Why merchandise is a great idea for startup brands
Merchandise is a powerful tool for spreading awareness and getting the brand name into people’s lives, offices and homes. It also makes the brand instantly more recognisable and gives you the element of familiarity and trust.
Merchandise is affordable and personalisable too – so you can ensure you’re choosing products you know your potential customers will be interested in and will use. At Garment Printing we offer lots of options for brand merchandise that can be personalised easily.
Who is your audience and what would they find useful?
The key to choosing good brand merchandise is knowing exactly who your audience is, and the kind of products they’re going to find useful. For example, new parents and students are going to be interested in very different freebies!
If your audience is new parents, look at things they will find genuinely useful – like extra storage (bags and totes) or items that can assist them in parenting (like toys, or bibs or flannels).
For students, look at things that will come in useful for the lifestyle… things such as bottle openers, pens, t shirts, notebooks and mugs.
If you can provide something valuable and useful, the person you’re giving it to will immediately view your brand in a positive way. And the more they use the product you gifted to them – the more often they will be exposed to your brand logo and information, which is key.
Startup Merchandise that always go down well
There are a few items we sell at Garment Printing that tend to do well no matter what the audience, so they work particularly well for startup brands. Here are a few ideas:
Tote bags:
Ever since the law changed in the UK, tote bags are a really useful and valuable piece of merchandise for most demographics. It also gives you good visibility and the options for personalisation are good as there is plenty of space on the surface.
Mugs:
Mugs make a great piece of merchandise, because who doesn’t use mugs? Even if people only take the mug into their office (and not their home) you’re still getting exposure in-front of lots of people. Mugs also last long too, so provide good time/money investment.
T-shirts:
The classic piece of merchandise, these are great for startups because they invite conversation. If you can design a t-shirt that looks cool and invites questions, it’s a chance for people wearing it to spread the word about your business. People love t shirts during startup launches because they’re genuinely useful too – so you shouldn’t have any problems shifting the stock and getting them out and about.
