Niche Spotlight: Ethical Kids Clothes

aub
October 2, 2019
One Comment

I’ll admit that I look kid stuff on Instagram all the time. And that we follow a lot of ethical kids clothes brands.

I like to say it’s because it’s really cute and I love pics of baby things, but actually it’s because it’s really often that the branding is on point and the patterns are dope.

I mean, have you checked out Violet & Joan? The halloween patterns are seriously awesome and I’m actually jealous of children in their zombie hand rompers. I want that.

Anyways, that’s the point here, if you’re building an ethical kids clothing brand, you have to appeal to adults too.

About Building an Ethical Children’s Clothing Brand

So, kids don’t really start to care what they wear until they start school, and their decisions aren’t typically heavily influenced by their peers until almost middle school so parents have a lot of years of dressing their kids.

If you’re trying to start a pint-sized ethical clothing brand, you need to appeal to parents, not the kiddos. But that coin flips if you’re building a tween/teen brand, so identify your age group immediately, because that’s going to define how you build your branding. For the purposes of this article, we’re going to shy away from teenage fashion choices (that’s a whole different conversation) and focus on sustainable clothes for young kids.

Luckily, ethical, fair trade, and sustainability never goes out of style, so keep your cuts classic and your fabric patterns unique and you’ll go a long way.

Because trust is hard to come by on the internet now you’ll want to do everything you can think of to answer every sustainability question you can on your website before someone has to write in and ask you. Just like with the sustainable home goods niche, if you’re asked a questions more than a few times, turn it into an FAQ or an article.

Know who makes your clothes, where they’re made, what they’re made from, and where that was sourced. Don’t skimp out on knowing what your clothes are dyed with and get involved with local seamstress/dyers that want to collab with trendy businesses.

Oh, and do it all super cutely with smiling, dirty faced kids in the forefront.

Who Buys Sustainable Kids Clothes? How Should You Speak to them?

People that buy ethical kids clothes are people that are searching for them. It’s so easy to run down to target or jump on amazon and get a new (super cute) romper with a funny saying on it, but these people want to spend $30+ on an outfit that the kid will grow out of in a couple of months.

This demographic of people are affluent, educated, socially conscious, and fashionable. They want to put their money into brands that they support, and might be weaning themselves off of Amazon to opt for a more sustainable lifestyle.

Parents, especially first-time moms and her friends, that are interested in making eco-friendly choices are a great demographic to corner here so make sure that you’re using a lot of comforting words and offering as much information as possible about the clothes you’re selling. This group of people do a lot of research when they decide to support a brand.

Speak from experience in your communications. If you don’t have kids, hire customer support agents that do, talk with family and friends with kids, read parenting books, and spend time in parenting facebook groups to learn about how parents in your niche respond to different types of content/language.

Don’t be “anti” anything because parenting is hard. You don’t want to make moms feel alienated by talking smack about plastic diapers for example. Be supportive of every type of parenting decision in your content but also offer hella life hacks for sustainable parenting.

What Kind of Content for Ethical Kids Clothes?

Being the entrepreneur behind an ethical kids clothing means that it’s about the kids all the time. You can infuse your personality here, if you’re being a sass or taking a personal day for adulting, communicate about it. This is real and relatable!

Parent to parent communication on blogs and social media is awesome for the younger kiddo brands.

Your Photos

Look through your competitors’ photos and you’ll see exactly what works. Photos of baby things and happy families along with product photos. Interesting outfit pairs in a flat lay format or kids wearing your clothing brand is great.

What we would love to see more of is the clothes MESSY. Kids are freaking messy. So yeah, let them play in the dirt in their new outfit, it shows the durability of your brand that every parent wants to see.

This should go without saying, but your photos need to be crisp and clean. You want bright, well lit, nicely laid out pictures of your products and the kiddos, they should look professionally captured.

Pillar Content

Those messy clothes photos? Yeah, they lead to articles or videos about easy care instructions. Use every platform you have to share information. Written articles are great for this demographic, but short video clips with tips and tricks are awesome too if you find it easier.

You have a huge range of potential pillar content because you can write about anything from spotlighting inspiration for a pattern (if you’re making those) to the seamstresses you’re working with to collaborations with other ethical kids businesses (like toys or washable diapers even).

Ask for user generated content of kids in your outfits or sustainable parenting hacks. Make connections and get creative with your pillar because you’re in a niche where people pay attention.

Social Following

Because you have photos of mini humans and happy families and little cute stuff, your social following is likely going to be a mixed bag of lurkers, subscribers, and customers.

Make sure that your Instagram is shoppable and that you’re using relevant hashtags with EVERY post so that you’re finding everyone that wants to consume that type of content.

Be consistent, and respond really thoughtfully and sweetly to every person that messages you – including the haters.

How to Build a Loyal Following for Your Niche

Building loyalty into your brand is going to be a bit different than with other niches and we’re actually going to suggest something we don’t say too often:

Collaborate with Competitors

Parents don’t care that you’re in competition. They are looking for a cute pattern with a fit that works for their kid and a price that works in their budget. As long as the two brands are different enough, your competitors could help you gain followers.

This is an altruistic niche, and even though it can be competitive for IG feed attention, people have basically endless reserves of time to look through super cute photos of baby things. Working together is a great way to go for this niche.

Stay Focused

It’s easy to want to expand into other lines here. Don’t stray too far.

Mother-daughter matching outfits? Cute sometimes.

A whole line of baby skincare? That’s a different kind of brand. Being everything for every parent is going to white wash your brand. Keep it simple. Be the authority.

Interested in blooming an ethical kid’s clothes brand? Send us an email at info@dandelionbranding.com to talk more about your specific marketing needs.