Designing a line of merchandise to help promote your business can be an effective way to build loyalty with your existing customers, and also to get your name in front of new potential customers. It’s also a great way to give people an impression of what type of business you are before they learn anything about you, so it’s important to get it right.
Deciding What Type Of Merch To Focus On
Choosing the right type of merch is key to making your campaign a success. When designing your merch strategy, the first thing you will need to decide is what is the message you want people to take away about your business?
For example, if you are running a restaurant one of your key messages is that you know how to cook a good meal that people will enjoy. An effective way to tell people this is by including a cookbook in your merchandising strategy, as this allows people to see for themselves that you know what you are talking about.
Businesses who are concerned about the environment would do well to have a merch strategy that promotes this. For example, you might produce a tote bag that people could use instead of plastic carrier bags, or a water bottle to prevent people from buying water in plastic bottles.
Giveaways
Giveaways are a great way to boost brand awareness and increase traffic to your website. A lot of companies do giveaways for a randomly selected customer or the first however many people place an order that day. People love a freebie so this can work really well. Be sure that you don’t spend too much on items that are going to be given away for free, though.
Some ideas for items that work well as part of a giveaway are:
- Coffee Mugs
- Gift Cards (these are great because they ensure an additional bonus visit to your site!)
- Stickers
- Stress Balls
- Tote Bags
- Stationery
- Drinkware like branded water bottles
Selling Merch
Selling merch can also be an effective strategy, provided that the merch you are producing is of high enough quality that people would want to pay for it! Cookbooks are a great example of this.
They take far too much time and effort to produce as part of a giveaway, and they are an item that people expect to pay a reasonable amount of money for. In fact, giving them away for free could actually make your customers think it wasn’t worth anything!
Selling merch works well because you make money from the initial sale, of course, but also if you have made a good quality product people are likely to show it to their friends and family and naturally spread a positive message about your company.
Track Results
As with any marketing campaign, be sure to track the results to see how effective it has been so that you can improve on it the next time.
For online giveaways, compare your traffic and number of sales on the day of the giveaway compared with other days. You could also try running giveaways with different items to see which are the most popular.
For merch that you have sold, you can track the sales of the item, but you can also keep a note of how many people become customers off of the back of it. To do this, offer something like a discount code or promotional offer for people who have bought your merchandise, and you will easily be able to tell who has come to you as a result! Plus, the discount code will help you to make more sales in the first place.
