546It’s true that Tuke is very popular right now, but it’s still quite rare to achieve a scale of $20 million USD relying solely on Tuke and a small independent site.
Today’s protagonist isHalara, a brand focused on athleisure apparel.
With the rise of social media, brand marketing is no longer limited to traditional advertising channels, but has shifted to more personalized and interactive social platforms.
Halara has successfully launched its overseas journey by leveraging its unique market positioning and the traffic harvested from social media platforms like Tuke.
In 2020, Zhang Xiaopei, who previously held key positions at international internet companies such as Microsoft and Hulu, noticedthe gap in athleisure apparel in the European and American markets, as well as the powerful influence of social media platforms.
After careful consideration, Zhang Xiaopei decided to cross over into the fashion industry and founded the athleisure brand—Halara. Through deep insights into market trends and keeping up with the fashion forefront, she developed products that focus on functionality and comfort, aiming to meet the needs of young consumers, especially young women, for athleisure apparel.
Of course, we have seen the final result: Halara quickly exploded in the market, with sales climbing year after year, becoming another well-known cross-border fast fashion e-commerce brand after SHEIN, and even earning the nickname “Lululemon alternative” among North American consumers.
But obviously, Halara’s path could not have been so smooth.
To more accurately meet market demands, Halara redesigned its product lines. The Cloudful Fabric series integrates high-tech with fashionable design, specifically addressing the issue of clothes becoming stuffy due to sweat during exercise.
The Petitoff Fabric series, on the other hand, is tailored to the actual needs of pet owners, solving the problem of pet hair easily sticking to clothes and effectively removing hair.
These segmented product lines provide consumers with a more thoughtful and practical wearing experience.
Image source: Halara independent site
As the saying goes, a single tree cannot support a great building.
Halara knows well that having only high-quality product features without enough brand awareness is not enough to guarantee successful cross-border expansion.So it started early to lay out on social media platforms such as Tuke and YouTube, using them to drive traffic to its overseas independent site, and after Tuke Shop opened in the US, made it the main battlefield for future sales.
Halara’s social media matrix on Tuke Image source: Tuke
In terms of specific promotion, Halara collaborates with a large number of overseas influencers, leveraging their personal charisma and professional recommendations to build brand buzz, increase the possibility of explosive sales, and achieve brand promotion and sales growth.
For example, in the past month,Halara has been associated with as many as 2,300 influencers, with an estimated 30-day GMV of $3.9 million USD.
Image source: Echotik
It is precisely with the support of these overseas influencers that Halara has reached its current status in just a few years since its founding.
These overseas influencers have their own unique styles of product promotion, most of them are mid-tier overseas influencers, but there are also many top-tier ones, including one with 17 million followers, @fresajapomex.
In her video, @fresajapomex showcased the comfort and aesthetics of Halara’s athletic pants, showing the instant transformation after putting them on, directly appealing to countless young female consumers and bringing Halara a huge amount of buzz and traffic.
Image source: Tuke
In addition to Tuke influencer marketing, Halara also utilizes data-driven marketing strategies, continuously optimizing marketing activities by analyzing sales data, user feedback, etc., such as Tuke brand hashtag challenges, Black Friday promotions, and more, to adapt to market changes and shifts in consumer demand.
It has also launched the brand campus ambassador program “Halara Campus,” attracting and retaining loyal consumer groups with similar values and beliefs by sponsoring student clubs in US campuses, hosting brand-themed events, and recruiting on-campus brand ambassadors, thereby continuously expanding its target consumer base and increasing repurchase rates.
Analyzing Halara’s case, we can see thatthe secret to Halara’s success, apart from its high cost-performance products, is inseparable from its Tuke influencer marketing strategy.Its multi-channel layout and data-driven marketing strategies can also provide many valuable insights for other cross-border brands going overseas.
In the future, as social media continues to develop and evolve, we believe Halara will continue to innovate and achieve even greater success.
