We began the task by making mindmaps over the situation as we saw it. After the research we had made we all noticed that the marketing of Baltic Fashion was, atleast in Finland, still very little. We started to look at opportunities to make the network stronger, and at the same time make Baltic Fashion more noticed among people.
We came up with a few ideas, and here they are:
Workshop
The marketing is a big deal in being a fashion entrepreneur, but still there’s a lack of knowledge in the area, among the designers. We thought it would be a good way of teaching the entrepreneurs how to market themselves, to organize a workshop for them.
The duration would be about 10h. The day would start with some presentations or lectures from big designers in Finland (or outside Finland), they could tell what they have done to get from the bottom to the top. It would give an idea for the entrepreneurs of how much work you have to put in marketing yourself. After the presentation the workshop itself would begin. The participates would work in groups, and the task would be, that with the help of experts, create a “brand” and market in, under one day. To start from scratch and see what are all the thing you need to know to make your brand sell.
The problem seems to be that the designers don’t have the time to put to study things like this. And if you go to a company that’s suppost to help you to get your company started, you most often end up with lots of paper with the information, but no help what so ever on the practical side.
Fashion competition
The idea is to organize a competition among designers in the Baltic Fashion network. All the designers who wish to participate would send in their portfolio to a jury, who would pick the contestants who gets to be in the competition. After this there would be a campaign, for example on facebook, where the contestants would show their designs. And then there would be a public voting of who should win. The winner could get a contract with a bigger company, and get to produce a line that would be in the stores. It would give the winner an opportunity to see how a bigger company works, and at the same time get more publicity for her/his own name and clothing.
Exhibition
Baltic Fashion would organize events also in Finland. An exhibition is a way of getting publicity for both Baltic Fashion and the designers. Fashion attracts people, and the exhibition and convention center know how to market the happenings that are there. There could be fashion shows, and fashion sales, an opportunity for buyers to meet the designers. It would be a good way to get publicity.
Platform
The things that were mentioned above are all practical ways of getting the network more activated. But we also thought of an internet site that would get the network to work better and more together.
The websites of Baltic Fashion are very good. You find the information you need, and there’s a lot going on. The thing is however, that there’s really not much for the designer on the sites. So what would be needed is a site for the designers to talk, see and hear.
There are smaller sites where designer can make their own profile, but many don’t know of them. So we thought it would be useful to have a platform, where designer would create their own profile, and set up a portfolio if they like. There could be information of different events that they might be interested in. There would be different forums where you can discuss different topics. There could also be an application you can download on your smartphone, so that you have easy access to the site. It would be a good site for the designers to keep themselves activated and updated, and an opportunity for buyers to contact designers they are interested in.
It would also be good to active Baltic Fashions sites on for example Facebook and Twitter. They are the places people visit nowadays, and it’s an easy way to be seen among people. At the moment there are only ca. 200 people who “likes” Baltic Fashion on Facebook, and that is not much. Also it would be good for the designers to use Instagram. It’s an easy “program” to upload photos, and mark them with a ” #Baltic Fashion”. It such a small thing fo the designers to do, and it would give so much more visibility for Baltic Fashion and it’s network.
There’s small things that would help a lot, and make people see what Baltic Fashion does.
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