You can use email marketing to sell more
wholesale dresses, and for that matter, all types of fashion products such as
corporate suits,
office shoes, designer handbags, and fashion accessories. The primary benefits of email marketing is that you can reach a very large audience without having to spend money for postage, envelopes, and catalogs. And even if you figured out how to do a mailing for free, how could you compete with the instant message delivery that email is?
Email Marketing Tip #1
Sign up for an email service such as Aweber that will allow you to collect email addresses, set up an auto responder sequence, and send out broadcast messages to your prospective and current customers. An auto responder sequence is basically a series of messages which you write, and have sent out at predetermined intervals.
Broadcasts are messages which you write and send out to your entire list at the same time. Both types of emails are important, since marketing studies have shown that a shopper needs to see an ad an average of 7 times before she will place an order. In other words, if you are selling high end dresses, you would want to have previously written emails being sent out to your list informing them of the type of dresses that you carry. You would then periodically send out a broadcast email announcing a special dress sale, directing shoppers to your website, or to your boutique.
Email Marketing Tip #2
Collect email addresses on your website, in your dress boutique, and at any flea markets and trade shows which you attend. You can have a guest book at your store so that shoppers can give you their email addresses. You should be asking for email addresses on all your printed material, including catalogs, business cards, postcards, and bills.
You need to have everyone's email addresses, because even a shopper who leaves your store without buying anything, might see an email a few weeks or months down the line announcing a sale for a Tahari dress in her favorite color. Now that she sees that email she can return to your shop or send someone on her behalf to buy that dress.
Email Marketing Tip #3
Your emails should comprised of information that is of interest to your prospective customers. For example, you can write an email offering tips on the best dresses to wear to weddings during the winter, or ideas on how to best match a pair of shoes to an elegant office dress. You want to encourage people to open your emails by showing them that you a great source of fashion information. Once you have established credibility with your list, they will be more likely to respond to your sales offers and purchase your dress selection.
Email Marketing Tip #4
Use a variety of different offers so that you keep your customer's interest in the dresses that you are selling. If you keep repeating the same offer, they will tune it out. For example, you can have offers such as:
Two For One Dress Sale
Purchase A Social BCBG Dress And Receive A Free Handbag
End Of The Season Dress Clearance
The more creative you can be in the manner in which you sell your dresses, the more of an interest your customers will have in reading your emails.
Email Marketing Tip #5
Use any personalization options your email service allows. Aweber allows to insert code so that their name appears in the subject line and body of their emails. If a recipient sees their name in the subject line and body of the email, not only will they notice the message, but also have a better chance of realizing that it is not spam.
Email Marketing Tip #6
Encourage customers to forward the email to their friends and family through Facebook and Twitter.
Email Marketing Tip #7
Encourage people to sign up for your email list by letting them know that you have special clothing unpublished sales which are only sent out to your subscribers.
Email Marketing Tip #8
If you find an interesting article that might be of interest to dress buyers, send it out to your list. This will encourage people to read your emails since they will know that you are a great source of fashion knowledge, and will motivate them to forward your email to others who might in turn become shoppers of your dress website or store.
Email Marketing Tip #9
Always include your full contact information in your email, not only will you comply with spam rules, but you will also build trust since you are showing people that you are a real person who they can call or visit the next time they are near your designer showroom.
Email Marketing Tip #10
Buy the right wholesale merchandise that your prospective shoppers are looking for. If you want to maximize sales from your email marketing, you need to have the right type of merchandise to sell. For example, if you are selling to Nigerian bankers in downtown Lagos, you will want to focus on corporate Jones New York dresses, while if you are selling to college students in Kenya, you will want day time dresses by Rampage or XOXO. While the actual styles or brands will vary, the key is researching your customer base to make sure that you have the right selection for them.
You can conduct this research by visiting the actual places where your customers spend time and seeing what they wear, browse through shops in malls to see which brands sell the best, and take a look at fashion magazines and websites to see which designers are being featured.
Once you know this crucial information, you can then place an order or visit a New York wholesale warehouse to buy at the best closeout prices.
