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.
We are starting a new t shirt co and wanted to know if anybody has any really good marketing strategy? So far our guerilla strat is just that guerilla, stickers everywere from 5x5 to 12x8, from bathrooms to stop signs, so far little has come of it besides a small time graffiti ring.....but i want more effective methods..guerilla or not. and the prob with just starting off is that $$$ is low so we need cost effective stratagies. any ideas?
I really doubt that you want my opinion on this.. altho ill say it anyway..
Putting stickers on others property is wrong..
Graffetti is wrong.. and an eyesore.. and if caught Both methods could get you doing some time in jail and hefty fines..
I really cant understand why people think is ok to deface other peoples property.
i understand mystysue np, all i really wanted some opinions, i know the whole graff thing is wrong but the thing is that i spent a good time of my child hood with graff and it is still in me, but as far as the marketing i see things like the obey giant every where and am looking to go that route.
I always though the story was that Obey started out as a graff "movement" and then someone got the bight Idea to copy write and sell it?
well kind of!
it started because Shepard was kind of obsessed with andre the giant and sticker arts after visiting a college in NYC i do believe.
so he started putting the stuff on shirts and selling it in the skate shop he was working in and it just snowballed from there.
mystysue, while i understand where you are coming from, have you ever considered legalized form of graffiti an eyesore? meaning giant billboards, bus ads, ads in subways, etc to be equally ugly? that's another avenue OBEY goes down, challenging the fact that billboards and other marketing are accepted by the public, but wheatpasting, graffiti, etc isn't.
This is considered graffiti:
(I think this one was probably commissioned by the city of Chicago, but it goes to show you that street art can gain mainstream acceptance)
I never said. .its ugly.. I actually like some graffetti type art..
I just believe that it is wrong to deface others property.. If you own a building or sign or what ever.. then feel free.. but to put your art on someone elses property.. Is really not cool..
I think it depends on where you're putting the stickers, for example where I live there's an alternative shopping centre which is saturated every weekend with teenagers who are into that kind of thing (emo, goth, skater....whatever its called these days - I'm getting old!) Anyway if you were to put your stickers in the bathrooms of somewhere like that its unlikely that anyone will raise a fuss (given that the bathrooms are already plastered with peoples myspace urls and the like) Plus, its very useful if that is your target market.
If you did the same thing in the bathrooms of a local country club or something....well its likely to get traced back to you, I don't know if its exactly illegal given that stickers are removable, but then again its probably classed as fly posting in some circumstances. And remember-some poor sod will have to remove it.
Its a bit of a grey area I suppose.
Ideally you should find out where your target market hangs out and put your stickers there - eg a local skate park, I cant imagine anyone objecting to stickers appearing around there.
The only other thing I can think of is giving the stickers away to people either face to face or packaged in with the mail orders. This would work best if the sticker was an icon - a face or logo with your company name as part of it, instead of just the company name or web address alone. If its a cool/cute/funny sticker people are more likely to want to stick it somewhere.
A company I ordered from recently does this, they sent me a small sheet of stickers (about 1x1cm each) with various logos and their website. They had a competition where customers stuck the stickers "somewhere cool" and emailed a pic to the site and the best one would win a prize, though they did advise people to "stick responsibly" lol
I think that's another point, to minimise the chances of there being a problem you should probably make sure you're stickers aren't placed anywhere "obstructive" So don't put stickers on public safety information signs, fire extinguishers and the like. I know it seems unlikely that one little sticker could cause a problem and it probably is, the thing is you don't want to give anyone trying to nail you for it any more "ammo".
Putting one on the post for the Stop sign would be less obstructive than on the sign itself.
Phew...sorry that this is so long winded. This is by no means gospel truth, its just my thoughts on the matter
Stickers are solid, you wont get bit for putting up a sticker unless you stick one on a Banksy. I love graffiti when its done well, but who wants to tag the name of a t-shirt company on something?
Just put out a sick product and it will sell. If you are confident with what you have, then give a grip of them away to your friends and make sure they wear them out a lot. Repetition and the forums like this one will do it.
thats my two cents, take it for what its worth.
Last edited by Comin'OutSwingin; May 7th, 2008 at 06:21 PM.
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The only true way to do guerilla marketing is to do something unique. Stickers, whatever their rights or wrongs, are hardly guerilla marketing as everyone does them and so they hardly achieve standout (sorry, lapsing into marketing speak). Something which was started a couple of years ago (in London anyway) was 'clean media'. This was the reverse of graffiti; by using a stencil, the person created a area of clean space on a dirty wall or floor which showed just the logo (or whatever). This was only used a few times before the idea got old but it was interesting when it was done. Of course it worked best in the context of the advertiser, which is the real key; whatever you do it needs to relate back to the product to make it relevant.
I have always understood that the essence of guerilla marketing, and all the 'guerilla' related books, was to simply OUT THINK your competition using creative, imaginative ways to "get your name out". That is the essential core concept.
So if anyone else is already doing stickers, or public tagging, and youre just doing those same things, that's hardly a 'guerilla concept'. To me, tagging and stickers have been done forever, in a million ways already -- not much originality is left there, so it's little wonder youre not seeing much return on it.
I suppose taking your tagging and stickers to a higher level, and getting yourself arrested multiple times, and on the front page of the local paper & on the local tv news, might actually be considered Guerilla if that was your plan -- to have 15-23 y.o demographic label you "cool" and a "rebel". But if the plan is to put coin in your pocket right away, even that may not work so well as it's a bit of a long term strategy.
YMMV (your mileage may vary) on the definition, but to me, guerilla marketing takes planning, thought, originality, and insight to come up with a better, craftier plan than anyone else has done, or is currently doing, in your 'hood. It's not easy to do well, and you can NEVER get your ideas from a book on guerilla marketing as those ideas are allready taken by people who read the book before you did.
So if unique, creative & originality is not happening, you're probably not quite getting the essence of 'guerilla'. Start over try again, put some real thought behind it....
...hope that gets ya thinking along the lines of 'new' and 'never been done before' -- instead of tired and overdone already (and illegal).
xeon i think you just made my myspace page...lol..
well mingled I think you know exactly what im talking about.
we dont pick a spray can and throw up my website of course, we have our mascott/logo on our stickers and are hoping that logo will get recognized and stick to the minds of our demo,
we dont put stickers up in country clubs either, most of it is going where there is already a bunch of stickers, bars and clubs (depends on the club or bar if it is an upscale bar or a well maintained club the sticker will only be up a few hours so no real impact) we have put some up in public such as the back of stop signs, those big telephone boxes on the side of the road, phone posts..etc...so far every thing that has been put up is still up for the most part and other writers havent gone over it they just paint around it....our demo would be for the most part graff writers, skaters, djs, bboys, mc's, etc....so far we have got a lot of support although it maybe illegal in the graff world people respect others that "get up" every where and that is what we are doing...but enough about stickers any new ideas?
What is your brand about- what inspires you? From what you have posted, I think I know where you're coming from, but if I were to see your sticker on the street, I don't think I would bother looking it up because it looks so similar to what other sticker artists have done. By no means am I trying to discredit what you're doing or making. But, since you have so much to visually compete with I would go a completely different route than the Mexican wrestler and spray can. I can only speak for myself, but stickers that are completely stark and clean with minimal information always get my attention more so than anything else.
guerilla marketing does it work? 
....but i want more effective methods..guerilla or not. and the prob with just starting off is that $$$ is low so we need cost effective stratagies. any ideas? 
Re: guerilla marketing does it work? 
