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The eCommerce world is exploding in popularity.
Now that buyers can choose from thousands of online retail brands, it’s more important than ever to grab your audience’s attention.
Maybe this competitive landscape sounds intimidating. But luckily, you don’t have to attract every person on the internet.
All you need to run an online fashion brand is your target audience! And what better way to reach out to your audience than email marketing?
We’re not talking about the “spamming subscribers with countless sales emails” type of marketing. We’re talking about brand-driven and personalized content.
That sounds great and all. But how do you apply email marketing to fashion brands?
This article will take you through five email marketing tips for fashion brands, plus a handful of fashion emails to inspire you. You’ll leave this post ready to start your email campaign!
Let’s dive in.
What is the best way to market a clothing brand?
Email marketing is one of the best ways to market your retail brand. One reason is that eCommerce retail is expected to have double-growth in sales—making up over 20% of total retail sales by 2024.
If online retail is rising, you’ll need a robust tool to manage every sales funnel stage. Something like… Email marketing!
We at Sendlane love email. But why do other fashion brands flock toward this marketing strategy?
To start, email is personable.
Spammy emails are a thing of the past. Personalized messaging is where it’s at now.
Customer data helps you send content based on your subscriber’s wants, struggles, and desires. Connecting with your online buyers has never been easier.
Retail is especially adamant about personalization. 77% of retail, eCommerce and consumer brands personalize email subject lines vs. 66% of financial services companies.
But we know that nurturing your audience is a time-cruncher.
That’s why email marketing is automatable. Sending triggered emails and campaigns off the bat will save you hours of headache.
And don’t worry. Automation doesn’t equal boring. As we mentioned earlier, you can personalize the average sales campaign into messaging your audience will stand by.
Best of all, email marketing tools assist with list hygiene.
Simple tasks like managing cold subscribers save your efforts for those who care about your brand—boosting your open and click-through rates in the long run.
We could talk about the perks of email marketing for fashion brands all day. But you can’t truly see how well this method works until you apply it yourself.
Let’s go over five ways you can apply email marketing to your retail brand.
//[inject:ad-demo]
Best tips & examples of applying email marketing for fashion brands
1. Represent your fashion brand with high-quality images
Fashion is visual. You wouldn’t buy a pair of pants without seeing them, right? Our guess is no!
But images don’t just show off your items. They also represent your brand’s story and imitate an in-person shopping experience.
Zara’s email marketing images show off their chic clothing brand. These images evoke that “carefree” lifestyle their audience wants.
And take a look at Girlfriend Collective’s fashion email.
This company represents its inclusive values with photos of different women. Various body types help Girlfriend Collective’s audience imagine themselves wearing their bras confidently.
Finding quality images isn’t hard with Sendlane. Our product picker feature pulls images from your eCommerce platform and adds them to Sendlane. No importing is needed!
And, of course, different audiences are drawn to certain images. Divide your findings by segmented lists or demographics:
- Age
- Gender
- Occupation
- Location
- Purchase behavior
- Recently viewed items
Retail images attract users to your products. But what about your overall brand?
You need something other than photos to connect users to your mission. Community outreach emails should do the trick!
2. Connect with your readers and foster a brand community
If you’ve kept up with the latest eCommerce trends, you know that buyers prefer community-driven brands. Shoppers want to contribute toward something bigger than themselves.
Take Astrid and Miyu. A jewelry brand with the motto, “We are not a jewelry brand, we are a movement.”
This fashion brand integrates its values—mental health and inclusivity—with a self-care-focused community.
Astrid and Miyu experienced a 1000% growth in the past three years—not because they sell cute accessories, but because of their community.
In a Youtube interview by LoyaltyLion, Holly Robinson, Senior eCommerce associate, explains how they achieved this growth.
“We’ve been so successful because we’ve continued the conversation with our community. We really value their feedback, whether that’s about our in-store services or the quality of our jewelry.”
Want to follow in Astrid and Miyu’s footsteps and build a tight-knit group? Below are two ways to start with email marketing.
A. Show your values
Contrary to popular belief, fashion emails aren’t just about sending deals. Take a break from promotional campaigns and send content around your mission.
HNST shares its values with an email campaign packed with content around climate change.
This email has nothing to do with its recyclable jeans. Instead, it targets the meaning behind their company—contributing toward sustainable fashion.
So, do value-based emails promote community?
Yup! 76% of Insiders (engaged community users) said that a greater understanding of what a brand stands for would make them complete more community-based activities.
Value-driven email campaigns don’t mean curating brand new content. Repurpose old social media posts, podcasts, and articles into your digestible emails!
B. Loyalty programs
Along with an organic community, loyalty programs encourage post-purchasers to continue buying from you.
The key to building a loyalty program is offering unique perks.
H&M divides its loyalty program into two tiers. The more points you get, the more bonuses you receive!
Some interesting benefits they offer include “Buy now, pay later” and free shipping over $25.
Promoting your loyalty program is easy with email. Send an invite post-purchase, and you’re good to go!
3. Personalize your fashion emails with segmentation
Segmentation, or dividing subscribers into specific lists, is the central pillar of email personalization. These lists boost engagement by tailoring content toward particular subscribers.
Let’s say you sell items for adults and children. Rather than sending children items to people without kids, you would only send those emails to parents.
Segmentation works for all types of fashion emails.
A. Post-purchase emails
Copy Italic’s fashion email campaign by rewarding loyal customers with exclusive promotions.
Italic’s “Thank you Tuesdays” campaign “thanks” their customers with deep discounts. These users now feel special and part of an inside group.
Other post-purchase emails you can segment include:
- Confirming a recent purchaser’s order
- Asking for feedback after someone buys an item
- Upselling customers
- Updating subscription users about their upcoming shipment
B. Product recommendation emails
Product recommendation emails remove virtual browsing and take subscribers to their ideal product.
This made-to-order jewelry service uses images to portray what your customized jewelry would look like.
Knowing what your jewelry looks like makes it easy to click the “Shop Now” button, doesn’t it?
Other than personalized images, weave these other product recommendation features into your content:
- “You might like” section
- Product recommendation quiz
- Abandoned cart emails
Just so you know, you can leverage Sendlane’s multivariable segmentation to divide users into specific lists on autopilot!
C. Back in stock email
An easy way to attract past website visitors is with a back-in-stock email.
Here’s how these emails work:
1. Someone visits your product
2. If the product is out of stock, your site will trigger an email opt-in form to let others know when it’s available
3. Your segmented list will get an email notification when your inventory restocks. Easy-peasy!
Don’t worry. We didn’t forget about the famous abandoned cart email. This segmentation idea is so popular that we dedicated an entire section to it!
4. Recapture website visitors with abandoned cart emails
The average abandoned cart rate is 69.82%—yikes! Why the high percentage?
In some cases, visitors will leave if a checkout process is too long or complicated. And others may simply forget to purchase!
Whatever the case, solid abandoned cart emails can decrease this number for you. It all starts with a good structure.
We can explain the anatomy of a captivating abandoned cart email in four words:
1. Hook: All it takes is one sentence to grab your reader’s attention. Write copy that brings emotion to the table, like laughter or empathy.
2. Images: Refresh your subscribers’ memories with photos of their products
3. Time-sensitive: Trigger your emails soon after someone leaves their cart so they don’t forget about you. Sendlane automatically retargets users with an email as soon as a cart is left!
4. CTA: Use incentives to convince users to go back and purchase.
Sometimes, users simply need a reminder and no incentive is needed. The fashion brand Bonobos uses this reason as an opportunity to make subscribers laugh.
And notice how Bonobos encourages subscribers to ask questions by either responding to the email or chatting with their team.
Customer support technically counts as an incentive. And you don’t have to account for a possible loss of revenue discounts may cause. It’s a win-win!
Jack Wills takes another approach to emotional marketing with supportive messaging.
The “Don’t Worry, We’ve Got You” tagline makes readers think, “Wow, this brand really cares about me!”
To put the cherry on top, Jack Wills displays clear images of each missed item. And there are three different buttons to direct users back to their cart.
While you’re here, you might as well add a cross-selling strategy to your fashion email. Sendlane’s product picker attaches items that go well with the user’s abandoned cart.
Separate these items into a “You might also like” section and reel in extra purchases!
Oh, and we can’t forget about abandoned cart subject lines. These popular subject lines are known to increase open rates:
- “Did you forget something?” - Promotes curiosity
- “We didn’t forget about you!” - Promotes support
- “It’s not too late!” - Promotes scarcity
Email subject lines are, in general, a vital part of all fashion emails—including sales and promotions.
You may consider using this template:
Subject: Don't Miss Out On Your Fashion Finds!
Hello [Customer Name],
We noticed that you left something behind in your shopping cart! We know how busy life can get, so we wanted to remind you of the fantastic pieces you almost took home.
[Include a photo of the product(s) left in the cart]
These trendy items are perfect for [occasion/season/event], and we want you to experience them! Plus, we're offering an exclusive discount for all abandoned cart items.
[Include a coupon code for a discount or free shipping]
But don't wait too long - our inventory is limited, and we don't want your favorites to sell before you can snag them. Click the button below to complete your purchase.
[Insert call-to-action button]
As always, our customer service team is here to help if you have any questions or concerns. Thank you for choosing [Fashion Brand], and we hope to see you soon!
Best,
[Your Name]
[Your Fashion Brand]
//[inject:ad-ebook-abandoned-cart]
5. Promote sales and limited offers
There’s a fine line between informative sales emails and annoying ones. Stay in the informative lane and follow these three characteristics:
- Strong call-to-actions: Your audience opens multiple emails every day. Catchy one-liners convert even the most filled inboxes.
- Brand messaging: Avoid cliche messaging and integrate your tone of voice into CTA buttons.
- Quality images: Photos and emotions go together like peanut butter and jelly. Get users excited about your sale with brand-style images or even a video!
Ready to see these qualities in action? Let’s start with Hush Puppies’ Father’s day deal.
Hush Puppies’ one-liner and CTA button are to the point: Buy shoes for Father’s day!
Their incentive (30% off) and code to access the discount are in big font. And the images show the best shoes for a father or grandfather! What a prime example of clear-cut email copy.
On the other hand, Cotton Bureau takes a different approach with chunky paragraphs.
We love how Cotton Bureau uses its third anniversary to increase sales. Promoting special events can boost morale and brand loyalty!
One thing we would change is the graphics under each small paragraph. It’s hard to read, and users might exit. But you won’t know for sure without A/B testing.
A/B testing your fashion emails tells you what your users click on the most and least. It’s an amazing analytics tool. And yet, marketers rarely use it these days! Only 4% of companies from Litmus’ study always use A/B testing.
Luckily, Sendlane can set up A/B testing for you with multi-variable testing. Some areas you might want to test include:
- Subject lines
- Images
- CTA button copy and placement
- Time of day to send emails
- Color schemes
Other metrics include email open rates, click-through rates, and your overall ROI.
6. Tell compelling stories
Storytelling is a powerful marketing tool that can help you connect with your readers on a deeper level and foster a brand community.
Share stories about your brand's history, values, inspiration behind your collections, and customer success stories.
This will help your audience relate to your brand and build an emotional connection, leading to increased engagement and loyalty.
By incorporating storytelling into your fashion email marketing, you can create a unique brand narrative that resonates with your audience and sets you apart from your competitors.
Remember, effective storytelling doesn't have to be lengthy or complicated. It can be as simple as a short anecdote, a behind-the-scenes look at your design process, or a testimonial from a satisfied customer. The key is to make it genuine, relatable, and aligned with your brand identity.
Grow your fashion brand with email marketing
Personalized marketing is only increasing in importance for fashion brands. eCommerce is growing, so you need a way to stand out from competitors and online distractions.
Email marketing helps you:
- Drive more personalized content straight to your users
- Build a value-driven brand and community
- Nurture website visitors into buyers
- Retain post-purchasers with community-driven content
All you need is dynamic email marketing software like Sendlane to turn your ideas into reality!
Sendlane sends dynamic emails to subscribers using behavioral data and nurtures them to buy. You’ll receive more engaged customers without doing all the grunge work!
Give Sendlane a spin with a 60-day free trial and see how we can grow your fashion brand.
