Fashion Marketing Career 101: Jobs, Salary, Colleges, & Courses

New York, London, and Milan, what do they have in common? Fashion Week! We’re in the midst of the fashion season and decided to shine some light on fashion marketing for aspiring marketers. The fast-paced industry keeps marketers on their toes to devise creative campaigns to present fashion products artfully while achieving conversions and ROI. Let’s look at fashion marketing as a career –  the job description, salary, and degrees and talk about how aspiring marketers can chart out a successful career in fashion marketing.

Table of Contents

• Fashion Marketing Definition
• Fashion Marketing Job Description
• Fashion Marketing Salary
• Fashion Marketing Degree
   

Fashion Marketing Definition

Fashion marketing, also referred to a fashion merchandising, is defined as the process of planning and promoting goods or services in the fashion industry to the right audience at the right time and place with the use of marketing and advertising tools and strategies.

Like other branches of marketing, Fashion marketing and merchandising encompass the following marketing activities:

• Identifying your target customer base and understanding and anticipating their specific fashion needs.
• Predicting, tracking, and creating trends in styles, colors, sizes, fabrics, package designing.
• Forecasting sales in the current fashion trend cycle.
• Conceptualizing, designing, and developing fashion products.
• Determining resources, and selecting and buying the right material.
• Planning the pricing, promotion, and distribution of products.
• Crafting advertising campaigns and promotional activities to attract buyers.
• Creating enticing and exciting fashion shopping experiences.
   

Fashion marketing and merchandising is a dynamic industry as the fashion cycle keeps evolving. Therefore, fashion marketers need to make quick decisions and adapt to fast-changing trends to be successful in this profile.

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Fashion Marketing Job Description

What does it take to become a fashion marketer? Let’s look at the skills and responsibilities required for a fashion marketing job.

Working in the fashion marketing industry can be challenging, but if you have an eye for detail, passion for fashion, and can balance your creative and business side, it can be highly satisfying. You would also need a bachelor’s degree in marketing and (or) fashion and relevant experience, we will come to this later in the article.

Here is what you would find in a typical fashion marketing job description.

Fashion marketing jobs require core marketing skills that would need you to:

• Devise strategies to raise awareness, promote products, and intrigue customers
• Track customer trends to understand their requirement and present products that best fit their needs
• Plan goal-oriented campaigns that drive sales and boost revenue
• Analyze customer behavioral data and conversion and sales metrics
• Make data-driven decisions to anticipate trends and strategically apply inferences to tweak current and future marketing efforts
• Be on top of marketing budgets, inventory channels, store management, and other operational activities
• Optimally use emerging technologies like augmented reality (AR) to create immersive experiences
   

The future of fashion marketing relies on brands embracing new technology like Augmented Reality to reach even more consumers. Augmented Reality enhances the shopping experience by allowing shoppers to try on clothes, glasses, shoes, and even visualize new makeup without leaving home. These virtual shopping experiences are also made for sharing on social media.

~ Todd GrossmanOpens a new window , CEO Americas, Talkwalker, exclusively to MarTech Advisor

Apart from these core skills, some of the qualitative skills of a fashion marketer include:

• Understanding fabrics and having a keen eye for designs
• An interest in fashion and a creative mind
• Observational skills to keep a tab on fashion news and changing styles
• Relationship building skills to better understand, communicate, and bond with consumers
• Collaboration and presentation skills to work with design, business, and sales teams
• Multitasking and time management capabilities
   

If you are skilled, talented, and hardworking, you can expect to earn a pretty decent salary. In the next section, we discuss some popular fashion marketing jobs and what you can expect to earn in these roles.

Fashion Marketing Salary

How much can you make as a fashion marketer? Fashion marketing salaries vary across profiles and experience. Here is a list of some of the popular fashion marketing jobs and respective salaries:

(Compiled from Indeed.comOpens a new window , ZipRecruiter.comOpens a new window , PayScale.comOpens a new window , Glassdoor.comOpens a new window )

Most senior positions spanning senior managers to directors are paid based on expertise and job portfolio with salaries ranging from $100,000 – $200,000 per year.

To excel in the fashion industry, it is important to be well versed in the fundamentals of fashion marketing. Therefore, a fashion marketing degree can help you plan your entry into the industry.

Let’s talk about how to obtain a fashion marketing degree, colleges for fashion marketing, and online degrees to get you started.

Fashion Marketing Degrees

A fashion marketing degree covers different areas of the fashion industry. To obtain a degree in fashion marketing you will need to learn the essentials of the fashion and business courses. You will also need to equip yourself with research methodologies and analysis and forecasting of the fashion market. Visual merchandising and presentation, exhibition design, design, and production management are some courses offered in most of the degrees.

It is always good to identify a niche/specialty to excel in the field that interests you the most. Some of the popular specialization options are:

• Marketing Communications
• Fashion Business Management
• Textile Development & Marketing
• Cosmetics & Fragrance Marketing
• Accessories & Jewelry Design and Marketing 
• Apparel Design & Production
• Fashion Branding & Promotion
• Fashion Magazines
• Fashion Show Production
• Fashion Forecasting
   

Here is a list of the top 10 fashion marketing colleges in the US, according to Fashion SchoolsOpens a new window :

1. Fashion Institute of Technology, New York
2. IOWA State University, AMES, IOWA
3. Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama
4. Kent State University, Kent, Ohio
5. Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado
6. University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minnesota
7. Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma
8. University of North Texas, Denton, Texas
9. Savannah College of Art & Design, Savannah, Georgia
10. Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
     

Fashion is ever-changing and you need to constantly refresh your skillset. If it isn’t possible to go to university, you can enroll in colleges that offer fashion marketing online degrees.

Most fashion marketing online degrees offer courses in fashion design and merchandising. Best CollegesOpens a new window has compiled a list of fashion marketing colleges that offer online degrees:

• University of Wisconsin-Madison
•  Central Michigan University
•  Johnson & Wales University
• Southern New Hampshire University
   

Reading fashion marketing books can also help you revisit your fundamentals and add new dimensions to your perspective. Here are a few books we recommend (in no particular order):

• The End of Fashion: How Marketing Changed the Clothing Business ForeverOpens a new window – Teri Agins
• Brand Identity Breakthrough: How to Craft Company’s Unique Story to Make Your Products IrresistibleOpens a new window – Gregory Diehl
• Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap FashionOpens a new window – Elizabeth L. Cline
• Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its LusterOpens a new window – Dana Thomas
• The Fashion Designer Survival Guide: Start and Run Your Own Fashion BusinessOpens a new window – Mary Gehlhar
• The Beautiful Fall: Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent, and Glorious Excess in 1970s ParisOpens a new window – Alicia Drake
   

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How to Kickstart your Fashion Marketing Career?

Here are a few tips to get an aspiring fashion marketer started:

1. Identify your passion for fashion and take a job match quiz to check whether you have a creative and business flair for a fashion marketing role.
2. Enroll yourself and work towards obtaining a fashion marketing degree.
3. Embrace new technologies that can improve your fashion marketing strategies.
4. Work as an intern to learn about the industry requirements, expectations, and core expertise.
5. Experience in fashion marketing can help you identify a niche segment that matches your skillset.
6. Get a specialization course to upgrade your skillset. You could even pursue a fashion marketing online degree and continue working in the industry.
7. Remember to read fashion marketing books and news in your leisure time for the latest trends.
    

Creativity, hard work, a keen eye for detail, analytical skills, and adapting to ever-changing trends can catapult your fashion marketing career.

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