The Unofficial Second Life® Fashion and Shopping Blog

Although we love the dozen or so designers who fill most of our virtual closets (and therefore most of Linden Lifestyles), like many of our readers we’d like to see more new and fresh faces on our pages. Unfortunately, we don’t get a lot of store tips or clothes from SLs newer or less known designers.

The (possibly self-serving) conclusion we’ve come to is not that we’re so terribly frightening that people don’t want to approach us, but rather that 98% of Second Life’s clothing, hair and shoe makers are absolutely crap at promoting themselves.

We’re sorry. We love you. But most of you are really not good at this part of the whole retailing bit.

This is a long and detailed article aimed at helping to correct that. It’s a How To guide that covers not only Linden Lifestyles, but multiple venues, methods and tactics for promoting your products within SL and in the emerging website and blog circuit covering fashion and shopping. If you think your virtual business could use a marketing and PR boost, then read on. And as always, comments are open for feedback and criticisms, so have at it.

Pack It Up and Ship It Out

My favourite stalking target, Shep Korvin at LapGirl may have pioneered this idea in SL, but wherever it came from, I’m a huge fan of this strategy. Once a month he creates a box, shoves some of his best new items into it - not boxes of items, just the items themselves. Then he includes a notecard detailing items names and prices, adds a landmark, and distributes it. The box is, smartly enough, called LapGirl - Reviewers’ Box - May 2006 or something like that. Like so many of the best things in life, this is simple and yet brilliant.

The advantages of this tactic are many. For us, it it provides all of the items and information we need in one place, which makes it easier to get to and write about the items when we’re ready to blog. We know who the items are from, what they are and if ithe inventory is current or not. It also means we don’t have an overwhelming stack of folders or totally random items lost in the virtual wasteland of our inventories either.

For designers looking for exposure, I think that selecting a particular day of the month to create and distribute your Reviewer Packs is probably an excellent way to make sure you regularly devote a chunk of time to your own PR and marketing. Call it PR Day, call it Pimp Day, call it whatever you like, but be sure to devote one day a month to organising and distrubuting your wares to the fashionista press circuit. (And be smart about it - don’t pick the 1st or the 15th of each month because that’s the day everyone else will pick.)

Woo the Reviewers

For the record, the number of people who ask me “how can I get Celebrity Trollop to review my stuff?” has reached epidemic proportions of silliness. First of all, I’m a million times scarier than Celebrity, who is sweet as pie, so I don’t know why anyone is asking me and not her. Second of all, I have no idea how Celebrity picks what she blogs, but my standard answer is “did you send her your items? Or a link to your New Releases post?”

This is Second Life, not the Psychic Friends Network, and no reviewer can see everything that goes by on his or her watch. The best way to get high profile coverage for your items is to put them in front of reviewers. There are thousands and thousands of shops in SL, and depending on reviewers to come find you - whether you’re a huge SL retailer or a tiny startup - is a lousy strategy.

So who, besides us, should you contact?

Metaverse Messenger: Toni Bentham
Second Style Fashionista: Celebrity Trollop
Pixel Pinup: Willow Zander
Second Life Herald: No idea

Salome and I trade items for review all the time, and I imagine the fashion editors at other publications similarly need to be able to distribute them to writers or photographers or whatever. Transfer permissions enable all of this and will help ensure your items end up in the inventory of the writer best matched to your products.

The risk of course is that evil heartless reviewers may not select your items for review… but may give them away to all their girlfriends. But we’re talking about one of each item, and the upside (getting a review on a high-profile site or in a much read publication) far outweighs the single $250L sale you may have lost.

Work It, Baby

There are a small number of highly visable places to self-promote your items for free or at worst, a percentage of sales. For a start, list your products in the New Releases forum at the SL board each and every time. I don’t care how new or insecure you feel; list your bloody items. Between 30 and 130 people are likely to view your post before it falls off the first page, so that’s a total no-brainer.

Chosing to list on SLEX or SLB is a judgement call. A lot of sellers complain about the percentage cut or the lack of sales from these channels, but there are two aspects to this. One, don’t underestimate the number of people who browse your items and then come find your store in-world. Two, you open up the possibility of selling to people who browse these sites from work and buy when they can’t be in-world, and you may not sell to these people at all if you don’t list on at least one site or the other.

Each site has an advantage over the other. SLB lets you create an automated home page listing all your items together with buy buttons right there at a URL like SLboutique.com/Lollypop_Extraordinaire/ You can even attach a domain name of your own to it if you want, like Lollypop Extraordinaire has done.

SLEX has forums, including a forum for new product listings. Like the SL Forums, this is a good way of promoting your new items to a web browsing crowd of SL shoppers. Be specific in your post titles on SLEX if you post products in the forums. And with either SLEX or SLB, let people know in your SL profile that you utilize these services and provide the URL to your product listings as well.

Are You Classy?

Even if you are not a fan of classified ads, if you don’t run one every week you’re a fool. There are 200,000+ members of SL. For argument’s sake, if only 1% search Classifieds, that’s still 20,000 people who cannot find your products because you are not listed.

If you only spend the minimum $50L, classified ads can pay off if they’re well worded. You may be on the 19th page of results for clothes, but what happens if you get really specific? If your ad includes specific two word phrases describing your particular items, like white jeans, Goth dresses, or polka dot lingerie, the result is that you have zero competition in the results.

Classifieds now come with basic statistics, so you’ll know after a week if people are finding your ad with these keywords and clicking. If you get less than 10 clicks, review your wording and try again next week. Save copies of your ad text, compare clicks, and try until you get it right - because this is one avenue you can really make work to your advantage.

Get a Blog. Just Get One.

Recently I suggested to a well known designer that in the era of crashing Linden values, declining profitablity and increased competition, she get a blog. Her response was “I’m too busy making clothes to blog and I don’t have time for vanity.” My response to that was “It isn’t vanity, it’s marketing, and if you don’t see that then you have a major problem.”

If you have a line of products to which you add more than once a month, get a blog. They’re free, they’re easy to use and they require no HTML knowlege. Post every item you release, and include a photo with every post.

And be sure to create a section or a page in your blog called Press or something, and when people write about you, for God’s sake blog it. It ups your cool factor and increases your credibility with the shoppers who visit your blog.

Hit the Catwalk

There are regular fashion shows held in SL specifically to promote the work of new and upcoming designers. Alternatively, consider running your own catwalk show for major collection such as Summer lines.

If you’re being featured in or are running a catwalk show and want to spread word, tell Toni Bentham or Katt Kongo at the Metaverse; they actively seek out news about this kind of event.