Starting your own Brand!
We often print items for individuals who are wishing to establish their own brand in the market, and this can be a great way to use social media to bring in an additional income. Here’s some quick advice if you are considering setting up your own clothing brand.
It’s like Sandcastles
Imagine you are on a beach on a hot summers day and everyone is building a sandcastle. You are trying to get people to look at yours but with so much choice they just keep walking past. That can literally be the same as starting a brand. What makes you different? What grabs peoples attention. Is it a great design, perhaps it’s exclusive so you’ve built a wall round your sandcastle, people just can’t help being curious.
It’s unlikely your design will stand out much from the crowd on it’s own, with so much choice sure you may get some sales but it’s not going to sustain you. So create the mystery, the personality and show it off. This can be done via social media, what does your clothing brand say, is it cool and comfortable or perhaps edgy, maybe it’s a particular niche. Don’t presume everyone will get your design, you might be disappointed.
Speak to the printer
Don’t design without speaking to the company you are going to get to make the items. It’s the biggest bug bear in the print industry, sure it’s possible to print anything but your design might need tweaked, it will definitely end up costing you more money than if you just work with them to achieve the best design in your budget with the best material option. Don’t worry they aren’t going to steal your design, firstly because that’s illegal but also because they want to be your printer, they want to work with you and grow with you.
Think of the whole story
People care about where items come from, their impact on the earth and who makes them. Make sure you’ve done your homework about your items, make sure that you can tell that story to potential clients, it may even be a strong selling point. People like shopping local, so don’t just google t-shirt printers and use any old company do your homework, build a relationship and work together.
Hopefully by this point you have a good grasp of what your brand will be and you are ready to start it out. Remember the key advice is keep it simple don’t be tempted to overstretch.