How to sell premium fashion via ads?

Niche: Premium Fashion

Product Range: Rs. 8k to Rs. 90k

Problem statement: Not generating any sales online.

Background:

When this client first came to us via a recommendation from one of our clients, they just wanted us to run ads and generate sales. 

Just like we do with any potential lead that approaches us, we asked a few questions, went through their online presence for a quick audit and immediately realised that there were alot of things missing. It’s what we performance marketing agencies like to call “NOT performance ready”.

And on our second call itself, we said, 'We won't be running ads for you, nor do we recommend you run ads at this point; there are a lot of legs missing which need to be worked upon before we kick things off with ads.'

Even though they have a great booming offline presence, they were never able to convert to their online presence, so clearly there was proof of concept for the products they were trying to sell here.

And with this we quickly understood it's not just one or two major things missing but quite a lot to be done. So they began with a consulting gig with us to help them understand the problems and guide them to fix the same.

Problem Identification:

So before we onboard any of our clients, we send over a quick questionnaire of basic questions around the brand, followed by a brief onboarding call once we have done a deep dive into their accounts. These usually last from about 45 mins up to 2 hours. 

The reason why we invest so much time before we have actually begun the work is to understand every little detail about the client's business and understand where major problems lie and what needs to be fixed/worked upon as a priority.

But with them it lasted 3 hours, as there were a lot of things to uncover, and thats when we realised the actual problem was “authority in the market”

They had awareness in the market; people knew who they were, and they would look them up and come up to their boutiques but always ended up asking for discounts.

And being a new brand, it was very difficult for them to work on all the aspects at the same time, and that's when we started working on all fronts for them.

What did we do?

1. Daily Social content

2. Website CRO

3. Test Ads

4. Working on offers

5. Testing creative formats

6. Branding and positioning

7. Influencer Marketing

1. Daily Content Posting: 

After analysing all the competitors and their TG thoroughly, we realised that brand was majorly lacking on the social media front, with posts scattered over a few days and only focusing on photoshoots they had done for their collection, while each competitor had a minimum of 3 posts going daily.

The problem here was lack of content to put up as well, so we had to dig into their creative pool to work on building a content plan to suffice for the coming weeks.

We still haven't run proper social media campaigns yet, as there are quite a few things to figure out for the client on the backend, but that should come in soon.

We have already seen about a 60% jump in engagement and a 140% jump in followers when compared to the same time period before we started working on content.

2. Website CRO:

While we were working on content, we also went ahead to test out which was their winning product/collection. With no prior ads testing done for conversion, it was apparent we would need to spend a decent amount of testing budget before we intended to go all in on ads. 

But before that, it was imminent to fix glaring website issues.

With a week's work and fixing the bare minimum requirements on ads, we started with test ads.

3. Test Ads:

With basic website issues fixed, we started off with test ads to identify bestsellers across categories with a 1.5k/day budget. The expectation was to understand on which products we were getting a good response.

Within 7 odd days we had the first few purchases, and there was proof that the products could sell via ads.

4. Offers:

With no authority in the market, we realised one thing: awareness wasn't the only thing which was going to solve the sales problem; we also needed to come up with offers in order to bolster the claims and get the products moving.

After analysing the first few purchases and from client feedback received from offline sales, we understood that their primary TG always wanted to leave with the product feeling like a winner.

Offline, they always asked for additional discounts, and online, 70% of purchasers used the first-time purchaser code, the highest we have had so far.

What next?

We launched a Rakhi-specific campaign offering 25% off to the customers.

And within 2 weeks we had generated sales which were equivalent to sales from the last 3 months combined.

5. Testing creative formats:

Creatives again was a main part of the testing phase, where here we realised the typical approach we take for fashion brands was no longer applicable

Typically fashion brands don't require massive and fancy edits, but here we saw that ad bring in 4+ ROAS where breakeven was 2.

And promoting the Rakhi sale exclusively bolstered the sales massively.

6. Branding and positioning:

The next step is to work on a strong brand story and positioning in the market to fix the authority problem the brand faces today.

With basics fixed, we now move on to working on a lot of different aspects to further optimise the results the brand can achieve online.

7. Influencer Marketing:

Any premium brand focusing on scaling their brand's presence cannot ignore influencer marketing in today's day and age, and it is something we have been working on since day 1.

With their new collection just launched, we will now be going big on influencers in the coming months to help bolster the brand image and awareness amongst its primary target audience.

There are still quite a few things we haven't touched yet but will be as we move ahead, and some we can't reveal just yet.

It's really a great feeling working with a client with long-term vision and willing to give us the freedom to work on their brand as freely as we can here and with most of the digital aspects under our hand, building foundations for a great brand. 

It's just the beginning, and we are really looking forward to making this not just an Indian but a worldwide brand in the days to come.

This has been a lengthy case study, pretty sure the longest we have ever written, but so is the scope of work for the brand to work upon too!

Hope you find this useful!