Every business wants to extend its reach among the public as well as within the workplace. We want enthusiastic, content team members just as we want more happy customers. One shrewd way to go about doing that is company t-shirt mockups. These provide a realistic preview of your designs, helping generate excitement and drive engagement. For use inside the office, merch boosts morale and a sense of unity, while for external promotion purposes, it's a powerful marketing asset. Today, we are going to talk about how to create impactful t-shirt mockups that make people gravitate to your brand.
Reasons You'd Want to Make Merch for Your Company
Some of the benefits of producing mockups t shirts for your company are immediately obvious, while others are not. You can track a lot of metrics to see how well your campaigns are paying off. The benefit of mockups, in particular, is that they require no expenditures for the clothing materials until you decide to mass produce them. Before that point, you have every opportunity in the world to see how well digital users respond to different elements, backgrounds, colors, materials, and poses.
Here are the benefits of using t-shirt merch.
Boost brand awareness
Your merch acts as a walking billboard. When employees, customers, or fans wear your t-shirts or use your branded products, they become ambassadors, spreading your brand message to a wider audience. They achieve even beyond that if your merch is aesthetically pleasing. Just make sure that the word they're spreading is positive, as bad word of mouth exists, too.
Enhances marketing for additional revenue
Handing out t-shirts at events helps you capture attention and generate more leads. This complements your digital marketing efforts as many of these leads convert into additional sales.
Strengthens customer loyalty
Customers are grateful when you give them gifts and this reminds them of you, also serving as a conversation starter, making for additional organic marketing opportunities.
Creates lasting impressions
Digital ads can be forgotten very quickly. Conversely, branded items might remain with a client or employee for years, keeping them aware of your brand.
Increases networking opportunities
Branded items serve as a great icebreaker at events, conferences, and trade shows. Having your company's name and logo on display can spark conversations, helping to build connections and expand your professional network. It's also helpful that they remind lucrative contacts of you long after the event if they take your merch home.
Fosters team unity and pride
Wearing the same-style merch gives employees a feeling of belonging and adds to cohesion, especially if you engage in other fun corporate events together, like sports and games.
Increases employee motivation
Merchandise handed out as rewards for milestones and achievements makes employees feel valued. The same is true if they win it in a contest or a fun event.
In its recent article, GQ also dove into some fashion tips to help guide this process to avoid deviating from trendy attire.
Successful Campaigns
A lot of companies have capitalized on using merch to springboard themselves to a higher level of success whose business was otherwise unrelated to the apparel industry. Let's take a look at a couple of them.
Red Bull's branded apparel
The energy drink producer has a line of branded merchandise that some people might remember, which includes hats and t-shirts, often tied to sports and community leisure events. The campaign targets a younger, more active demographic, and its clothing line managed to boost sales, serving as walking endorsements of the drink.
GoPro's "Wear your adventure" campaign
The action camera company launched its own clothing line featuring t-shirts and caps. This campaign bore the slogan "Wear your adventure," encouraging customers to wear their apparel as part of their outdoor adventures and video recordings. GoPro successfully integrated its brand into customers' daily lives, boosting visibility and bolstering sales, reminding customers of the cameras.
Starbucks' limited-edition holiday merch
Every year, Starbucks releases limited-edition holiday merchandise in the form of clothing, mugs, and accessories. Many of them feature holiday elements like snowflakes, winter motifs, and red cups. Only selling these items in one single campaign adds to their exclusivity, and it helps Starbucks bring its cozy atmosphere into people's homes. This increased brand loyalty and foot traffic for the chain.
Never underestimate the power of public exposure, too. Fortune Magazine once reported an incident when, thanks to mass broadcasting alone, merch that was used for the Fyre Festival scam somehow became massively popular among buyers on the web.
Distinctions in Merch for Different Purposes
If you have a well-thought-out merch campaign organized, you are not simply going to hand out the same merch to everybody. First of all, you have different goals when it comes to marketing to potential and current customers versus your own in-house employees. Here is how that may affect your t-shirt designs.
- Purpose and functionality: for the public, merch is designed for exposure, so these items use trendier designs and high-quality products that people like to wear outside of work. For in-house employees, apparel is more designed for comfort and practicality.
- Design and branding: for potential customers and new contacts, apparel is designed to have bolder, more eye-catching designs. They may have unique artwork or limited-edition features, prominently showcasing the brand's logo. For office use, apparel is less flashy and designed to be non-obtrusive.
- Quality and durability: for customers, apparel is designed to be durable so it lasts long, and they continue to be reminded of the brand. For employees, clothing is designed to be lower cost.
- Customization: as it is easier to customize for a smaller number of people, it's helpful to have merch designed for specific employees and positions to have them written on them. However, this is also possible for customers who are willing to pay for personalization if that's something you'd like to offer and your main goal is clothing sales.
- Pricing and distribution: if the main goal is t-shirt sales, customers will pay marked-up prices, while employees will likely be able to acquire the clothing at a discounted rate.
