This is where Fashion and Public Relations get married; Fashion
needs people’s eyes, and then their other senses while Public Relations brings them
all together. Public Relations ensures that the Fashion professional appeals to
the public (publics), satisfies them, attracts them and both parties gain from
the relationship formed. A good PR manager will also help the two parties
maintain a beneficial relationship going forward. This was how Pierre Rougier worked for Calvin Klein and other fashion businesses behind the scenes, generating a lot of resounding results for these brands.
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| Photo by Vision Perspective |
It is important to know that an advertising agency will not
offer your business what the PR will do. With one, you pay heavily to get seen
quickly; with the other, you pay less and take time to build a relationship of
trust with your various publics. Advertising is the costlier one, PR is the
later one. And these days, the relationship is what keeps the business, not the
sale.
BUILDING A BRAND
Any other communications professional will design your logo
and brand elements to his/her taste or to your taste, not the PR Manager. In designing
your brand, he will consider many more biases; like how will your principal
influencers see this brand; potential buyers, investors, potential staff, the
Government and other key influencers of your business and industry? To him,
your brand is not just the graphic designs and photography associated with your
image, but also such invisible elements like how you treat missed calls, when
you deliver on jobs, how you handle customers’ fabric and more. These all affect how your business is
perceived by the people you need to stay in business.
A PR rep will strive to keep the promotion consistent, never
sending out mixed messages. For example if your company's fashion line is
geared towards women fashion you want to create female styled events that will
attract the required customer.
PRESS RELATIONS
It is the PR pro that will make the media run after you;
that’s his specialty. Your fashion business needs to have a relationship with
several categories of media; print, broadcast, online, direct etc. Many print
media organizations have a column for fashion; TV producers have a celebrity
fashion segment; radio programmes talk about fashion shows and fads. Most if
not all of the major media players in these categories have their Internet and
Social Media platforms just to push these content on. Feel free to hire a journalist
and then a blogger, a social media marketer, a graphic artiste, a photographer,
a cinematographer, in-house events manager at monthly pay of N50,000 for each
(N350,000) – or just get a great PR firm to handle all their functions for
N100,000 monthly.
HANDLING COMPLAINTS
Too many fashion creation businesses have too many
complaints bordering on order delivery; the online ones as well as the brick
and mortar store. In Nigeria, the case of taking more jobs than could get done
or simply laziness to work leads to this popular complaint. Hand over the
entire value chain, from taking orders to after-sale to a great fashion PR
manager. He will not make the clothing, but will work to prevent complaints,
and when there is one, he will take control of the situation to minimize or
eliminate further crisis. This is why it is an aberration to consider Public
Relations as a conduit pipe through which you send out media content – you will
sack the PR manager soon and your image will not work as should.
COMMUNICATING
That fashion business is surrounded by a number of important
audiences to engage with. Do not forget your competition and even the
Government of your area among your compulsory audiences. A good fashion PR
manager knows what communications will keep you safe with competition, what to
communicate to the tax agencies, how to communicate with staff, with investors
and creditors, with buyers and all.
Hand over the communications channels of your fashion business
to the pros. You will know when Government policies are being formulated that
can affect you before it’s too late; when investors are interested or could be
pulling out; competitions’ moves; stay connected to buyers and suppliers; when
staff and their unions could bring you down and so many more other important
information – and how to navigate through.
MANAGING YOUR WEBSITE
Who views your website? Potential buyers, existing buyers,
the Government, your competition, investors and many other significant publics
do. Why then do you hand over your website to a ‘website manager’ who does not
know who these groups are and how to engage them in everyone’s favour? The website
is not just for posting latest designs, celebrity photos and what have you. In fact,
as cheap as it is to create and run a website has become, many fashion brands
in Nigeria prefer just Instagram accounts. They confine their businesses to the
image app and lose out on all the gains available through owned websites. Little
wonder they hardly go big, hardly go international, hardly attract Venture
capitalists.
YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA
CHANNELS
When you hand over your social media channels to a good
fashion PR manager, it is not the same as when you do that with a trainee from
the next social media marketing training. The later will help you sell, if he’s
good, why not? But the PR manager knows how to keep you in business while he
does not. The PR manager that is up-to-date on skill will handle your social
media marketing professionally, help you make quick sale and help you last in
business at the same time. He is more professional, and will cost you more,
however. Pay the Social media handler N50,000 per month with no guaranteed
future for your brand or pay the PR manager N100,000 to handle many other
functions for you and still sustain you in business.
EVENTS MANAGEMENT
Events are a great way to communicate your brand and meet
your market. There are events for existing stakeholders and other kinds of
events for potential ones. If an events manager without PR training handles
your events for you, there will be a huge difference in the long run. Regarding
3rd party events, the PR manager will know what events you should
participate in and which to pass over.
Only the fashion business that wants to sell widely and last
long will find it important to hire a great Public Relations manager. The small
ones that want to stay small or quit business someday soon will better do
without the PR function. Note that you may not see the effects of the fashion
PR management immediately, but certainly PR will ensure your business lasts long
enough to see those effects later.
Written by Victoria ‘Slessor’ Akpan, an intern with Jabborro
PR
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