Okay, you have started your own clothing line from scratch and you are on the verge of launching a promotional campaign. However, you just don’t know how to attract celebrity endorsement for your clothing line. If this situation applies to you, then i advice you read on.
Getting a popular celebrity to endorse your brand is one of the best things that can happen to you as a designer. Celebrity endorsement would help to create the necessary exposure for your brand and also help to drive sales and increase profit ability but before you jump into the world of celebrity endorsements, here are a few important factors to consider-:
4 Hard Facts You Must Know Before Getting Celebrity Endorsements for your Clothing Line
a. Affordability
Celebrity endorsements don’t come cheap so you have to carefully weigh your options to determine if it would be profitable for your business in the long run or whether you should explore other options instead.
b. Personality
Before you choose any celebrity to endorse your brand, you have to carefully consider the personality of the person. Take the Tiger Woods scenario for instance, lot of brands had to drop Tiger Woods as the face of their brand due to the backlash he received from fans as a result of his cheating scandal.
You need to conduct a research to know what people really feel about a celebrity before getting them to endorse your clothing line. You cannot just choose a celebrity to endorse your brand because he is your favorite actor. Well, he might be your favorite actor and be very good in the movies but does he have the personality that would endear people to your brand?
c. Niche Audience
This is where a marketing plan comes into play? Here is a sample clothing line marketing plan template you can use. If you design clothes for children, it wouldn’t make sense for you to get Rihanna to endorse your clothing line.
At best, you would get Beyonce or Kim Kardashian to do that because they are mothers or maybe you would think of using a child celebrity. What I am saying is that you need to consider the ages, tastes and style preferences of your target audience before selecting a suitable person to endorse your brand.
d. Realistic Expectations
You must also be honest with yourself in terms of what to expect. Sometimes, celebrity endorsements would drive up your revenue by more than 50% while at other times; it doesn’t do too much to increase your sales.
So, before you roll out funds for a celebrity endorsement campaign, be sure that you have clear and realistic expectations. So what are the cheapest ways through which you can get celebrity endorsements for your clothing line easily?
8 Ways to Get Celebrity Endorsements for your Clothing Line
1. Gift Bags
If there’s a popular event coming up where a lot of celebrities are expected to be in attendance, you can partner with the event planner to allow you package gift bags filled with some of your designs which you would hand out to attendees at the event.
If your designs are very good, a couple of celebrities would wear them and take pictures with them and if you are lucky enough, those pictures could end up on magazine pages, websites and televisions courtesy of the paparazzi. You can also place a small card in the gift bag urging them to take pictures of the cloths and post them on social media if they really like the designs. This would only work if your stuffs are really good.
2. Free samples
You can also get celebrity endorsements by sending out free samples to a couple of your target celebrities. For instance, you can send out some free dresses to as many of them as possible and if A, B, and C wears your design, it wouldn’t be long before your brand becomes popular especially if a few of them are nice enough to talk about it on social media.
3. Celebrity Appearances
You could organize a product launch for your clothing line and have a couple of celebrities in attendance. This would create the necessary buzz you need because most celebrities are usually followed wherever they go by press men and paparazzi who always want to take pictures of them. You could also do a press release after the event.
4. Equity offer
You could also have a celebrity become the face of your brand for a chance to own some shares in your company and get a percentage of your revenue. This is a very cheap way to get celebrity endorsements from A-list celebrities.
5. Celebrity Designer
Rihanna die-hard fans would do anything to wear a dress designed by Rihanna. A popular lipstick by M.A.C became very popular worldwide because it was designed by Rihanna. Companies have been using celebrities as designers as a drive to drive up sales.
You could get a popular celebrity on your design team to create some designs for your clothing line and you would be surprised at how fast those designs would sell out and how much publicity you would get from that.
6. Support a charitable cause
Celebrities are always doing their best to give back to their fans and the society as a whole by supporting charitable causes. If you are interested in a particular celebrity, what you have to do is to find out what charitable causes they are supporting and then offer your business as a platform to support that course.
For instance, if you are interested in making Angelina Jolie your brand ambassador, you would need to find out the charity organizations that she supports then you would offer your business as a platform by using a certain percentage of sales you make to support that cause.
7. Work with celebrity stylists and publicists
There are people who influence the choices of celebrities when it comes to clothes. These are their stylists. One of the fastest ways to get celebrity endorsements for your clothing line is to work closely with celebrity stylists, so that they can dress their clients up in your designs. You should also think of working with celebrity publicists. Develop a good relationship with these people and you would be able to gain easy access to their clients.
8. Work with magazine publishers and photographers
Magazines organize photo shoots for celebrities especially when they want to have them on the cover of their magazines. Sometimes, the magazine would be responsible for styling the celeb and organizing the photo shoot. You can arrange with some of these companies to style the celeb in your design to help you increase awareness for your clothing line.