Marketing Custom T-Shirts to Local Schools?

8140 Views 21 Replies 10 Participants Last post by badalou, Nov 18, 2008

mbevon

Discussion Starter · Aug 22, 2006

I'm looking for some sample material of How to maket customized t shirts to schools in my area.
Al Help welcome

Thanks you

1 - 20 of 22 Posts

lauerja

· #2 · Aug 23, 2006

Check out Impressions magazine and Printwear magazione, they offer some great ideas about this.

I started by actually making a couple of shirts and wearing them to local school events and word of mouth spread pretty quick.

Alos consider contacting any local school booster clubs or the team coaches. Illinois has a website of all high schools and it lists names and contact information for coaches and athletic directors as well as school colors, mascots and othe r information.

We made a brochure with Photos of shirts we did and sent it out asking for the opportunity to meet with them and it is paying off right now.

lgiglio1

· #3 · Sep 29, 2006

Do you do heat transfers or screen printing? This sounds like it might be a pretty profitable market. How is it going?

lauerja

· #4 · Oct 1, 2006

We heat press using vinyl material from Twill USA. We have a Roland gx24 plotter to cut the materials and then heat press on.

We just started with our local school bootster club and our first order was 175 shirts for the Jr. Tackle football team, now we are working on the baseketball designs for the High school boys and girls as well as the junior high.

The idea is to provide apparel for all levels of the schools, elementary through high school, for sports, clubs and just the school as well as the parents.

Kids fashion and spirit wear is much different than parents.

jimiyo

· #5 · Oct 2, 2006

a coworker took an old tribal design (seriously years behind fashion! haha, but i live in hick town) to this one highschool... now all the local schools ware wanting it. i dont htink kids get to see a cool trendy tee with their school name... just boring collegiate font type stuff.

if i was savvy and knew some highschool kids, id make some mockups with laser printer or something and give the tee to a couple popular kids to wear at the foot ball game, with your business cards, and a six pack of beer. i bet they would go for that.

badalou

· #6 · Oct 2, 2006

Transfer Express has some excellent design in their idea book. all you have to do is change name of school. color or clipart.

G

· #7 · Oct 27, 2008

First you need to attend a few fooTball games and see what everyone has on as far as t-shirt designs. Then you need a killer artist to do some designs that have some real sprit to them. not like your everyday stuff. it has to be cool looking and diffirent. I do thousands of shirts for all the schools in my area. then you have to wait 2-3 weeks to get paid. It is not a easy road because you have so many areas of coaches ,staff, and stuff that goeas on that you don't know that is getting ready to happen. you have to stay way ahead of the game in order not to miss any jobs.

treadhead

· #8 · Nov 14, 2008

badalou said:
Transfer Express has some excellent design in their idea book. all you have to do is change name of school. color or clipart.

Hey Lou...

Using Transfer Express, do you find that you are able to compete with the local screenprinters that print in-house?

I keep finding myelf drawn to their program but can't seem to justify the cost of their product against the competition.

John

lgiglio1

· #9 · Nov 14, 2008

I use transfer express all the time and I deal with most of the school sports teams doing hoodies, sweats, etc. I have also started using Howards and they are awesome with GREAT customer service. I love them both!

treadhead

· #10 · Nov 14, 2008

Are you able to be cost competitive? I see alot of advantages to using them but if I am "out of the ballpark" with regard to cost...it becomes a hard sell.

lgiglio1

· #11 · Nov 14, 2008

I have not had any problem getting business. I believe people think my prices are good.

badalou

· #12 · Nov 14, 2008

treadhead said:
Hey Lou...

Using Transfer Express, do you find that you are able to compete with the local screenprinters that print in-house?

I keep finding myelf drawn to their program but can't seem to justify the cost of their product against the competition.

John

Of course you can. However if you learn more about how to use the design software like Illustrator and Coreldraw then you should be able to duplicate a lot of the designs yourself and go with companies that offer lower prices. keep in mind prices are based on number of colors and quanitity order. I don't know your compitition prices for schools and I am sure you can find out. You need to set yourself up a scale to work with for transfers and then add the cost of the tee shirt or apparel. As indicated many times I did my largest order of 700 tees and it was one color and 6 different designs. I averaged about 110 sheets per design but my cost averaged less then 70 cents.(Ace transfer Co.) The shirt was $2.00. I charged $5.75. How much lower would a screen printer have charged? The good thing about transfer express is they have the template ready for you. You change the name, font and color and that is it. Also you can get quick turn around. By the way Ace has a layout book as well for schools. call them and ask for the their layout book. Lou

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badalou

· #13 · Nov 14, 2008

lgiglio1 said:
I have not had any problem getting business. I believe people think my prices are good.

Ahh, I love it when one of my students is successful.. I also know Lisa does a lot of her own art work.. Lou

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perrolocodesigns

· #14 · Nov 14, 2008

The shirt was $2.00. I charged $5.75. How much lower would a screen printer have charged?

Hey Lou,

At that volume screen printing would be less expensive. With your shirts costing $2.00, I assume they were color shirts with light color ink. My price for screen printing that order would have been $4.75 per shirt. That is a 17.5% difference per shirt. When the final numbers are compared, there would be a $700.00 difference.

My point is not to disparage plastisol transfers. They are great and I use them myself for some applications. But in volume, direct screen printing is considerably less expensive because a couple of steps, some material, and one vendor are eliminated. On smaller orders that price difference is reduced or eliminated entirely and the prices are comparable.

I have worked with several schools in my area, but I plan to hit them hard for business next year. I have never really marketed to the shools, but have taken what comes in. I look forward to hearing tips and suggestions on dealing with this segment of the market on a larger scale. No matter the printing method, most of the marketing ideas will apply to all of us.

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pwapparel

· #15 · Nov 14, 2008

I think that schools are the biggest asset to a screen printer. No matter how mad the economy gets and how many businesses choose to skip on using t-shirts as advertising, or uniforms for their employees, there will always be schools in session. Those schools will have kids playing sports, and the kids expect a shirt at least for themselves.

Schools are a very stable business and can be very profitable if you can work with them correctly.

DOGGTODD

· #16 · Nov 14, 2008

I 2 use transfer express and am looking into getting the schools on board.I also just ordered my first screenprinting machine.1 color,1 shirt press. I am hoping 2 to have a fast turn around on simple designs and use transfer express on my complex designs.I also came across a situation when a school here has the same mascot as penn state and transfer express would not do it. I had to end up emboiderying it myself on my table top machine and raised the cost little.If I had my own screenprinting equip. I could have done it myself and made a better profit and fast turn around

badalou

· #17 · Nov 15, 2008

perrolocodesigns said:
Hey Lou,

At that volume screen printing would be less expensive. With your shirts costing $2.00, I assume they were color shirts with light color ink. My price for screen printing that order would have been $4.75 per shirt. That is a 17.5% difference per shirt. When the final numbers are compared, there would be a $700.00 difference.

My point is not to disparage plastisol transfers. They are great and I use them myself for some applications. But in volume, direct screen printing is considerably less expensive because a couple of steps, some material, and one vendor are eliminated. On smaller orders that price difference is reduced or eliminated entirely and the prices are comparable.

I have worked with several schools in my area, but I plan to hit them hard for business next year. I have never really marketed to the shools, but have taken what comes in. I look forward to hearing tips and suggestions on dealing with this segment of the market on a larger scale. No matter the printing method, most of the marketing ideas will apply to all of us.

Yes, but you have the screen printing equipment I would gather. So yes that is the direction you would go. many of us do not nor do we want to buy equipment, make the screens, work the ink, dry the shirts. Many of us work out of our homes and have no room for such equipment. The use of plastisol transfers gives us the opportunity to do what you do, assuming you do your own screen printing.

badalou

· #18 · Nov 15, 2008

DOGGTODD said:
I 2 use transfer express and am looking into getting the schools on board.I also just ordered my first screenprinting machine.1 color,1 shirt press. I am hoping 2 to have a fast turn around on simple designs and use transfer express on my complex designs.I also came across a situation when a school here has the same mascot as penn state and transfer express would not do it. I had to end up emboiderying it myself on my table top machine and raised the cost little.If I had my own screenprinting equip. I could have done it myself and made a better profit and fast turn around

There are other companies that would have done the design and for less.

perrolocodesigns

· #19 · Nov 17, 2008

badalou said:
Yes, but you have the screen printing equipment I would gather. So yes that is the direction you would go. many of us do not nor do we want to buy equipment, make the screens, work the ink, dry the shirts. Many of us work out of our homes and have no room for such equipment. The use of plastisol transfers gives us the opportunity to do what you do, assuming you do your own screen printing.

Hey Lou,

I'm not trying to talk down Plastisol Transfers. I really do think they are a great way to print shirts. I only wanted to point out that when you get to bigger volumes, you can run into significant price differences between transfers and direct printing. I just thought folks new to plastisol transfers would appreciate having that knowledge now instead of after they quote a job. Your previous post implied that the price difference on that 700 piece order would be small or non existent, and that simply isn't the case.

taylormoson

· #20 · Nov 18, 2008

Hey Badlou, Do you know the company who usually handles the asparagus festival up there?

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