Starting your own clothing label is an expensive business and the products are only one part of the cost. Advertising has never been cheap but there are ways you can get the word out to potential customers and make a significant impression without spending a penny. Here are our top 5 tricks on how to promote your brand online for free.

Give Away Stuff

People love a bargain but they love freebies even more. Running social media competitions where people enter by sharing your content is a great way to get noticed and get your products in front of a new audience. Plus people are more likely to trust a recommendation from a friend or someone you already follow than a complete random right? Origin recently ran an Instagram competition offering followers the chance to win a t-shirt of their choice from the new range printed here at 3rd Rail in exchange for a regram and managed to increase their following in the process too.

Get Featured on Blogs

Bloggers are always looking for fresh content and this is way for you to deliver it straight to their inbox. Create a press release (which is basically a ready made article) and send it to all your favourite pages. Talk about your range, the inspiration behind it, future plans and of course include lots of photos. If you’re approaching a high profile blogger you could always offer a free garment in exchange for an article to sweeten the deal.

Ask Your Customers to do Some of the Work

Someone else posting about how much they love your clothes is going to be be way more powerful than you telling your followers how amazing it is (again). Encourage your customers to upload images of themselves wearing your clothes on social media, you could even offer a discount on their next purchase in exchange for posts. Remember to let people know which hashtags you would like them to use and share the photos on your own account.

Get Noticed on Social Media

These days simply having a Twitter or Facebook profile and posting regularly isn’t enough. In order to stand out amongst other users (there’s a whopping 200 million of them on Instagram alone) you really need to make an effort to actively engage with your community. Like and comment on statuses or photos of the people you want to notice your brand. Did you know that your photos are 12.6% more likely to get found if you use hashtags and 79% more likely to be spotted if your location is tagged?* If you’re posting streetstyle shots tag the other brands in the image to get your content in front of their fans. Nike is the biggest brand on Instagram so it might be time to get those Huaraches in your product pic.

Start a Mailing List

Start collecting the email addresses of anyone who’s ever shown an interest in your label and get into the habit of sending our regular newsletters, it’s the easiest way to let people know about your latest products, offers or upcoming projects. Remember theres a difference between regular and spam, only send one out if you actually have something to say. Clients such as Mailchimp make it super easy to manage subscribers and send out fancy looking newsletters.

*Statistics taken from the Simply Measured Q3 2014 Instagram Study