A good idea is always the starting point to achieve something great, but how to convert it into reality in an effective and productive way? In our specific case, selling t – shirts on Merch by Amazon, is no easy task as it may seem. There is a lot of effort and a discrete dose of patience that needs to be put into this activity to make it a relevant business.
In this article I will try to cover the most relevant points that will give you a hint on how to market your Merch by Amazon T- shirts effectively.
If you are just starting to enter the world of Merch by Amazon, you found the right article. Meanwhile, if you are still struggling with fully understanding what Merch by Amazon is and how it works, you may want to check first the previous articles on this blog!
1 – CHOOSE THE RIGHT NICHE
The first and most important tip from which all of the others follow is to choose the right niches. A niche is a group of people gathering around a topic or something that they are passionate about and you should pick a bunch that either you share an interest with yourself or that you think that are strategic for you to reach your selling goal.
It may be hard at first to find the right target. You should focus on the ones where there is no too much selling competition but are still profitable.
The best way to ensure yourself good selling is to find niches that are not too crowded and yet where people are highly motivated to buy. To do so, you need to carefully check through the new trends by looking for the hottest and most searched keywords on the Amazon Best Seller Rankings, on Google Trends or by checking as well the Audience insight on the Facebook ads manager…
It takes a veeery long time right? You can then also use a Merch tool such as SpyAMZ to reduce the time that you spend on research. This revolutionary database relies on a big quantity of data, which makes it the most useful tool for merchants to always be updated on the latest trends.
Now that you have a bunch of possible profitable niches to invest in, let’s jump to the second point which is about getting social to raise awareness in people belonging to the niche.
2 – BE SOCIAL
Once you have found the niches that you want to focus on, the most important thing to do is to track them down on every social media possible.
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There are so many! Communication is the key point here and you really want to enter the niche in any way possible. You need to know what they like, what they would be willing to buy and how to advertise your product properly. THAT is the way to bust the traffic to your website and to sell more t-shirts.
In fact, there are so many people that log in to their accounts everyday that the more channels you hit, the more likely is for potential customers to notice your products and to be interested in buying them. So be social and have fun with it! People like to feel close to the brand they choose to wear. Also if you only rely on the organic traffic that Merch by Amazon generates, it may take a while to boost your business while by making sure to target the right people on social media you will generate faster traffic, you will get higher rankings and your keywords will be more favourable on the search tab.
Social channels provide different tools to reach your community. You can rely on:
- public posting on groups
- your own personal page
- live stream promotion of your designs
- paid advertisement campaign
More likely, you’ll need to use more than one of these tools and you will need to post multiple times to a variety of different interest groups where your audience could potentially live. Your goal is to find out who is really excited about your design and reach out to them. Send direct messages, help them out or mention them in your posts. Respond quickly and create nice visual contents. Also, try to get positive feedback from influencers in your industry to rub some of their authority onto your site.
In short words: get to know the niche, get involved and show them that you are really interested in them. Don’t just start by selling shirts. You don’t want to seem just a random guy who suddenly pops up out of nowhere, expect people to buy his merch and then disappears.
If you opt for the live stream, Facebook and Instagram have this option. You will be able to make a video in which you speak to people about your shirts in an informal way.
Regarding the paid advertisement, Facebook has it and Pinterest as well. Pinterest is a smaller social network compared to Facebook and Instagram but in the US it beats out Instagram as a primary social media platform influencing purchasing decisions for the users. It also has different paid ads options but they are only available to business in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. What you should do is get a business account and choose your campaign goal and the budget that you are willing to spend. Also decide where do you want the ads to appear on Pinterest by editing the pre setting options (which include the placement in both the browse and the search) and choose your target audience.
If you go for the free way on Pinterest, which would include setting up an account and post your shirts, I would recommend to sign up as a person rather than a business to get more traffic. In case you do so, you don’t want to be too obvious when you advertise your shirts. Throw a shirt on your wall every once in a while. While if you have a business profile people expect you to only show your works.
And finally if you are using an Instagram or a Twitter account remember that it is all about picking the right hashtags, which basically are keywords. As always, try to choose the most relevant ones and a good quality picture. Instagram stories are also a simple way to maybe show how your shirts look in real life. In your profile description you can put the direct link of your Merch by Amazon page so that people know where to buy the shirt from.
3 – TITLE, BULLET POINTS AND DESCRIPTION
The title of the product is another important issue. It contains the keywords that will lead people to your product and it is the first thing that they will see about your shirt when coming on your profile. Remember to make it accurate AND relevant. It is partly responsible for your selling because if no one is able to find your t-shirts, then nobody is going to be able to buy them either… On the other hand, you should make it generic enough for people who don’t have anything particular in mind to find it.
Moreover your goal is to create a t-shirt title that has as little competition as possible in order to rank higher. It can be as long as you want but the first words are the most important ones so make sure that they are the most relevant possible and do not repeat a keyword twice.
The bullet points contain keywords that are just as relevant as they are in the title. Be creative because bullet points are one of the only ways to reach potential audience and to target it by answering the Who/What/Where questions that every buyer wants to know. Go for 4 to 5 bullet points maximum. Keyword stuffing is not good not and Merch by Amazon can ban you for that.
If the bullet points are where you are selling to the customers, the description is where you want to describe what is in your shirt. Keep in mind that though this section is not much relevant for the ranking on Amazon, it is what shows up on mobile phone and it is often times used in the meta description for ranking in Google, so prepare to become good at writing description and don’t just copy and paste the same one for all of your products! That’s your very opportunity to market your shirts. Help people imagine how it is going to be for them to wear it so try to master in creating the desire!
4 – COPYRIGHT AND TRADEMARK
Another hot topic that we will cover in the fourth point here is the copyright/ trademark issue. Copyright is the exclusive right to publish and profit from a piece of work that someone has created which includes the right to stop someone else from profiting from it if without a certificate.
The trademark on the other hand is a recognizable design or expression that identifies products or services of a certain source from those of others. The trademark owner can be any legal entity, meaning a single person or a business organization.
Amazon is very strict about this, so if you infringe the copyright law or the trademark regulation, Amazon can ban you forever from Merch by Amazon. Be careful! Always keep in mind the subtle difference between “taking inspiration” from what surrounds you and breaking the law.
If you don’t really know how to make sure that your design is safe and that you have the right to sell it, worry not! With SpyAMZ you have the solution right at hand. Infact, you can consult the Trademark section, type in the keyword that you want to check and know immediately if it has a trademark on it. Keep in mind that sometimes the trademark can be exclusively referred to a given quote written in a specific font. Check it carefully and remember that the last decision is always on you.
5 – DESIGN AND PRICE
The design that you put on your t – shirt can be inspired by somebody else’s design, it can be made by you, it can be made by a real designer if you are not one…there are many ways to have the design done but what all of these options have in common is that it has to look really good. Be creative but don’t make it too fancy, remember that even if you like it a lot, your design has to reach the maximum number possible of customers so it is better to rely on a simple design, maybe followed by a short text.
Also, make it versatile for different shapes of shirts, hoodies, etc. so that the number of products that you sell will increase. The quality of the shirt also makes the difference in the long run. It may be a little more pricy at first but it will definitely pay you back later. Customers will be satisfied with the product, they will possibly purchase again and they will tell about that to their friends. Not to mention they will leave good reviews.
Speaking of price, people are price sensitive, especially towards products that they don’t know. When you think of the price that you want to set, try to emulate what others on the market do. That most likely reflects the customer’s average willingness to pay. Also ask yourself “What is the revenue per shirt that I want?”. Try to price your shirts not too high and not too low. You don’t want customers to think that you are selling a low quality shirt but you don’t want them to not buy it because it’s too expensive.
In conclusion, these are 5 tips that you can start to apply to make successful selling on Merch by Amazon. Along with the things above said, keep in mind that there is no perfect strategy here. Different goals and different niches require different strategies, so you just need to experiment what suits the best the markets that you are hitting on.
Good luck and have fun using Merch by Amazon!
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