally in the near future.

Based on my research and observations, there are three main reasons online marketing trumps print media in my view: 1) It is permanent as it leaves a digital footprint, 2) It has a global reach, which makes it more scalable and 3) It is more cost effective than print media, thus justifying the costs from a start-up perspective. Keeping this in mind, the online marketing mix for my e-commerce business consists of the following digital marketing and social media marketing tools: SEO, Google Ads, Advertising on Third Party Fashion Blogs, E-mailers, Facebook Page Content & Facebook Ads, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. It is interesting to analyse and compare how each of these marketing tools are so vastly different in terms of reach, demographic, organic growth and conversion rates. There was and still is a lot of trial and error going on in a attempt to find the 'perfect' marketing mix. Only recently did I realise that it can never really be perfect, because the marketing strategy has to be tweaked ever so often to ensure that it keeps up with the evolving brand and consumer. After a year of some good marketing decisions and even more costly mistakes, here are some of the key findings based off the monthly reports for my portal:

1) Do not skimp on your Google Ads budget - I learnt this the hard way! It has the largest reach when compared to all the other marketing tools, this was of course expected since it's Google and everyone who has internet access can view Google Ads that are being targeted towards them. If you have a great product, visually appealing ads and have refined the set of  keywords being used to market your brand/product, Google Ads is a sure shot way of getting more eyeballs on your website that result in sales. Make sure you carve out a major chunk of your marketing budgeting for this, because it definitely helps give you the initial push and momentum in terms of visibility and sales. Google Ads helps in getting that much closer to reaching those sometimes impossible sales targets.

2) Instagram has shown us the highest % of growth in terms of monthly increase in followers - And it has been purely organic growth. The visual content has really helped to keep our followers engaged and increase visibility. For a business that lacks the element of touch and feel while shopping (which is still a significant drawback in India for the e-tail women's fashion segment), Instagram is a great marketing tool to help potential buyers familiarise themselves and feel more comfortable about the brand/products. All the daily visual content adds a personal touch and makes the brand seem more like a real person.

3) Fashion Blogs thrive on their loyal readers, which is why tying up with third party bloggers has been quite successful. Due to the loyalty factor and readers trusting the sensibilities and tastes of the blogger, featured posts and contests on fashion blogs not only helped us to reach out to our target market more effectively but also to create a level of trust with potential buyers. Hosting contests on a blog also allowed us to get a better idea about how active the readership is and whether it is worth investing in a long term advertisement on the blog.

4) We made the mistake of  putting more than required towards our Facebook marketing budget. The reason I say it's a mistake is because unlike social media tools such as Instagram and Twitter which allow for optimised targeted marketing through hashtags and location, Facebook does not. While the paid ads were successful at getting us more page likes, many of the 'likers' did not fit our target consumer profile (even though we set very specific filters for the ads) and as expected did show a significant increase in website traffic. That being said, we do have a Facebook page where we upload brand and product related content on a daily basis. It's important for brand visibility...The more page likes, the more likely it is that a potential shopper will trust the brand and the product. Not having a Facebook page is as good as telling a potential shopper that your brand does not exist or you do not care enough about it. For a small business, I would recommend dedicating only 10% of your marketing budget to Facebook.

I'm still discovering and learning along the way through the struggles and successes of my start-up, and will keep sharing my findings, observations and experiences - So that you too can learn and grow with me if this is an area of interest to you!