8 off-the-rack retail blog ideas

You might think having a blog for your retail business is a bit moot. What’s the point? Your customers are there to shop for clothes, not read about them. But having a retail blog helps build your brand. It can provide insight, a voice, a peek-behind-the-curtain perspective into what actually goes into running a retail company, and all the fun bits in between that make your brand unique.

8 creative retail blog ideas to ramp up your company

To help you on your blogging journey, we’re rolling out eight off-the-rack retail blog ideas to elevate your brand.

1. Share interviews.

2. Involve influencers.

3. Incorporate music playlists.

4. Feature reviews from customers.

5. Host a giveaway.

6. Provide inspiration.

7. Go behind the scenes.

8. Solve a problem.

1. Share interviews

When it comes to retail blog ideas, there is so much you can do with the classic interview.

Depending on your style, you can turn those answers into a cohesive narrative (like a feature article) or go with a question-and-answer format. While a good interview relies heavily on the answers your interviewee gives you, the questions also steer your interviewee in the right direction. When choosing whom to feature, consider a few of the options below:

Industry bigwigs

Try your hand at interviewing the movers and shakers in your industry. See what makes them tick and how they got to where they are. Don’t have any connections to the higher-ups? Highlight industry influencers in your community to spread that local love.

Collaborations

Featuring a new graphic designer for your summer line? Give your graphic designer the spotlight by letting them explain their inspiration and process behind a new design.

Employees

People are always curious about the details behind another person’s job. Featuring your employees in a blog post is a great way to let people know what kind of work goes into the company and can spark interest among potential new hires. You can do one blog post where you ask each of your employees a few questions and compile them in one comprehensive staff post, or feature each employee separately.

Yourself

No, it’s not narcissistic to feature a blog post about you. As the founder of your retail brand, people genuinely want to know your thoughts. Give insight into how you started the company or what is upcoming for your brand.

2. Involve influencers

If you have an ambassador program or work with social media influencers, having them do a guest post on your blog will give you more opportunity to promote your clothing.

While most social media influencers only opt for a photo on their feed, consider doing a blog post collaboration.

Let your influencer choose an item from your collection and style it according to their personal interest. Ask your influencer to take several photos with their completed look and include them in the blog post. Include a few questions about why they chose that particular item, how they decided to style it, if they received inspiration from anywhere, and of course, a link to where customers can actually buy that specific piece, especially if you have an online store.

3. Incorporate music playlists

Remember when including playlists was the cool thing to do on your MySpace page? (Yes, we’re throwing it way back.) Revive this trend with a music playlist or “song of the week” as one of your retail blog ideas. Use one sentence to explain why you choose each song in the playlist or write a whole post about one song. You can even feature a collection of your items inspired by the artist.

Keep your customer base in mind when choosing your playlist.

If you are a streetwear company with a large male consumer base, it’s probably best not to include bubblegum pop hits by Carly Rae Jepsen (even though some of those burly guys might unwittingly tap their foot to “Call Me Maybe”).

4. Feature reviews from customers

While snappy taglines and cool graphic design might catch customers’ eyes, we often want to hear things from people like us. When it comes to skincare, we’ll read the description of the product and how great it is, but we want to hear about how it helped Jane Doe. The same goes for a restaurant. We might have heard about this particular spot, but we want to hear about Joe Schmoe and his wife and how the Bordeaux cherry tart was to die for. Just like anything else, seeing reviews from customers is a great way to add credibility to your retail blog.

Whether you compile a few responses from a handful of your top customers or feature one person and do a whole post on how they styled their clothing item for an event, seeing someone actually wearing your clothing lends trust in your overall product.

5. Host a giveaway

Unveiling a new item? Use the anticipation as one of your retail blog ideas by hosting a giveaway. Schedule a retail photoshoot for your new collection and post pictures of your new piece in the blog.

Make sure to include all the details about the giveaway: how to enter, when the giveaway ends, how the winner will be picked, and how the winner will be notified.

6. Provide inspiration

For another of your retail blog ideas, write about your inspiration behind a new clothing item or collection. Debuting a flamingo vintage dress next month thanks to your most recent trip to the zoo? Include pictures of your visit and how the flamingos were the muse behind your latest design. Created a new button-down after watching a movie set in a specific time period? Give a recap of the movie and link to the YouTube trailer. Not a storyteller? Include an assortment of random pictures that spark your creativity to do a general mood and vision board for the month.

7. Go behind the scenes

People love knowing what goes on behind the scenes — it’s why we enjoy reality TV shows so much. We’re able to see the work (or the crazy) that we otherwise would have no idea existed. While a behind-the-scenes look at your retail brand might not be as exciting as a “Real Housewives” dinner gone off the rails, letting your customers see the hard work and process you put into creating or buying clothing will demonstrate the value in your product. Need behind-the-scenes retail blog ideas? Here are a few:

• Materials: Describe a new fabric you’ll be using by showing pictures of fabric swatches.
• Design: Highlight sketches of new clothing ideas and do a poll on which item customers prefer most.
• Store layout: Changing the store layout for the fall? Give your customers a sneak peek at your inspiration and theme for the new arrangement.