How To Make Event Merchandise You Can Design And Sell
There is only 1 rule in the Event Merchandise; deliver early! Ampro has been in the event merchandise business for 45 years, hitting our “promise dates” is ingrained in our culture and ethos. It would be difficult to give us an order we couldn’t deliver, Ampro has one of the largest high-volume print shops in the country, let alone Philadelphia.
You have worked so hard to build your online brand and audience. You pursue your passion and engage your supporters, but it is now time to make all the hard work pay off. Now is the time to start designing and producing your own custom event merchandise, and at AMPRO, we are here to help with all your printing needs.
Whether you are a YouTuber, a musician, artist, online personality or a band, you could give your fans the opportunity to directly support all your work by creating and selling your custom merchandise. Your fans definitely like showing off their interests with attractive tees. AMPRO offers three solutions in one: promoting your image out there, fostering a stronger engagement with all supporters, and raising funds for an upcoming project.
T-shirts are arguably the most common and popular type of custom merchandise you will get on the market. Being a leading custom event merchandise printing platform, AMPRO makes it easy for you to design as well as sell custom merchandise for any use.
In this article, we will look at the simple steps with which you can begin designing as well as selling your custom merchandise online. Familiarizing with the basics will aid as you start designing and marketing your custom merchandise. AMPRO gives a low-risk platform where you can create custom merchandise that your followers will love to make sure you explore the resources and tools mentioned in this piece.
1. Identify the Audience for Your Merchandise
If you already own a business, the chances are that you are aware of your audience. Your customers, supporters, followers, or fans are your main audience for any custom merchandise you will be creating. For you to make the most out of your merchandise, it is essential to pay attention to who your audience is and what exactly they want. Here are questions you should seek answers to at this stage.
• Who is going to order your custom t-shirts?
• How and where do they often interact with your products?
• Why is it that they value you and the work you are doing?
• Are there any catchphrases, jokes, or motifs that your audience seems to love?
• Is there a need for you to promote a particular project, web series, or album?
For you to create successful custom merchandise or raise funds for an upcoming creative project with t-shirts, you will need to plan carefully. Your success in this area will depend on how well you are able to balance two aspects:
a. The purpose of the custom merchandise, and how it will be used/worn
b. Your audience
A good starting point would be ranking the social media platforms where you have the largest follower engagement rates. You can then go ahead to use this list to promote your custom merchandise on every channel.
What are your followers largely engaged with the work you do? What is your interaction with them on these platforms versus on other channels? Seek to identify what attracts the largest number of followers to your work, and with this, you will discover the biggest segment of the audience for the custom merchandise you will be bringing in. With this insight, you will find it easy making good design and marketing decisions.
2. Create An Ideal Design For the Merchandise
This is the fun part. Using the information you have gathered about your audience and your reasons for creating the custom merchandise, you can brainstorm concepts as well as come up with mock-up designs. While it is advisable that you follow the best practices to guide all your t-shirt designs, here are the crucial points to always bear in mind:
a. Consider the colors and styles of the garments you want to create
b. Play with typography, contrasting elements, and color to refine your custom design.
c. Explore some trending designs for some insight.
d. Use your already existing branded items as a starting point.
By keeping in mind your specific needs as well as the demands of your audience, it is easy for you to create effective designs which will attract a lot of attention. And if you want some more visual inspiration or desire to keep exploring, you can check out what others have created using AMPRO’s design platform.
Design can make or break your merchandise so take time to get all your custom merchandise designs right. Carefully refining all the designs will pay off greatly once the time to launch your t-shirt campaign comes.
3. Identify the Best Custom T-shirt Platform
Selecting the ideal custom t-shirt platform where you can design and host your merchandise is tricky, but the rule to follow is finding one offering the most flexible options. There are numerous t-shirt design platforms on the market, but AMPRO is an excellent choice for any custom event merchandise needs. This is because AMPRO offers various intuitive ways to create as well as offer your products to your audience:
a. Sell your custom merchandise on dedicated pages. All you have to do is set your prices as well as campaign period and begin promoting your merchandise.
b. Use your merchandise to raise funds.
c. Order your custom products in bulk to distribute or sell on your own. You can order as many or as few as you need, depending on your needs.
With several options for ordering and selling your custom event merchandise, AMPRO simplifies the whole process and gives more freedom of choice. And with a no minimum ordering requirement, you could order one custom printed shirt, go ahead to model it, and then begin promoting it. This has been found to be an incredibly successful tactic for many. Plus if you decide to sell your custom t-shirts through AMPRO, your merchandise will ship directly to the customer without any complications in between.
4. Start Promoting Your Custom Merchandise
After finalizing the design for all your merchandise, selected the products, and decided the best way to offer the t-shirts, it is time you get going with the campaign. You could create a social media strategy where you smartly engage your followers and generate considerable interest in your merchandise using multiple promotional elements like:
• Schedules posts on the various social media channels adhering to a unique beginning, middle, and end pattern.
• Engaging visuals of yourself in the merchandise
• Varied content which incorporated the merchandise into your regular material without being too pushy or repetitive.
• Simple links which prioritize user experience hence making it easy to click one link directly to the ordering page.
All the same, you should think of more creative ways you can promote your t-shirts. Your voice, unique content, and audience all guides the design process so they should also guide your promotions.
If you are looking to create and promote custom band merchandise or t-shirt for your current business, you should consider incorporating the shirt into some creative swag bag. These make for an excellent way to appreciate your influencers, publications, or bloggers when your work gets featured in reports on the local business or music scenes. Beside the thank you, a custom swag bag is an excellent promotional tool for reaching out to your new contacts as well.
Always bear in mind that your custom event merchandise should serve different purposes: generate some income, promote your brand, and engage your followers.
The Top Custom Merchandise Products
T-shirts have always been, and will always be the #1 product to sell at Events. They are relatively inexpensive, easy to carry, and versatile. Hoodies and hats are great too, but many people collect t-shirts from shows they attend to save as momentos. Hoodies are also incredibly important- you never know if your event will catch a cool day, or if it will rain. It's great to have those high dollar items available for your fans.
