In the era of fast fashion and social media, brands must utilize the role of influencers to remain visible among their target audiences and sell their brand’s message. Fashion Nova is an American fast fashion company best known for their successful Instagram marketing, which constantly connects them to their customers and keeps them engaged. The brand purposefully markets diversity; their models and socials are filled with women and men of diverse shapes and sizes that help to present their brand as accessible for all people. This comes at a more important time than ever, as brands are slammed for “one size fits all” sizing or catering to strict gender norms. The brand has found huge success through their influencer partnerships, and have been able to divert from traditional marketing campaigns to generate explosive business.
At the center of Fashion Nova’s Instagram marketing success is their Influencer partnership program. According to Forbes, understanding and effectively utilizing influencers is going to become an even more essential marketing strategy looking through the rest of 2020 and into 2021. In short, influencer marketing expands a brand’s reach on Instagram and YouTube. Influencers are often considered experts within a niche community and have a group of loyal followers who look to them for product recommendations, advice, and entertainment. Influencers traditionally do not post direct advertisements, but rather show how a company’s product benefits them in their day to day lives and what they have come to love so much about it. Influencers add a personal and real touch to whatever they’re marketing.
Fashion Nova has done a particularly impressive job in using influencers to advance their brand perception and sell products with couture looks at much more affordable prices. The influencers that they partner with are able to show how to style their affordable pieces to recreate runway and celebrity looks that are often out of a regular individual’s price point. Fashion Nova has been able to surpass H&M and Zara, two competitors in the realm of fast fashion, in how quickly it can recreate runway looks.
Fashion Nova uses a diverse base of influencers to show consumers that their clothes are attainable and stylish for bodies of all shapes and sizes, whereas top designer clothing is often crafted with the slim body in mind. By partnering with influencers with diverse body types, Fashion Nova has painted itself as a brand that celebrates the relationship between curves and elite fashion. On this strategy, Fashion Nova founder Richard Saghian says “All our other competitors were always using the same models over and over. We thought we could be a little different by celebrating body positivity and using curvier girls and the customers liked it.” This specific focus has set the company well ahead of their competitors.
Another essential aspect of their influencer strategy is that they create multiple variations of each piece to avoid replications of outfits among influencers. Richard Saghian says, “It’s important to have a lot of styles because our customers post so much online and need new clothes. We don’t want girls showing up to the club in the same outfit. We need 50 different denim jackets. Not just one”. This has led to a huge catalog of clothing to choose from, which means that influencers with a huge variation in style can find pieces on the site that they like. It also helps followers see how each piece can be adapted to anyone’s individual style.
#NovaBabes, or the influencers and celebrities that Fashion Nova partners with, bring huge profits to the company. They now partner with 3,000 influencers, both big and small, on Instagram. As of now, Black Chyna, Christina Milian, and Kylie and Kris Jenner are official partners. Apparently, a post from Kylie can lead to a daily increase in nearly $50,000 in sales. However, the company doesn’t only focus on the big guns. The company also pays careful attention to scouting “micro-influencers”, or those who have a following between 50,000 and 250,000. Through partnering with smaller influencers, the brand can greatly increase the number of #NovaBabes hashtags on Instagram, which bring further traffic to the main Instagram page and lead to sales. It was also through conversations with micro influencers that Fashion Nova realized they could expand their reach even further, as women were looking to shop for the men in their lives at a similar price point. This led brand leaders to consider developing a men’s line, a line that would also lead to great success. This strategy has worked well, as a HelloSociety study proved that micro influencers have a 60% higher engagement rate than larger influencers, as consumers find those with a smaller following more reliable and less “advertisey”. These smaller influencers are likely more in touch with their audience and are able to engage with them more honestly, leading to an increased likelihood that their followers will purchase products and items that they recommend.
The brand’s influencers engage consistently with their followers online. On the Fashion Nova Instagram itself, all comments are replied to and direct messages are always granted a response. Instagram posts and stories are updated nearly every hour, and the messaging and tone of all the language is carefully monitored to make sure it will resonate with the target audience: those aged 16 to 35. This has been a wildly successful strategy, as the brand generates enough revenue online to eliminate the need for many retail stores. It also gives customers a personal touch throughout their purchasing experience, and helps them feel like they are buying clothes from real people – not an online, out of touch retailer.
Fashion Nova is truly an industry leader when it comes to proving the power of influencer partnerships. The brand has created a strong army of loyal influencers and followers who look to the brand to encompass haute fashion at affordable prices for all sizes. In looking to the future, the brand is expected to continue to grow and remain successful through their influencer partnership.