How to start building your own clothing brand. How to start your own clothing line

Successful branding will help you outperform your competitors and create an excellent reputation for your product or service. Luck has nothing to do with this, because the key to victory is due diligence, creative thinking, observing competitors, understanding the key principles of the business, its mission and culture, as well as a strong desire to cooperate with the people who, together with you, create the success of your company. Next is designing a logo and slogan that represents the unique spirit of your company, and promoting your brand with all your might. Read below to learn how to take the first step towards building a successful brand.

Steps

Part 1

Create a true, lively and sincere image

Define your mission precisely. What qualities, values ​​and experiences do you offer to your clients? In order for your brand to work effectively, you need to project a true image of what your company aims to provide to consumers. But first you need to formulate the mission of your company so that it becomes clear how you differ from your competitors. Think about the following questions:

• Why are you doing this particular thing?
• What are your goals?
• Who is in your target segment?
• What makes your company special in this area?

1. How you want to be seen. You must make your customers think of your brand as a living, breathing person they can trust. When walking through a supermarket or flipping through a telephone directory, they should be looking for exactly your product or service. Considering your company's mission, decide what type of relationship you want to establish. What are you going to base your mission on?

   • Maybe you want your product to be seen as an adventure, a ticket to a new life, or a second chance. This approach is often used by large food companies that sell products such as goji berry juice or germinated cereal bars.
   • Or maybe you want to present your brand as smart and modern. Does your product make you feel cool, like you're in a private club? Urban Outfitters and Apple are taking this approach.
   • Another approach would be to offer your customers a reliable option that they can fully trust and that will never let them down. This is a good approach if you are selling a product that will never fail, such as tires or legal services.
   • When building a brand, you can also rely on nostalgia. People feel connected to things that remind them of childhood and carefree times.

2. Think like your client thinks. When you buy a product, think about why you are buying it. What makes you choose a particular brand? Try to use your answers to imagine how your own brand will be perceived. Find out what your customers crave to feel and let them feel it through your brand. Do they want to feel strong? Responsible? Conscientious? Smart? Unique? Your brand should evoke these feelings through its appearance, marketing, and design. Awaken these feelings not only with language, but also with color and product design.

3. Engage your employees. Communicate to your employees the importance of your brand and explain how and why you came to this brand. You will need their support for the success of your new branding.

   • Remember that the client will see your business through your brand. This also includes the appearance and behavior of your employees.
   • Your employees will have their own specific vision of your business and methods to achieve your goals, so that each of them will make an invaluable contribution to the development of your business. Ask employees how your product was received in the market, and don't ignore their opinion.

   Part 2

   Earn customer trust

   1. Your product must match your message about it. If your message sounds good but you don't deliver on your promises, your customers will go elsewhere and your brand won't catch on. But if your business delivers what your branding promises, you will be rewarded with the trust of your customers. Soon, they will start spreading the word about the quality of your service, and your brand reputation will speak for itself.

      • Also make sure that the associations your brand evokes with your customers are in line with what you are offering. For example, if you promise that your margarita-flavoured lemonade is the most refreshing drink on the market, but your customers usually complain that they are unpleasantly surprised by the lack of tequila as soon as they take a sip, then something is wrong with How do you present your product to potential customers? You may need to rename your drink so that customers don't feel disappointed every time they try the product.
      • Transparency in doing business is also important. Trust is a very important part of brand awareness as your customers need to feel like they know your brand like an old friend. Let your customers see your real priorities, how you work and where your money is going. If the information is not always the best, at least it must be true and presented in the best possible light.

   2. Do market research to find out who you serve. What are the age and demographic groups of your main customer base? The answers may surprise you, so it's important to do some research to find out who is interested in the products you offer and how they respond to your branding.

      • Consider creating a focus group as one way to test how people of different demographics react to your product. Ask them to describe their perception of your product before and after trying it.
      • Targeting a specific demographic is often a more effective strategy than trying to make a product appeal to everyone. You can narrow down your target group after you have identified who is buying your product. For example, if you find that teenagers are the most likely target group for your breakfast cereal, you can change your branding strategy to make your product even more appealing to that group.

   3. Do a comparative analysis. Do your research to find out what other companies offer and find your differences from those companies. Your branding should focus on the difference, what makes your product stand out from the rest. Finding something special that sets you apart from other companies is very important, because your customers have so many options that they may never know your product exists unless you make it special.

      • You may find that a certain company has already chosen a particular market segment, but this does not mean that your product will not be attractive to a slightly different audience.
      • If the market becomes saturated with great products, consider turning in a different direction. Change either the branding approach or the configuration of your product.

What is branding and what are its functions? How is a successful brand developed and promoted online? How to create a company logo using modern technologies?

Hello, friends. In touch Alexander Berezhnov, entrepreneur, marketer and permanent author of the HiterBober.ru website.

In this article, we will talk about creating a brand online. Every day more and more companies advertise on the Internet, improve their sites, and some projects generally exist only on the World Wide Web and earn money by selling advertising or providing services. The development of a brand book is an important step in positioning and further promoting your company, both on the supermarket shelves and in the fight for online sales.

In a separate section of the article, I will also tell you how we created our own brand on the Internet - our site HiterBober.ru, where we started and what "chips" and techniques we use today for effective promotion and "self-PR".

1. What is a brand and branding - their impact on the development of online and offline business

The modern consumer market is inextricably linked with advertising and marketing technologies. A successful brand speaks for itself - it sells the product before the buyers see it.

Today it is difficult to find a civilized person who would not name a dozen successful world brands and well-known trademarks of his country.

Everyone is familiar with such “offline brands” as BMW, McDomalds, Lukoil, Mars, Gazprom, Beeline, SONY, Coca-Cola, Nike, Armani and others.

However, in recent decades there have been biggest online brands:

I am sure that you have used at least half of them at least once in your life.

Moreover, active buyers (users) can always say why one brand is better than another and what unique qualities the products from this or that manufacturer have.

In large companies, branding is given maximum attention: entire departments are engaged in the creation, promotion and positioning of brands and company logos.

If you want to succeed in your business, then developing a strong and memorable brand is essential. A successful brand is the first and most effective way to increase sales and an integral part of the brand.

The brand includes:

• logo;
• corporate design (style);
• consumer perception of the product;
• emotional characteristics of a product or service;
• tagline.

A brand is not just a sonorous name, but also the benefits (benefits) that a consumer receives when he purchases a product of a certain brand. This is a kind of guarantee of quality and confidence of the buyer that he will not be deceived.

When creating a successful business, you need to strive to ensure that the quality of the product meets or exceeds the expectations of the target audience. People should get exactly what they pay for and expect.

A brand is always more than a logo or an eye-catching symbol. This is a product or a whole company with a positive credit of trust and a high level of support from the consumer audience.

The attitude of the target group of buyers affects the image of the product and even its properties, but the product itself is always primary. If you don’t have a quality product, even the most ingenious branding will not help you stay in the consumer market.

2. Stages of effective online branding implementation

Any modern business is represented on the Internet. Moreover, some commercial projects work exclusively within the global network.

For this reason, building brands online is a particularly relevant issue in the current market conditions.

If you intend to sell your product online, you need a recognizable brand. And every brand or newly created business needs its own website through which its products or services will be sold. To do this, I advise you to use the Wix online website builder and create a website on it.

In my opinion, this is the most convenient and promising website builder on the web with millions of users around the world.

The latest digital and information technologies provided by the Wix developers will help you effortlessly create your own online project even for those users who have no idea about programming or working with graphic editors.

Now let's move on to creating brands. Like any responsible task, this process is carried out in stages.

Stage 1. Setting goals and planning

The main value of any business is determined by its benefit to others and, as a result, the commercial effectiveness of the project.

If your product is useful to the consumer, his image will be positive, which will inevitably affect the promotion of the brand itself. And then a positive brand will itself influence the mind and perception of the buyer.

At the initial stage, it is necessary to set branding goals, develop a company vision and create a strategic plan. It is also necessary to determine the target audience and understand what the channels of communication with consumers will be.

At this stage, the following are also determined:

• brand mission;
• brand life cycle (how long is the active period of the product or service calculated);
• place of the brand in the structure of the company;
• budget.

Perfect branding doesn't have to mean costly. The main thing is a qualitative research of the audience and a creative approach.

Stage 2. Market research and competitive analysis

Analysis of the market and competitive environment is the most important stage of effective branding. Research is a competent analysis of the general situation on the market regarding the products of your segment. This also includes the definition of price parameters and market research.

It is also necessary to understand how long the brand will be able to maintain its presence in the market, whether it is characterized by dependence on the season, what are the regional characteristics of the consumer audience.

An important point is the analysis of competitors. It is a big mistake to think that you will be accepted in the market with open arms. It is a misconception to treat competitors condescendingly and underestimate them.

Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of competing companies is an art. Experts say that no one will conduct a full-fledged competitive analysis better than the business owner himself.

Stage 3. Development of the name and corporate identity

Entire volumes have been written about choosing a catchy and strong name for companies or commercial products. Within the framework of this article, we will indicate the main features of an effective name.

Here they are:

• conciseness (the shorter the name, the easier it is to remember);
• phonetic euphony;
• meaningfulness (even an incomprehensible name should have a hidden meaning);
• uniqueness.

Ideally, if the name is directly related to the activities of your company. A unique brand should be registered with a patent organization (in the Russian Federation it is Rospatent). Legal protection is the basis for the successful development of the brand in the future.

Please note that the brand is registered in the form of a trademark ™ , can only be owned by a legal entity.

A euphonious and successful name is only half the battle. Now you need to create a unique design and visual style of the brand - this task can be entrusted to an experienced designer or use modern technologies - the already mentioned Wix constructor.

Using the Wix website builder, we easily sketched out the site of a possible consulting agency HiterBober.ru

Here's what his hat looks like (screenshot):

Let's be honest, this is a powerful tool for those who do not own various technologies at all, such as html, css and want to create a professional website in an hour and a half.

When you get to the site builder, you are prompted to select the type of site you plan to create:

It's nice that the developers are so attentive to the needs of the user.

What we personally liked when working with this constructor is the flexibility of each element.

For example, if this is a picture, then dozens of its types and color schemes will help create a certain mood for the site, depending on the type of activity that you are engaged in.

The same can be said about fonts when using Wix - everything here is like in the well-known Word editor - size, color, text, alignment and other familiar parameters are adjusted.

Now one-page or landing page has become a very popular type of site. No problem – this website builder allows you to create a professional landing page with effects and unique “juicy” pictures.

Once the site theme itself is ready, you can publish it on the Internet as a full-fledged site with the click of a button.

All you have to do is launch traffic to the created page and get customers.

Therefore, friends, when creating a brand online, if you do not want to "bother" with complex technologies, program codes and design, we sincerely recommend Wix as a professional tool.

We can say that Wicks is your free webmaster who realizes any of your wishes, turning website creation into a simple and exciting experience.

Stage 4. Brand positioning on the Internet and its promotion

Positioning is the selection of a unique position for the brand in the mind of the consumer. Ideally, a product, service or company should occupy a free niche in the perception of the buyer and be associated with unique benefits.

A professional approach prescribes the development of a "brand book" - a manual that clearly states how the brand is used, what its mission and main idea are.

For promotion, a media plan is being developed and an advertising campaign is being prepared. It depends on competent advertising whether a new message reaches the target audience or gets stuck somewhere halfway to it.

Stage 5. Evaluation of effectiveness

Performance review is a set of activities that allow you to evaluate an existing brand after it has been “launched to the masses”.

Monitoring is carried out either in the form of a selective survey of the audience, or through a professional audit of the company's activities.

In simple terms, a brand can be considered effective if, after its creation and promotion, the profits of a company or organization have increased markedly.

But here it is worthwhile to understand how much sales volume has grown thanks to a successful brand (logo).

In the table below, I clearly presented the stages and steps of developing an attractive brand, including online:

3. Five properties of a strong online brand

Branding carried out in accordance with all the rules will definitely give a positive result: your product (website) will become recognizable, a positive image of the offer will form in the mind of the consumer.

What are the characteristics of a strong brand? These same properties apply to branding in general, whether it's an online project or an offline business.

We list them in order of importance.

Property 1. Honesty

A company that is honest with the consumer is more likely to build a positive brand image. A real brand never deceives the audience or flirts with it.

If a company shows underestimated or overestimated expectations through its logo (slogan), this directly affects the level of sales. Therefore, it is necessary to strive for the maximum correspondence between the proposal and the expectations of consumers.

Property 2. Recognizability

Recognition is simplicity and accessibility. These qualities help the brand to be realized in all other directions.

To make a brand recognizable, you need to focus on the psychology of consumers and rely, first of all, on the benefits that the product gives to the client.

An example of the competent use of this property is an advertisement for a well-known shampoo, which is firmly positioned in the mind of the buyer as a remedy for dandruff No. 1.

Property 3. Uniqueness

A brand that is unlike other brands experiences minimal negative impact from competitors.

It is necessary to ensure that your product is unique and inimitable in the consumer market, both in terms of functionality and in terms of the emotions that it evokes.

Property 4. Integrity

Integrity is brand recognition at all levels of communication with the audience. This is the result of carefully done work of designers and marketers.

Integrity means that all costs invested in the product are 100% working for its positive image. If the brand is underdeveloped at some point, its promotion will resemble a "deaf phone" - you speak, but the audience does not hear you.

Property 5. Maximum audience reach

It is obvious that the brand that everyone hears and sees brings the maximum profit. Try to promote your brand in all ways that are available to you.

There are dozens of ways to promote a product on the Internet, and every year new effective methods appear. Use them before others, and your “message” will reach every potential consumer.

4. Case "HiterBober.ru" - how we created a popular online brand from scratch

Friends, a little practical story for marketers and people just interested in how we created our popular online brand.

About 4 years ago, with my friend and business partner Vitaliy, we created a personal blog - "Heater Beaver".

Name

When choosing a name, we wrote down 74 options on a piece of paper. Each of them had to meet several fundamental criteria.

Here they are - the parameters for selecting the brand name of our site:

1. Memorability. The name should "crash" into memory and stay in it for a long time.
2. Rhyming. Based on the first criterion, in my experience, I will say that rhyming brands and names are better remembered.
3. Intrigue. A person, having heard the intriguing name of the site, already wants to go to it. After all, it’s interesting what the “Cunning Beaver” prepared for him there;)
4. Simplicity. The title should be simple. We immediately dismissed options like Infobizconsult.ru, BusinessMasterGuru.ru, and the like.
5. Free and relevant domain name. I also wanted the spelling of the domain in Latin to be 100% identical to the Russian brand name..

Positioning

Based on the name, we position our site as a project for start-up entrepreneurs and people with an active lifestyle. The very brand of our site on the Internet is associated with a cunning and intelligent animal that will teach something new and non-standard.

Besides, financially wealthy and entrepreneurial people often call beavers, we also took this moment into account when creating the brand.

In general, in order to fully form the correct positioning of a brand or offer, it is necessary to answer several questions.

Let's answer these 7 questions from the point of view of positioning the brand of the HiterBober.ru website

1. Who? HeatherBober.ru
2. Which? A unique site providing expert content from small business practitioners.
3. For whom? For start-up entrepreneurs, active businessmen and people with an active lifestyle.
4. What is the need? Up-to-date information on ways of doing business and making money online and in real life.
5. Against who? Unlike competitors and similar sites, we write for ordinary people, without abstruse schemes and complex terms.
6. What is the difference? All expert advice, instructions and suggestions have been tested in practice PERSONALLY by the authors of the articles.
7. Thus? You get ready-made step-by-step practical technologies for starting a business and making money with the personal support of the authors of the project.

Branding

As you can see, we have several “branding points” and branding elements on the site. Thanks to these techniques, we are often quoted, the site is bookmarked, and advertising is placed on it.

What elements (components) are used on the site as "brand":

• corporate colors (yellow, dark blue);
• logo (located in the header and footer (footer) of the site;
• branding of images on the site;
• mention in the greeting of the site the name "HiterBober.ru"

A few words about the site logo. As you can see, our Beaver is kind, one of his hands is in an open position, as if calling to “stay” (stay) on the site and study the project materials.

Promotion

1. Search promotion. It is carried out due to a specially developed technology for writing and optimizing site materials. You can read about this in our separate article on compiling.
2. "Word of mouth" and direct visits from bookmarks. It uses promotion to the account of the elements of "viral marketing", the basis for which is the intrigue and humor inherent in the name of the site.

Let's summarize the section.

This is how we created, and after several weeks of effort, developed our Beaver. Now we have not only online branding, but also other paraphernalia.

Attributes of the HiterBober.ru brand:

When they ask us what you do and we answer that we run our own popular site with such and such a name, people immediately get a smile.

The most important thing is that the name is remembered and you want to visit the site at least out of curiosity.

And in the next section, I will touch on the rules for developing a logo, since in the past I worked as a designer for several years and created not a single logo for different customers.

By developing a unique brand name, you have shown the world who you are and what you want. Now you need to add a unique sign or spelling to the product (company name) to stand out from others.

An effective logo always has some inner message, if you like - contains a short success story. The symbol should have an emotional component and a unique style.

As a rule, vector graphics editors are most often used for logo design: Adobe Issustrator and Corel Draw are the market leaders.

Less commonly, Photoshop is also used for this purpose, but since this program is mainly designed to work with raster graphics, professionals for drawing logos almost never use it to solve such a problem.

Now, online programs and various services are used to develop logos.

If you are not very familiar with professional designer tools, then in this case you can use simpler solutions.

For example, the popular website building platform Wix has a logo creation feature. Using the capabilities of this constructor, you can easily figure it out for a virtual environment and be able to do it yourself.

As you can see, modern technologies allow everyone who wants to become a creator and artist. It's simple, affordable and very effective.

A few design tips for creating logos:

• a good logo should look equally expressive on the packaging, on the magazine page, and on the computer screen;
• a quality symbol conveys to the client the atmosphere of the product and emphasizes its advantages;
• a spectacular logo always works for the general idea of ​​the company;
• pay special attention to color - it should correspond to the spirit of your company and affect the emotions of the consumer;
• from time to time the logo needs to be finalized in accordance with current trends in marketing;
• don't get hung up on the design: the main thing is not the picture itself, but its inner message.

The perfect logo works for the brand for years and always matches the target audience. A well-crafted symbol of a product or company, in which material and creative resources are invested, will help save on advertising and other costs in the future.

6. Conclusion

Let's sum it up, friends. Branding is a vast and highly promising area of ​​effort to effectively position your company both offline and online.

Building a positive brand image is a long and painstaking process. However, successful branding always pays for itself, and many times over.

Brand value is a very important element that can provide a company with long-term profit growth and a stable position in the market (in its industry). Branding is becoming a real weapon in the competition.

I wish you success in creating the development of your brands and ask you to rate the article.

Nelli Nedre, a Petersburger, dreamed of working as a designer since childhood. While studying at the institute, she realized that she was not interested in inventing expensive extravagant clothes that no one could wear in everyday life. After working as a designer for a streetwear brand, a year ago she decided to create her own company and began producing laconic items in discreet colors that fit into world fashion trends. Now Nelly's clothes are sold in ten stores, and the company's monthly turnover exceeds half a million rubles.

experience

Nelly Nedre

Brand founder

At the age of seven, I announced to my grandmother that when I grew up, I would become a designer. Then she gave me a suitcase with felt-tip pens, and since then, like an obsessed, I began to invent and draw various outfits. After graduating from school, without hesitation, she entered the faculty of fashion design. Education at the institute became a real school of life for me: they kicked me out every six months, they said that I would be a bad designer, that I would never succeed. At the same time, from the third year I began to make full-fledged collections, participated and won with them in international competitions. I experimented with shapes, tried different fabrics, searched for my own style. By my fifth year, I was a fully formed designer. The teachers at the institute demanded that we show our potential by making the most of our imagination, but I quickly outgrew this approach to clothing. I realized that I don’t want to make things that no one wears, even if they look interesting.

The practice that I went through with various designers helped me a lot to understand this. Before graduation, I managed to work in an atelier, a luxury brand, a streetwear brand, and even supervised production in China. In general, I probed all the soil that is possible. In my senior year, I was offered a job by the owner of the St. Petersburg streetwear brand Trailhead. The experience in his company was invaluable. This is a serious brand with a wide range of products, the founder of which has been working with clothes for twenty years and is well versed in the market - he knows what the Russian consumer is ready to buy. It doesn't do anything fancy, it only works with basic shapes and colors. I started as one of the designers of his brand, and he could say: “Nelli, what are you drawing! Who needs this pink button on the side, I won’t sell it to anyone!”

The company had an experimental workshop in which we made samples, sent them to stores and, if we understood that they were going well, we launched a large production in China. I was able to try a lot of things within Trailhead: I developed a line of women's clothing, which was almost never done before me, organized shootings for lookbooks and an online store. At some point, it became clear: I already know absolutely everything that is needed to open my own business.

Own business

I decided to leave Trailhead, and at that moment my friend, designer Asya Malbershtein, offered me to rent a twelve-meter room for a workshop. She has been pushing me to create her brand for a long time, and I thought that this room was a good sign. All my money, about 100 thousand rubles, I spent on a sewing machine and the purchase of fabrics for the first collection. Three months later, I realized that this was not enough, and took out a loan of 300,000.

With this money, I hired three people, bought additional equipment. I registered the brand name, it cost about 60 thousand rubles. They dissuaded me, they believed that this was an unnecessary expense, but for me this measure of protection was very important. I also made a website, registered an individual entrepreneur, received permission to trade. A year later, when I had five people on staff, I rented a 63-square-meter space, which now houses the production itself, the showroom, and the office.

Now I have a manager, three seamstresses, a constructor and a designer on my staff. For me, this is the golden time of the company, because so far it is not difficult to maintain a friendly working atmosphere, and each employee clearly understands what and when he should do. When there are more than fifteen people in the company, it will be very difficult to maintain the old trusting relationship with all employees. You will have to get used to communication in the "boss - subordinate" format. I managed to rehearse all the typical problems of working with a brand back in Trailhead, so I was ready for stressful situations. True, I had to develop an additional degree of rigidity in myself, without which the boss cannot be.

Work with shops

It is important to understand that I did not start from scratch. In addition to experience, I had good connections with stores: we were friends with some of the owners, we had previously collaborated with some. Therefore, I knew exactly where I would sell my first collection.

The first time I sold 50 things a month. Now, on average, we sell about 400 items per month for half a million rubles. We cooperate with ten stores scattered throughout the cities of Russia, the largest of them is Moscow - Trends Brands in Tsvetnoy. Now, I am sure, the number of stores promoting Russian designers will only increase.

I did not plan to open my own offline store: there was simply no space. However, it turned out that people, having bought our clothes in other stores, began to visit the site and write to us directly. So I opened a showroom, and now it sells as much as all the other outlets. Our online store brings us another 100 thousand a month. This is beneficial for us, because we supply clothes to other stores with a fifty percent discount, and we can sell them at the regular retail price.

Cheating in stores is very different: in St. Petersburg it is somewhere around 100%, that is, a store buys a thing from us for 1,500 rubles, and sells it for 3,000. In Moscow, cheating can reach 250%.

The cost of production also depends on how much time and effort the seamstress spends on this thing. If we, for example, made an experimental model of a dress, I ask the seamstress how difficult it was for her to work with him and how long it took her. If it was difficult and slow, I exclude this model from the collection. I determine the price based on the fact that I need to pay my employees a normal salary and develop the brand. I would like to please customers by setting the minimum price, but I do not agree to work at zero, my work costs money.

Create a collection

The system of work in a large and local brand is largely different. The giants of the industry are trying to predict trends for several years ahead. They have special people who travel the world and collect information about trends in all possible areas: from art to new technologies. They also take into account the economic background. When you immediately produce thousands of pieces of clothing at a factory in China, you take a big risk, you have to be meticulous, save on threads and buttons. Since we are still a small brand, we do not adhere to a clear seasonality and prepare small capsule collections four to five times a year. It takes me about two months to create a collection.

I always start by looking at 60 of my favorite clothing websites and blogs for inspiration, figuring out what's hot right now. I'm putting together my own moodboard, which can include works of art, and excerpts from films, and photos of a friend, and music. Six months before the official release, new collections are posted on the Style.com website, I notice the details that most often appear in all brands. Having prepared the base for inspiration, I close myself in the apartment for several days and draw. According to my drawings, the designer makes trial patterns, then we sew the first samples, measure them, and refine them. When the collection is ready, we photograph it for the lookbook, send it to stores and wait for a reaction. A collection can have, for example, nine models in four colors. It is not necessary that each of these 36 items will be produced in more than one copy.

Choice of things

Buyers of stores usually know their customers well and understand what they will be ready to buy from them. Some take mostly basic classic things, while others, on the contrary, choose more extravagant models. First, they order a trial batch, then, focusing on demand, they buy something extra. We do not have a warehouse where we store things, because we always sew a certain amount for a specific order.

Gradually, we realized which models go best, so we singled out a separate Gills Classic line. These are things that are in constant demand, regardless of the season. If you look closely, all global brands have their own database of models, which they reproduce year after year. Chanel jacket, classic Carhartt sweatshirt, pumps. These are proven things to which you can add a pocket or change the fabric, but in fact they are always the same. Adidas' best-selling model is the classic black 3-Stripes tracksuit. Brands always make money on the simplest, most basic things. The same goes for color: black and gray always go with a bang, especially in Russia. My brand is also based on versatile pieces and a monochrome palette. Of the fabrics, I chose the footer for work, because that's what I feel best.

I have a principle: I will never do just a beautiful thing that I can’t make money on. When I come up with a beautiful and simple model, I look at whether it falls into trends, calculate the cost of its production and calculate how much it will be sold in stores. If I understand that no one will buy it for such a price, I immediately cease to like it and I refuse it.

Photos: Yasya Vogelhardt

Do you want your brand to become as recognizable as GeniusMarketing?

I think it makes no sense to talk a lot about what a brand is and how important it is for a business. After all, already from the first lines at the word “brand”, each of you had your own chain of associations, and the names of well-known companies immediately popped up in your memory.

I bet if you make a list and we compare it to the rest, we'll find more than one match. This is the power of brand telepathy, isn't it?! Legendary brand!

Let's look at how to create just such a brand for your business.

The main ingredients for creating a legendary brand

So where to start creating ? Perhaps the most important. You need to clearly understand what their needs are and how they perceive your company. Depending on how a company upholds its values ​​and beliefs, how honest it is in its actions, employees and customers have positive or negative feelings about it.

Can customers think of your company as something tangible, individual, and real? If you act openly, you will attract people like you. And then you can build friendly relationships with customers.

Logo is an important element of the brand, but it is not yet a brand. It is your presence, language, connection to something that everyone understands and uses. Do not think that your work is over after the approval of the logo.

To create a successful brand, you need 3 main ingredients:

• Understanding your customers
• Friendly attitude towards customers
• Honest (open) positioning

Influence people's lives. Remember that everything you do, you do for them, not for yourself. Give them benefit, faith and hope that they can become even better. This creates experiences, which in turn create memories.

Mistakes to avoid when building a brand

Remember the brands from the 60s. How did they manage to stand the test of time? You need to strive to create a brand that people want to stick your logo on the bumper of a car or get it tattooed on their bodies.

Make sure you ask the right questions about your company and customers. Your goal is to align the company's mission, beliefs, and values ​​with the brand you're building. This will help to avoid misunderstandings and will also ensure that your company's image is maintained.

Develop 2-3 versions of the brand concept. This way you won't be limited to just one option. This will allow you to choose the best one, which you will refine and improve.

Choosing your brand color

Answering questions about your company will help you make the right choice of color. Find out what colors are used in your industry, including your competitors. Start with them.

The color and its meaning should confirm your interpretation of the logo and future brand principles.

IN article you have already read and should know that each color corresponds to a certain type of emotion, feeling and memory. Consider this.

Logo. General trends

Logos can be divided into 3 types:

• Symbol/ picture
• Letter inscription
• Combination of drawing and lettering

Recently, symbols (emblems) have been more often used on the Internet to represent the brand. And this movement is just beginning to grow, although this approach has been used in the automotive industry for quite some time. The company emblem is placed on the front and rear of the car, and the combined logo (sign + inscription) is used for documentation.

Logo must be unique to gain recognition as well as display a deeper interpretation of the brand that evokes certain emotions and memories.

Many symbolic logos that we see today have gone through more than one reincarnation. Apple, Starbucks and Twitter are prime examples of how the logo becomes as recognizable or even more recognizable than the lettering logo or a combination of the two.

Which type of logo will work best for you depends on several factors: type of production, target audience, mission of the company and its beliefs.

Combined logos, where the inscription and the symbol appear together, are a universal solution. Over time, when the brand becomes sufficiently recognizable, you can leave only the emblem. You can also separate the logo elements and use these parts separately for different occasions to improve your brand flexibility.

And now let's get down to practice and consider the 6 stages of creating a legendary brand:

1. Preparation

Write what your company promises to customers as a brand and how they perceive it.

Most likely, you will see aspects of the company that may not have been obvious before, those key differences that make it unique. This will help to correctly draw up a project brief, look deeper into the brand and make an informed decision at every stage of branding, including when creating a logo.

1. Study

Create a mind map from keywords that describe your company, its name. This will help you visualize any associated words that will come in handy for creating a logo.

Create a board from sketches. It will give you a unique, deep and meditative perspective on the branding process. Pictures, shapes, colors and textures that you collect on this board will allow you to quickly and effortlessly create a wide variety of combinations, see and touch them live.

1. Logo sketch

Draw a logo.

Don't think about whether you can draw or not. Now it doesn't matter. Get all your thoughts and ideas down on paper. The essence of the process is to pull out the maximum of options from the subconscious, which will then be selected and improved.

1. Formalization

At this stage, some worthwhile ideas should already appear. Do you prefer any sketch? What constantly grabs your attention?

• Is it in line with the design brief?
• Will this be a powerful impetus for the development of the company?
• Does it evoke positive feelings and emotions?
• Will it be remembered?

At the stage of formalizing your concept, the whole process can slow down dramatically. The questions above will help you move forward in the right direction.

After all this work, you need to make sure that the logo looks harmonious in different designs, colors and proportions of the details of the picture. It should be equally good in any size.

1. Polishing

Start playing with color, picture and placement. Your preliminary research should suggest how best to do this. What colors can evoke feelings and memories that are closely associated with your company?

1. Presentation

All your research, preparation process, deep thoughts and interpretation of your logo and brand can now be presented to your team. This is an exciting part of the process for everyone, including your clients.

The presentation of the logo explains how the process went and why those decisions were made. In this way, you direct the imagination and focus people's attention on the correct interpretation and understanding of your brand.

It is possible, even with a small budget!

The history of the Nike logo is surprising in that it was created by college student Carolyn Davidson for just $35. The decision to keep the logo simple allowed the brand to evolve and adapt around it. This is perhaps one of the main reasons why we are so familiar with this brand.

If you're on a tight budget, you might want to take a closer look at the research phase. The answers to the questions and the project assignment will give you enough impetus to develop really good ideas.

Conclusion

Creating a legendary brand is not easy, but if you follow these guidelines, everything will work out. Just keep in mind, you won't necessarily get the results you want just by spending more money on branding. It's best to put in the extra effort to make sure your brand truly reflects the company's core values.

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Is there still time? Put it to good use – Read the following article right now:

The market of Russian-made designer clothing is replenished with new brands every season, while not reaching the saturation point and not creating a competitive environment. Three-quarters of players leave the niche after their first year, lacking the resources, skills, and often the inspiration to keep their energy-intensive but low-revenue business afloat. How to open your own clothing brand, release the first collections and make a profit, is described step by step in this instruction.

1. Market Research and Buyer Profile

The main mistake of novice owners of a clothing brand is a misunderstanding of the structure of the market and the needs of the buyer. This results in attempts to cover several directions at once, to compete with global chain stores, or, conversely, to create a product of a very narrow focus that does not allow expanding the range. Marketing research at the initial stage of creating a business will help create a buyer profile, assess the level of competition and outline niche features that will help make the brand unique.

If the size of the initial capital does not allow placing an order for market analysis with a special agency (the average cost is 30,000–60,000 rubles), then the research is carried out by the entrepreneur. At this stage, you should:

• estimate the geography of sales and the approximate number of buyers;
• determine the average age, income, purchasing habits of potential customers;
• identify needs that the market is unable to meet, and the reasons (economic inefficiency, low demand, complexity of implementation);
• make a list of competitors and explore the range, quality, prices, loyalty policy, reviews;
• discover weaknesses in the existing niche structure and make them your main strengths.

The main advantages of local brands over network brands are unusual design, unique construction, rare fabric, quality control of each product. You should not try to compete with the giants of the industry in terms of prices, speed of reaction to fashion trends, coverage of advertising campaigns - these indicators tend to improve with an increase in demand for the product, without any special costs on the part of the entrepreneur.

2. Formation of the concept and development of the logo

After analyzing the information about who and under what conditions will be the buyer of clothes, it is necessary to start forming the brand concept. This stage is necessary for the correct positioning of the company in the market, and therefore for more accurate satisfaction of niche demand. The process of describing a concept is in many ways similar to conducting market research. Only the object of analysis in this case is the newly created company, and not the client or competitor. Five questions to answer at this stage:

1. What clothes do we produce and for whom?
2. What are the core values ​​and principles of the company?
3. What additional needs does the brand's clothing satisfy? (in prestige, in convenience of purchase, in environmental friendliness of materials, etc.)
4. What is the main advantage over competitors?
5. What will make a customer a permanent customer?

All decisions made in the process of creating a brand should fit into the outlined concept. First of all, this concerns the name, logo and style of printed materials (lookbooks, labels, tags, stands). In the absence of skills in graphic programs and design vision, the creation of a visual brand concept is entrusted to an agency or a freelance artist. From the date of the conclusion of the contract to the receipt of the finished graphic product, on average, about 1 month passes, costs - from 20,000 rubles.

3. Business registration and trademark protection

For official work and the conclusion of contracts, it is necessary to register an individual entrepreneur or LLC if there are more than one founders. When filling out the registration form, indicate OKVED-2 from the following list:

14	Manufacture of wearing apparel
14.11	Manufacture of leather clothing
14.12	Workwear production
14.13	Manufacture of other outerwear
14.14	Manufacture of underwear
14.19	Manufacture of other clothing and clothing accessories
14.20	Production of fur products
14.31	Manufacture of knitted and knitted hosiery
14.39	Manufacture of other knitted and knitted articles
46	Wholesale trade
46.42	Wholesale of clothing and footwear
47	Retail trade, except for motor vehicles and motorcycles
47.91	Retail trade by mail or via the information and communication network Internet

At the same time, an application for the application of the simplified tax system must be submitted. Since there are official costs for the purchase of materials and wages for workers, the simplified tax system “Income minus expenses” of 15% looks like the most profitable. Sometimes it is more effective to use the patent system for the type of activity “Repair and tailoring of garments, fur and leather products, hats and products from textile haberdashery, repair, tailoring and knitting of knitwear”. The choice of a specific option depends on the region of registration of a legal entity and the number of employees.

The direct name of a clothing brand may have nothing to do with the name of an individual entrepreneur or the name of an LLC, however, at the same stage, you can also register a trademark with the Patent Office. A registered trademark provides advantages in the form of protection against copying by competitors, free placement of advertising in the media, and the possibility of launching a franchise.

Self-registration of a patent can take up to six months, and the total cost of state duties is about 40 thousand rubles. The work of commercial structures offering assistance in registration costs at least 10 thousand rubles. Therefore, it is not always advisable to engage in copyright protection at the initial stage, but this will help to avoid lawsuits in the future.

4. Development of sketches and creation of an assortment matrix

The owner of the business is most often engaged in the development of clothing sketches on his own. A diploma from a course, school or institute of design gives many advantages when creating a collection, but its presence is not a prerequisite. There are examples when a sought-after product was created by specialists in related specialties: buyers (professional buyers of clothes for multi-brand stores), models, marketers, fashion journalists. At the next stages of creating a collection, the initial sketches are necessarily finalized by professionals, so the uniqueness of the idea, a fresh look and compliance with the market needs defined earlier are important to begin with.

You can start with three models of clothes, sewn from various fabrics, the design of which fits into the concept of the brand. As a rule, work with the assortment matrix begins after the first sales as a reaction to feedback and new customer requests. Models that have shown low sales are removed from the assortment with an obligatory understanding of the reasons for the lack of demand from the client.

5. Designing clothes

The designer is responsible for the development of patterns for production based on the created sketches, who can be hired under a contract only for the actual provision of services. It is difficult to find a professional who is able to translate a sketch of any complexity into the language of patterns and templates, so you should be puzzled by this in parallel with taking the very first steps to create a brand.

On average, it takes about a month to design several types of clothes, as a result, the customer receives layouts with gradation in size, as well as printed patterns with comments for technologists. Such work can be done remotely, with the subsequent sending of patterns by courier mail, which means that the place of residence of the fashion designer, if he has a good reputation, is not so important.

6. Purchase of fabrics, accessories and decor

Simultaneously with ordering patterns, it is necessary to search for suitable fabrics and accessories. Experienced market participants speak of this stage as the most difficult in Russian realities:

• fabrics available for wholesale in the domestic market are characterized by a scarcity of assortment and average quality;
• high-quality American and Italian materials are problematic to acquire due to the country's customs policy and high shipping costs;
• affordable fabrics from Asia and the CIS countries may vary in quality even within the same batch;
• reliable suppliers of materials from Turkey do not work with small wholesale.

The best ratio of quality, design and purchase price is shown by fabrics from the Baltic States, which can be bought through intermediaries in border megacities (especially in St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad). Purchases from other countries can be made remotely: get fabric samples from the manufacturer by courier, place an order, wait for it to arrive at customs, and use the services of brokers for customs clearance. On average, this process can take up to two months and will seriously affect the cost of production.

Little things that you should not forget about: fabric labels with information about care, a size label, decor (beads, rhinestones, sequins) are purchased on the domestic market.

7. Sewing prototypes and launching into production

It is not necessary and sometimes not profitable for a clothing brand to have its own tailoring shop. Tailoring equipment: cutting tables, sewing machines and overlockers do not require large investments, but the workshop needs regular loading, payment of rent and labor of employees. With the release of collections twice a year, such regular expenses are useless, therefore, orders for sewing are most often transferred to third-party industries under a service agreement.

Orders for sewing large batches of clothes are placed at factories in China and India; small local brands prefer Russian clothing production located in the regions. The complexity of this stage is that it is necessary to control the quality of sewn clothes in the process, which means that a long business trip cannot be avoided.

Remote work is also possible, when materials, patterns and accessories are sent to the factory by a transport company. A garment factory technologist works with patterns and fabrics, after which test samples are created. Approved copies are put into production. Order of three models, 100 pcs. the factory completes in an average of two weeks, with another two weeks allowed for shipping and unforeseen problems. It must be understood that in this version, production errors (crooked stitches, fabric damage, poor overlock quality) will be detected only after the delivery of the finished batch of products to the customer’s territory, when it will be impossible to prove and correct anything.

8. Registration of the declaration of conformity

After the approval of prototypes, it is necessary to start certification of products. Small companies that distribute their product through social networks and local markets often omit this stage due to the high cost and complexity of paperwork. However, it should be remembered that retail stores do not accept clothes without certificates for sale, which means that their absence may be the reason for refusal to cooperate.

At the moment, quality certificates mean two mandatory documents: a test report and a certificate of conformity (underwear, children's clothing, overalls) or a declaration of conformity (the rest of the nomenclature). The minimum period for which a declaration can be issued is one year, so you can start processing even after the first sewn copies have shown a good level of sales.

A package of documents for declaration is submitted by nomenclature groups. That is, if the production of both dresses, and jackets, and jumpers is supposed, then three different documents must be drawn up. In general, clothes are divided into the following groups:

• garments (skirts, dresses, trousers, suits, jackets, etc.);
• outerwear (jackets, coats, raincoats);
• knitwear (jumpers, sweaters, knitted jackets, etc.);
• textile headwear (hats, panamas);
• knitted headwear (hats).

Adult clothing subject to mandatory certification, not declaration:

• underwear;
• linen jersey:
• swimwear;
• socks and stockings.

The task can be facilitated by contacting commercial certification centers that have their own accredited laboratories for testing. The test report in this case will cost about 5 thousand rubles, the execution of one declaration of conformity - from 4 thousand rubles, the execution of a quality certificate - from 10 thousand rubles. The maximum processing time is 5-6 weeks.

9. Taking pictures and creating a lookbook

When the first samples are ready, catalog and creative shooting is organized.

Catalog shooting is aimed at photographing the fit of each product on the model, showing the features of the cut and fittings close-up. This process can take several days (depending on the number of models sewn), it requires professionalism and maximum efficiency of all participants in the process: professional models of various types, a photographer, a retoucher. The location and interiors of the shooting place, as well as the work of the makeup artist and hairdresser, in this case do not matter much. Finished shots are posted on websites that sell the collection, on social networks, in printed product catalogs.

The task of a creative photo session is a visual display of the concept and philosophy of the brand. For a high-quality result, it is necessary to involve a photographer with a special creative look, models that correspond to the portrait of the brand buyer, the work of professional makeup artists and hairdressers, as well as careful retouching of images and bringing them to a single stylistic solution. Ready-made images form the basis of the lookbook - a portfolio of the brand, which shows what trends and images are presented in this collection - and are also used to create promotional materials, design marketing campaigns.

Ideally, a technical photo shoot, which aims to show the item on the model from all sides, should be held separately and with a different team than a creative shoot for a lookbook, designed to familiarize a potential buyer with the concept of the brand and the new collection.

10. Sales and promotion

A marketing campaign can be started even before the clothes arrive from production and the photos are ready. Then there is a chance to get the first orders in advance and sell the first batch of the new collection as quickly as possible.

For sales in the absence of a retail store, all free and inexpensive distribution channels are used, tracking which ones receive the greatest response from buyers: social networks, exhibitions, fairs, markets, local designer clothing stores. In the future, sales are carried out on two or three sites that have shown the best results, or an online store is added to the sales channels. However, it is worth noting that the development of a high-quality selling website and its regular support will cost the entrepreneur at least 50,000 rubles, which means that it is worth doing this after the project shows economic efficiency.

The next step could be the opening of a showroom where customers can try on clothes before buying, which is especially important for products in the above-average price segment. Opinions of entrepreneurs differ regarding the opening of a retail store. In regions with an undeveloped system of sales via the Internet and a low rental rate, opening them is cost-effective. In large cities, sales through your own store do not pay off the cost of monthly maintenance, so selling collections on a commission to multi-brand boutiques is the most effective marketing strategy.

Conclusion

Launching your own clothing brand in the face of high competition from world famous brands and the lack of quality materials for tailoring seems to be a laborious and high-risk type of business. Profiting requires a combination of several factors: a carefully thought-out concept of the brand, an understanding of the industry and the processes in it of the business owner, establishing high-quality professional connections at each stage of development, a working capital reserve for creating several collections before reaching payback.