Marketing is an important part of your business. It increases customer awareness and drives sales. A necessary part of your business plan, Bloomberg BusinessWeek recommends allocating roughly five percent of your projected revenue to marketing. While you may be looking at TV commercials and print ads to help get your message out, one area you may not have explored is T-shirts. With custom T-shirts, you can benefit from rolling billboards that proudly take your message around the entire city and even surrounding areas.
T-Shirts Play a Powerful Role in Society
T-shirts have been in style for decades. Popular enough in the early part of the 20th century, the word found its way to the dictionary during the roaring 1920s. Considered underwear until the 1950s, they took on new significance when stars like John Wayne, James Dean and Marlon Brando were seen wearing them on TV. The movie Rebel Without a Cause helped propel T-shirts into the mainstreams and our hearts.
With improvements in screen printing in the 1960s, T-shirts took on a life of their own. People could now sport their favorite designs, proclaim their love of athletic teams and support their favorite band. Over time, they have become a massive industry with people ordering custom shirts, message shirts, tees for little league teams and even for summer camps. It seems that everyone has a favorite T-shirt in his or her closet, and your business can now cash in on our love of this simple article of clothing.
Outfit the Employees
Start by providing custom T-shirts to your team. It will give them a sense of belonging, and they will wear the shirts around town. It increases your brand awareness and fosters a sense of pride among the team. Provide them with a few different colors to be worn at different times, or print out special shirts for each department. It’s a fun and affordable way to encourage a team atmosphere while getting some free advertising when your employees go about their day.
Gifts for the Public
When you head to a convention or business conference, include a stack of T-shirts along with your pens, rulers and magnets. Hand them out at shop visits, and give them to loyal clients as a way to say thanks. When you are participating at unique events, hand out special unique shirts. If you have a new product coming out, give out a limited quantity of shirts to start building excitement for the new offering.
Maximize Your Advertising Budget
You could spend thousands of dollars on a single print ad that runs once, is viewed once and immediately forgotten. That ad may reach thousands of people in your city, but they may not remember the message.
The beauty of using T-shirts in your marketing campaign is that the investment continues to pay off. Every time someone pulls one out of his or her closet and goes to mail a package, you are getting extra advertising. The shirts will be seen at stores, ball games, local schools and the parks. The message is delivered time and time again for years to come. It moves around town along with the wearers, so you reach a wider audience. There’s no doubt that T-shirt marketing has the potential to pay off big.
With T-shirts being an integral and accepted part of our culture, it’s no wonder that custom shirts can be an effective marketing tool. They will build brand awareness and help your team feel more like valued members of the company. When you are working on your marketing plan for the year, consider the benefits of adding custom T-shirts to the plan.
Josephine Gibson is a freelance marketing writer blogging on behalf of tshirtprinting.org. Click here to learn more about having custom t-shirts made for your business.