How to Start a Clothing Line From Scratch | A Step by Step Guide

starting a fashion line is an amazing way to balance your passion for art as well as commerce in order to make a lasting online business you're going to need more than just beautiful clothes you'll need to master branding retailing manufacturing among other things that's why i am so excited for today's video where we're going to learn how you can build your own brand from start to finish [Music] hi i'm michelle valli i'm a creative strategist based out of toronto i've had the pleasure of working with countless small businesses in the fashion industry across toronto and i've also worked with bigger businesses like nudestix cosmetics and valeria lipovetsky so i've definitely seen both sides of the coin in this video we'll be talking about the training you'll need resources for writing a business plan and developing your brand identity we'll also cover tips on how to come up with creative concepts reaching out to manufacturers timing your collections to the seasons wholesale strategy and selling online and in person and even better in today's video we'll be joined by mackenzie she is the co-founder of cotton which is a ethical and sustainable clothing brand you can take formal education through college or university to learn the business and the skills of the fashion industry but that's definitely not necessary anymore considering how much information there is online check out udemy master class even youtube videos to help get you trained i know i personally have friends that have successful fashion businesses and they don't have any formal training in fashion for example mackenzie studied fashion communications at ryerson university while co-founder benjamin studied communication your education will definitely help you but it will not define the success of your business even if you're running a one-man show writing a business plan is going to be essential for being clear about your goals and being able to manifest them and when you're ready to raise an investor is going to want to see how feasible your business idea is before funding it when you're writing a business plan you'll want to separate it into eight separate sections the first section is the executive summary the executive summary overviews everything that you have in your business plan into one page the next section is the company overview this will answer who you are as a company and what you plan to do you'll also want to include a market analysis that gives an industry overview how competitive it is and where you fit in next the products and service section will speak to the gap that your industry has and how your company aims to fill that gap customer segmentation outlines your ideal customer and your target audience include a marketing plan section where you'll strategize how when and where you'll be reaching your ideal customers make sure to write in a logistics and operations plan this is going to be very crucial especially for businesses in fashion so in this section you'll want to include your suppliers your shipping and fulfillment your facilities and your equipment lastly and also a personal favorite of mine you're going to want to include a financial plan so in this section you'll want to include your income statement your balance sheet and your cash flow statement that's a basic overview of what's included in a business plan but if you're looking for a more step-by-step guide on how to actually write one we've created an entire video dedicated just to this so make sure that you're clicking this video here open that link in a new tab to watch after and it actually comes with a free downloadable template that you can use to follow along developing your brand identity is more than just the design of your collections and your logo think of your brand identity as an intricate personality you've got a photography style your collections the way your website looks the branding your sustainability statement all of these things combined together really help create your brand identity here are four components to start out with when you're creating your brand look and feel first is your visual identity your visual identity is composed of your logo your brand colors your typography and your photography a good idea is to head over to pinterest and check out some images that inspire you and drop them into canva to create a dynamic mood board let's take a look at cotton cotton uses neutral colors sans-serif fonts and images that look like they've been taken on film all of this together gives you a very distinct brand look and feel your brand tone of voice is the way that you'll speak to your audience through marketing and customer service developing a tone of voice that feels natural and authentic to you will definitely come across to your audience make sure that you're creating a set of guidelines of how you would speak across all channels and that's going to come in handy especially as your team starts to grow so for instance cotton uses a very formal tone of voice while still being informative your brand's story is the narrative of why your brand exists and its mission people remember stories better than they do facts and figures so this is really your opportunity to make your brand's story memorable and make an emotional connection with your audience here are a couple of questions to ask yourself when you're building out your brand story why am i starting this brand what makes me different and why does the world need my brand going back to cotton their brand story really highlights the importance of traceability in the fashion industry only five percent of the fashion industry knows exactly where their products are coming from starting at the raw materials so they've disrupted the industry by being transparent about the origin of their products and they work that into their brand story your brand values are the things that you stand for as a company like social good or excellent design developing brand values that you truly care about will make you proud to stand behind your brand and it's going to give you motivation to help build your brand over time most companies will take all of this information and compile it into a document called a brand book check out glossier's brand book you can create your own brand book on canva or you can hire a graphic designer to do this for you you can find a graphic designer on upwork.com but just make sure that you're vetting the right candidate coming up with a concept behind a clothing line or figuring out how a product is going to look can feel super daunting especially when you're just staring at a blank canvas many creatives will get inspired by fashion throughout history or they'll take an existing idea and add their own twist pick up the book called a technique for producing new ideas by william burnback it's about an hour-long read and it guides you through five simple steps on how you can produce new ideas every time that i pick this up and read it i always have new ideas flying through my head and it sparks so much creativity a great place to discover and collect inspiration is on pinterest.com pinterest.com has an unlimited amount of searchable images that will help get your creative years turning a recent article in inc explains that brain scans have shown high levels of creativity when the brain is relaxed so if you're printing off your mood boards make sure that you're sticking them around your house because as you're going about your day and your brain is relaxed an idea might strike one of the aha moments for cotton's benjamin cell was when he was in new york on a very hot sweaty summer day he was constantly having to re-up on his basic white tees but he could not find a happy medium between the five dollar tee and the 100 designer tee and that was part of the inspiration that led to cotton's inception the fashion industry operates on a seasonal cycle so it goes fall winter and spring summer in order to keep up with this you're going to want to start planning your collections at least a year in advance however there is a new movement called seasonless fashion and it aims to slow down the impact socially and environmentally that the fashion industry has here are a couple of things that you're going to want to keep top of mind in order to launch on time give yourself time to trend forecast trends come from a mix of intuition research and social culture in order to be successful in your trend forecasting you're going to have to accept that it is very time consuming and calls for you to be a sponge pretty much 24 7. approach music science politics the culture around you with a sense of curiosity reach out to your vendors and your partners to discuss timelines this will include your pattern makers your fabric vendors and your production facilities to name a few create a work back schedule and share it with the entire team to make sure that the dates are achievable have a marketing plan in place for when your collection drops be clear on what publications you're going to go after and how you'll build anticipation on social media if you're just starting out i recommend you be super lean with production try working one-on-one with a freelancer in order to get your product prototyped and to be able to test the market the prototype phase will start with a sketch use your sketches to refine the design in the early stages rather than making expensive edits to the prototype you're also going to want to create a flat a flat is a simple line drawing as if the garment were laying flat you'll also need initial specs specs are the measurements of a garment laid out in a very easy to read chart engage your team members in order to communicate your vision through an ongoing conversation also make sure that you're showing them existing examples to communicate your ideas a fit model is a model that tries on the garment prior to production and helps the design team achieve the desired fit it'll also give the design team a good understanding of how the garment will hang on the body make sure that you're choosing a model that accurately represents your target audience fittings usually include the designer the technical designer and the fit model be prepared for a couple of rounds of fitting critiques to the prototype before going into production when you're ready to find your manufacturer it's going to have a lot to do with who you know same thing goes with finding your fabric agents and your wholesalers so what you can do is you can start by looking online at directories like compass makers row and sketch also join shopify entrepreneur's facebook group in order to get some peer-to-peer advice in my personal opinion reaching out to your network will always yield the best results so don't be afraid to detach from your screen and start asking your network for some advice with consignment retailers will pay you once the item sells and with wholesale retailers will pay you up front generally speaking when you're just starting out retailers are going to want to do consignment because it is less risk for them retailers will often want to be given a 50 discount so make sure you're accounting for that in your profit margins to get going set up a password protected wholesale portal on your shopify website or you can also use an app like wholesale club also check out fair.com fair.com is a platform that connects buyers and wholesalers for every client that i've introduced fair to they've made at least one sale so make sure that you're definitely checking this out when selling online think of your website as your storefront start by optimizing two main sections of your website starting with your home page make sure that your homepage makes it very easy for a customer to find what it is they're looking for looking at cotton's homepage we can shop by collection men and women's and certain featured products you also want to make sure that the homepage speaks to your brand values which cotton does a very good job of here the homepage should also encourage conversions high quality photography and call to actions that are sprinkled all over the home page is going to help increase your conversion rate let's take a look at a product page the product page aims to do one thing and one thing only it aims to get people to add the item to their cart to do this you're going to want to give as much information up front as possible the information given should make it feel as if the customer were seeing it in person and it will make them feel confident in their decision to purchase make sure that you have swatches of your products if it comes in multiple color or fabric variations if you have variants have several photos for each color that your clothing comes in so we can see here that cotton has multiple photos of all of the color variants your photos should showcase all the angles of the fit and close-ups of the detail cotton also uses a size guide which is imperative in helping the customer make the right choice this will also minimize returns a callout to what size the model wears also helps make an informed decision have a description box with your marketing language use the space to further illustrate your product's quality and its features use keywords you think people will be typing into google to find your product instead of just description cotton uses an editor's note which is a creative take on this having your shipping and return policy right on the product page gives an extra sense of transparency and reassurance and lastly cotton has used a low stock alert app that's going to drive urgency here's a logistical tip when selling online be mindful of how long it takes to produce a product and then to ship it to your customers you want to strike a balance when it comes to your supply chain don't tie up your funds in holding too much inventory but also don't make your customers wait if they've ordered something and your product lead times are too long oftentimes it's not enough to have a revolutionary product you're going to need a marketing plan in place to let people know that you exist so you're going to want to do email marketing social media marketing pr and leverage your personal network to get in front of stylists buyers and the consumer i hope that this has been helpful remember that everyone is at their own stage in this journey and that rome wasn't built in a day so keep on keeping on and wherever you're at in this journey that's exactly where you need to be so today we're joined by mackenzie yates she is co-founder of cotton cotton is a canadian fashion brand that focuses on traceability at every step in the supply chain cotton has been recognized for their manufacturing transparency by forbes among others welcome mackenzie great to have you on for many of our viewers it's going to be their first dive into starting a clothing brand can you walk us through any actionable step-by-step methods of how you brought your first collection to market feel free to talk about the processes from design to production and manufacturing and marketing yeah um so i would say first figure out what you stand for and what sort of values you have as a designer or founder but also as a brand and then figure out who your customer is or your ideal target customer um from there you can start to build out your product line your brand and then also whatever channel you're gonna sell your products through be that wholesale or your own retail then with those few things you're kind of set up to kick it off do you have any digital marketing methods that you use and what have been the ones that have the best roi for your brand and any that you would suggest starting out with i think the number one thing and for us is really building our brand and building out our organic channels and i would say that that's if especially if you're a clothing brand that is really where you should be spending the majority of your effort um especially starting out so for us that was going after press was a good way to start getting the word out there and that's a free way to promote your brand um really just like emailing editors and sharing your story with people and then social media building that up um and posting consistently and i'd say like focusing on a channel that you think is going to be the most impactful for your brand also email is a huge thing that's often overlooked but it is the top converter um so building out your email list in any way that you can and if you're doing one day pop-ups if you're doing like social media contests like try to collect as many emails as possible so that you can have an ongoing uh relationship with the people that are interested in your products um so i would say that's like the foundation that you should be investing a lot of time into is building that and then once you start to understand like who your customer is and you have some people in your funnel already from those organic channels areas that we would recommend is leveraging google ads to capture existing demand for your products so it depends on how niche your products are for us advertising white t-shirts on google is quite challenging because there are so many other people that are trying to capture that those search terms but if you have a very unique product offering then google is definitely a great way to try to get customers through the door um and then facebook ads you gotta do them um they're a really great way to create demand but they take a lot of experimentation and they can get very expensive so it is worth testing but it it's really challenging to master we definitely aren't there yet um figuring out creative and messaging that translates to ads is also very challenging um so i would just say beware of the facebook ads um i think it's a misconception to think that you can figure out your digital marketing and like turn the switch and customers are just gonna come right in the door you can't buy customers so you really need to make sure that like that foundation is set that your message is consistent and then you can use that as sort of an amplifier to amplify the messages that you're trying to get out there um but yeah the day days of cheap facebook ads are long gone so it's interesting that you said that you would start with organic and then kind of move over into paid um what so i guess you did that what was your feeling around that why was that your route so really it was about like creating a foundation of customers to start with and that can be a small foundation but um then you can start remarketing to those people too and remarketing ads are much more successful and um are easier in a way because your cust the customer is already a little bit familiar with who you are so yeah i would just say that it's free that's a big reason to start with organic and it takes a little you're gonna get a more committed customer that's more interested in your brand and will last longer term i think organic customers are more likely to be returning customers so the long-term impact of growing that organic base is going to be beneficial you also talked about reaching out to publications what was your like how did you do that and what were you saying in those emails um we literally were just like hacking the internet trying to find people's emails on twitter like i think we paid to download some lists of a bunch of people's emails um it's not that hard to find contact information for a lot of these editors and it's great if you can figure out like people that are interested in certain things mention articles that they've written in the past and how you think like you might be able to fit into an article in the future um but it was really just like cold emailing people and telling them our story and following up a lot harassment is um the name of the game and nowadays it's i mean back in five years ago was the same but even more so now like a huge part of press is also influencers um so if you can gift your product to people that's a great way to get free content a lot of the time that you can repost on your channels plus exposure so we do a lot of gifting right now we kind of have two streams exposure which is where we're paying sometimes for people to post or um we're going after people because they have the right audience and then we also have like a user generated content stream where we're going after micro influencers people that might even have like a thousand followers but have really great images and um are super on brand for us and so that's a way to have like tons of different people in your clothes and show those images without paying really high model fees and organizing big shoots so i'd say yeah just reach out to people like be your authentic self and i think people appreciate that it's a founder reaching out to them in the beginning and not a pr agency so that helps give you a little bit more leverage so what digital marketing methods do you use and what have you noticed has the highest roi and what would be the top three that you would suggest if you're just starting out i would suggest working on building your email list first and foremost and leveraging email um and doing whatever you can to kind of build a strong channel there and second google ads to capture an existing demand for your product um and then the third channel would be facebook ads with a disclaimer that that is the most challenging channel but it is a great way to create demand and it's worth testing what are some mistakes that you made early on and how would you recommend new fashion entrepreneurs avoid them i would say that one of the big mistakes that we made early on with not getting enough customer feedback and there's a few ways that you can do that through surveys meeting people in person and asking the right questions that aren't leading questions so i would say that that is a great thing to focus on early on is talk to as many customers as you can and pivot your product when you are still lean and nimble okay awesome thank you so much for joining us that was super informative welcome all right let's do a recap in this video we talked about skills and training creating a business plan and developing a brand identity we cover tips on how to spark creativity and tips on production and manufacturing we talked about timing your collections to seasons wholesale and online selling we covered a lot of ground in this video so feel free to hit that like button if you found it helpful and that will also save this video for later for you to refer back to it if you have any questions at all about anything that you saw in this video make sure that you're leaving them in the comments below and i will get back to every single one of you also we are all fam here so make sure that you're answering each other's questions in the comments as well thank you guys so much for watching and i will see you in the next one bye

Channel: Learn With Shopify

Views: 70,591

Keywords: learn with shopify, business tutorials, shopify store, ecommerce business, entrepreneur, online business, how to make money online, how to start a clothing line, how to start a clothing brand, how to start a clothing business, how to start a clothing company, clothing line startup, how to start a fashion line, how to start a fashion business, how to start a fashion brand, how to start an online boutique, how to start a clothing brand from scratch, clothing line tips, KOTN

Id: IFmPuM83dZI

Length: 23min 9sec (1389 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 15 2020