Image by Lizzka
If you’re a designer who’s new to Catwalkgenuis.com and you’d like to
hit the adoption target of 5,000 elements sold to raise €70,000 for your next
collection, then here are 10 tips to get you started.
- Fill out your
profile page. People need to know something about you before
they’ll even consider supporting your cause. Go to My Account > My
Profile > Designer Public Profile and tell the world how amazing you are.
- While you’re
there, opt into the adoption scheme. The first question on the
Public Profile page is ‘Would you like to be adopted?’ Why yes, of course you
would. Buy some elements in your own adoption, if you can. This
shows potential supporters that you believe in yourself, too.
- Design,
produce and sell as much of your work on Catwalkgenius.com as
possible, because only then will people know what you’re all about. Also,
building a strong feedback score through sales shows that you’re reliable.
- Rope in your
friends and family. They’re the ones with the most reason to want
to see you succeed in your design career, so don’t be afraid to ask for
their support. After all, you’ve sponsored a few fun-runs in your time.
- Link to your
Catwalkgenius.com shop on all of your other online spaces, such as
Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter and so on. Your URL and the html code
are both at the top of the page in My Account > My Profile >
Designer’s Public Profile.
- You can also add
this ‘Join the Adoption’ widget to those same spaces to direct people straight
to your profile page, rather than your shop. Here's the html code to paste into your blog, website or MySpace page. Don't forget to replace 'YOUR LABEL NAME' with the label name from your catwalkgenius.com shop URL (see point 5).
<a
href="http://www.catwalkgenius.com/YOUR_LABEL_NAME"><img src="http://www.catwalkgenius.com/downloads/supporter_join.gif"
width="200" height="133" style="border:0px none;" alt="Join the
adoption"></a>
- Advertise
your adoption offline, wherever your clothing or accessories are
displayed. If you have a dedicated platform, such as a runway show or
boutique, take the opportunity to direct fans of your work to adopt you,
while they’re at their most impressed!
- Run a
marketing campaign of your own. Some designers are talking about
offering framed design sketches, free tickets for fashion shows, access to
limited edition designs and similar things to new supporters. Be creative
and offer something that no-one else is. Soon you’ll be able to gift
elements or offer discounts on your products through the site, so you can
run special offers from time to time. Update your profile with the
details, or include a hand-written note with your news and place it inside your product packaging.
- Customise your
adoption ‘thank you’ email. Make the first element purchase a
pleasant experience and your supporters may come back for more. Go to: My
Account > My Adoption and select the option that lets you Add/Edit a 'Thank you' custom message. Then type in something that drips with your usual warmth and charisma.
- Get us to
help you. If you send us a good story and some images, we may well feature
you on the homepage or in a newsletter. If you’ve got a great idea for a
marketing campaign but need some help carrying it out, drop us an email
and we’ll see what we can do.
Finally, if there’s a feature that you’d like to see on the site to help attract supporters, please suggest it. We’ll tailor our site improvements to include the best or most common suggestions.
Good luck!
