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.
If conversation rates are around less than... 4%, 3%, 2% something small like that, then naturally your going to want to drive as MUCH traffic as possible.
So the question I put to everyone is this, how much time do you spend working on driving that traffic in? From the time you park your keister in the chair at the computer to the time you get off it and leave?
Are you the sort that just throws ads up and sits back waiting for something to come in? Or are you the sort that is madly on the computer 24/7 posting blogs, articles, email newsletters and everything else? Or are you somewhere in between?
Id be interested to hear how much or little time you guys all spend on your tee stores online, and have you ever gotten the result back you wanted traffice-wise?
When I first started I spent a bunch of time basically to learn what the hell I was doing and what an internet store was all about. I still go to relevant forums and club sites that deal with my products and actually thats where my customers come from. I also do about 2 events a month for sales and to drive traffic to the website. I dont spend nearly enough time working on the site, updating and creating new content which is key...must be the new sweet lady in my life!!!!!
Cool, its amazing where the customer traffic `truely comes from' , makes you think whether the big slice of the pie comes from google adwords or from good ol fashion hard-work diving into forums and clubs and member websites and so forth.. anyone else wanna put their two cents in?
I spend a good part of my day trying to drive traffic from just about anywhere to my cafepress store. I figure the more people who see, the better my chances of getting a sale.
I have more of a rock and roll type theme going, so i go to forums from some of the bands that I like to listen to and just make general posts on their forums. I have my signature in my posts so I get some traffic that way. My site hasnt hit the search engines yet so I am still waiting for that to happen.
Im still waiting on my first sale to by the way, but I have only had my cafepress store for about a week and a half now. I did make a purchase myself because I want to see how the shirts look after they are printed. I will post a pic when it comes in.
When I had a "real website" skulltshirts.com I was averaging 250-300 visitors a day from all the link swapping I did. I had that site up for around 3 years. I was getting around 10 sales a month. Usually about 3-4 tees each sale. So 30-40 t-shirts a month
Cool, its amazing where the customer traffic `truely comes from' , makes you think whether the big slice of the pie comes from google adwords or from good ol fashion hard-work diving into forums and clubs and member websites and so forth.. anyone else wanna put their two cents in?
I found that AdWords didn't work at all for me. I got the traffic, but not the conversions. I'm convinced that in my case there were low conversions because our price point is high. I have a theory that AdWords works best when you can offer competitive prices against the competition, and not so well when you have a specialized or custom item - unless you target your ads to specific sites, but I've had a hard time narrowing that down as well.
If conversation rates are around less than... 4%, 3%, 2% something small like that, then naturally your going to want to drive as MUCH traffic as possible.
I wouldn't necessarily say "as much" traffic as possible, but as much TARGETED traffic as possible.
You can get a ton of traffic from myspace, but it's not all going to convert for you if the people are just browsing and not looking to buy.
I think search engine marketing is one of the best investments of your time, since it doesn't cost any money, and the rewards of it can continue for years after you've done the basics. It's something that only takes a little time each day. I still get sales today from a cafepress store I setup and marketing 2 years ago.
Since promoting your site is how you make money, I think that you should have a time and monetary budget for it. Make time each day (or weekly) and have money available each month for advertising.
There are days when I've put in 8 hours on different marketing strategies, and there are days when I put in 10 minutes. Like a shark, you've always gotta be moving
Actually all graphics can be sized for any application as they are all vector. Watercraft, airplanes, boats, motorcycles, trailers etc are all the same. I have done a Harley paint job with an eagles head on the tank. I have customers ask for specific streetbike graphics and thats fine if they can give me good dimensions, no problem, can do!!!!
When I had a "real website" skulltshirts.com I was averaging 250-300 visitors a day from all the link swapping I did. I had that site up for around 3 years. I was getting around 10 sales a month. Usually about 3-4 tees each sale. So 30-40 t-shirts a month
I was thinking of link swapping. By that I assume you mean like webrings? Was link swapping all that you were doing for that website to get an average of 250-300 visitors a day?
Hrm.. lets see... 300 visitors a day roughly, with 10 sales a month, works out to be about 3% of visitors buying.
What Rodney says is true, its the "right" kind of visitors that you want, not just any old visitor, I guess what Im hoping for is LOTS of the RIGHT kind of visitor (wishful thinking lol). But im also suprised that you were selling more than one tshirt per actual sale/person.
It was common for me, I always had some sort of sale going to intice them to buy more than one. Some of my sales included, buy 2 shirts get one free, or buy 2 get free shipping. Plus I always gave away alot of free stuff like stickers, sunglasses, even gave out some free baseball styled hats. I always had this clearly stated on the first page to let everyone know that if they bought from me they would get some free items with their order.
I didnt just do link swapping, I would dump my link anywhere I could find a spot to put it. I didnt really care! As long as traffic was coming! Now it wasnt always targetted traffic, whichis the best kind of course, but I figured if someone seen my site maybe they would see something they liked.
By link swapping I mean exchanging links with other sites like rockband sites or skateboard sites, or even other t-shirt sites. Plus I was on all the search engines.
How much time to you put in... 
