Content Marketing Today

How $2000, Creativity, Consistent Marketing, and Lots of Hard Work Made Glamajama Successful

6 Lessons to Learn from a Young Mom Who Has Built a Successful Clothing Brand While Learning Business the Hard Way

Heather Nolte is a self-described 5′ 1″ Texas firecracker who launched her fun and fashionable  clothing company with tons of energy, but not a shred of entrepreneurial experience.

She targets moms and their very young kids who are desperate for clothing options that are not the same old same old “mommy and me” choices. Her tagline tells the story: “From the crib to the catwalk.”

Although Heather was able to get her company up and running on just $2000, she has always had big dreams. Those dreams and her business naivety led her to make some expensive and damaging marketing mistakes very early on.

Instead of conceding defeat, she immediately set out to learn absolutely everything about building a successful business with a combination of creativity and frugality.  What she learned about marketing has made all the difference.

The effective use of inexpensive tools including public relations, content marketing, and social media has played a key role in Glamajama’s growth. Her clothing line is now carried in more than 500 boutiques in the US and around the world. (They absolutely love her stuff in Japan)  In addition, she is in negotiations to sell her clothing line through some very large retail operations.

Here are 6 important lessons I think we can learn from what Heather and Glamajama have achieved.

1. Have Clear Positioning and Vision of What You Do and Who You Serve. Glamajama understands exactly where they fit and what their customers are seeking. As they put it: Our goal is to provide edgy and playful children’s wear that are easy care and baby friendly, while giving moms some trendy alternatives to “Mommy & Me” with our signature “mommy” tees and matching sets.
   Heather’s company has a well defined market position and keeps working to build their reach within that niche. Even their brand extensions into a somewhat less expensive market segment maintain a fun, chic appeal.  No boring baby clothes for this company!
2. Make maximum use of free promotional tools such as public relations. Out of necessity, Heather began to promote her business with her own PR efforts She targeted small websites and blogs that were writing about products, services, and issues within her market. These included small, but respected sites such as JamesGirone.com and StyleBakery.com.
   As Heather notes, “You never know who is going to be reading those niche websites.” Sure enough, she was able to build on that initial targeted exposure so that she has since received national coverage in venues that range from Oprah, The Today Show, The CBS Morning Show, WABC-TV in New York City, USA Today, and Working Mother Magazine.
   It’s worth noting that Heather’s PR efforts began on the web in 2004 before most PR professionals understood the power of the online niche media.
3. Make full use of your website to reinforce your credibility as a vendor.  When you visit the company website, Glamajama.com, you can’t help but be impressed by the extent of the press coverage she has gotten online, in print on radio and on TV.  Because 60% of her sales go through a reseller network, the extent of her press coverage gives Heather’s company instant credibility. If you are a reseller, you know that she’s going all-out to make her clothing line easy for you to sell.,
4. Be relentless and consistent in your marketing efforts. Glamajama was not an overnight success. Heather’s promotional work has extended over a five-year period and continues to this day.  She never assumed that a quick shot of promotion in 2004 would carry her company for the next half decade.  But her relentless and consistent marketing has helped her to achieve a 400% increase in annual sales since her first full year in business.
5. Connect regularly with your customers to maintain a positive dialogue that increases customer retention. Our customers have lots of choices for the products they buy.  We can be very easy to forget.  This is especially true in the highly competitive retail clothing universe in which Glamajama competes. 
   Thus, Heather sends out a monthly eNewsletter to her customers which has recently undergone a transformation so that it is now much more about dialogue and community than it is about sending a one-way message. She is working hard to enable her customers to connect with one another as well as to her and to Glamajama.
6. Make full use of social media to connect with your customers, your colleagues, and the media in all its forms. You can find Heather and Glamajama on her blog, on Facebook, on Twitter, and as a regular contributor to StartUpNation.com.  All of these efforts enable Heather and her company to reach a much broader audience and to establish a potentially large fan base that will solidify her market position.
   But, she is doing much more than just extending the reach of her personal and her company brand. Very importantly, I think Heather exemplifies the best of the new social media ethic.  That is, she is paying it forward by making positive contributions to knowledge that helps others succeed– even when it may have no intrinsic or immediate benefit to her or to Glamajama.

Heather doesn’t think for a moment that she has all the answers.  In fact, she is continually experimenting and working on improving what she does and how she does it.  I guess that entrepreneurship is a little bit like playing the guitar.  Every so often you just have to keep retuning it.  And, that’s what I think she has done so successfully.  She keeps retuning the business so that it continues to thrive even in these very challenging economic times.

Needless to say, if you know of a baby that could do with a fashion makeover, visit Glamajama right away.