How To Start Selling Branded Merch

To get started, you need to know your audience and what they want. It’s critical that you understand who your target audience is and what their preferences are. This will help you create merch that matches their needs and interests (as well as sell it to them). You should also think about how to market merchandise.

If you want to make sure that people know about your products, then you should start promoting them right away. The best way to do this is by creating content that is relevant and valuable for your niche market. This will help you to grow sales and earn profit. In the next sections we provide useful information for you to get detailed answers on how to market my merchandise online and share the examples you can get inspired by.

You Only Get One First Impression, Make It Count

The first impression you make is the most important. It’s what people base their decisions on, and it’s what they use when they decide to buy your merchandise or not. The way you present yourself on social media and other platforms, the design of your online shop and user experience can make or break your ecommerce business.

Don’t be afraid to try new ideas! But don’t forget that some things work better than others, so if you have an idea that didn't go so well last time around don't lose hope and try the new one. What is good with print-on-demand merchandise is that you can easily test new ideas without any new investment, because you are not buying and keeping any inventory. 

Read our step-by-step guide on  “How to Make Your Own Merch in 2023 | A Complete Guide for Artist” to get all insights on how to start this business.

Listen to Customers and Learn From Them

This is so important, but it's something that so many people fail at. If you want your Merch business to succeed in 2023, you need to listen to your customers and learn from them.

How? There are four main ways:

• Ask for feedback from customers who have already bought something from you. For example, ask them questions like "Was the product made with care?" or "Did the delivery process go smoothly?" 
• You can also ask for customer testimonials if they are willing. The great thing about having a chat with these people who bought from you is that they'll tell you exactly what worked well for their experience shopping on your store and what could have been improved upon (if anything). 
• Also, if someone doesn't leave a positive review then don't be afraid of asking them directly why not! This could help identify any issues that need resolving ASAP before more negative reviews start piling up - which may lead other potential buyers away too.
• Ask for customer referrals and recommendations. You can ask excited customers to tell their friends about your merch store and also ask them for referrals too! Word of mouth is still one of the most powerful instruments. This is an organic way of getting new leads which you might not have found otherwise.

Keep It Personal

Use the personal touch to your advantage. Your story is unique, and it's that very uniqueness that makes you stand out in an industry full of competition. It may be tempting to try and follow the same formula as everyone else, but what makes you special? What makes you different?

In order to get more people on board with your brand, focus on creating content where you wear or use your merch yourself. If a viewer sees a YouTuber or Instagrammer wearing something they like, they'll want to buy it too! It's also important for artists and influencers alike here: don't just promote products for cash; make sure every piece of content features something that fits into your personal brand image as well. This way when viewers see how much fun you're having with whatever product is being promoted - whether it's shirts or sneakers - then they will definitely want to buy it from you.

How To Promote Merch

Social Media Is Your Friend

Social media is a great way to connect with your audience and promote your products. Social media is also a great tool for building a community around your brand. You are on a right page to read how to advertise merchandise on social media to get make more sale and increase your fan base.

There are many different platforms where you can promote merchandise on social media, such as:

• Instagram
• Tik Tok
• Youtube
• Facebook

The best social media platforms for merchandise marketing are those where your target audience is already active. If you're trying to reach a younger crowd, then Instagram or Tik Tok would be good choices. If you're selling products that appeal to people of all ages, such as clothing and accessories, then Facebook may be better suited for your needs. Try not guessing, but proving. Before starting to invest into promoting your merchandise, first analyze the most relevant platforms and run some small budget advertising experiments.

Instagram

Instagram is a great place to start when it comes to promoting your merch store. There are several ways you can do this, including:

• Add links to your merch store in your profile and/or bio or so your fans could easily access it. Take as example Icelandic singer Glowie, who has created her merch store with our artist Solution and has the link to the store in her Instagram bio.

• Create cool posts that feature your products. Use gallery posts to show your merch from different angles. Feature you or your fans wearing your merch. Just go creative. Add the post to your Stories and don't forget to use swipe-ups to link directly the story to your store. This you can do once you have more than 10,000 followers.

• Create stories dedicated exclusively to your merchandise, whether it be for a specific event or just because you think it looks cool! Include a link at the end where viewers can buy whatever they saw in their story if they want too! Watch Sean Slick highlights and stories, promoting his merch.

• You can add a link to your merch store to the IGTV highlights on your profile. Also, you can make Reels with some of the merchandise from your shop. Both will allow people interested in seeing what new products are available on that page before clicking over for their purchase.

Facebook

Facebook is the most popular social media platform for sharing photos and videos, so take advantage to promote your merchandise!

• Write about your store in the “About Us” section of your Facebook page.
• Post photos or videos of your products, and make them stand out by using custom graphics and captions that link back to your store or website.
• Don't forget to use the hashtags #merch, #merchstore, #merchandising and #merchandisersociety and other!
• Add captions to your photos and insert links to your merch store to the post, unlike Instagram Facebook allows to do this.

Youtube

You already know that people are increasingly watching YouTube videos to find out about the latest trends and products, so you should definitely use this channel to advertise your merch. This way, your audience will be able to see your merch in action and hear about its features or benefits.

• Makea launch video for your merchandise, do it brilliantly and go creative. You can include some behind-the-scenes shots, wear your merch yourself, unpack or showcase details. Try to stir people’s curiosity and let them get more eyes on your content. Letting fans see how comfortable it is on you will help them imagine themselves wearing it too! 

• It's also smart to ask viewers if they want to see more products like this one by leaving feedback at the end of the video - this could lead potential customers right back into your store! And don't forget: intermezzos are perfect opportunities for mentioning new products—so make sure yours include mentions of any upcoming releases! 

• Use YouTube Merch Shelve to advertise merchandise - the awesome instrument that allows you to show merch under your videos via creating “ Store” tab.

 Mind there are requirement that you need to comply with:

• Your channel must have more than 1,000 subscribers
• Your channel must be approved for “monetization”
• Your channel is not marked as made for kids
• The YouTube partner program is available in your region

If you meet the requirements, you will be able to use YouTube Creator Studio and create your Merch Shelve.

TikTok

It’s a fun way to connect with your audience and show off your merch on the most rapidly growing social platform.

Make some videos of yourself wearing merch or doing something fun with it! For example, if you have a shirts that says “I love coffee”, ask people to make fun coffee-themed videos for you on TikTok and tag them with your product link so they can buy it. Another idea is asking fans who want to get more followers on TikTok to do an unpacking video with their branded merchandise as the tagline.

Don’t forget to put link to your shop into profile for greate call-backs when you mention merch in your videos. Use hashtags

Try out email marketing

Email marketing is an excellent way to stay in touch with fans once they've bought products from you, raise brand awareness and get returning customers. They're already familiar with your brand, so it will be easy for you to engage them with some relevant valuable info, running promos or other campaigns.

Email marketing is also a great way to make fans aware of new products you are planning to launch or special offers that are happening. You could even use it as a platform for fan participation—for example, get them involved in designing or naming your next product!

Display Your Items on Your Website

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To sell your merchandise online you need your online e-commerce store. You have a couple of options here to consider: 

1. Create your custom website. This will give you full flexibility and control, but as well will require time and some investment for development. 
2. Use e-commerce platform, like Shopify, Wix, BigCommerce and build your store on it. Then integrate for free with chosen merchandise on-demand suppliers to fulfill and ship your orders through easy integrations they provide. All integrations by Helloprint Create & Sell are free to install and provide seamless automation.
3. Make your custom store on the print-on-demand supplier platform, like Helloprint Create & Sell Artist Store not to bother with coding, orders fulfillment and even payments. This is the easiest solution, as you use the platform storefront and because it’s made with print-on-demand supplier all integrations are already in place to fulfill and ship orders to your fans. So you only need to sign-up, customize your shop, add design to merch products and know how to market merchandise.

Let People Name Their Own Price

Letting people name their own price is a popular method for driving sales of merchandise. This works by giving customers the option to pay what they want for a product, rather than setting a fixed price for it.

People are often willing to pay more than the average if you give them an opportunity to do so. If a customer really likes your merch or thinks it will be useful for them, they may be willing to pay extra for it over the average price point if you let them.

Create a Sense of Urgency

To increase sales and conversions, add a coupon code or limited-time offer to your listing.

Just make sure to use these sparingly. While they can be effective in getting people to buy immediately, they’re also being used more and more often by other sellers as well. When this happens, you want your customers to feel like they are getting an exclusive offer – not one that is so common it doesn’t matter anymore.

Run a Presale

Running a presale is an excellent way to gauge interest in your merchandise. If you've got a good product and some buzz around it, running a presale can be a great way to get people excited about your merchandise and paying attention to what you're doing.

Presales are usually done when the product is still in development—the sooner after the idea came up, the better! Tease and intrigue your fans, evoking their curiosity. Make the feeling this is the change they should not miss.

Partner With an Influencer

Influencers can help you reach a lot of people. They have loyal audiences who trust them and will follow their recommendations. If an influencer promotes your product or brand, that person’s followers are likely to also check it out. It’s important for you to find the right influencers so that they can make an impact on sales by promoting your merch on their channels.

Start Creating Your Merch Today With Helloprint Create & Sell

Promoting online your merchandise, as you could see, can require time and effort on your side. Luckily, you can fully focus on it and leave everything related to manufacturing, orders processing, payment and shipping of the orders placed by your fans to a reliable print-on-demand merchandise supplier, like Helloprint Create & Sell. 

This means you don’t need to make any commitments, invest in stock or bother with operational and delivery issues. Everything is handled by us. When you create your merch store with our Artist Store solution or integrate your custom or e-commerce online store via one of our free fully automated integrations, we get you covered with all these issues. One more thing to benefit from is that you can sell your merchandise globally, as we have a print network in 18 countries and produce your orders close to the place your customer orders from. 

Conclusion

There’s a lot to be done when it comes to merch, not just stocking it up and promoting it but also focusing on other aspects like the design and the quality of your products. Therefore, this is where the need for an efficient strategy arises!

We hope that this article has provided you with some helpful tips on how to promote merch online. Remember these are only a few ways in which you can market your products, there are many more out there but they all boil down to one thing – the quality of the merch! So make sure that before launching any campaign or marketing strategy, you have a great first impression ready for sale.

Get all insights and tips on how to launch and grow your merchandise business and monetize your creativity in our “ How to make your own merch in 2022. A complete guide for Artist”.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Do I Advertise Merchandise On Social Media?

Get to know your audience and choose the platforms, where your fans spend most of the time. Focus on one or two platforms that can generate most sales. It can be Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, Facebook. Pay attention to the specifics of the platform to get most of your content. Run paid targeted advertising to get more reach.

How Do I Promote Merch On My Website?

Run PPC campaigns, get links from social media and try to get some organic traffic. Don’t ignore SEO techniques, use the relevant keywords and pay attention to user experience. 

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