Discuss the fun task of marketing a t-shirt shop. Where to advertise, link building, word of mouth, press releases, search engine marketing, keyword advertising, magazines, etc.
Hey .. I'm very new to the tshirt stuff... but I'm curious before getting into and investing into my designs as t shirts of how I go about finding my market and finding people that may want to buy my shirt and like the design...
I dunno if you saw in the design thread, but i made a post with a couple designs, and so far I heard they were a little gory heh... but that's what i was going for.. Gory/Funny/Wierd .... I know there is a market for that because you go into some place like Hot Topic and find tons of random wierd t shirts... .. It's jsut finding the market and stuff like that.....
as far as internet marketing I've heard a suggestion of tshirt blogs and whatnot.. (correct me if I'm wrong) ... but is that the best way of getting to find out your people and customers and who would buy from you? .... or is there any other ways of finding out specifically the 'buyers' instead of jsut browsers...
anyways any input would be greatly appreciated.... thank you very much
Jason
Hi Jason, I'm posting in to find out the answer to your question.
It's usually not a question of if there's a market, but this question you pose here: how to reach your market.
I wonder if there are other artists that work in unique designs like yours that you could look at their business model and gain some insight that way. ?
Meanwhile, let's see what happens here... good luck.
Jason ... finding "buyers" over the lookie-lou's is the same problem EVERYONE has, and one you will always be working on.
I looked over the couple of designs you were working on ... cute, funny, weird, and kinda gory sums it up. Original, and yet, I dunno what market to focus on. It's too cute to be considered "underground" (look at my site, for examples), too wierd to be funny, etc. You have quite a task ahead of you, as people looking for ducks can find duck t-shirts ... kinda hard to put a label on yours (not a bad thing, just more difficult to be able to describe your art to the masses).
Start with weird ... look at the weird gallery on these forums, and run searches for weird t-shirts. Find others that have combined one or more in their artwork: weird/funny, weird/cute, etc.
Ultimately, what you gotta do is have a bunch printed up, and get out there and show folks your tees. You can beat yourself up over the issue of "will anyone buy my designs," but you won't know until you try.
thanks for the help people!... yeah the thing i was looking for too like what you were saying gunslinger was a ninche to put a name on what type of shirt it is...
but ultimately i get what youre saying look for similar type wierd designs...and do what they do...
and ya know most likely thats what I'm gonna do... self promote the hell out of these to public... show em off and hope for the best...
I think the best way to find your market, is to go there. If you are a skater, then you are probably hanging around other skaters and know what they like. Then you should be able to design for them and sell to them. If you are a deranged lunatic who hangs out at the local park cutting the heads off of chipmunks, then ... well then you should be put away. If you read about Johnny Cupcakes and how he did it, then it makes more sense. If you like it, I am sure there are more people with your same cute, sick, warped mentality out there who will buy.
The one thing I dislike seeing here on the forums is, "I'm a 92 year-old grandma and I want to know how to sell shirts to young hip males" Come on granny stick with what you know! That should be your motto. Gunslinger you can print that up on a tee.
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Ack! ... I got busy with stuff, sorry! ... I will "try" to get it done, today (it WILL get done ... all these interruptions are driving me nutz!!!).
Sir, you have to have your priorites in order. What's more important, running your two businesses and looking for castles, or making a stupid t-shirt? Exactly, paying attention to the wife and doing what she says.
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The original Thread Killah!™ Extreme Metal Art and more @ www.deathisgain.com also "Thread Bully" & "Thread Hijacker"!
Hmmm ... the castle really is a good deal (half the cost of our current home). But, she was nagging at me all day, yesterday, "Why haven't you printed anything?!?" ... so, this should kill two birds with one stone.
I found a granny on a skateboard, so that is what I what I am going with (unless I find something better) ...
Hmmm ... the castle really is a good deal (half the cost of our current home). But, she was nagging at me all day, yesterday, "Why haven't you printed anything?!?" ... so, this should kill two birds with one stone.
I found a granny on a skateboard, so that is what I what I am going with (unless I find something better) ...
Got a link to that castle? That would be my dream home. Complete with a catapult.
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The original Thread Killah!™ Extreme Metal Art and more @ www.deathisgain.com also "Thread Bully" & "Thread Hijacker"!
How do you KNOW your market? 
... "you can't take the sky from me"
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