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Been making shirts for about 5 years! I’ve done a lot of things right but I've made a ton of mistakes too.
Here's my personal advice on dropping your first t-shirt design. (A thread).
Here's my personal advice on dropping your first t-shirt design. (A thread).
1. Don't use your logo as your first design unless your following is hip to it. Instead, drop a message that speaks to your market and people who you know would buy your shirt. My shirt, “Worship is My First Language” speaks to the Christian community but my logo (contd.)
Stained Glass Apparel doesn’t.
2. Get close friends to take a look at the design and get them excited about it. This assures that you have some people who will post/share the content when you drop it (contd).
2. Get close friends to take a look at the design and get them excited about it. This assures that you have some people who will post/share the content when you drop it (contd).
People are more likely to share your stuff when they were involved in the initial process. If you have the range, send your shirt to 3-5 other people and do a mass drop. This creates the feeling that everyone already has the shirt and puts pressure on your buyer.
3. Drop a mockup of the design with the drop date in close proximity. Don’t drop the mockup and then the shirt 3 weeks later. Trust me, the hype is gone. Use people’s initial reaction to get that impulsive buy. Drop within 24-48 hours.
4. On drop day, post yourself in your shirt with an honest/transparent caption about the meaning and journey. Once again, using emotions to drive sales. Be transparent to people about when they will receive their shirts on your site.
5. Get people’s email address when they buy (this is key to creating a funnel for sales). Do research beforehand on how to ship effectively and easily. Buying a scale, a printer and some poly mailers will save you a TON of time with the post office. Print your labels beforehand.
6. Include something with your shirt that says thank you, and tells people how to care for their garment, and find you and tag you. Get creative as possible with inserts.
7. Follow up your drop with story content of orders coming in, you packing orders, dropping them off, make people a part of your story.
8. Follow up with pictures of people in your shirts (close friends, influencers, etc). This creates social proof for more sales. Also video content (outfit ideas, you explaining the meaning of shirt, etc.) is great content as well.
Share this with a friend. The t-shirt business is a great side hustle. If this was helpful, let me know. I’ll do another thread about how to handle the finances behind the scenes/how to create a system that works.
