How to use livestreaming to grow your clothing brand?

The clothing business can be challenging, especially when starting. It’s tough to grow a following, even more so for an independent clothing brand, without the benefit of effective advertising or publicity. But, of course, there are other ways to build your audience and increase brand awareness/sales; good old-fashioned networking is one great way. Livestreaming is another.

Streaming sites like Twitch and YouTube have exploded in the past few years, with viewership numbers that traditional broadcast media would kill for. Providing entertainment while directly engaging your viewers offers a unique opportunity to build a following and promote your products. While it’s no replacement for larger-scale marketing, livestreaming is a great way to get your name out there and build a reputation.

But how can you make this work for your brand? And what should you expect in terms of return on investment? I’ve been looking into livestreaming as a possible marketing option, and here are some things I’ve learned along the way.

What Is Livestreaming?

First of all, let’s take a step back and talk about livestreaming. At its simplest, it means broadcasting your life to the internet in real-time. You can think of it as reality TV on demand; you choose what happens next. It doesn’t have to be unedited raw footage either; most services allow you to direct your broadcasts using an external camera, with real-time editing and commentary.

The appeal is obvious; people are interested in other people, especially when being honest about what they’re doing and how they’re feeling. There’s also something compelling about watching somebody broadcast their life in real-time, whether a musician playing on a webcam or an artist creating a painting. It’s artificial but authentic.

By its very nature, livestreaming is about sharing something personal with the world. Even if you only broadcast gameplay footage, there’s a certain vulnerability that comes from putting yourself out there in pLivestreaming is about sharing something personal with the world by its very nature. Even if you only broadcast gameplay footage, a particular vulnerability comes from putting yourself out there in public. It takes courage to share the things you care about with other people. And it’s brave of any online community to open its doors to strangers, especially when they can’t be sure what kind of person might show up.

Reaching a wider audience:

As you’ve probably guessed, reaching a bigger audience is the real benefit of livestreaming. The larger your online following becomes, the more people will be exposed to any streams you make and the more sales you’ll see from it in return. Of course, it’s not quite as simple as ‘the more viewers I have, the more money I’ll make,’ but it’s close.

Some people will watch your streams occasionally and never spend any money. In contrast, others may become a constant source of income without watching a minute of your content. You can get an idea of what kind of viewers you have by looking at your chat logs and researching their profiles. For example, if somebody’s name comes up regularly, but they never spend any money or subscribe to your channel, you can safely ignore them (for now).

What Can You Stream?

Streaming is still finding its feet as a form of self-promotion. Everybody knows what to expect from a YouTube video or an Instagram post, but livestreams are more unusual, which means fewer people know how to react. As a result, streamers often fall into the trap of doing the same things that work for other types of videos and images.

The good news is, we’ve already covered the kinds of things people usually stream:

• Tutorials and FAQs (where you talk about your product directly).
• Q&A sessions (where people ask you questions live, and you answer them).
• Vlogging (where you make a stream out of any other content).

These are all excellent places to start. But consider what else you can offer viewers that’s unique to livestreaming.

One option is to personally promote your product through giveaways, which you can do from the moment someone subscribes to your channel until long after they’ve forgotten about it. The idea behind a giveaway stream is simple: people watch the stream and place their orders during the Q&A session at the end when you ask them what kinds of things they’d like to see in their prize packages.

Another option is to do something you can’t easily film, like attending an event or visiting a factory. This approach gives your viewers an idea of what it’s like behind the scenes and adds some excitement when you show them your latest shipment arriving on time.

Let us know how you went with your ShopParty livestreaming experience, and do not hesitate to ask for help from our team!

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