Shoppers are constantly being prompted with videos showcasing hauls, inaccessible luxury goods, and the overconsumption of fast fashion products. However, today’s consumers care about more than just fleeting trends; consumers have taken on a more conscious perspective to shopping, often looking for companies that care about more than just profits.

Consumers are looking for authenticity in their products, clothing that is made with care and made with sustainable materials, as well as promoting ethical practices. Although it seems that large corporate brands are dominating the fashion sphere with influencers constantly promoting popular brands and the upcoming trends, for the average person, they are looking for smaller brands that they feel good about supporting.

This shift in consumer taste creates a space in the market for smaller fashion entrepreneurs to gain visibility and thrive.

I asked our PR & growth experts: In a market dominated by fast fashion and luxury conglomerates, what are some low-cost but high-impact PR tactics fashion entrepreneurs can use to stand out? How should small businesses balance their brand values and brand identity with showcasing their actual product? How can smaller fashion brands take advantage of social media and influencer marketing with limited time and resources, and which PR strategies should they focus on?

Here are the experts' insights.

• Pitch your founder and brand story
• Win by telling stories that connect
• Turn your customers into your story
• Lean into what only you can offer
• Make a product a story worth publishing
• Frame limited production runs as intentional exclusivity
• Be purposeful about your narration and interaction

Pitch your founder and brand story

Emily Reynolds-Bergh, Owner at R Public Relations

"Organic, proactive media pitching remains an effective way to stand out in crowded markets. Small fashion brands should use media pitching to tell their unique stories through founder profiles, op-eds, and interviews. In pitching, focus 90% of the story on the business and its people, and only speak to the product 10% of the time. People are buying your story and lifestyle, not your clothes! Finally, “day in the life” videos perform extremely well; take your followers behind the scenes to showcase more of your brand personality and a hint of product development as well."

Win by telling stories that connect

Leah Miller, Marketing Strategist at Versys Media

"This is right where small brands can make some real noise by leaning into agility, specificity, and narrative. Big players push product en masse. Smaller fashion entrepreneurs can win by telling stories that connect.

Low-cost, high-impact PR tactics: Thoughtful micro-influencer partnerships still offer some of the lowest CAC if done strategically. Target creators who genuinely align with the brand values, even if they’re hyper-local or niche. We’ve helped a small ethical denim label grow 3x their online sales by crafting a narrative around the makers' stories and sending custom one-pagers to regional blogs, slow fashion newsletters, and style-focused Substacks. Thought leadership also goes a long way. Guest features or interviews on value-aligned platforms build credibility fast.

Balancing values with product: The key is showing how values live in the product. Don’t make sustainability or ethics a separate message. Let it be visible in the way each item is made, described, and styled. I usually recommend founders spotlight 70 percent product and 30 percent mission in execution , enough to differentiate, but not so much that the clothing gets overshadowed.

Maximizing social and limited resources: Reuse is everything. A five-minute shoot using natural light can give you content for two weeks if you break it down into stories, posts, and reels. User-generated content helps here too. Brands should also use storytelling formats like “week in the life of a small brand founder” or “what goes into making one top,” which not only drive engagement but position them as real and relatable. Stay visible and human.

If time is tight, prioritize one platform consistently over being everywhere. I’d usually pick Instagram or TikTok, depending on whether visuals or voice are stronger for the founder or team."

Turn your customers into your story

Kevin Heimlich, CEO & Founder at The Ad Firm

"The best PR tactic I see is turning your customers into your story. Forget paying for influencers. Run a UGC campaign that actually means something. Create a unique hashtag and encourage people to share not just a photo, but the story of where they wore your piece or how it made them feel. Then, feature those real stories everywhere. This does two things. It gives you an endless supply of authentic content that big brands would kill for, and it builds a community that feels invested in your success. That genuine social proof is what makes a tiny brand feel important and discovered.

That community content becomes the perfect bridge to how you show your product. It can't be separate from your identity. It has to be a direct reflection of it. If your brand is about sustainability, your photos should look earthy and real, maybe even showing the imperfect texture of a natural fabric. If your brand is bold and rebellious, your imagery should be gritty and shot on the street, not in a sterile studio. Your visual style is your first chance to prove your values are real. When a customer sees a cohesive world from your Instagram grid to your product page, they start to believe in what you're building. The product becomes more than an item. It becomes a piece of that world they want to join. That's how you balance it. The product is the proof point for the entire story you're telling."

Lean into what only you can offer

Ben Davis, Founder at The Gents Place

"The best way to stand out isn’t trying to look bigger than you are, it’s leaning into what only you can offer. We built our business during a recession when resources were tight, and what worked then still works now, authenticity, consistency, and community. You don’t need a huge PR budget when you can tell a story people believe in.

Balancing values and product comes down to showing how your principles shape what you make. For us, it wasn’t just about haircuts, it was about creating a space where men felt confident and valued. For a fashion entrepreneur, it’s the same. If you say you care about sustainability, show how that commitment translates into the quality and feel of your product.

You shouldn't follow every trend on social media. Think about the photos and tales that showcase your consumers, your craftsmanship, and the way of life your brand embodies. Join together with influences who are as much a part of your philosophy as your style. Rather than attempting to match the size of corporate giants, small businesses succeed when they develop trust and loyalty based on the experience they provide."

Make a product a story worth publishing

Suvrangsou Das, Co- Founder & CEO at EasyPR LLC

"An uncommon but very successful method of achieving a balance between values and product in a small fashion business is to tell the actual production story, and allow that to be the PR resource. Polished editorials are a staple of most brands, yet publicizing uncensored information about how many different fabric options failed, how long it precisely took to sew a single piece of clothing, or even the monetary price of procuring a one-of-a-kind textile, establishes a level of authenticity that is unsurpassed. I consulted with one startup that revealed the $2,400 cost that it was spending simply to test dyes that were able to fit its sustainability criteria, and that amount attracted much more media attention than even the pictures of the products themselves.

I have found in my PR campaigns that stories of sacrifice, process, and cost are rarely ignored by the media as they illustrate that values are not a point made in a marketing campaign but ingrained in the existence of the product. When it comes to small fashion labels, explaining how many hours a craftsman spends hand stitching or how many meters of wasted fabric one will avoid due to pattern modifications is a clear way to send a message about brand identity. It is not redundancy of values but measurable evidence that makes a product a story worth publishing."

Frame limited production runs as intentional exclusivity

Adrienne Folse, Founder at Design the Planet

"Independent fashion entrepreneurs shouldn’t try to mask the fact that they’re small but instead put a spotlight on it. Consumers nowadays are tired of mass production and fast fashion and being small is a PR advantage. Large fashion houses can’t replicate the authentic transparency that comes with being an independent or small brand. Pulling back the curtain turns resource limitations into proof points that you are unique and different. For instance, a founder who packages and ships their orders themselves can become a story about the human behind the brand. It’s a story that resonates more deeply than an overly-polished ad campaign. Scarcity can be powerful as well. When you can only produce limited runs of certain items, you can frame it as an intentional exclusivity rather than framing it as a weakness. Customers actually love owning something that feels rare and not available on every rack.

In many cases, the very things micro and small entrepreneurs think make them too small to compete are what actually make them newsworthy and PR-worthy."

Be purposeful about your narration and interaction

Yad Senapathy, Founder & CEO at Project Management Training Institute

"Small fashion brands do not require huge budgets to develop visibility provided that they are purposeful about their narration and interaction. The simplicity and one of the most effective and low-cost strategies include showing the origin of each piece in details. A brief video shot on a phone, of a designer cutting, stitching, or even packaging an order can go miles further to humanize a brand than a slick ad. Customers like to see the effort and thought put into the product and that insight comes at no cost other than time. Adding authentic customer testimonies to it, like how a particular item is worn every day or how long it has endured, is credible to the best of the luxury campaigns.

Finding the balance between brand values and the product itself concerns the ability to ensure that every message links values to something concrete. When the main thrust is sustainability, discuss the particular material, its origin and reason behind its selection. Numbers are helpful in this. By saying that a shirt saves 500 liters of water compared to conventional production, the value is brought down to the measurable detail, but at the same time, the actual product is being pointed out.

Small brands must be careful with social media as they have limited resources. Rather than spreading thin across platforms, dedicate to one platform that fits the target audience and maintain the output. Micro-influencers with 2,000 to 10,000 followers are usually willing to cooperate on a product exchange basis and the engagement rates of their audiences are higher. A single partnership such as this can create impactful awareness without a costly campaign. The benefit of being a smaller brand is consistency and detail, not scale."

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