What I've Learned After Managing Over $10 Million in Social Media Advertising For the Suit Industry

We marketers are often given these perceived superpowers of making sales rain down from the sky: just getting clients out of thin air with some magical advertising wizardry.

Sadly, this is not the case. If it were, I wouldn't be writing this article but would instead be drinking piña coladas on my personal yacht, most likely running my own business overflowing with super high-end customers selling gazillion-dollar products.

The truth is, what makes or breaks a business is the conductor - the person who orchestrates the whole orchestra. While we marketers play a significant part in this orchestra to get results, we're only one part of it. And honestly, I'm probably hurting my own business by being transparent about this. Out of every ten calls we have with potential clients, maybe only two or three become clients. Why? Because we make it sound so "unsexy" by telling them that marketing isn't a magic pill solution to growing your suit sales.

Given this context, let me explain why there's this massive misconception about paid advertising on social media, how to adjust your expectations if you're planning to do some online marketing, and how to view it from the correct perspective so you have the highest probability of making it work for you.

The Biggest Mistake: Throwing All Responsibility on the Marketing

The first and biggest mistake is when businesses want to acquire more sales or appointments and throw all the responsibility for acquiring new customers onto the external party - whether that's a freelancer, agency, or internal marketing hire.

Why is this problematic? Well, if you're selling a mass-market low-cost commodity or something with very low psychological friction and minimal risk (toothpaste, razors, coffee...), then yes, selling directly through advertising is doable and efficient.

But as soon as you move toward what we call "considered purchases" - where someone needs to spend time thinking about it, doing research, living with the idea, and considering pros, cons, risks, and consequences - trying to speed up their decision only brings worse results.

In our sartorial industry, the client picks when he makes a purchase, not us. All we can do is stack the odds in our favour and provide him/her with everything to make the choice in our favour.

Understanding the Fundamental Difference

You have to understand that the SALES process and MARKETING process are two completely different things.

You should never try to do both at once or make one do the other's job. It's like trying to eat soup with a fork - it can be done, but it's not a pleasant process.

If you're going to start advertising on social media, don't try to SELL the suit through ads (showing fancy suits, saying "schedule appointment now," or displaying B-roll footage of features and why you're so cool and awesome), understand this doesn't work.

The primary reason is that you're trying to force your marketing process to do the sales job, and it never works that way.

To give a simple analogy, with dating:

SALES- Asking someone on a date

MARKETING- Giving them a reason to say yes

If you go straight for the ask, without providing any reasons, it's unlikely to end up in a date.

To drive my point further.... What do most of suit business owners do when they get "metaphorically rejected" by the market after asking for the sale through advertising?

Most double down and ask for the sale again, only with a different offer/ad/creative/agency...

Your market does not need more pushy, needy, or desperate "asks"; it needs you to provide more reasons for them to say yes.

The Only Goal of Marketing in Considered Purchase segment (Suits)

The only way you should see your marketing in the considered purchasing industry is this: the goal of your advertising is to give the market a reason to move toward the next step, never to sell the end result.

Once they click (link/profile/website) and move to the next step, then the sales process should take over - whether that's going through your webpage, scheduling an appointment, sending an email, filling a form, calling you, or visiting your store. Whatever it might be, it all leads to them meeting you face-to-face, and those are the two steps that constitute the actual sales process: the conversion (how/where they get in touch with you) and the interaction that follows.

Marketing/advertising should create interest and desire for the audience to step into the sales process, not replace it.

The Perfect Marketing and Sales Tango

In the perfect world, and with clients where we see the best results, it's a bit of a tango. The goal of marketing is to reach the right type of people at the right time and tell them the right message they need to hear to be curious or incentivised enough to click to the next step.

Then they sell themselves using the assets you have at your disposal: your social media profiles, webpage, process descriptions, testimonials, reviews, client pictures, business information, what makes you different, what you stand for, pricing, etc. That's the initial selling. Marketing should never do that.

The Restaurant Metaphor

Whenever I have a client struggling to understand this concept, I use this simple restaurant metaphor:

Marketing is like the smell of food that draws you to the restaurant door. It's the publications people see online that spike curiosity, grab attention, and make people interested in taking the step into the sales process.

The sales process is getting the menu, checking pricing, picking favourites, talking with the waiter who suggests appetisers, desserts, upsells, and more drinks, leading you to the endpoint where the client is happy, and you're profitable.

Brand Positioning Matters

Since you have a brand, and having a well-positioned brand in our industry plays a big role in how well you'll perform, begging people to schedule appointments or trying to sell them forcefully seems desperate and low-status. That's not the position we want to be in.

Instead of trying to sell through your ads, invite people into your sales process and give them enough reasons to do so.

The Bottom Line

Marketing's job is only to get as much relevant attention as humanly possible and convey the perfect message that will incentivise enough curiosity for your potential clients to step into your sales process, which is a completely different thing with its own separate challenges, problems, and optimisations.

Remember: Marketing sells the idea, sales close the deal. Keep them separate, and both will perform better.

Shameless self promo

If you're a tailor or suit business owner (bespoke, made-to-measure, or off-the-rack) and you're mature enough in your business journey to realize there are no get-rich-quick features, no magical funnels, systems or tricks that will make you rich overnight, and you understand that getting the results you're after will take some time, we're more than happy to have a quick free discovery session to see how we can assist in your sartorial mission and help you sell more suits profitably:

Schedule a free discovery session here:

https://calendly.com/sartorialdigital/discovery-call