It is not easy to start a business (such as a clothing line) without a lot of funding or capital, but it is not impossible. To create a sustainable clothing business, you have to know how to implement a business strategy and analyze the startup capital you will need. Clothing or fashion business needs creativity to break in (without money).
The journey to owning a profitable clothing business is challenging, but don’t let the lack of money become a further obstacle. Let’s show you how to begin earning as a clothing business owner without money.
Pick your niche
The key to lasting success in the fashion industry is to pick a niche you are passionate about. This is akin to the DNA of your business. The niche of your clothing business comprises the category of clothes you want to base your business on, understanding who your clients will be, having a unique style, and a competitive advantage over other businesses.
The mistakes most new clothing business owners make is that they do not understand or stick with a niche. This allows their business to submerge due to the emergence of new fashion trends. The niche of your clothing business will in the future, form the base of your advertising and marketing strategy.
The types of niches in the clothing/fashion industry include:
- Business casual wear.
- Streetwear style.
- Sport style.
- Girly style.
- Formal, office-wear, etc.
Audacious/innovative/ bold ideas
The fashion industry is highly competitive. New clothing businesses and enterprises are springing up around the world. For this reason, you should be able to bring new, audacious, and bold ideas that will separate your business from the competition. You must be confident in your creative choices.
Fashion trends are the product of radical, bold, and innovative ideas. For instance, the ‘mini skirt’ of the 60s, the leggings of the 80s, and the minimalist designs of the 90s. Bold, unique, and innovative fashion ideas cannot be quantified by money. It can help solidify your clothing business and bring you lots of customers.
Guerrilla marketing
The word ‘Guerrilla’ may sound negative, but as an advertising strategy, it yields outstanding results for businesses. The concept emerged in the early 1980s, and Wikipedia defines it as ‘an advertisement strategy in which a company uses surprise and/or unconventional interactions to promote a product or service’.
In this age of the internet, smartphone, social media, and high-speed internet connectivity, guerilla marketing can be a low-cost but highly effective way of creating brand awareness and achieving viral marketing. A small clothing business can reach a great level of fame in an instant if guerilla marketing is effectively done. Even some known and reputable companies like Tesco clothing stores are now using online marketing strategies.
For small businesses that may not have a large budget for advertising and marketing, guerilla marketing can come in handy. Through guerilla marketing, you can grab the attention of your customers with imaginative, creative, unconventional, and memorable marketing strategies at little cost.
Social media
Social media is a powerful tool for advertising and marketing. Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube can be used to stimulate the minds of prospective customers in your direction. You must set up your business’ social media strategy that clearly specifies how you intend to leverage social media for your marketing needs.
This will help you to stay focused and keep your business in the right direction on social media space. Ensure you use your business’ social media portfolio to interact and engage with your customers aside from promoting articles of clothing and wears. It costs nothing to set up a business page on a social media platform today.
Skills
Inadequate funds or financial constraint does serve as an obstacle for small businesses, but some businesses still breakthrough. A business that does not have the necessary skills set will be destined to fail, even with massive funding.
The clothing business needs grit, determination, creativity, vision, financial management and prudence, comprehensibility, and teamwork. These are some of the important skill sets that can propel your clothing business to success.
In a highly competitive industry such as clothing/fashion, having the required skills is a recipe for success. You have to do a sincere self-evaluation or assessment and find out where you may be lacking, and try as much as possible to develop them.