Discuss the fun task of marketing a t-shirt shop. Where to advertise, local marketing tips, word of mouth, press releases, search engine marketing, keyword advertising, magazines, etc.
Alright i was watching the news it was a rerun at 2 in the morning so i did catch everything, but wow I must say what an impact a celebrity makes on consumer taste. They were talking about baby fashion a store who wasnt selling shirts well has been selling out due to angelina jolie and a couple other celebrity babies. After a magazine which features some of the new celebrity babies in the shirts they were in high demand selling for 70+. Same was with a stuffed bear. Now what does Myspace have to do with it? I made a myspace couple weeks ago not for friends but to network. Contacted an artists whos well known around here sent him a design asked him if he liked it i could send him a free one, said he liked it and would like one. One of the people with that label said if I could help them in future shirt design and possably print them... guess thats the power ofa free networking community such as myspace.
Alright i was watching the news it was a rerun at 2 in the morning so i did catch everything, but wow I must say what an impact a celebrity makes on consumer taste. They were talking about baby fashion a store who wasnt selling shirts well has been selling out due to angelina jolie and a couple other celebrity babies. After a magazine which features some of the new celebrity babies in the shirts they were in high demand selling for 70+. Same was with a stuffed bear. Now what does Myspace have to do with it? I made a myspace couple weeks ago not for friends but to network. Contacted an artists whos well known around here sent him a design asked him if he liked it i could send him a free one, said he liked it and would like one. One of the people with that label said if I could help them in future shirt design and possably print them... guess thats the power ofa free networking community such as myspace.
Myspace can really make a big impact on your sales if you are selling things that the younger generation would be interested in.
Could someone explain this a little further? I haven't used MySpace, and was hoping to get an explanation of why a site hosted on MySpace will drive so much traffic. I know MySpace is popular, but I'd like a little more insight into the dynamics at play here.
All types of people use myspace. Its not for just lids anymore!
Om myspace, you can create a blog, send a post to everyone of your friends, leave comments on other peoples profiles. In every one of these places you can drop html code as well, post your link on a real popular bands profile for instance can net you any where from 10 to 100 hits in no time. Or chose a popular celebrity, it doesnt matter. Mostly depends on what kind of stuff you sell.
I have personally got a few sales from MySpace, nothing to quit the day job for, but with every purchase, there is someone wearing one of my shirts.
__________________
n o r m www.normsbrand.com - Saving the World, One Chest at a Time
Last edited by Rodney; August 14th, 2006 at 10:46 AM.
Reason: please, no myspace URL drops or friend requests please - as per our no self promotion policies :)
Hey Norm ... can I be your friend, too? I feel like I'm back in grade school.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alicia
I have a question too: my target market is moms 28 to 42 or so. Is there any point for me to use myspace? Or is it mostly for teens?
Heck yeah. Use it. It's free advertising. Think of celebrities (or movies or bands) who represent your niche market and send them a friend request. It's mostly their publicists - not the actual celebrity - who are managing their MySpace page and they are usually very eager to add you. When you get listed as their friend, you are then exposed to their whole network and there's a good chance they'll be interested in what you have to offer. Just remember to occasionally leave them a message to maintain your exposure. It doesn't have to be anything deep ... just say "have a good weekend" or something like that. It will put you at the top of their messages where people will see you.
I have noticed that a lot of people have disabled the HTML option for leaving a message. It's probably so their page will load faster. So I made my main pic an animated .gif showing some of my designs. Some people will also remove your message if it's overtly advertising so don't go overboard.
I have a question too: my target market is moms 28 to 42 or so. Is there any point for me to use myspace? Or is it mostly for teens?
Thanks,
Alicia
yes, indeed and ill tell you how. i bought a friend adder program for $18 about 3 months ago. i now have 2 myspace different acounts with a friend total of 15,000 people. the thing thats cool about that is these are "targeted" friends. with the program, you can choose to add only females between the age of 28-42 with the word "mom" in the profile. or whatever word you want. theres different ways to search out your target demographic and add only them. so when my shirt sites are up and ready for mass consumption, im gonna have have a boatload of people to market them to immediately. check out botreviewer.com for more info. its the only site that really covers all adder bots and reviews and explains how they work. i got lucky and bought a good one before i found the site. a warning: it does take a small amount of time each day to fuss with your bot and constantly add friends, but i think its worth it for the free exposure. later
allyn
Last edited by Rodney; August 16th, 2006 at 12:45 PM.
Reason: delinked URL
Many bigger brands are using Myspace to promote their products, and if they don't create a Myspace page themselves, many times their customers will create one for a product they love or hate.
Either way, it's free advertising with lots of exposure.
Here's an interesting article about marketing on Myspace:
Wouldn't adding a bunch of "friends" via a bot and posting commercial announcements be considered a type of spam?
yes. i cant argue against it being spam, except that my myspace page is very popular with certain people and fills a niche that im trying to specifically market to, so im not spamming the crap out of random people. a bulletin once or twice a week and a blog isnt in bad taste i dont think. maybe against TOS techinically, but its a networking site for pete's sake.
That's actually what it sounds like. If you get a robot to get a bunch of friends and then send those "friends" commercial bulletins and announcements they didn't ask for, sounds like "spamming the crap" out of random people.
Quote:
a bulletin once or twice a week and a blog isnt in bad taste i dont think. maybe against TOS techinically, but its a networking site for pete's sake.
I think networking and marketing can be done ethically and within a site's terms of service.
Nothing against you personally, but I would recommend to others that they follow the terms and don't spam people (via myspace, email, forums, newsgroups, or whereever) for the sake of marketing their business.
The very first promotions I have done have been on Myspace with mixed results. I do not think that just adding friends will work out very well for you. I have found that a personal message sent to someone that fits your target group (in my case its a small niche) as well as a friend request works better. Get to know someone a build it one sell at a time, one relationship at a time. I realize that this flys in the face of quick success, but I feel that you have a better chance at selling to someone you know (even just barley) than to a total stranger that is overwhelmed with a million imprersonal requests from bands and porn sites.
I think networking and marketing can be done ethically and within a site's terms of service.
I'm very much with you on this one.
This came up on another MySpace thread on the forum a while ago, where another member was doing the same thing (spamming via bot). His justification was that within the myspace culture friends are a desirable commodity, so people didn't object. From my little experience with myspace that may well be true.
Personally, however, I don't draw any distinction between spamming on myspace via a bot and spamming e-mail via a bot... or leafletting carparks, telemarketing, most junk mail, and door to door sales. Frankly I hope that any business who engages in such practices goes bankrupt so they can stop making all our lives worse.
Rodney's philosophy of website design is that a website should be designed with the customer in mind, and the rest (SEO, your bangs and whistles, etc.) is secondary. Personally I apply that to all aspects of the business - you should always ask "will this help my customer?", because if you're doing your job right helping your customer will ultimately help you. Does spam help your customer? No.
Myspace? 
