One Thing Is Much More Important Than the T-Shirt Itself

You now have the products ready! Not yet, but let's assume you have it ready 🙂

What next?

We have to start selling these t-shirts. This is the most interesting part, marketing the brand.

And this is going to be the longest part of this course because this is the most important part.

Yes. The most important.

Much more important than the t-shirt in itself.

Yes, it is arguable, but I explain why I say this. And the founder of Zoho, Sridhar Vembu, says, “There are only two functions in a business. Marketing & Innovation.” Everything else is secondary.

We are going to sell these tees online. When you buy something online, you are experiencing the product by touching it in your hand. You buy the product first, and then you will experience it.

In today’s online world, it is very easy to make the product look attractive. So, the competition becomes fierce. So, the real business is in convincing the customer to buy first.

Always remember, you can have the world’s best product but still go bankrupt or have a mediocre product and make millions. The difference is in marketing.

Looks like a quote? Yeah, it’s mine. Original 😃

If quality is not that important, then why the hell waste so much money on it to manufacture it?

Well, quality is very important, but not on the first sale for this business model. Quality is important to bring the second sale and spread word of mouth.

For my B2B business, quality is important in all stages. Unlike the B2C online model, you will first get a sample from me to experience the quality first and then order bulk tees.

BTW, if you haven’t ordered a sample from us yet, get it now. I am not convincing you that quality is not important. What I am trying to do here is that marketing is much, much more important to get the first sale.

We need to create a proper plan to sell our tees. Let’s get started.

Looking from the broader view, what is marketing?

I do not want to write a boring 2-mark question answer here, but I will tell you what it is in simple words. Marketing is simply letting the right audience know that our product exists and that it solves their problem.

How can we let our target audience know that our t-shirts exist?

Again, on a broader level, we can put up an offline showroom, put up billboards, distribute pamphlets, share posters on WhatsApp, social media, advertise in newspapers or digital platforms, cold call our target audience and tell them, etc.

These are all small things which we can use. But, as we already discussed, we will be going online, and we need a maximum of 3-4 platforms to bring our target audience to the store.

So, what are they? It all depends on your target audience.

Analyse where your target audience hangs out. If your target audience is people who love to body-build, where will they be in the morning?

Gyms. Most probably. But, if your target audience is an entrepreneur, will they be in the gym?

Maybe. But, mostly, they will work in the mornings.

So, depending on where your target audience is, platforms will differ. You need to choose platforms and channels where your target audience hangs out.

But, mostly, all kinds of target audiences are on these popular platforms. Google and Meta. So, you can easily choose these two. The remaining one or two are where we need to brainstorm. Take time, analyse where your audience is and list down the remaining two.

Do not think about whether you can run ads on those platforms or whether you can get revenue from them. Just list down 2-3 more.

We can discuss one after the other. If you keep all the variables in your mind, it will get confusing and result in nothing.

Let’s be clear in our minds. Google and Meta are finalized. You just find 2-3 platforms where your target audience mostly hangs out.