Why Fashion Stories Give Fashion Brands Long Term Success

Fashion Stories are people magnets. Everyone likes a good story. Everybody needs a good story every day. Good stories are hard to come by. We are so eager to get stories we go out and look for them. Someone who has a good story doesn’t have to work too hard to get our interest.

But why do so few fashion companies use stories? When you get to a fashion website you get a couple of photos that prime you for getting in the mood. But then: noting. That’s it. Two photos. Nothing more. Your only choice after that is to go straight to the store and buy something. Are you in the mood for that?

Connect Directly to Fashion Aficionados

Imagine you enter a house and step into the entrance hall. Someone gives you a brief hello (the two images) and then you are left alone. You wonder: what’s going on? Is there someone? Hello, do you actually realize I am here? Is there someone? Don’t you have anything anything to say to me?

Of course, there’s the store. But you are not buying things all the time. Sometimes you just want a story and it would be nice to get that story from your favorite fashion brand. And if you don’t get one, you might go somewhere else where they are take better care of you and give you experience and emotion – the main ingredients of a story. Fashion Stories immediately engage the visitor and make him/her feel personally welcome.

Fashion Stories – Immersion into the World of the Fashion Brand

Why do we see so few stories in fashion. Why does everybody try to push us to the store just after we enter the website? Why not show us some ideas, some fantasies, something that engages our imagination?

Is this because they do not see me as a persons but a unit in a sales funnel? That hunt for customers and get them on a path that pushes them to buy. As I get pushed forward, towards the purchase, the options get fewer, the funnel gets tighter. I’m getting claustrophobic. I want out. Out! Sales funnels are very rational. It’s an assembly line that assembles customers. But do they achieve their goal? Aren’t they wasting a lot of opportunities to connect to us?

A Personal Connection in a World of Social Distance

Isn’t this impersonal treatment of people wasting the most precious resource of a fashion brand: the people who are interested in your designs? Why not feed their interest that is already there? Going down a sales funnel feels like being being pushed down a mincer. But we want to be treated as human beings, not pieces of meat in a sales funnel.

The sales funnel is a long and expensive process, fueled by ad buys and campaigns and many get lost in the mincer. Wouldn’t it be much better if customers came on their own because they actually feel attracted to a brand? Wouldn’t it be of advantage if a fashion brand treated its audiences like human beings that have feelings and interests instead of wallets on legs?

Creating Long Lasting Relationships by Personal Connection

If people crave for good stories why don’t we tell them any? Why don’t we give them what they want? Nobody wants to be ground meat popping out of a sales funnel, but everyone wants to be a part of a story.

If a fashion brand has an ongoing story with new chapters opening every week or bi-weekly, people will come on their own to see what’s going on. They will come because they like the experience. And they come back because getting what you want is highly addictive.

Giving others what they want and see them their eyes light up is addictive, too. Stories connect people and companies and brands in a way that is natural for human beings. It is an exchange, a conversation – far superior from the sales funnel mince-meat. It forms long lasting relationships that intensify over the years – something the mincer cannot do.

In a humane, story-propelled environment the brand stands in direct contact with its customer base that increasingly will become a fan base or, depending on the kind of story, even a family by sharing the emotional DNA of a beloved world of stories.

This is more satisfying for both sides and will also reduce the cost of marketing and sales. And there is another advantage: past stories do not lose their luster. They become a part of history and continue to strengthen the brand whereas old campaigns are deader than autumn leaves in dustbin.

Conclusion: Imagination vs regular Fashion Advertising

Giving people a good experience with good fashion stories does something no amount squeezing them into tight sales funnels will ever achieve: they will come back to your brand, joyfully as you do when you had a good experience and want more of it.

In the competition of motivation versus pressure motivation will always win. Motivation propels forwards while pressure from behind causes resistance. It is not just more humane, it is also economically more efficient.

If we are motivated we are doing something out of our own interest and will. Nobody has to guide us. In the same way that motivated people create higher quality work and need little oversight, they will also come to a brand on their own and will buy more because they have a personal connection.

 * * *

If you would like to see some stories, you might want to see some inspirations from moments of fashion stories for Women’s Fashion.