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How to Grow Your Small Business With Merch

If you’re looking to grow your small business, there’s no better tool than merch! At Spreadshop, we have thousands of shop owners that run their own small businesses and side hustles. And they all have unique merch to match their mission.

It’s easy to slap your logo on a t-shirt and start selling, but it’s not as effective as other design strategies. Why not create a likeness of yourself, or design a fun graphic to use as a symbol for your brand? Merch has the potential to connect you with new customers and partners. If it’s done right, there’s no telling how far you can take your business.

Check out what some of our shop/business owners are doing to promote their brand and make a profit in the process!

Make Your Brand Feel Like You

Your personality and overall presence are key factors in selling your brand AND merch. Having that personal connection with others is going to set you apart from competitors. It also shows you don’t take yourself too seriously.

Bake It Out Witch is a one-woman (or one-witch, we should say) show run by Payton Stantis. Payton is a boutique baker from Biringham, Alabama who concocts delicious and spooky creations. She claims her “witchcraft” is just combining the right ingredients, but her appropriately designed logo suggests otherwise. A pastel hair-colored witch winking and wielding a whisk is on brand and a cute, cartoon take on her likeness.

When you see that design, you instantly get a sense of who Payton is and what her business is about. This is a logo that would look just as great on t-shirts as it would on delivery boxes or bags. It translates in all areas of her business. The likeness also doesn’t need to necessarily be associated with her business – it can stand on its own.

Grab Attention With Key Symbols

Text alone sometimes isn’t enough to engage people and bring them into learning more about your business. Strong graphics or symbols can help to catch peoples eye and make it easier for them to form an association with you. It’s a more engaging and visual business card. Take something that is obvious or more of a play-on-words depending on what you want the vibe of your brand to be.

Kimberly runs Born in a Barn Boutique, a business that specializes in restoring old furniture and giving it new life. She’s all about the rustic, homestead look, so having a barn as part of her logo makes perfect sense. Symbols like that are great to help attract people with similar interests. A barn conjures up different images than a log cabin would. What’s a graphic that would work well with your brand? There’s got to be something that can easily connect you to your audience. These kind of symbols stand out on tote bags, water bottles, and more.

Sell Your Name Multiple Ways

You might have a classic logo that feels tried and true that works for you. But what about changing it up for your Spreadshop? Different fonts can attract different people and help diversify your brand. Your business doesn’t have to feel static – it can be ever-changing.

CFL Plants is a plant swap business run by Cayla, a passionate plant mom. She cares about the impact plants have on her community and wants to educate others on how they can be the best plant parents. Her merch is clean and aesthetically pleasing. She has different phrases she uses and logos that reflect her social handles and look of her business.

Cayla takes some awesome photos that showcase her merch and plant progress. The large leaves resemble one of the icons you can find in her logo. Having merch available is one thing, but you’ve got to promote it. Take advice from some of our favorite content creators and see how you can use their strategies for your business.

Think Outside the Box

Maybe logos and symbols are too ordinary for your business. We love to see the creative ways shop owners interpret their brand, like Emily and the Kind Mind. The Kind Mind Project is a podcast Emily launched to help women achieve personal growth through a better mindset. One of the podcast’s mottos – To put more honey in my head, one drop at a time – has made it’s way into Emily’s merch line for her business.

This type of merch is ideal for people who have been following your brand because they’ll know what these insider phrases mean. It also forms a deeper connection. For those that don’t know, it provokes conversation and creates and opportunity for you to talk about your business. Making this extra effort emphasizes your creativity, too. You’re able to look at your brand from a different point of view that feels fresh. Merch is a fun way to promote your small business and help take it to the next level.

We hope these shop owners inspired you to come up with your own merch ideas for your small business. Making and selling merch is easy when you use Spreadshop. You upload the designs and we take care of the rest. Plus, it’s FREE!

Start designing your own merch line today!

5 Ways to Engage Your Audience

Your audience isn’t going to automatically engage with everything you post, you’ve got to work for it. That means putting out content that encourages engagement and translates to comments, likes, and shares.

There’s a real power in owning your niche. We’ve seen shop owners succeed in these areas because they know who their audience is and how to engage with them. Merch is a powerful tool you can use to connect with your followers – it takes engagement to the next level. Here are 5 ways to start engaging with your audience today!

Be Interactive, Not Inactive

You could be posting consistently on socials and still not be getting engagement back from your followers. A big reason: your content isn’t interactive! You need to be providing value to your followers first and foremost, but if they’re not responding then it’s pointless. Interactive content doesn’t need to be overpowering, either. Simply asking a question at the end of a video or caption is a good start to gauge peoples’ thoughts. But there are so many ways to encourage people to interact with your content:

– Pose questions

– Collaborate with other businesses/creators

– Share user-generated content (people wearing your merch)

– Offer something of value (merch, content tips)

Asking questions gets people talking, but you can also use hashtags, run contests, or give shoutouts to get peoples’ attention; it makes them feel more involved. Sharing merch photos and updates is a great way to keep people engaged, but you’re more than just a shop owner. As a creator or business owner, you have insight that would be valuable to your followers and help them succeed in their lives. Interactive content builds a solid connection.

Don’t Leave Your Followers on Read

Now that you’ve determined how to make interactive content, you’ve got to keep the conversation going. Responding to comments can be a pain, but it shows you’re invested in your audience. It also allows you to build relationships with the people who follow you. Having a big following is a goal for many creators, but it’s important to have a dedicated group of people that support you and you can turn to for honest advice and feedback. Just responding to comments can leave a big impact.

At Spreadshop, we have brand ambassadors that talk about us in their content and showcase their own merch. Why not recruit your followers to do the same and promote your brand? Send the dedicated commenters merch and let them show it off to their followers. You’ll be surprised at how quickly your engagement will grow when you start showing your audience some love and making the extra effort!

Embrace Trends in Your Content

It’s essential to have a defined social presence and brand, and merch can help solidify that. But it can be fun and generate engagement from different people on socials when you incorporate trends into your content. Use a trending song in a TikTok video, see what the latest aesthetic or style that’s dominating the online fashion space. We have plenty of merch products for different seasons and styles that will spice up your content.

Just because you embrace a trend, that doesn’t mean you lose sight of who you are and your core values. It’s a fun way to pop up in hot topic hashtags and connect with different types of people, but staying true to your personality and brand is the most important thing. Merch helps establish your brand and gives you the freedom to embrace whatever trends and fads are dominating the market.

Your Followers Make the Decisions

Creating merch designs that will resonate with your customers AND generate sales can be difficult. So, why not go directly to the source? Your followers have a different perspective of your brand and content. They might know you better than you know yourself and catch on to the fact that you repeat certain “catch phrases” or mannerisms. Use thus to your advantage to help you create merch that will have a personal connection.

You’ll already be engaging with your audience, so why not bring merch into the conversation more? If your followers are involved in the process, it just motivates them to support you with merch. Making short-form videos or having call-to-action captions are essential social components. Instagram Stories are also an easy way to generate engagement:

– Ask an open-ended question

– Run a poll for followers to pick their favorite design

– Go live to talk about your merch

– Collaborate with other influencers to find new followers

It’s Promo Time!

Every month, Spreadshop has promos for our shop owners to blast out to their customers. Discounts and other offers like free shipping run nearly every week. This is a great way to engage your followers and motivate them to buy your merch. Every loves a good sale, but how you run your promos is key.

Set a strategy for yourself. Maybe you want to push new merch designs or seasonal products. Your followers will find it more digestible when you pull their focus instead of trying to promote your entire shop. Be personal with your messaging. Come up with catchy phrases or tag lines that tie into the theme of your shop. It should still feel like content you would normally put out on socials. If you’re having trouble coming up with ideas, we make graphics for every promo and post them on our community page.

After a promo has ended, measure your results to see if it was a success. Did your followers like and comment on your posts? How much did you make in merch sales since the promo started? This will help you determine what you need to tweak the next time there’s a promo.

Engaging your audience takes extra effort, but it’s worth it. Talking to your customers directly will generate trust and brand loyalty. And who knows, maybe it will turn them into potential collaborators down the line. Merch builds that connection instantly. Looking to design your own merch line. Launch your shop for FREE today!

Shop Spotlight: TiktokTare

TikTok creator Taryn only launched her Spreadshop a month ago, but is already getting amazing feedback and engagement from her followers. After all, they were the ones that convinced her to design merch in the first place!

Taryn, better known as Tiktoktare, specializes in making fun fashion content with sleek transitions. She gives fellow creators tips on how to make similar looking content and grow their channels. She has a story not unlike many content creators today: leaving an established career to pursue a lifelong passion. Learn more about Taryn’s journey to becoming a creator and how merch creates a connection with her audience.

What inspired you to become a full-time content creator?

I’ve always been an artsy soul. Come undergrad, I ended up talking myself out of the creative field to pursue a more stable career with the Department of Justice (DOJ), instead. I spent the past decade on that path up until the last year or so, which was pretty life changing for me. Without going into too much detail, I survived a shooting where I witnessed 2 people very dear to me get shot to death and saw my other friends get severely wounded. Since then, I’ve lost a lot of close friends, my job became unbearable, and PTSD is now something I battle everyday.

With that said, thankfully I had the support of my family and TikTok become even more of an outlet for me. Although I’d only been on TikTok since 2020, it was incredibly therapeutic to create, connect with, and inspire others through my journey. It reignited my childhood love for acting, film, and photography and was the exact creative space I had envisioned for myself growing up. I felt like I had given my best to my career in law enforcement and just couldn’t bear anymore after the trauma I endured. Ultimately, I decided to take a leap of faith in choosing myself, pursuing something that has always set my soul on fire, and become a full-time content creator.

If there was one piece of advice you could give to other creators, what would it be?

My biggest piece of advice to other creators is to remember WHY you started when you feel like giving up. Regardless of all the struggles we encounter as creators, whether it’s getting caught up in the numbers, feeling discouraged seeing others succeed, spending hours on a video for it not to perform, or receiving hate comments, I always come back to why I began in the first place.

I think the reason is the same for most of us: we love creating! We all found a safe space where we could be ourselves, have fun, and connect with others along the way. Had it not been for that, I would’ve given up a long time ago. Being a content creator can be exhausting, overwhelming, and downright discouraging. But if you’re willing to acknowledge and overcome those challenges and allow your love to outweigh all of that, then you’ll be successful no matter what.

What does fashion and dressing colorful and fun mean to you?

Growing up, I was the “quiet kid” – very introverted and shy – which made public speaking and articulating myself quite the challenge. However, I’ve always had a passion for fun fashion, colorful clothing, and anything saturated in sparkles simply because it makes my heart happy. You know how you always hear that fashion is another form of self-expression? Well, that’s exactly what it is for me, an outlet for my personality to shine through and connect with others in ways that my words rarely ever could. So much so that my colorful closet is now something I’m known for on social media.

How did you hear about Spreadshop?

Spreadshirt came highly recommended to me by the same friend who created my logo. It wasn’t until after that that I started seriously researching merchandise and came across Spreadshop, which was perfect since I’d already had a great experience with Spreadshirt. As much as I hoped to do merch myself so I could personalize the packaging, not having to worry about the inventory, printing, handling, and shipping was huge for me.

Spreadshop not only allowed me to use my custom design and create a customized shop for FREE, it removed the time, stress, and money that I would’ve encountered otherwise. Best of all, I’m able to provide a variety of high-quality products for my audience to choose from and still make money selling my designs.

What inspired your merch designs?

My merch design was inspired by “Queen T”, a nickname my audience created for me since I wear a tiara in some of my transition videos. I knew I wanted to incorporate the letter “T” and a tiara, so I created a rough draft of my idea and then passed it along to my fellow artist friend to refine and design my official logo. I jokingly suggested that it would be cool if she could incorporate my TikTok tiara used in my videos. Little did I know that she would later design an exact replica down to the sparkling gemstones. We almost stopped there, but I felt like it was still missing a splash of color. That’s exactly what we did with the background by incorporating some of my favorite magical colors.

How do you think merch helps content creators?

Merch is a great way for content creators to promote their brand and begin monetizing their platforms. But more importantly, it’s a great way for us to continue building a relationship with our followers. If my audience hadn’t repeatedly requested merch, I probably would’ve waited until I was a large creator to do so, but I’m so glad that I did because it has only made our TikTok family stronger. It’s been about a month since I launched my Spreadshop and they still tag me in their merch unboxings which is so exciting to see!

Do you have any merch designs in the works? Give us all the deets!

Without giving too much away on future designs, I do have a few ideas in the works that may or may not include elements of my well-known TikTok transitions. Possibly uneven some special limited-edition products for when we hit our 100K milestone. But for now, I’m really excited just to share my official logo and focus on incorporating more summer pieces and fun accessories. My audience has been incredible at providing feedback on what they’d like to see in the future, so my priority right now is them and releasing some new products each month with variations on my current logo.

Are you looking to make and sell your own merch like Taryn? There’s no better time than right now. Open a Spreadshop for FREE today!

How to Promote Your Merch on Tiktok

So, you opened up your own Spreadshop to make and sell merch. But how do you go about promoting it on a platform like TikTok?

Creators of all different niches are competing for attention and a chance to get noticed on TikTok. When you promote your merch, it needs to tie into your brand. Even though you’re trying to sell somebody something, it shouldn’t feel like it. It’s okay if it feels like every other video on your page. The ultimate goal is engagement with your audience.

Using trending songs or challenges in your content is an organic way to pop up in peoples’ feeds. If you’re trying to reach a certain audience, make sure you’re creating content they’ll respond to with likes, shares, and comments. And merch sales! See how some of our partners are promoting their merch on TikTok.

Announcement Time!

Make your merch announcement in style, like comedian Eric Feldman. He has an alter ego he calls Tami Langalang: a sassy, blonde-bobbed Facebook mom. His videos often feature him typing up funny Facebook posts in signature Tami style with plenty of exclamation points and emojis. What better way to announce his merch!

The TikTok video is fun and instantly engaging. What really sells it are the adorable pictures of him in his merch. The photos feel candid and capture Eric at peak Tami. You want people to feel connected with your merch and wearing it makes a bigger impact than you might think. It creates a personal connection and can motivate your followers

REMEMBER: your followers are buying your merch for YOU.

Integrate Merch into Your Videos

Since we have so many products, you can find any kind of merch you want to feature in your TikToks videos. It’s easy to wear a t-shirt whenever you go about making your everyday content. Incorporate unique items like fanny packs and bucket hats when you’re making trendy or fashion-related videos.

Spreadshop brand ambassador Clueless Bushcraft (Tom) makes videos about how to survive in the wilderness. He made a TikTok testing our water bottles in frigid temperatures. He discovered that our insulted water bottle prevented water from freezing, and that our regular water bottle would come in handy if you needed to boil water.

Tom found a unique way to promote his merch but still provide value with his content. These are the kind of tips and tricks that his audience wants to learn from him.

Find Trending Songs on TikTok

Adding trending songs to your videos is a great way to get more engagement on TikTok, in general. TikTok will boost content that is relevant to what’s currently trendy among different audiences. You can find trending songs when you browse the Discover tab. Check out the top hashtags and see what songs are being used. You can click the song and add it to your favorites to save it for later.

Creator Sicily Rose showed off her new merch by lip syncing to a trending song in one of her TikToks. She’s known for singing and dancing, so this kind of video works with the rest of her feed and comes off as being more authentic. You can use these trendy songs, but you need to keep your personality in the content you make.

Promote Your Brand

Wearing your merch obviously promotes your Spreadshop, but it can also help bring awareness to other projects you have going on. Maybe you want to raise money for a fundraiser or shine a light on an important issue. Merch is powerful in that way.

Mixed Tarxan has been practicing to be a contestant on American Ninja Warrior. He filmed himself prepping for his appearance, whether that was lifting, completing practice courses, or rock climbing. It’s not out-of-the-ordinary for him to film himself in the gym or doing intense activities. Wearing his merch and making a nod to the show in the hashtag is enough for people to connect the two.

Promoting your merch on TikTok is easy when you know your brand and are comfortable making content. You just need to be yourself – the rest comes naturally.

Looking to make your own merch? Open your own Spreadshop today. It’s free and easy!

Behind the Merch Table: Talkalots

Behind the Merch Table is a place where we can highlight some of the amazing bands and solo acts that use Spreadshop for their merch needs. In our last post we talked to the band Trestles about their plans for music in 2022 and the power of band merch.

This time we’re featuring Talkalots, a rock band that hails from Flagler Beach, Florida. They describe their music as “simple, catchy, and fun”. Some of their inspirations include Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters, and Smashing Pumpkins. Talkalots formed in 2018, originally with Jude on guitar and drummer, Cameron. The two have known each other since middle school and become friends over their mutual love of alt rock and punk music. Friend and bassist James later joined the lineup.

They’ve released a few singles since. “Summertime” is an angsty scorcher, perfect for blasting on those hot summer days. Their most recent single – “Where Did We Lose Track?” – reflects on their adolescence and how fast time has gone by since. Talkalots are currently working on recording two albums (!) and planning to release their debut this year.

It’s important for artists just starting out to brand themselves with merch. Opening up your own Spreadshop is a great revenue stream. It can be hard to make money from music itself considering streaming services like Spotify pay musicians mere pennies. Playing live shows and selling merch is how a lot of acts make their money.

Talkalots wanted to make their merch look simple, yet feel unique. So they used a couple versions of their logo for merch designs, which are available to shop on hoodies, hats, and buttons. They looked at other bands’ logos for inspiration, which is something they’d recommend to artists looking to create their own. As long as you don’t try to rip off material and credit it as your own. Having those influences and inspirations is important. Make sure to check out their music and merch when you get a chance.

Do you have a garage band? Play cafes or open mic nights? Start making and selling merch for FREE with Spreadshop. Open your own shop today.