Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out!
I had a look at your situation and I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance on how you might go about promoting your custom jacket business. It sounds like a great project with a lot of potential, but as you've found, getting it in front of the right people can be a real headache. What you're dealing with is a classic marketing challenge for a niche product, but definitely not an unsolvable one. In fact, being niche is often a strength.
To give you a proper answer, I've broken down my thoughts below into a bit of a detailed roadmap. This is essentially how we as an agency would approach a new eCommerce brand like yours, from the ground up. It's a lot of information, but hopefully it gives you a clear path forward.
We'll need to look at your foundations first...
Before you even think about spending a single pound on ads, the absolute first thing to get right is where you're sending people. You mentioned putting a jacket on a few websites, which is a decent start for testing the waters, but for any kind of serious, long-term business, you need your own dedicated website. Think of it as your digital shopfront, your flagship store. If that shopfront doesnt look the part, or if the door is jammed, any traffic you send there—paid or not—will just turn around and leave. You could have the best ads in the world, but if the destination is weak, you're just throwing money away.
I've seen this loads of times with new eCommerce brands. They have a brilliant, unique product but the website completely lets it down. A few things I'd focus on with laser-like intensity:
-> Photography is absolutely everything. For a visual, emotional, and high-ticket product like custom jackets, grainy phone snaps just won't cut it. You're not just selling a piece of clothing; you're selling an identity, a piece of art, a statement. Your photos have to do that justice. You need a mix of high-quality, professional-looking shots:
• Studio/Product Shots: Clean, well-lit photos on a neutral background, showing the jacket from all angles (front, back, side).
• Detail Shots: Super close-ups of the custom details, the texture of the leather, the quality of the stitching, any hand-painted elements. This builds perceived value.
• On-Model Shots: Show the jackets on actual people who represent your target customer. This is so important. It helps people see how it fits and imagine themselves wearing it.
• Lifestyle Shots: This is where you tell a story. Show your target customer wearing the jacket in their natural habitat – at a gig, in a cool urban backstreet, leaning against a motorbike. This sells the dream, not just the product.
-> Your store needs to scream 'trust'. People are incredibly wary of buying from new, unknown online stores, especially for a higher-priced item like a custom jacket. Your website has to look professional, secure, and trustworthy from the second it loads. This isn't just about aesthetics; it's about psychology. Here's what builds trust:
• Professional Design: Use a clean, modern template (Shopify is great for this). No weird fonts or clashing colours. It should feel like a proper boutique.
• An 'About Us' Page: This is huge for handcrafted goods. Tell your story. Who are you? Why do you do this? Show your passion. People connect with people, and your story is a unique selling point that big brands can't compete with.
• Social Proof: As soon as you have them, plaster customer reviews and testimonials everywhere. Photos of customers wearing your jackets are pure gold. If you get featured in a blog or magazine, put their logos on your site.
• Clear Policies & Contact Info: Have easily accessible pages for shipping, returns, and your privacy policy. A clear contact email, and maybe even a phone number, makes you seem like a real, accountable business.
-> Make it dead simple to buy. This sounds obvious but its amazing how often it's overlooked. The journey from landing on your homepage to completing the checkout should be as short and frictionless as possible. I've audited so many small stores where the homepage is cluttered with too many messages, it's slow to load, or the checkout process asks for too much information. These are conversion killers. Every extra click, every confusing step, every second of waiting is a chance for a potential customer to get distracted and leave. Your site must be fast and intuitive, especially on mobile, as that's where most of your ad traffic will likely come from.
Getting this stuff right is the boring bit, I know, but it's completely non-negotiable. There's no point pouring water into a leaky bucket, and there's no point paying for ads to send people to a website that's not ready to convert them.
I'd say you need to figure out your audience...
You said your product attracts a 'very narrow audience'. Let me reframe that for you: your product has a 'highly specific and efficient target market'. That's not a problem, it's a massive advantage in paid advertising. A broad, generic product is much harder and more expensive to market because you're shouting into a void. Being niche means you can whisper directly into the
