For up and coming designers, it can be difficult to feel connected with consumers when the brand has not yet gathered significant visibility. In a market that is overcrowded with designers and established brands with years of reputation and esteem, up-and-coming brands can get overpowered and hidden from reaching new audiences.

Oftentimes, newer fashion designers can utilize their smaller scale production to appeal to a more niche audience who favors the quality of an independent brand in contrast to fast fashion. However, gaining traction from consumers when the brand is largely unknown can take indefinite periods of time that can’t always be afforded. This is where new designers can utilize partnerships with micro-influencers, who are more accessible to up-and-coming designers and have access to a new audience who may be interested in seeing what the smaller brands have to offer.

I asked our PR & growth experts: How can new fashion designers leverage partnerships with micro-influencers in order to expand their reach to potential consumers?

Here are the experts' insights:

• Micro-influencers tend to be open to co-posting
• Track click-to-purchase, not likes, and reinvest
• The highest-ROI relationships come from micro-communities
• Equip each and every partner with a unique affiliate link
• Ask your influencer to employ trackable links and discount codes
• Micro-influencers to run livestreams
• Give the influencer full creative freedom over their content

Micro-influencers tend to be open to co-posting

Emily Reynolds, Owner at R Public Relations

"One of the great things about micro-influencers is how focused their audience often is. Micro-influencers may have less followers, but those followers tend to be more engaged and have more similar values and interests to the creator. Micro-influencers are more likely to take unpaid trade deals, or their pricing may be more affordable for new designers. Additionally, designers may have the opportunity to help drive the direction of the post or photography the micro-influencer as they create. Finally, micro-influencers tend to be open to co-posting in a way larger influencers are not."

Track click-to-purchase, not likes, and reinvest

Habib Rkha, Founder at QCADVISOR

"We support indie eyewear and accessories brands manufacturing in Asia, and we see micro-influencers work when ops and content align. Start with 10-20 creators in the 5k-50k range whose audience matches your niche. Ship QC-checked samples, include a tight brief and 2-3 hooks, and give each creator a unique code and landing page so you can double down on winners.

Time posts to small-batch drops and preorders to manage cash and inventory. Ask for 30-90 day content rights so you can run the best clips as paid social and on product pages. Track click-to-purchase, not likes, and reinvest with higher commission for top performers."

The highest-ROI relationships come from micro-communities

Busy Bee Fashion & Art Studio

"What’s worked for us has been treating micro-influencers like collaborators, not billboards. The highest-ROI relationships haven’t come from gifted posts or formal partnerships, but from micro-communities—parents, local makers, and art teachers with 800–2,000 highly engaged followers. We track engagement manually (comments, reposts, referral codes) instead of vanity metrics, and what consistently moves the needle is authentic peer validation within niche interest clusters.

For example, when one of our teen students posted a reel of her first handmade skirt, that single video brought in twelve class sign-ups within a week. It didn’t go “viral” in the traditional sense—just locally viral w/ a tight network of parents and craft hobbyists. Those are the conversions that actually sustain a small studio brand.

A few takeaways from our experience:

• Prioritize micro-authenticity over macro-reach. You want followers who trust the person, not just recognize the brand.

• Involve them in creation. Let influencers co-design a pattern or name a limited-run class; it gives them ownership.

• Lean into local networks. A single engaged PTA or homeschool parent can outperform a national influencer if your conversion point is physical or community-based.

• Measure story resonance, not follower count. Track whether new customers use the influencer’s language when they message you. That’s a good sign the content really landed.

For new or niche fashion designers, I’d say: skip the broad influencer spreadsheets and instead map your micro-ecosystem—school art departments, hobbyist Discords, local resale accounts, indie stylists. That’s where the sustainable traction hides."

Equip each and every partner with a unique affiliate link

Delbert Baron Lee, President at Wynbert Soapmasters Inc.

"The challenge of creating a brand from ground zero and gaining visibility in the competitive consumer marketplace is not a new concept. I remember well when we started Wynbert Soapmasters we were having to fight our visibility war against the giants in the industry like any new designer in their battle against established house names in the world of fashion. The principles for getting a physical product into the hands and mind of the consumer are the same whether it be soap or sweaters. It is simply a question of creating value and then establishing a system for repeated acquisition of customers from the very first day.

Get rid of the idea that micro-influencers are to be looked upon as billboards for your product and begin to see them as a performance-based sales channel. Don’t just give away product for them to advertise. Equip each and every partner with a unique affiliate link and a personalized discount offer for their followers. Pay them a commission on each sale they make, say 10 or 15 percent of the sale. By beginning to structure this environment, we have made them active partners in the business and financially motivated to not just wear the clothing after a sample is sent to them but to sell the designs.

The result is that we can tie each and every marketing dollar spent directly back to revenue and thus have invaluable data at our fingertips. At Wynbert we employed a similar model to determine which communities developed the best response to our initial design product lines. A designer can in fact see exactly which influencer is selling what products, from which sales happen, which helps to dictate production needs for future designs and focus for marketing. You are not just in the business of buying reach, you are building a decentralized and scalable sales model that pays for its own growth on the unpaid performance metrics."

Ask your influencer to employ trackable links and discount codes

Bryan Tomek, Founder at North Adams Company

"Before starting a collaboration, you’ll want to define your goals for success. What does success look like for you? Are you working to build awareness for your brand, drive sales, grow followers, etc. Once you have these goals defined you can more effectively track engagement as it relates to your objectives.

Keep track of your engagement rate including comments, shares and likes. And pay attention to qualitative engagement metrics such as people tagging friends, making positive comments, and asking for more information.

Ask your influencer to employ trackable links and discount codes. This will allow you to track sales and traffic numbers. This data can help paint a clear picture of what influencers’ audiences convert into customers. Engagement is an important metric, but it does not always translate to sales.

Reach out to the influencer to get a handle on what types of feedback they are receiving. If you are hearing that an audience member reacts positively or negatively to a color choice or design style, use this information to help inform your next collection. Treat the opportunity to gather market research."

Micro-influencers to run livestreams

Eugene Tham, Managing Partner at Confetti

"One of the things we've seen HUGE success recently is by getting micro-influencers to run livestreams for fashion brands. It creates authenticity and raw connection, portraying the new fashion brand in a different light. At the same time social media algorithms are pushing more discoverability on the livestream format, allowing fashion designers to really stretch their dollar and maximizing their reach compared to traditional social media posts."

Give the influencer full creative freedom over their content

Mimi Nguyen, Founder at Cafely

"From my perspective, fashion designers can take good advantage of their partnerships with micro-influencers by first optimizing their identification process. Instead of merely looking at engagement and numbers, they should make sure that the microinfluencer’s content aligns with their brand identity and values.

I also find it important to give them full creative freedom over their content instead of providing them scripts they should strictly follow. If possible, you can also add a little bit of variety to your partnerships by reaching out to microinfluencers whose content not only centers on fashion but also documents their day-to-day experiences or are business owners themselves.

For instance, one collaboration we really enjoyed working on was with a lifestyle influencer who filmed almost all of her content in her kitchen. Her content successfully portrayed the beauty of her kitchen while showcasing how she made coffee using Cafely products, which made it easier to tap on her existing audience and cater to ours as well.

With full control over the idea for her content, it made it easier to incorporate our products and ensure the final content still reflects her brand identity. Doing this will definitely help fashion designers widen their reach to more than just their target audience and open up opportunities to partner with professionals outside the industry."

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