Eight Things to Do Before Pitching Your Brand to Fashion Editors
So, you think you’re ready to get more press coverage for your growing fashion brand? Building brand awareness through glossy magazine features is ideal for any fashion entrepreneur, but if you don’t have the following eight tasks checked off your to-do list beforehand, you may be leading your new audience to a sticking point that will disconnect them from learning more about you and your business.
Let’s get right into eight things you need to do before developing a PR strategy for your fashion brand.
#1: Develop Your Brand Story
Make sure you have a firm grasp of the purpose or “the why” of your brand. You can do this by answering four simple questions:
Why did you start your business?
Who are your products/services for?
What is your mission statement?
What future plans do you have for your business?
#2: Create Your Elevator Pitch
Once you’ve organized your brand story, it will be much easier to create an elevator pitch for your fashion brand. An elevator pitch is simply a statement about your brand explaining what it is, who it’s for, and why they need it.
Elevator pitches definitely come in handy when you have limited time to describe your offerings to potential customers, buyers, editors, and even investors. Simply fill in the blanks below to create your long and short elevator pitches.
Long Pitch
I am a(n) ____. I offer/design/specialize in ____ for ____ who need/want ____.
Short Pitch (Version #1)
I specialize in ____ for ____ who need/want ____.
Short Pitch (Version #2)
I am a(n) ____ specializing in ____ for ____.
#3: Hire a Professional Photographer
Unless you know a thing or two about photography, it might be best to leave your brand images to the professionals. Hiring a photographer will give you peace of mind knowing that your products, services, storefront, team, and customers are shown in the best light (literally and figuratively).
#4: Publish Testimonials
Highlight what your customers love about your brand throughout your website and social channels. Good word of mouth will always give your business a boost. Additionally, an interesting way to highlight customer reviews is to publish a blog post featuring a few not-so-positive reviews with details about how you improved those customer experiences.
Transparency is important to your customers and should be important to fashion editors as well so if you’re willingly bringing light to your strategies for managing negative attention, it’s easier for editors to understand your brand values and ethics.
#5: Test the Speed of Your Website
Editors get tons of pitches on a daily basis. So once you grab their attention, you have to make the most of their time. Slow-loading web pages are a surefire way to cut their interest short. You’ll also want to test every single link from the primary navigation to the social media icons in the footer of your website and ensure that your site is completely responsive on desktops, tablets, and phones.
#6: Post to Social Media Regularly
Point blank: editors won’t take you seriously if you only have five posts on your designated social media channels. When editors visit your social profiles, they should automatically feel like they’ve entered the world of your brand. Include fresh content like photos of how your products and services are used and how they fit into your customers’ lifestyles.
#7: Confirm Your Product Fulfillment or Service Availability
Now that you’re ready to get more press for your brand, you need to make sure you have enough inventory to fulfill new orders and/or employees to manage new clients. Of course, the press doesn’t guarantee more sales, but if you’ve got a consistent social media strategy in place parallel to pitching your brand to editors, you’ll have more luck leading people who became aware of your brand via media outlets to your website.
#8: Update Your Email Signature
In addition to the actual pitch you send to fashion editors, your email signature should invite editors to learn more about your brand. So make sure to have the following elements in your signature:
First and Last Name
Company Position or Title
Brand Name or Logo
Email Address
Phone Number
Website Link
Social Media Links
Having these elements readily available will prevent them from taking the additional steps of Googling your business or searching for it on Instagram. Sharing the information upfront allows journalists more time to consider if your pitch is the perfect fit for their media outlet.
Comment Below
Share your challenges and successes with earning press for your fashion brand.
