Making Sales!

1821 Views 10 Replies 8 Participants Last post by Solmu, Sep 24, 2008

cavalry

Discussion Starter · Sep 23, 2008 (Edited by Moderator)

Hey everyone, I read alot of the forums about marketing, but I still wanted everyones input more specific to my company,

I started Cavalry which is a company that is part Record Label and Part Apparel company. The basis for our company is to incorporate both style and music to all types of people.

Here is my problem though:
We got investors to invest in my company so we went on a 2 month summer tour with one of our bands promoting the clothes throughout MI and NJ, gave out TONS of stickers, had a LARGE banner at all events, used word of mouth, have our own website, myspace, etc and we still have a lot of shirts and have made only a little amount of sales.

I really want to get the word out and start making more significant sales asap, I work day in day out trying to get out there, but I don't know what I am doing wrong. I have about a $1000 left from the money invested, (You don't want to know how much was spent on the summer tour, which is only so much more disappointing) Does anyone have any good advice on how to use that money for advertising/ marketing? If there were methods that would leave money left over even better!

I would gladly take ANY advice, thank you so much!

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1 - 11 of 11 Posts

SBEMedia

· #2 · Sep 23, 2008

Have you started your own blog? A blog is a good way to start building your name. Also you should start subscribing to various blogs/forums and make sure you become a regular poster in these venues. In the beginning I'd commit to 1-2 hours per day marketing via the web, I know it sounds like a lot but until people know who you are it's always an uphill battle. Considering inventory, in the future I wouldn't buy so much apparel and purchase on an as needed basis. That way you can reduce your overhead amount significantly and not get 'stuck' with non-selling goods.

Next, I'm not sure, you could already be doing this, make your gigs pay for themselves, i.e. see if you can get someone or an entity to sponsor your event. That way you don't have to 'go in the hole' everytime you try to promote your bands. If you start by having the event paid for, at least a portion of it, you can't loose and it will only benefit you in the end.

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Solmu

· #3 · Sep 23, 2008

The first thing I'd do is take a critical look at your product. You've gone to your target demographic, you've put your product in front of them, and you've spent money marketing it to them. It's not working. My first thought isn't "what other ways can I spend money marketing?" but "why didn't the ones I already tried work?": so I'd look to the product itself to see if that's the answer before doing anything else going forward.

If you haven't tried marketing and your product doesn't sell, it makes sense to look at marketing. When you've already tried and the problem is it isn't working, it's important that you work out why it isn't working, before you spend more money potentially just replicating the same mistakes.

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Natitown

· #4 · Sep 23, 2008

Can you post pictures of your t-shirts? How did you make the shirts? How much were you charging for the shirts?

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drummerstar

· #5 · Sep 23, 2008

cavalry said:
Hey everyone, I read alot of the forums about marketing, but I still wanted everyones input more specific to my company,

I started Cavalry which is a company that is part Record Label and Part Apparel company. The basis for our company is to incorporate both style and music to all types of people.

Here is my problem though:
We got investors to invest in my company so we went on a 2 month summer tour with one of our bands promoting the clothes throughout MI and NJ, gave out TONS of stickers, had a LARGE banner at all events, used word of mouth, have our own website, myspace, etc and we still have a lot of shirts and have made only a little amount of sales.

I really want to get the word out and start making more significant sales asap, I work day in day out trying to get out there, but I don't know what I am doing wrong. I have about a $1000 left from the money invested, (You don't want to know how much was spent on the summer tour, which is only so much more disappointing) Does anyone have any good advice on how to use that money for advertising/ marketing? If there were methods that would leave money left over even better!

I would gladly take ANY advice, thank you so much!

we could help you better if we had pictures of your product....

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cavalry

Discussion Starter · #6 · Sep 24, 2008 (Edited by Moderator)

I'm not sure how to upload pictures but if you go to this link:

you can click on the images to see more pictures of the shirts. That should be easiest, also you can get more info on the shirts there

They are all screenprinted and the Swirl Tee is an oversized print. The world Tee is the nicest being printed on AMerican Appael using a vintage screenprint technique with watercolors I beleive.

The thing is, everyone that has seen or heard about our shirts always says, "Oh yea, thats awesome! I want one" but then they don't buy it

Thanks!

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Natitown

· #7 · Sep 24, 2008

I like the shirts and the price seems right. Maybe when you were on tour you could have added the band name with "Summer Tour 2008" to make it a souvenir of the event. What age group went to the concerts? How many people went to the concerts?

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COEDS

· #8 · Sep 24, 2008

I think the designs are great and I agree you could have added a date to make them a colectors shirt. .... JB

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CUSTOM UK

· #9 · Sep 24, 2008

Hi. I've had a quick look at your designs. Couple of them are real eye catching, but the presentation needs to be looked at. The photos of the world tee, skull tee and crimson tears tee all looked like someone had slept in them. Being hip and cool and laid back is one thing, but presenting the garments for sale like that will not do you any favours.

Handing out freebies seldom does anything to boost sales, unless you are specifically targetting the people that are most likely to buy. I've been to shows and events where I have come away with bags full of freebies. I will probably consider less than ten percent of the businesses handing them out, the other ninety percent of freebies will end up in the bin within a few days.

You need to think long and hard about how you are going to best invest that last $1,000. Reality is, there are thousands of tee businesses out there, so choose wisely.

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prometheus

· #10 · Sep 24, 2008

I think the designs aren't bad, but are lacking that certain "oomph" to make people slap down their dough. I would invest in some better designs. One sign might be the response that you are getting from people. That sounds like the "nice" response, similar to the blind date "she has a nice personality" comment, or mom's "you're beautiful to me". If people LOVE the design, they will plunk down the money on the spot, whether they have it or not.

Also, what kind of turn-out are you getting at these events?

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Solmu

· #11 · Sep 24, 2008

cavalry said:
I'm not sure how to upload pictures

If you need help with uploading pictures, try this:
http://www.t-shirtforums.com/forum-information/t11206.html

If you would like to post the site itself for feedback/review, you can do that here:
http://www.t-shirtforums.com/site-reviews-design-reviews/

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