T-Shirt Marketing: How a Branded Shirt Can Change Your Business

17 May

T-Shirt Marketing: How a Branded Shirt Can Change Your Business

Did you know that t-shirt marketing can generate revenue for your business?

Companies spend between $1-2 billion AUS annually on promotional products. The reason is simple. They work.

T-shirts are effective at promoting your business. One recent study found about half of all consumers own promotional t-shirts. They're great for creating awareness and brand interest. That can lead to sales and additional revenue for your business.

Are you ready to learn how you can use branded t-shirts in your next marketing campaign? Read on for the top t-shirt marketing strategies.

What Are Your T-Shirt Marketing Goals?

Any good marketing campaign should have goals. You might want to raise awareness in your community. You may want to thank your staff or your customers.

You may also use t-shirts as a way to boost morale within the organization.

For example, if your business is a marketing consulting business, you can bring t-shirts when you pitch clients. A fitness centre can give new signups t-shirts as a thank you. They can also create specialised t-shirts for events and competitions within the fitness centre.

By setting your goals for the promotion at the beginning, you're getting a clearer picture as to how you'll use the t-shirts. The last thing you want is to print off a bunch of shirts, give them away, and have zero effect on your business.

The keys to a successful t-shirt campaign are the distribution of the shirts to match your audience and your goals. If your goal is to reach new potential customers, then you're going to want to identify where they are so you can distribute the shirts directly to them.

Know Your Target Market

At the core of any marketing activity is knowing your target market. Once you know who your target market is and what they respond to, you can develop t-shirt marketing ideas to reach them.

Here are some key questions you should ask yourself to learn more about your market:

Are your customers men or women?
How old are they?
Where do they live?
Where do they shop?
What do they wear out of the house? Do they tend to be formal, casual, or do they wear t-shirts while exercising?
Do they wear t-shirts to the office or just at home?

There are a couple of reasons why these questions are important. The first is that you want to make sure you distribute the t-shirts where your target market will be.

The second is that you want to make sure you have the right shirts printed out for them. If your target audience tends to be more formal, they may be better suited for golf shirts rather than t-shirts.

Now that you have your goals and target market identified, it's time to come up with strategies to reach them. Here are the top ideas that you can use.

Trade Show Giveaways

Trade shows are a great way to reach your target market, whether you market to businesses or consumers.

You can use t-shirts as a giveaway to people who stop by your booth. Even if you don't have a booth, you can give t-shirts away to people as they're walking into or out of the expo.

T-Shirts for Customer Service

T-shirts can be used as part of your customer retention strategy. If you have a customer call in who's had a poor experience with your company, you can send them a free t-shirt to thank them for working with you.

Do you have customers that haven't worked with you in a while?

You can restart that relationship by sending t-shirts to them. This is a great way to open up the doors to a conversation that leads to business.

Even if they don't buy from you, you've created enough brand loyalty that they will refer business to you.

Leverage Your Online Reach

If you have active social media accounts, you can leverage them to engage your audience and create brand awareness.

You can do that by starting a campaign that features your team in branded t-shirts in photos to attract attention. Once you have your readers attention, you can ask them who wants a free t-shirt.

They'll naturally say yes because people love free things. You can then create a contest to get people to earn t-shirts. It's an opportunity to get your audience involved with your brand and create a fun relationship with them.

If your company plans to host an event, let your audience know that you'll be giving away t-shirts. That will boost attendance at your event.

Use T-Shirts to Strike Up Conversations

A digital marketing agency owner gave away t-shirts with his company name and generated about $900,000 US in revenue.

He ordered multiple shirts so he'd have something to wear every day. When he went out, he used his shirt as a conversation starter and would hand out business cards to people who were interested in his agency's services.

To make this strategy work, you have to go to where your target market is. Your shirt should also be worth talking about. A logo with a clever message on the back can do the trick.

T-Shirt Marketing that Works for Your Business

Promotional t-shirts can bring a lot of benefits to your business. They promote your business 24/7 and increase your brand's awareness.

Creating a t-shirt marketing campaign that has goals and a deep understanding of your target market can maximise your results. That's because you're sure to distribute the shirts where your audience is at.

If you want to create a t-shirt promotion, we at IB can help. We've worked with companies of all sizes to create successful branding campaigns.