As you move into the next stages of opening your own clothing store, or even if you’re still in the process of simply considering opening your own clothing store, a phrase you’ll start to hear is: “marketing plan.” For those fashionistas unfamiliar with marketing, that phrase might sound daunting–and understandably so. Marketing is simultaneously broad and complex. It covers a range of areas, from the creative to the purely analytical, and utilizes a variety of platforms, mediums, and methodologies. And of course, the requirements and approaches differ based on respective location, audience, product, and industry. When it feels like new marketing concepts, buzzwords, rules, and genres emerge out of thin air on a nearly daily basis in an already over-saturated marketplace, constructing a clothing store marketing plan can feel overwhelming. But that doesn’t mean it has to be. A marketing plan is essential for any fashion store or brand looking to sell their products or services successfully.
A clothing store marketing plan is a growth strategy involving 3 main steps–
- Learning the Target Demographic, so the seller can find and attract customers;
- Attracting the Target Demographic, so that the seller is enabled to help potential customers go from hypothetical buyers to tangible ones; and finally,
- Retaining the Target Demographic, so the seller is able to build brand loyalty among buyers, cultivate consistent sales, and build a network of returning customers.
A clothing store marketing plan isn’t just efficient; it’s mandatory for any successful business. While luck can have its moments so far as business goes, luck lacks the consistency necessary for effective entrepreneurship. Clothing stores, and in turn, brands, have to be built from the ground up. But this becomes extremely difficult, if not nearly or entirely impossible, without a stable, well-thought-out marketing plan in place. If your clothing store business is structured, you’re in the process of building and trying to get off the ground, then you’ll need your support beams and a sturdy ladder–or in other words, your clothing store marketing plan.
You need the ladder to climb your way up, and continue building. However, without proper support beams in place, especially in terms of quality and execution, your business will collapse into itself the moment it begins moving off the ground. Not only will it have failed, but the damage will be difficult to come back from. That’s why a clothing store marketing plan is critical for success in the fashion business.
Learning the Target Demographic

Learning your target demographic is key, however some people have trouble grasping the concept. Here is a good example in another industry: Never try to sell meat to a vegetarian–especially not a long-time one. That’s not who they are, that’s not what they need, and that’s not what they eat. If anything, attempting to get them to buy meat, which they are clearly and adamantly against dealing with, will only push them further away than they already would’ve been before you even entered their orbit. There’s no demand there for meat. Any butcher or other type of meat manufacturer who was looking to make their sales in vegetarian spaces would come away frustrated, and having wasted valuable resources. Like money, time and labor are resources too. Just because you can’t hold them doesn’t mean they aren’t the blood and sweat behind your clothing store.
Conversely, as a butcher or other type of meat manufacturer, you’ll find far better luck with your local steakhouse, among your most gleefully carnivorous friends and acquaintances, and/or at your town’s annual meatfest. What you’re looking for is people who care enough about the meat they eat that they’re willing to invest their time, energy, and hard-earned cash into ensuring they’re buying the best option for their specific wants or needs–people who will tell their friends, and continue coming back for more.
Like clothing, meat isn’t a one-size-fits-all type of thing. Different people want different things, and different people need different things. Often, you’ll find an overlap between the two–want and need, instead of want or need, want but don’t need, and don’t want but still need. Regardless, the most important things to scope out here are customers who aren’t just dedicated to and passionate about meat, but ones who approach the meat you specifically sell with this exact vigor, or more. You want people who are excited about what you’re selling, and even more excited about buying it.
The same goes for clothes–or more specifically, running a clothing store. For example, if you’re selling children’s clothing, don’t waste your time trying to sell clothes to adults who don’t have little ones they need to shop for–especially not on a regular basis. You might put all that work in to make a sale, only to find they were buying an outfit for a friend’s kid to return a favor.

Furthermore, labeling your audience as “kids” won’t be enough. There are a lot of kids, and they come in and with a lot of different shapes, styles, and sizes, as well as varying wants and needs. Consider “kids” as your starting point–not your stopping one. Maybe your clothes are intended for K-6 kids who love sports but hate athletic-wear. The style, the material, the colors–they just hate everything about it. You’ll also want to consider the prices of your clothes, and how that relates to different families and communities with different income levels. If your target audience is the kids in a household that lives paycheck-to-paycheck, you probably don’t want your products to be any more expensive than they need to me. By contrast, if your audience is made up of people who love to spend tons of money on stuff their kids will grow out of in a year, just so they can say they did, and maybe even post those price tags to brag on social media, then hike up those prices!
Either way, now you have your target audience.
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Attracting the Target Demographic
Now that you know who your buyers are, you can focus on how to bridge the gap between them and you–or, more specifically, your clothing store. For example, maybe your intended audience is a part of a more underground scene. Or, maybe they’re out there, but just don’t really exist in your circles. Either way, whether there’s millions of miles or mere millimeters of space between you and them, closing it is the only way to get them through the door, as well as get a purchase into their hands, and your store in their heads.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- What do my buyers like, want, and care about?
- What unique product can I produce and sell that people will want or need enough to buy it?
Regarding the first question, it’s important to consider this in terms of your product and service inventory. However, it’s vital you consider it on a grander scale as well. As it goes with a lot of communities, but fashion ones especially, style is only one sector of a much larger aesthetic sub-genre, and/or group of people who identify specifically with it.
For example, say you’re all about selling those light, baby blues, purples, and pinks to adults. Well, finding people who like those colors isn’t enough. That color palette, while increasingly popular, is a part of an entire scene. That scene is actually an alternative one which refers to this aesthetic as “pastel goth.” The most popular demographic for it is the punk, millennial, socially progressive artist. Most of the pastel goth’s stylistic, lifestyle, etc. inspiration comes from the original anime, Sailor Moon, and related 90s aesthetics. Moreover, since this was the era of their early childhoods, frills, glitters, and cuteness go extremely far with them.

This means that, when you’re seeking them out through Instagram, you’re not going to want to go anywhere near the #Insta-anything aesthetic, and if you’re going to use the phrase “Girl Boss,” it better be to badmouth the subculture around it. You’re more likely to find your audience in indie art, fashion, makeup, and cultural scenes, and therefore should be using that as your guide to reach your target customer base. This is generally a group with intensely progressive politics that loves kittens, memes, retaliation, and the moon. Gendering anything will be enough to lose them. They’d rather see you share crowdfund links than graphics with overused political slogans on them.
Additionally, your social media presence, nor your store, should resemble Michael Kors–the sleek, clean, minimalistic styles and neutral tones and shades that are sought out in the mainstream currently. Anything that looks like a Kardashian might sign off on it has to go. Your potential customers would rather see low-quality, blurry photos of a livid sewer rat with the caption “qtpi<3!!!” (extra points for adding cute, edgy emojis) written under it than new, crisp-looking handbag images shot in perfect lighting on a perfect set with a high-quality lens. And if your caption mentions brunch and/or you’ve tagged Reese Witherspoon unironically, you’ve already lost your customers before you’ve even found them.
In fact, maybe you should be spending more time on your store’s Twitter than its Instagram. No, not Facebook! Why did you even make a Facebook for your store? Wait–you made an entire Facebook but you didn’t even make a Twitter? And you’re trying to sell your stuff to space-obsessed counterculture millennials?
Yikes… Good luck with that.
You see what we mean? Get a grasp of the culture, the people, and the community surrounding your intended audience if you want to see success in your marketing plan (and as a result, your clothing store). Learn to care about what they care about so they trust and accept you as one of them. Fashion is personal, and people don’t like to buy clothing from people who feel too much like strangers or suspicious outsiders.
Retaining the Target Demographic
We lightly touched on customer retention earlier in the article, but it’s still important enough to warrant not just its own section, but its own step in your clothing store marketing plan as well. Basically, the gist of it is that you want to develop a loyal following, not one-time buyers. You want people who will continue to have demand for your product–whether that is through want, need, or both–and you’ll want to continue to be their best option.
Some companies do this by developing more personal relationships with their customers. This can involve anything from including handwritten notes with their purchase to frequenting the floor at your store, to even hosting events and pop-ups for the community when possible. Others do this by forging on with the selling of specific items that customers can never seem to get enough of, or by consistently creating sales and other opportunities that reward loyal customers.

The stronger the community you build for your store and buyers, the more loyal your customers will be. Make them feel special and appreciated and they’ll do the same for your products with their bank accounts. No one wants to feel like a human wallet. Your customers don’t just want to be seen–they want to be seen as human beings. And rightly so!
Like any relationship in your life, platonic or otherwise, the one you and your store have with your customers needs to be well-nourished, well-weeded, well-tended, and well-maintained. You need to build trust, and then you need to keep it. They need to know that they can rely on you, that you’ll be around for them, and that you’ll never let them down. You also need to make sure you stay on their minds without overwhelming or annoying them with a hyper persistent, spammy, desperate, or parasitic presence. Failing to do so is the clothing store marketing equivalent of all your friends hanging out without you.
And nobody wants that. Fortunately, a strong clothing store marketing plan can save both you and your customers from fashion devastation and social tragedy.
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Related Questions
- Reading my audience wrong sounds terrifying, but I’m not sure I’m up to the task of figuring them out and turning them into loyal customers. Should I just give up?
No, of course not! People struggle with this all the time, and for a variety of really good reasons! Just because you’re in charge doesn’t mean you have to be in everything. Find someone who knows what they’re doing and genuinely embodies your target audience, and hire them to handle this aspect of your business instead.
- When it comes to research, how do I even know where to begin? How do I find things I don’t even know exist?
Believe it or not, it’s actually much easier than it sounds. Hop on Instagram, Tumblr, or Pinterest, and explore hashtags with the types of styles, clothes, brands, aesthetics, and scenes you generally like, and want your store to carry. Then, explore the other hashtags and categorizations on these posts. Bookmark or save the stuff that seems relevant to you, follow accounts, hashtags, and topics of the same essence, and basically curate a space for your store to exist in the digital world so that it can better exist in the physical one as well.
To learn more about how to start your own fashion clothing line check out my startup documents here
Please note: This blog post is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Please consult a legal expert to address your specific needs.

Meet Shawn Chun: Entrepreneur and Fashion Business Fan.
I’m a happy individual who happens to be an entrepreneur. I have owned several types of businesses in my life from a coffee shop to an import and export business to an online review business plus a few more and now I create online resources for those interested in starting new ventures. It’s demanding work but I love it. I do it for those passionate about their business and their goals. That’s why when I meet a designer or boutique owner at a craft fair, farmers market, retail location or anywhere else I see myself. I know how hard the struggle is to retain clients, find good employees and keep the business growing all while trying to stay competitive.
That’s why I created Fashion Business Boss: I want to help fashion business owners like you build a thriving business that brings you endless joy and supports your ideal lifestyle.