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Mymil · January 9th, 2007

I always read how it's important to market to your niche, and I'd love to do that! The only problem is, I don't know what an appropriate niche market would be for the t-shirts at Fantastic Bonanza. I've tried to think of some ideas: people looking for "funny t-shirts," the "indie" crowd, college students. Unfortunately, I don't feel our shirts fit neatly into any of those markets, and they are all rather broad groups anyway, which makes it hard to create targeted marketing. I would really appreciate any help with either ideas of how to figure out an appropriate niche market, or help with brainstorming potential niche markets. Thanks in advance!

Fluid · January 9th, 2007

Well to start the images on your main page are of teens. There is a market right there. Will have to check out the rest but thats the first thing that came to mind.

MarieT · January 9th, 2007

Hello Joe, I visited your site and I agree with Richard, your main page is teens.
When you did your artwork for your shirts, at that point what age group did you have in mind?

Also, just a suggestion here, you may want to sort out your tees into categories seperately to further inhance your target market. This way people can find that certain tee design their looking for.
such as: Animal, humorous, happy birthday, and such. and include these in your tags if you havent already.

Good luck to you,
Marie T

Mymil · January 9th, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarieT


	Hello Joe, I visited your site and I agree with Richard, your main page is teens. When you did your artwork for your shirts, at that point what age group did you have in mind?

That page may get removed soon... but assuming it doesn't, I feel like "teens" may still be too broad of an audience for effective niche marketing. When we were doing the artwork, we were thinking college-aged.

Quote:


	Also, just a suggestion here, you may want to sort out your tees into categories seperately to further inhance your target market. This way people can find that certain tee design their looking for. such as: Animal, humorous, happy birthday, and such. and include these in your tags if you havent already.

I'm not sure I entirely understand your suggestion: are you suggesting making separate pages for each group, like an "animal t-shirts" page? I think that would be a good idea, but I'm not sure if we have enough designs currently to do it well. I can't believe we neglected to add keywords specific to each shirt in the tags, though. That's a great help! Thanks, Richard and Marie.

prometheus · January 9th, 2007

It's not a bad site, but i don't know if the design would go well with the teen/College market, especially compared to what is out there. The colors and stuff remind me of something you would find on a site about newborns.

Go to other sites which sell similar shirts and see what they are doing. The look and feel. Have you tried sites like "threadless" to see what is out there? Also it may be a good way to see how your designs would do.

Mymil · January 9th, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by prometheus


	It's not a bad site, but i don't know if the design would go well with the teen/College market, especially compared to what is out there. The colors and stuff remind me of something you would find on a site about newborns.

Hm... we were trying to get a sort of "piñata party" theme going with colorfulness. But I definitely see how you got "newborns" from the pastel pink, blue, yellow, and green.

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	Go to other sites which sell similar shirts and see what they are doing. The look and feel. Have you tried sites like "threadless" to see what is out there? Also it may be a good way to see how your designs would do.

Yeah, I'm very familiar with Threadless. We're going to be redesigning the entire site this summer, at which point it will become much neater and streamlined. One of the reasons I started a t-shirt company was because of Threadless; they got too "mainstream" for my taste, and I got bored of the style of many of their winning prints. When they started reprinting sold out shirts within about a month of selling out (I'm sure it's a great business model) I felt it was time to move on.

Rodney · January 9th, 2007

I think you almost have to define your niche market before you start creating t-shirt designs. That way, when the designs are done, you know exactly where to market.

Now, I can't honestly say that I actually did that myself when I just started out

I just created a design I thought would be funny, and I had a website (non commerce related) about the funny subject, so I figured I would put the shirt on my website.

But now, when I think of creating a new line of t-shirts, I do some research to see who might buy the designs, and where those people hang out.

Like a few years ago I wanted to make some t-shirts for poker players. I play poker, so I figured I knew what kind of shirt "I'd" like to wear. I knew where poker players hung out (websites, magazines, tv shows, blogs, forums, online cardrooms, etc), so I knew where I could spend my advertising and marketing budget when that time came.

This probably doesn't help much where you're at now, but maybe it might

One thing to think about since you were sort of inspired by threadless is that they've sort of created their own market. It's hard knowing that the people that shop at threadless would probably buy your shirts, but there's no quick way to advertise to those people. Sure, there's the t-shirt blogs, but that doesn't reach as many people as threadless itself.

Since threadless has a community of shoppers just waiting to buy their next released tee, it almost makes it seem easy to launch a similar themed t-shirt line. What you almost have to do is figure out what common traits threadless buyers have in common (music, age, interests, magazines, etc) and advertise and market in those areas.

If college is the age you're targeting, you could try advertising in some college newspapers, radio stations, etc.

MarieT · January 9th, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mymil


	That page may get removed soon... but assuming it doesn't, I feel like "teens" may still be too broad of an audience for effective niche marketing. When we were doing the artwork, we were thinking college-aged. I'm not sure I entirely understand your suggestion: are you suggesting making separate pages for each group, like an "animal t-shirts" page? I think that would be a good idea, but I'm not sure if we have enough designs currently to do it well. I can't believe we neglected to add keywords specific to each shirt in the tags, though. That's a great help! Thanks, Richard and Marie.

Yes, that is what I was suggesting and yes, when you develop more shirts is exactly what I meant, you got it.
As for the tags info, Your very welcome, I'm glad you got something out of my reply and most glad to be of help. Maybe you will help me too someday.

MarieT

Mymil · January 9th, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rodney


	Since threadless has a community of shoppers just waiting to buy their next released tee, it almost makes it seem easy to launch a similar themed t-shirt line.

The horde of shoppers waiting to buy the next release is one of the reasons I got sick of 'em!

Quote:


	What you almost have to do is figure out what common traits threadless buyers have in common (music, age, interests, magazines, etc) and advertise and market in those areas. If college is the age you're targeting, you could try advertising in some college newspapers, radio stations, etc.

College newspapers sounds like a good idea; it shouldn't be too expensive. I would really like to run some advertising through IndieClicks, since I think that would target an audience that has "Threadless-buyer" traits. On the other hand, I don't know if I could create an effective ad and it seems fairly expensive...

JoshEllsworth · January 9th, 2007

Joe, I'm not sure of what type of advertising that you are considering, but if it is web based than it might make sense to advertise the niche that the each design appeals to and make that your landing page for each ad.

I also am not a huge fan of the home page being more or less an about us page. You might try putting your t-shirt designs right in a customers face when they enter your online store, instead of the photos and text. Of course, include some info, that can be linked into more details should a buyer decide they want more.

Mymil · January 9th, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoshEllsworth


	Joe, I'm not sure of what type of advertising that you are considering, but if it is web based than it might make sense to advertise the niche that the each design appeals to and make that your landing page for each ad.

That's a really good idea! Thanks!

Quote:


	I also am not a huge fan of the home page being more or less an about us page. You might try putting your t-shirt designs right in a customers face when they enter your online store, instead of the photos and text. Of course, include some info, that can be linked into more details should a buyer decide they want more.

We're definitely going to be changing over to something like that. It's only a matter of time

Jasonda · January 10th, 2007

Joe, I really like your shirts. The moment I saw "Mustachio" I thought to myself, "That is one fine looking bear".

Honestly, I think a big part of your problem is the website. It just doesn't match the whole vibe of the shirts. Since you already have another thread going on that topic with a lot of good replies, I won't say anything else about that here.

As for target markets:

The college-age market is huge, and there is a lot of very heavy competition here when it comes to t-shirts. You really have to narrow it down a lot more. A lot more.

The "Funny" t-shirt market: Most of the "funny" t-shirt designs I see nowadays are pretty crass. They rely mainly on sexist and alcohol-fueled humor. Not to say that there isn't a place for those kind of shirts, just that if you are trying to market "funny" shirts, you might be getting customers coming to your site expecting something more along those lines and being severely disappointed.

To me, your shirt designs are not necessarily "funny", just happy and positive. The vibe I get from the shirt designs and the pictures on your site is that you are just out to have fun with your friends and enjoy life, and do lots of wacky immature stuff that you can get away with while you are still young, and laugh about when you are old.

I think you could market that to your advantage. T-shirts for happy people.

Just my thoughts.

Mymil · January 10th, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jasonda


	Joe, I really like your shirts. The moment I saw "Mustachio" I thought to myself, "That is one fine looking bear".

Well thanks, that's the only design there that I actually designed myself!

Quote:


	Honestly, I think a big part of your problem is the website. It just doesn't match the whole vibe of the shirts. Since you already have another thread going on that topic with a lot of good replies, I won't say anything else about that here.

Quote:


	The college-age market is huge, and there is a lot of very heavy competition here when it comes to t-shirts. You really have to narrow it down a lot more. A lot more.

Yeah, I was definitely thinking the same thing; it's one of the reasons I asked for help! The only markets I could think of were too broad.

Quote:


	The "Funny" t-shirt market: Most of the "funny" t-shirt designs I see nowadays are pretty crass. They rely mainly on sexist and alcohol-fueled humor. Not to say that there isn't a place for those kind of shirts, just that if you are trying to market "funny" shirts, you might be getting customers coming to your site expecting something more along those lines and being severely disappointed.

Yeah, we certainly don't fit in with those sites.

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