We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kashawna Alexander a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kashawna, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

I take great pride in the effort and creativity I put not only into my pieces but my packaging as well. I learned very early on in my business is essential to give the customer a memorable experience when receiving products in the mail. The greatest way I could think to do that was to better my production times and packaging. Since people were already sold on the pieces, I utilized packaging to take it up a notch. Not only did it improve my sales/engagement, but it also allowed me to explore the world of marketing in a way I had never considered before.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I got started into fashion around the age of five, watching Project Runway. Given that I was very young, I was impressed with its ability to hold my attention and provide me with something I had never seen before. From that moment forward I knew I wanted to be in the fashion industry. And I spent the next few years bettering my craft and designing numerous clothes that I never got to make. It wasn’t until I got to high school that I turned my therapeutic hobby of sewing into a business. And from that moment on I stuck through it, to the end of high school and throughout college.
My form of marketing at the time was Instagram and also some of the more fashionable girls within my grade level. They were my literal fashion influencers. By giving them free pieces to wear, I began receiving DMs for orders; I had a pretty good influx going! Making my deliveries and collecting the money during my lunch period was a very humbling experience I will never forget. I’ve come such a long way!

Providing custom handmade clothes for my customers has always been the appeal of my brand since high school and I have stuck with it in every way possible. It is essential to me that my customers are getting a specialized experience that they can’t go anywhere else to receive.

Various things set my brand apart, but in the past couple of years my engagement has been due solely to my packaging. Once I dropped the poly mailers and decided to think outside the box, I found myself experiencing high numbers of sales and engagement on all social media apps. Including going viral on accounts that were and weren’t owned by me. And this has gone on for a series of years.

Not only are my customers fond of my size inclusivity, but they are also in awe of the pieces and packaging that I provide. And that’s all I could ever want! It makes me develop a high sense of gratitude for my journey and the obstacles that I had to overcome to get to where I am today. And I am and will always be forever grateful.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

When I first got started building my brand on social media in high school, social media was still a bit new to me but I made the best of it! I referenced other current clothing brands to strengthen my presents and aesthetic, I also utilize hashtags and the app of my business frequently when wearing the garments myself to direct people straight to my business account.

When I would give the free clothes to the girls within my grade level, I would have them tag my business on Instagram and that is majorityly how I gain my following in the beginning.
As time progressed, I built my audience a bit more organically and some through paid promotions. But in the recent years I have gained my numbers from viral posts.

I would advise any business owner to work on appealing to their direct audience. You should be researching what it is that they like to see and incorporating that into your social media presence so that the aesthetics draw then in! And ensure that your products/services are just as impactful as you present them to be.

Have you ever had to pivot?

The pivot in my business came immediately after I went viral on Twitter in the year of 2020, early November. As we are all familiar with, you have to post frequently to maintain engagement on social media, so I have made a post of some satin shorts I had made for couples in an effort to maintain my numbers before I dropped a new collection.

To my surprise the post was gradually receiving high numbers of retweets, likes, and engagement. It was a bit scary and overwhelming due to that being my first time going viral. But I was so very grateful for the opportunity to sell my product(s) to a broad audience for once. My brand was never the same after that post.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jodoraclothing.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/jodoraclothing
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/kashawna-a-961387155
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/jodoraclo