Whether you want to establish your own custom t-shirt printing company, or you just want to start selling custom t-shirts, knowing the best marketing strategies is extremely essential. Selling t-shirts online is a great business idea that can be fun and rewarding if the right marketing and promotion strategies are applied. As t-shirt selling has become popular around the globe, many people have started building their online t-shirt stores. In a sea of thousands of such stores, what can you do to stand out? Here are nine amazing ideas that you can easily follow to create a successful t-shirt printing business.
- Identify your Target Market
The first and most important thing is to know who your buyers are. Your designs speak whether you believe it or not. Find out which section of the market or people are interested in your designs. Find out who you want to sell to or your ideal client. You might have a big target market, or you may have few people who might be interested in your designs. Just remember, everyone is not your target audience. Once you identify your target market, it’ll be easier for you to sell your t-shirts better.
- Build Your Brand
Building your brand’s identity is essential. Effective branding makes a proficiency around the brand and the products. Establish a brand identity that reflects and speaks to your target audience. Your brand’s identity also gives a voice to your brand so carefully think about what it will say about your designs.
Once you have built your branding vision and you are confident about it, turn it into a reality by branding your designs. Add stickers, hand tags, pack-ins, and neck labels that can help you complete your branding vision. Packaging can also help you for this purpose.
- Set Your Shop Up for Success
You may find it trivial, but your shop’s looks matter. Make sure that your shop setup is clean, well-designed, organized, and reflects the general theme of your brand. A badly structured shop will repel customers right away. Whether you believe it or not, your shop design reflects your brand vision. If your shop looks disorganized, obsolete, and badly designed, so will you. Moreover, set essential behaviors for your shop. Successful brands know that setting core values is very important for marketing.
- Sales & Promotions
For drawing in new customers, creating and promoting offers can be a great idea. Everyone loves getting offers for the products that are on their wishlist. Make a calculation and then apply deals after making sure it will be financially feasible for you. You can use effective sales copies that many marketing businesses use such as Buy 1, Get 1 Free or Spend More, Save More. You could also add free shipping for order above a certain amount or even a gift. The choice is yours!
- Be Social
Advertise your brand by creating accounts on different social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, or any other platform you think can drive people. Social platforms are the best place to keep people updated about your brand and promote your products. Make time for answering queries of people about your products. Post photos of latest designs, get feedback from people, and connect with your clients. It takes some time for everyone to boost up their brand on social media, but posting quality content consistently will eventually help you find a place for yourself within your target market.
- Contests and Giveaways
Marketing is all about continuously growing your customers. Hold effective contests and giveaways to reach new customers and keep your existing customers involved. The more opportunities you will give to people, the more they will be involved in your brand. Many brands have uplifted their image on social media via contests and giveaways. You can do a giveaway on Instagram for hitting some hundred, thousand, or a million subscribers. One more effective tip is to set up a contest everyone can enter after liking your page. These ways can bring new people to your shop and get them to engage with your brand.
- Reach Out to Influencers
One effective way to word out about your business is to reach the influencers in your market. If you find well-known bloggers, Youtubers or other social media influencers, they will feature your products to a high level. You can either go for barter deals or paid promotions, but don’t go for just any influencer. The influencer’s personality must align with your brand image. Your purpose will be defeated if you are a t-shirt brand for college students and you collaborate with a high-end fashion influencer.
- Create Content
Original and unique content on your store can drive people to you. Think of the content you think that your target customers will find helpful, useful, and entertaining. Useful content can also promote your brand identity and provides you a sense of legality. Creating fresh and unique content will also boost your SEO. Your content should answer people’s questions and offer them something they cannot have anywhere else. This is the best method of turning your product no matter how common into something unique.
- Let Your Personality and Passion Shine Through
Your designs represent your personality. Passion is the key to energy and if you let people see your passion through your designs and marketing, they will feel this passion and get enthusiastic too. Your t-shirt designs will represent your personality. If you are passionate enough regarding your designs, the people will be too.
How can I do t-shirt printing online?
Online t-shirt printing is an amazing idea for those who want to start a small business but have very few opportunities. There are many online tools for t-shirt makers such as Designhill, a marketplace that offers a massive community of designers and small business owners to create custom t-shirts designs.
Once you have your designs ready, apply these marketing tips to stand out from your competition. Good luck!
Anne Carton is head of community initiatives working with Designhill, one of the fastest-growing custom design marketplaces. She has authored several blogs, articles and editorials on various topics related to t shirt printing, logo design, social media strategies, growth hack strategies, digital marketing and e-commerce.