Today i'm going to show you the easiest way to start a clothing brand from scratch.
I'll be sharing the eight step process i use to start my own profitable clothing brand from design, using graphic design software to create fashionable apparel, to manufacturing producing your designs into reality.
To promotion getting eyes on your clothing and selling them.
To guide you along, i'll be creating a new clothing brand with you, step by step, and i'll even go over the mistakes most beginners make that lead them to instant failure.
Don't be like them.
As an entrepreneur that has made over a million dollars in sales, I can assure you that by the end of this video, you'll be ready to launch the clothing brand you've been dreaming of.
Step one, target market.
The first thing you need to decide on is your customer.
Who's going to buy your clothes?
Clothing is a very saturated and competitive industry, so it's critical you niche down on a specific target market to stand out.
When I say specific, I mean it.
Broad target markets like streetwear or athleisure aren't going to fly.
You need to describe them down to the details.
For example, what's their demographics like their age and gender?
What's their lifestyle like?
Their interests?
What about their personality and values?
And how much are they willing to spend on clothes?
These are all questions you need to answer because they'll guide everything you do with your clothing brand moving forward.
Your target market's age and gender will determine your clothing sizes and shapes.
Their lifestyle and interests will influence your designs.
Their personality and values will shape your marketing and their willingness to spend will determine your prices and profit.
There are three ways to find a target market.
The first is through AI.
You can ask ChatGPT to list out clothing brand target markets and continue asking it more detailed questions to ultimately identify a niche target market that you like.
The second is through researching fashion trends.
Browse social media like Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest for trending styles.
Analyze which target markets these trends are appealing to, and consider them for your clothing brand.
Better yet, think of adjacent target markets that are currently underserved, whether in terms of design, sizes or marketing.
For example, an adjacent target market for people that wear streetwear could be gamers that wear streetwear or anime fans that wear streetwear.
This is a great way to stand out while still being on trend.
The third way is through yourself.
What do you want to wear?
You yourself are a part of the target market.
So ask yourself questions and see if there's a market to work with.
What's great about being a member of your target market is that you naturally know what your target market likes and buys.
That knowledge is invaluable.
For the clothing brand I'm creating with you, I've decided to target the market that I call empowered streetwear expressionists.
I describe them as young adults of any gender who uses fashion as a way to express their values and empower themselves.
They wear meaningful yet stylish streetwear designs such as affirmations, motivational phrases and vulnerable messages.
They're into personal development, self-awareness and mental health and are willing to spend at least 35 to 100 per article of clothing.
I've noticed that this market is growing fast.
I'm seeing more and more clothing brands finding success by catering to this group, which brings us to step two branding.
The number one mistake beginners make when starting a clothing brand is focusing too much on the clothing and not enough on the brand.
In reality, brand comes first before clothing.
It should really be called brand clothing.
What a nice name for a clothing brand.
To create a good brand, you're going to want to cater yours to your target market.
There are four main components to determine.
Number one, name.
It should be catchy, meaningful, and appealing to your target market.
For my clothing brand, I'm thinking of calling it a gut feeling.
Sounds cool and it ties well with my target market's interest in self-awareness and empowerment.
Number two, logo.
Your logo should express the vibe of your brand, should compliment your brand's name or even just be the name in a nice font.
You can design your logo using graphic design software like Kittle, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.
Number three, visual identity.
This is everything else that represents your brand visually, the aesthetic, the vibe.
This includes your color palette, typeface, and imagery.
I recommend scouring Instagram Pinterest Behance, Dribbble and the websites of the brands you admire to collect inspiration and create a mood board.
Doing this will really help you settle on a vision.
And number four, messaging.
This is what your brand is communicating to your target market to appeal to them.
This can include your brand's mission story quality sustainability, whatever unique value propositions your brand has to offer to customers.
A good way to formulate your messaging is to start off with writing a mission statement.
With a gut feeling, it's, To empower individuals to trust themselves and their intuition.
In a society where everyone's shouting their opinion, this brand exists to inspire us to block the noise and listen to our inner voice.
To follow what our heart is calling for us to do.
To go with our gut feeling.
I think it's pretty fire.
We're now set to move on to step three, designing.
It's time to create the clothes.
To design mine, I'm gonna use Kittle.
It's really easy to create clothing designs with and offers a bunch of awesome clothing specific templates to start from.
I really like this one in particular.
I'm gonna use it and turn the design into my own.
Let's open it up.
Starting off, I'm gonna hide the texture on the layers panel, delete some words, then change up the text to a line that fits my brand's mission.
How about intuition never does you wrong.
I like that.
I'm gonna drag the words into a better position, resize them a bit, then change all the text on the bottom to fit the vibe.
For this text.
I'm gonna change the font from Montserrat to let's filter by serif and select Volcorn, then change its weight to medium italic.
Looks good.
I'm gonna add the Agut Feeling logo in there as well.
I feel like the design needs more visual flair.
I'm gonna open up the Elements tab on the left panel and search for something cool in Kittle's library.
This star looks nice.
I'm going to drag it in and add it here, then change the color to white on the right panel.
On that note, I'm also gonna change Intuition and Agut Feeling's logo to be yellow.
The last visual we need is some sort of photo.
I'm gonna open up the images tab and search for a sun.
All these photos are royalty free, by the way.
Ooh, I like this one.
I'm gonna drag it into here and set it to go to the back.
After cleaning up the sizes and alignment, think this is it.
Check it out, the before and after.
Before I hit download to export it as a PNG, I'm going to click mock-up to see what it'll look like on a t-shirt.
And it looks fresh.
When launching your clothing brand, you don't need a million different designs.
It's actually better to just offer one to three max at the start.
It'll keep things manageable, avoid overwhelming your customers with too many options and allow you to learn what they like and don't like.
We're now ready for step four, manufacturing.
Let's bring our design into reality.
When starting your clothing brand, you'll likely want to print your designs on wholesale blank clothing.
It's much cheaper and easier than cutting and sewing clothing from scratch.
There are three main methods to get this done.
The first is in-house.
You can print your designs on your own by ordering wholesale blanks, manufacturing equipment like a screen printer or heat press, and related supplies.
This method gives you the most control over your clothes and will lower your costs in the long run.
However, it requires a high upfront investment to purchase all that you need.
I'm talking hundreds to thousands of dollars.
You also need knowledge on how to use manufacturing equipment and physical space to store everything.
When you're just starting out, this method can be a bit expensive and overwhelming.
That's why I suggest you explore the other two, with the next one being print on demand.
This is the method of having a company print custom clothing for you only when an order is made.
You simply choose a blank, upload a design and all of the inventory printing embroidering, packaging and shipping will be handled for you.
Best of all, you don't need to make any investment upfront.
You only pay once you make a sale.
This is definitely the best method if you don't have much money to invest into your clothing brand or want a quick and easy way to start it up.
I myself use print on demand to start my own clothing brand, Drift Club.
Now there are some cons to print on demand.
It typically costs more to produce each item, since you're not ordering in bulk and much of the process is handled for you.
Additionally, there is less flexibility with the blanks.
You can use the placement of your designs, colors and packaging.
That's not to say it's not flexible though.
Printful, the print-on-demand service I use, offer a wide range of blanks, customization and branding options that will more than likely meet your needs.
For example, they offer various techniques to produce your designs, such as DTG DTF embroidery, all-over printing and even knitting.
Finally, there's Third Party hiring a screen printing or embroidery shop to help make your clothing.
This method is kind of a mix of the last two.
You get some of the control of in-house with some of the convenience of print on demand.
The catch is that you likely need to produce your clothes in bulk, as most shops have minimum order quantities.
You'll need space to hold that inventory too.
This means it requires a decent upfront investment per order, not only in terms of money, but also in designs and sizes.
If your designs and sizes don't sell, you might've just bought yourself a lifelong supply of pajamas.
Out of these three, the manufacturing method to use will depend on your situation, how much money you have to invest, how much control you want with your product and how much work you're willing to put in.
If you want my recommendation, I'd start with print-on-demand.
It's the most accessible and beginner-friendly, which is why I'm going to use it for a gut feeling.
With this sleek t-shirt blank I found on Printful, I'm going to simply drag and drop the PNG file of my design onto it.
Boom, that's it.
Make sure to order samples of your clothing to ensure they meet your standards before you plan on selling them.
But once they do and they're ready for sale, you can head on to step five, website.
The first thing to get is a domain name.
I like to go with the .store domain.
Clearly indicates that I'm selling something and it's popping nowadays.
Big names like Rihanna, Mariah Carey, and Mr. Beast all use it for their clothing brands.
It's also used by Cristiano Rinaldo, Citizen Watches, and a million other websites.
The coolest thing is that in a big year-long study, it was found that using a store domain can actually help you sell more.
Websites that end with store get 87 more clicks, cost 12 less per conversion when running ads, are two times easier to find on Google because store is a commonly searched keyword, and are more memorable to customers because of how unique.
My favorite thing about Dot Store Domains is that it gives you access to exclusive discounts on clothing brand e-commerce tools.
Their program, Elevate Dot Store, provides all online sellers awesome deals and discounts for free on essential tools like Shopify, Vistaprint station and MailChimp.
However, with the DOT Store domain name, you get access to even better discounts, up to $2,500.
That's some real savings right there, especially when cash is tight at the beginning of your clothing brand.
I'm going to head to DOT Store's official website to see if a gut-feeling DOT Store is available to purchase, and it is.
I am snatching this one.
I asked DOT Store if they could hook us up with a special discount, and they pulled through.
You can get your own dot store domain name for just 99 cents for the first year by using the code Jensen at the link in the description.
Big thanks to dot store for sponsoring this video.
With the domain, you can now create your website.
You can use e-commerce website builders like Shopify and Squarespace.
While every clothing brand website will be unique and yours definitely should be there are two pages you need to nail down properly if you want to make sales.
The first is your homepage.
This is usually the first page people see, so it needs to quickly capture their attention and introduce them to what your brand has to offer.
For example, this is Dreamers Club, a clothing brand that I think has a great website.
Like them.
Your homepage should have a hero banner with strong visuals that promote your clothing brand or a specific collection that you'd like to bring attention to.
You'll want to add a headline that states the unique value proposition of your brand or collection.
Most importantly, add a call to action button that guides customers to your product pages, such as Shop Now.
You'll want to make it easy for customers to visit them, which is why, lower on the homepage, you should also display your products for sale.
This is for customers who skip the hero banner and want to jump straight into browsing your products.
Finally, near the bottom, add more info about your brand.
It could be your mission statement, your story, or your value propositions.
Those curious enough to scroll all the way down are likely looking for more details about your brand.
Once your homepage is set, the second page to focus on are your product pages.
This is where the money is made, so it's got to be dialed in.
You'll want to have high quality photos of your clothing, ideally including ones with models.
Add a detailed description to each product you have and add a section for reviews.
Reviews and social proof play a big role in selling anything online and, assuming you have a good product, you'll want to leverage them to sell more of your clothing.
Other than those two pages, I'd say.
The final thing every clothing brand website has to nail down is a method to collect emails.
Email marketing is an incredibly effective way to make sales, but more on that later.
For now, just trust me, set up a way to collect emails.
At a minimum include a text box in your footer that customers can sign up to your mailing list with.
Then consider adding a pop-up when customers visit the website.
To boost the number of signups, you'll want to offer an incentive, such as 10 off or free shipping on their first order.
If you don't want to offer a discount, at the very least let them know that signing up will keep them updated on the latest releases and exclusive promotions.
Speaking of discounts, let's move on to step six, pricing.
Pricing clothing can seem pretty straightforward, but it's actually a bit trickier than you may expect.
There are a lot of costs you need to consider, including variable costs like materials manufacturing, marketing and shipping, fixed costs, like your website, equipment and storage, and unpredictable costs like refunds and supply chain issues.
For this reason, pricing your clothing with a healthy profit margin is critical.
This is the percentage of revenue you keep after deducting expenses.
At a bare minimum, I suggest aiming for a 30% profit margin, but try targeting 40-60%.
The higher the better, as you'll have more room to cover costs and experiment with discounts.
For a gut feeling, I'm planning to sell my t-shirt for $35.
It costs $20.90 to manufacture, which means I'll profit $14.10.
That's a 40% profit margin.
For my hoodie, I'm planning to sell it for $85.
It costs $42.45 to manufacture, which means I'll profit $42.55.
That's a 50% profit margin.
Of course, if your items are priced too high for your target market, it could reduce your sales.
So price within reason.
The thing is, within reason is subjective.
That's where marketing and branding comes into play.
Customers don't just want wearable fabric.
They want a feeling, an experience, an image.
For a gut feeling.
I'm not just selling clothing.
I'm selling empowerment, the confidence to trust yourself and your instincts.
When you sell something deeper than just a piece of cloth with a graphic on it, customers will see your clothing as more valuable and be more willing to justify spending money on it.
Another way to increase the perceived value of your clothing is scarcity.
When something's rare, it feels more valuable.
You can consider releasing your products in limited drops and quantities to build urgency which will allow you to charge a premium.
Once you're set on your pricing, you can begin step seven.
Promotion.
This is arguably the most important step to starting a successful clothing brand.
This is the step where most clothing brands fail, so don't skip this one.
There are countless ways to promote a clothing brand, but when you're just starting out, I recommend you focus on implementing this classic two-stage promotional strategy.
The first stage is social media marketing.
You'll want to create and post organic photos and videos on Instagram and TikTok showcasing your clothing, but also not your clothing.
I'll say it again.
Customers don't just want wearable fabric.
They want a feeling, an experience, an image.
You wanna make content that captures that beyond just your clothing.
Create content of people doing cool things while wearing your clothing, doing trends with their clothing, or even you creating the clothing.
Show behind the scenes footage of the design, manufacturing, photo shoots, and packaging.
Most importantly, tell creative stories that make people care for your clothing.
Otherwise, your t-shirt is just another t-shirt.
To create and edit a gut feelings photo and video content, I'm going to use CapCut Commerce Pro.
It has a lot of features that make content creation quick and simple.
Its video editor gives you all kinds of text, audio visual elements, auto captions and even AI avatars that you can use.
But if you don't want to do too much editing, there are also many templates to choose from that you can customize to your liking.
Ooh, this one goes hard.
And if that's still not quick enough for you, they have an AI video generator that can create personalized videos for your product in seconds, with entire scripts and AI avatars.
It's super handy, especially during the holidays like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Let's create a holiday promo for a gut feeling together.
I'm simply going to paste the link to my product page and click generate.
It'll load my product's details for me to edit, like the promo price, promo period and promo options.
Below, I can choose which promo event my video is for and also my content types.
It can not only generate different types of video, but poster images as well.
I can now either press surprise me to start generating or click customize.
Here I can edit more of my product's details, including its features I want to highlight and its target audience.
Next, it'll show me all the media that I grabbed from my product page, where I can customize the main image and upload any additional media that I want the video to include.
After that, I can select the video's duration, review and edit the video scripts generated for me, as well as choose a specific AI avatar and voice I want in the video.
You'll want to choose one that fits your brand and relates to your target market.
If you're unsure, you can always go with the Smart Match option and have it pick for you.
Once that's done, I'm going to click Generate and...
Boom!
I have in front of me several video and image options to choose from.
I can click generate more if I want more options, quick edit to adjust them and edit more to edit them in the video editor.
What I really like about these videos are that they're generated to look natural and organic as if a regular person made them, which is key with content nowadays.
People like real and relatable.
On that note, if you have some budget for promotion, consider sending out free clothing to small influencers that your target market follows.
Those with around 1,000 to 50,000 followers in exchange for content featuring your clothing.
This can significantly increase your brand's visibility and credibility online and can often bring a higher return on investment than paid ads.
Speaking of which, I recommend avoiding paid ads initially.
It's better to invest your money in creating organic content that goes viral or sending free clothes to influencers.
Paid ads are more useful later on, when your clothing brand and content has already gained some traction.
The goal of social media marketing is to create awareness for your clothing brand and drive traffic to your website.
Ideally, people would make a purchase right away, but don't worry if they don't.
That's not the main focus of stage one.
The real aim is to guide them into stage two of your promotional strategy.
Email marketing.
As mentioned earlier, email marketing is an incredibly effective way to make sales.
And in this case, it will be your main way.
Let them know about your latest releases, upcoming collections, exclusive promotions and what's happening behind the scenes.
Over time, these emails will help build a connection with your readers and convert them into customers.
Additionally, email marketing is really good at turning customers into repeat customers.
Emails keep customers in the loop, which can prompt them to buy again and again.
And once you do, it's time to head to step eight, shipping.
If you chose print-on-demand as your manufacturing method, you're in luck.
Get a sit back and relax because everything will be shipped for you.
However, if you chose in-house or third party, It's time to get packing.
To start, you'll want to get some poly mailers.
These bags are great for shipping clothing because they're lightweight, easy to store and cost-effective, both in terms of buying them and shipping them.
Next, design and print a thank you card to include with your clothing.
It should include a thank you message, a sentence or two about your clothing's mission, a request for a five-star product review and a prompt to follow your social media accounts.
Additionally, consider offering a discount code for their next purchase.
You're going to place your clothing and card into a polymailer and seal it up.
Then you'll need to choose a carrier to ship your package with.
Your country's postal service is usually a good option, such as USPS in the US.
Different carriers offer different rates, so it's a good idea to compare the ones in your area to find the best one for you.
You can also use Vico, a free shipping software, to browse and get the lowest commercially available rates across major US carriers.
Once you've chosen a carrier, you'll need to purchase a shipping label from them.
You can either take your package to the carrier, where they'll print the label for you, or print one yourself through their website.
Printing shipping labels yourself is usually cheaper, so I'd go with that in the long run.
With your shipping label in hand, slap it on your package, ship it off, and that's that.
Congratulations, you have yourself a clothing brand.
If you want to see me start a clothing brand with 0 in seven days, this one actually.
Check out this video right here.
Otherwise, be sure to like this video, subscribe if you haven't already, and peace out.
