One of the keys to having a successful t-shirt business is marketing. People can’t buy a t-shirt they’ve never seen or heard of. You have to utilize as many options as you can to get the word out about your business, especially when you’re just starting. Use these tips to help promote your t-shirts more and increase your chances of getting sales.
1. Run a contest
Contests are a great way to get attention. Many local radio stations often run contests as a part of their promotion. One idea you might consider is calling up a radio station and partnering with them in running a contest. You could negotiate the terms to where you offer your t-shirt as a prize, and as a result, you’ll get free airtime with your business mentioned as the sponsor. If you want to get more creative, make the prize you give away a package. You could include along with the t-shirt, a cap and a bag. One other option you could do is have a raffle. For every t-shirt a customer purchases, they enter a raffle for a grand prize. As you can see, there are many ways you can go about running a contest to promote your t-shirt business more.
2. Make a press release
Perhaps you have a newsworthy material that should be reported about your business. If you think you do, write a press release and send it to your local newspaper, radio station, tv station, and magazines. It’ll cost you almost nothing to do it, and you could potentially get free media coverage. It’s helpful if you or someone working for you has a skill with public relations to build a relationship with the media. You can also opt to find bloggers who are influential within your specific t-shirt niche.
You may only have to give them one of your products, and they will write a business story about your business or do a product review. You won’t know until you ask, so make sure to at least inquire to see if an influencer might be interested. You can also request promotion from influencers who are on social media, YouTube, or have a popular website in your niche.
3. Get on social media
Social media is perhaps the easiest tool you can use to promote your t-shirt business. Best of all, it doesn’t have to cost you anything. All it takes is a little bit of time writing up an interesting and attention-grabbing post, and then sharing it with your followers. Another option you could try is you could encourage all of your followers to take pictures and share themselves wearing your t-shirts. In addition, you could also show off future t-shirt ideas you may have for your customers. It can be a great way for you to get feedback on what products they like the best.
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You could choose to have a poll on your designs, and the t-shirt designs that get the most votes can give you an idea of what kind of products you should create in the future. In addition, you can do other social media promotional tactics such as starting a hashtag with your brand name or sharing positive things that other people have to say about your product. There are also advertisement options available on social media websites. Needless to say, it’s wise to take advantage of social media as much as you can to promote your t-shirts.
4. Create videos
Millions of people watch online videos every day, and the numbers are only going to continue to grow. Creating a YouTube video or uploading a video on social media is a great way to attract new customers and connect with them more. For example, you could use your videos to show the process of how you come up with your designs for your t-shirt. You can tell an inspirational story behind your business that can connect with your target demographic. Videos also get more shares than text and image-based content. Creating videos should be one of the central parts of your marketing strategy.
5. Be a sponsor for a local event
When there’s a run or walk event in your community, offer to provide free or discounted custom t-shirts in support of the event. You’ll find that in many of these events, there’s a business that gives the participants a t-shirt or some kind of freebie after the walk is finished. You can offer to do this for the event organizers if, in exchange, they’ll allow you to pass out business cards, coupons, or brochures. If you’re able to do it, make sure you have your logo somewhere on the free custom t-shirts you make for the event. Having your logo on the t-shirt will give you continued promotion beyond the day of the event whenever people wear your t-shirts around the community. In addition to customizing t-shirts for local events, you can also offer to do it for local sports teams and other local community groups as well.
6. Do old fashion advertising
While certain forms of advertising aren’t as widely used anymore, it doesn’t hurt to try every marketing strategy that you can. Create fliers for your t-shirt business and hang them across different areas of your town. Make sure you know which areas are legal for you to hang your fliers. If you have a car, you could also create car magnets and bumper stickers that you can place on it for anyone to see when you’re driving around town. Lastly, you and your team can take time to go around town wearing your t-shirt designs in popular places. There’s a chance that someone might stop you and ask where you got your t-shirt from.
7. Ask for referrals
Word of mouth is another old fashioned way of getting more people aware of your business. There are a variety of ways you can ask for referrals from your customers. The simplest way you can do it is just by asking your customers to refer your product to someone else. If you’ve created a product that you know your customers enjoy, there’s a good chance they’ll do it for you. Another way you could get referrals is through a business card. Create some cards and ask the current customers you have to write their name on it to give to someone. As an incentive, if a new customer brings in the card, you can give the current customer who made the referral a discount on any future order. A simple way you can ensure all of your customers get the opportunity to refer someone is by putting the cards as hang tags on all of your t-shirts.
8. Create a website
There’s hardly anyone in the world that doesn’t have access to the internet today. A website gives you the possibility of potentially being seen by a lot of people who could become your future customers. If you don’t have much to finance a website, there are platforms that allow you to create one at a low cost or even for free. Once you’ve created your website, direct all of your social media pages to your site.
You should spend time learning about how to optimize your site for search engines so you can be seen in local search results on Google. One of the most important ways you should optimize your site is by making sure it’s mobile-friendly by having a responsive design. More and more people are using mobile devices, and as a result, Google is choosing to make mobile-friendly sites rank higher. In addition to optimizing your site, you can also consider paying for ads on Google as well.
One other method worth trying is content marketing. The way this works is that you create unique content that drives traffic to your business. Think about any kind of information that would be valuable for your target audience to learn about. The valuable content could be something that’s useful knowledge, or it can be entertaining. Additionally, the content can go a long way to promoting your brand identity and make your t-shirt business more legitimate. You’ll also have more of a chance to appear in search results.
9. Start an e-mail newsletter
An e-mail newsletter can be an effective way to have an audience that you can consistently promote new t-shirts to and get more sales. The way you can do this is by collecting e-mail addresses on your website. Among the things you can offer to get e-mails is giving away e-books, discount codes, and other valuable offers that would entice someone to share their e-mail with you. Once you have the e-mails, beyond e-mailing them about new promotions, you should e-mail information to them that has value and is relevant. Your e-mail subscribers will appreciate it, and they’ll be more likely to want to keep purchasing something from your business in the future.
Marketing your t-shirt business takes a lot of time, effort, and a willingness to be creative. Try all of these methods to help gain a new audience for your business. You should also make sure your designs are looking good on your t-shirt through plastisol screen printing. You can learn about plastisol screen printing at this link:Â https://thrivescreenprinting.com/plastisol-printing/.
