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 everyone. I was just wondering if anyone knows how Affliction markets their shirts. Since they are able to sell them anywhere from $80 to $100, how do they market such an expensive shirt. The line I am creating is similar to Affliction in materials and quality so I was wondering how I could go about marketing my line as well as Affliciton has done.
They sponsor MMA fighters and other major sports stars, and they pay celebrities to wear their shirts. The people they sponsor are constantly wearing their shirts. Retail stores who carry Affliction do their own marketing with the shirts.
The other key is that the owners and/or designers probably know someone in the industry which enabled them to get their foot in the door. Nice, but not always available to us "everybody's." =)
Don't try to BE Affliction! Be yourself and get out there and work your line. If its great, you'll sell it!
Donald Trump doesn't own any part of Affliction, he is invested in the Affliction MMA events as a producer/investor. He helped them bi time with the Affliction Banned event, and will be onboard for at least the next two. I only know this because I am a huge MMa fan, and follow these things as seriously as my wife follows Perez or TMZ, lol.
first from what i have seen most of their shirts are in the 30-40 buck range. Thats a huge differancemarket between the to. 30-40 is for fasionable people and 100 bucks are for rich people. One reason they can sell for that price is because they are well know but not everyone is wearing their product which gives it a little bit of rarity feel when you wear it. They sponsor some big time fighters. When people see rampage jackson (think he is an affliction fighter) they want to buy it and since he is a big time athlete it makes people want it more and they are willing to spend more. plus the graphics are usually highly detailed and have a hand drawn feel. I am not sure if all of them are done by hand or not. The graphics are usually a full front graphic and just look plan cool. It takes many factors to beable to sell a shirt for that price.
Creating a tee is the easy bit. Trying to promote it as a 'must have' brand name is considerably more difficult.
I don't sell my own tees at the bottom end of the market, as I am happy to let some other joe sweat away for poor money. Selling at the prices that Affliction does, means the items have to be marketed far more aggressively than just opening up a web site and hawking your goods around local shops.
Affliction was started as an idea from a company called Liquid Graphics which is a large Orange County, California graphic house. As the story has been told to me, Tod Baer one of the owners of Affliction was working for them and when LG decided to shelve the idea he took it out on his own and asked a few of his buddies that were UFC fighters to wear it. The rest is history! LOL!
My friend Simon is their street team manager and does a lot of street type events to keep the product in the public eye. They spend A LOT on advertising!
There are many ways of marketing, don't try to be affliction. I heard someone do things like send out t-shirt randomly to celebrities and hoping that they'll wear it
Todd Beard and the co-owners of Affliction (Tom Atencio, Clifton Chason, and Eric Foss) actually started from a graphics company called Digital Ink Creative Services.
I think that the advice not to try and "be" Affliction is good advice. However, you can use some of the strategies that Affliction has used, especially if you are marketing your shirts to the same market. Sponsor fighters, street-team marketing at fights and similar events (as mentioned by John), and most important... get your stuff out there to BE SEEN!!!
We have worked with quite a few companies that sponsor fighters, etc., and it CAN be done. Work the mma blogs and forums- contact blog owners with your press kit to get them to write a story on you, if you have an interesting story to tell. MMA blogs are all over the net- a great way to get your shirts talked about and seen.
There is a new MMA inspired t-shirt company called Graffight, and they are doing the marketing of their line really well. You can check out their blog (google "Graffight") which is full of information about how to start an MMA line, including great advice about sponsorships, marketing, networking, etc.
Todd Beard and the co-owners of Affliction (Tom Atencio, Clifton Chason, and Eric Foss) actually started from a graphics company called Digital Ink Creative Services.
I think that the advice not to try and "be" Affliction is good advice. However, you can use some of the strategies that Affliction has used, especially if you are marketing your shirts to the same market. Sponsor fighters, street-team marketing at fights and similar events (as mentioned by John), and most important... get your stuff out there to BE SEEN!!!
We have worked with quite a few companies that sponsor fighters, etc., and it CAN be done. Work the mma blogs and forums- contact blog owners with your press kit to get them to write a story on you, if you have an interesting story to tell. MMA blogs are all over the net- a great way to get your shirts talked about and seen.
There is a new MMA inspired t-shirt company called Graffight, and they are doing the marketing of their line really well. You can check out their blog (google "Graffight") which is full of information about how to start an MMA line, including great advice about sponsorships, marketing, networking, etc.
Is that who they were working with? I was told it was Liquid Graphics. LOL! You can never get the story straight in this business! LOL!
Affliction Marketing? 
Re: Affliction Marketing? 
