The fashion industry can be an extremely competitive market. Not only do smaller brands need to compete with larger, more established companies, but they also need to ensure that they stay relevant as styles and consumer preferences change. Therefore, any brand owner who hopes to survive in the fast-paced and ever-changing fashion industry must set long-term goals to ensure their success.
Long-term goals are the goals you set for yourself or your business that you hope to accomplish in the distant future. The timeframe varies, but most goals are set with a 3 to 5-year realization.
Goals, in general, are different for every business. However, if you are running a clothing brand business and are accomplishing your short-term goals or haven’t even launched your business yet, here are some long-term goals you may want to set for your brand.
Increase Online Brand Recognition
Building your online brand recognition is vital to succeeding in the world of clothing brands. People need to be able to see your logo or core product line and know it’s you. You can do this by creating high-quality products with a similar vibe. You can also design tags that are bold, easy to read, and unique from the competition.
Being consistent with your logo and products will increase your online brand recognition. With people clicking through pages faster than most people can get a sentence out, your brand needs to be something that will catch their eye and stop them from scrolling past.
A few ways to get customers to recognize your online brand presence is to
- Run giveaways or special promotions
- Be a guest on a blog or podcast that is relevant to your core customer base
- Create targeted campaigns
- Keep your brand logos the same across all online forums
Increase Instagram Presence
Instagram is one of the simplest, most used apps for an online clothing brand to take advantage of. Starting an entire clothing business on Instagram is not that uncommon. With an estimated 1 billion active monthly users, you must utilize this space to work towards your long-term clothing brand goals. Instagram, being a visual-first platform, can help a clothing brand display what makes it unique. The videos and pictures published on the platform will help followers see how stylish your brand is and turn your followers into customers.
Are you making posts but not getting enough activity from your followers, or maybe you are not gaining followers on a daily basis? Make sure you are using ALL that the app has to offer and not just adding to your feed.
Instagram stories are a huge hit right now. Over 500 million Instagrammers use stories daily, with 70% of Gen Z and 59% of millennial Instagram users watching stories daily.
Create videos of behind-the-scene snippets of your day, add in some bloopers that were made while developing your final posts, and give your followers a way to relate to you! Being authentic is a huge step in gaining a loyal following.
Make sure you are utilizing hashtags to track which posts your followers find more intriguing. For example, use the main hashtag for your brand and then add different ones for contests, giveaways, or special collections. That way, when you search the hashtags, you can see what your followers are reposting.
Get Your Brand in Retail Stores
While many businesses can succeed with a completely online presence, the feeling of walking through a retail store and seeing your clothing brand on the racks and shelves is a satisfying part of your long-term goals. In addition, getting into retail stores is a sign of a brand’s maturity. Whether it is a major retailer or a local boutique, when a brand arrives in stores, it creates the potential to capture customers who value the in-store shopping experience.
Once you have established your target market, you can then determine where they tend to shop for their clothing. With many retail stores collaborating with various brands, this is a great time to move part of your business from the online market to the sales floor. Many new businesses set this long-term goal too early. This should be a goal for a clothing brand that has gained some traction.
Be sure to go in with an open mind regarding pricing and strategy. You will need to ensure that you and the retail store owner will clear a profit while not raising your prices so high that your target customer can’t afford it. Finding the right fit for you and your brand might also take more than one collaboration.
Lower Production Costs Without Sacrificing Quality
In today’s market, and even the average market, it’s essential to look at ways to improve your bottom line without sacrificing the quality of your product. It is especially important for clothing brands. A quality clothing brand is not only one that fits its consumer’s style but also doesn’t fall apart.
The challenge that many clothing brands have in this area is finding a way to offer the same quality the customers love but without using subpar materials.
Sometimes when you’re getting started, you are just trying to make it. Once you find solid footing, you can then go back, review and assess where you can lower production costs without sacrificing quality.
Some of the most common ways you can lower your production costs are:
- Renegotiate with your suppliers
- Improve efficiency in all areas of your business
- Reduce waste
- Find ways to use any leftover materials or products
- Buy your supplies in larger quantities to get more significant discounts
Successfully Launch a New Line
Being able to launch a new line successfully is another long-term goal that is only made possible after completing the short-term goals for your clothing business. Once you’ve built your branding and your original launch line has been successful, it is time to start thinking about establishing new products.
One of the most crucial keys is to remember that you’re not trying to start something from scratch; you are simply building on what has already been successful and what your customers have become accustomed to.
Ask your customers what they might be looking for from your brand. Then, use that feedback to build a new line of products that customers can pair with the pieces they already love.
Host a private event with customers and influencers that primarily interact with your social media pages. Make it fun and enticing so that others become excited to grab the products the moment they become available to the broader public!
Conclusion
As we mentioned earlier, business goals vary. Therefore, your plans will be different depending on the direction you want to take your clothing brand. However, accomplishing the above goals signifies that your business is headed in the right direction.
We don’t want you to become part of the statistics of small-businesses failing. One of the most important steps to get you to your long-term goals in building a successful clothing business is to grow your brand from the ground up and stay consistent with your product and message.
Long-term goals help keep your business on the right track. They also ensure that you are growing and expanding your business. If you can set and accomplish the right long-term goals for your brand, you will be able to reap the benefits for years to come.
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