Trying To Expand Your Fashion Business Through Collaboration? Here’s How To Develop A Strategy For That

Growing a fashion business involves a lot of intentional effort and external help. No matter how great your fashion brand’s products are, you will still need the help of others to expand the brand.

One of the forms this help comes in is through partnerships and collaborations with influencers or other fashion brands. This way, you can more naturally and authentically grow your fashion brand. 

With fashion brands collaborating with individuals like Beyoncé, Cardi B, and other fashion businesses like EleVen by Venus Williams, collaboration is on the rise now. 

We have previously written on what you need to know about growing your fashion startup business through collaboration. Now, we bring to you how to develop a collaboration strategy to expand your fashion brand. 

How to Develop a Collaboration Strategy for Your Fashion Brand.

1. Identify the Reason for Your Collaboration and Know Your Audience Profile.

Before you start planning to get into any collaboration or identifying those you want to collaborate with, you need to know why you are collaborating. Knowing the reason you seek collaboration with other fashion brands or individuals will determine largely the best way to go about it and who to collaborate with.

It is also very important to know who your customer is and what they love. The more information you have on your ideal audience, the easier it will be for you to find collaborators that align with your customers’ interests and your business goals. 

Knowing details such as the lifestyle of your customers, their pain points, and the best media to reach them on will help in making collaborations easier. It will also be easier to create something they will be excited about. 

Knowing the reason for your collaborative efforts and your target audience makes the entire process easier.

2. Make a List of Potential Collaborators.

After you have identified the goals for your collaboration efforts, it is time to identify potential collaborators. For each of these partners, you need to come up with ways they will help support your business goals. 

Have a general idea of what you want each of these collaborators to do with you, it could be content creation, cross-promotion, event production, and so on. Make sure to identify the exact thing you would like to do with each of them.

This is crucial because it could mean the difference between a successful expansion effort or a failed one. 

3. Flesh out Your Ideas.

Now that you know the reason for your collaboration and have identified potential collaborators and what you would like to do with them, it is time to flesh out your ideas. At this point, you should prepare a proposal for the collaboration. 

Consider your business goals and their business goals and refine the ideas you have for each collaborator. Try as much as possible to come up with simple creative ideas that you think will work well and will not require massive commitments. 

Your proposal should contain details of

• what you intend to offer in the collaboration,
• the role you will like them to play in it,
• the value it will bring you both, and
• the features of the collaboration.

4. Communicate with the Potential Collaborators. 

You can now commence communication with potential collaborators. This can be done via telephone calls, emails, or any other medium you think appropriate. 

From your conversations with them, you can now create mode detailed ideas, know who will be responsible for what, and develop new goals. These conversations should lead you up to developing detailed plans on how to go about the collaboration. 

5. Kick-off Your Collaboration Agreement.

Finally, make sure that your collaboration agreement is documented and approved by both parties. This agreement should contain details about the nature and objectives of the collaboration, what each party will contribute, and the specific rights and responsibilities of everyone involved. 

As time goes on and you make adjustments to the agreement, make sure they are also documented and co-approved by you and your collaboration partners. A written agreement, be it in hard copy or soft copy format, reduces the potential for future disagreement or conflicts between you and them.