hey what's up guys thanks for joining me
for a new video as you can see it's
beautiful outside make sure
you get outside at least a few times a
day get some vitamin d from the sun
make you feel better look better improve
your health etc i'm sure you guys
already knew that but hey
sometimes it's good to get a reminder i
got my sunglasses on from
mexico for my vacation two weeks ago
thought i was gonna get some cheap
sunglasses in mexico
and i don't know if i got the special
tourist price or what but i ended up
having to pay like 100 and some bucks
for these but i'm not gonna lie i really
like them so
i don't think i look good in very many
sunglasses and after about 15 minutes of
trying them on i ended up with this pair
anyways back to the reason you're
watching this video so what i wanted to
talk to you about in this video
is inspired by my one-on-one call
earlier where
i talk to somebody that is a
professional
artist not a digital artist but creating
like real
physical art and they have been uh
dipping their toes
into print on demand trying to find ways
to monetize
their artistic ability and uh convert
some of their like real life art into
like digital prints and digital art
and then sell it as you know basically
make as much money as they can through
print on demand
and i'm going to tell you a little bit
about their story and i'm going to tell
you
my reaction and kind of my advice
because i'm sure if that person was
thinking it then there's got to be
somebody else out there that may be
having similar questions
so in short this person is successful i
mean it's their full-time job to be an
artist but obviously it's like
what do i always say it's like get a
skill and then like
squeeze it for as much money as you can
there's nothing wrong with that like
when i was a web developer it was like
work nine to five
teach it and do a freelance business
right one two three i mean i probably
missed something along the way
but um you know if you're an artist hey
why not teach it work
work your job and you know sell print on
demand
or do some freelancing whatever uh in
this case print on demand is great
because obviously it's passive and it
can be scaled
on the flip side of that like you're you
know if you're an artist how much time
are you really spending at the computer
all day
um working on your print-on-demand
business when you've got to actually be
going and creating the physical art that
you sell so i get it
but he was actually doing really well on
his own his etsy shop had over 600 sales
and i mean when i say this guy was a
good artist i'm telling you he's a good
artist like
i'm not just saying that like his uh a
lot of what he translated his real
world art into were not the traditional
products that you would expect like
t-shirts and uh
coffee mugs but when i was looking he
had a lot of i guess you would expect
like the wall prints
but also phone cases i mean when i was
scrolling through his etsy shop
i stopped and i was like man these phone
cases look really good so that was kind
of interesting because i don't
try to sell too many phone cases my
personal approach to print on demand
it does not involve a lot of original
creations of graphics like i've been
transparent about this for me i like to
keep things simple
oftentimes i get like a pre-made graphic
that somebody who's a better graphic
designer than i create than i am
created and then i just add some text
and the text is based on the niche
research that i did
so i go and i check what buyers are
buying and i just kind of
enter that niche by finding a graphic
that fits the niche
and then adding the text in you know in
a way that i think looks good
now if you are a good artist and whether
this means digitally or physically
and you want to sell your art meaning
you're taking a little bit of a
different path than i typically take i
typically
start with the niche research and then
go and find the graphics
for that niche whereas this a little bit
on the flip side where it's
taking art that already exists and
trying to mold it
into digital you know print on demand
niches
so it's just you know we're not starting
out with the blank slate we're starting
out with art but
the same rules apply go do your niche
research go to a website like amazon
where you can
you can project within you know reason
um
how well something is selling and then
you at least know okay
this is worth attempting to sell and
kind of one of the things we took away
from the call was
he was selling a lot of like the raw art
with no modifications
on print on demand products and there's
nothing wrong with that we know that can
work i mean it was working
but and he he actually asked me himself
so it's not like this was
uh my idea he knew he's like should i be
kind of adding text and tailoring this
to
certain sub niches and i was like yes
exactly
if you do that you can take one really
good art piece
and gain so much more exposure i was
gonna say double your exposure but the
reality is you can 10x your exposure
20x your exposure by entering different
sub-niches
like i was saying if you have a picture
of a we used an example of
a certain dog breed like let's just say
chihuahuas like i love my chihuahuas
right
you can go do niche research on
chihuahuas find
a list of sub-niches and if he has a
really good chihuahua graphic he can
just switch the text out either above
below or both or you know vertical on
the sides whatever it doesn't matter but
add the text and you can enter all these
different chihuahua niches like
world's best chihuahua dad um
chihuahua grandma uh what was the other
one we saw we saw one that was like
i'm not spoiled i'm just a good boy you
know with it and you can
you just keep the graphic there and he
thought that maybe it was a little bit
spammy and
the thing is it's not because you're
entering different niches so unless
you're on a website and somebody
searches like funny chihuahua design or
funny chihuahua shirt
and somehow all five or ten of your
shirts
show up in those search results on page
one which is incredibly unlikely
unless that happens it's not gonna look
spammy they're only gonna see one of
your shirts and they're most likely
you know you're most likely not getting
visibility on really high level generic
keywords like funny chihuahua shirt
you're most likely getting
visibility on specific niches like
world's best chihuahua dad that's more
likely where you're going to get a sale
because probably less competitive than
the
the higher level more generic keywords
so that's worth noting
talked a little bit about keyword
strategy but we also talked about
like what was his end goal right i
always like to say like what are you
really trying to do
and if it is to make money with print on
demand well
let's optimize for maximum sales maximum
revenue
he wasn't on amazon at all and i said
hey man like you got 600 sales on etsy
you're doing great don't quit on etsy
but you have the highest earning
potential
on the world's largest ecommerce
marketplace that is amazon
and i recommended you know and i'm not
telling him to like quit his day job or
anything like that and i understand
there are real world constraints
but i am i have the utmost confidence in
saying
whatever time you have in a day if it's
only five minutes
you should be on merch by amazon if it's
15 minutes and you can get your merch by
amazon stuff done in five
and have 10 to dedicate to etsy do it in
that order merge by amazon first
etsy second now i also you guys already
know i'm a fan of
also selling on seller central because
merch by amazon what do they they have
i think 14 products right now that you
can sell on
and 14 is great i mean i remember when
it was like was it like two products it
was like standard and premium
yeah standard in premium though when i
first got on it was two products
so it's awesome to have additional
products to sell on
and when you again when you're doing
your own artwork your
work may present much better on certain
types of products than others like he
may be able to take some of his designs
and crush it on pop sockets and phone
cases on amazon merch
time will tell but um you know and if
you're watching this video and you're
not on merch by amazon and you're
hesitant to apply because you heard it
was hard to get in
that's actually what he what his story
was don't hesitate you can apply and if
you don't get in you can reapply you
might have to use a different email
address
but there's no need to put it off like
one thing i would compel you to do is
after this video ends like
the first thing you should do is go to
merch.amazon.com
click the apply button don't overthink
it i think a lot of whether or not you
get in has to do with where you live
honestly and not what you write for your
experience
um so this is my personal thoughts i've
seen a lot of people get in knock it in
etc
um but definitely take advantage of
merch by amazon you're selling prime
eligible
print-on-demand products on the world's
largest e-commerce marketplace it's a
no-brainer
and you have to scale your account up
over time so you need to get started
early time is of the essence
and then you know what i told them i was
like honestly my second biggest priority
is not etsy it comes before etsy it's
seller central amazon seller central
told them about how you can integrate
printful with it which by the way if you
guys aren't on printful yet i'll put a
link in the description
highly recommended printful's one of the
few print on demand production partners
that
has an amazon integration and by the way
printful is free to use it doesn't
charge you monthly or anything like that
to use it so
um i'm a big fan of printful i did
mention to him that like
if your art because this is you know
it's kind of a weird use case for me
i do all my work digitally and i'm
optimizing for t-shirts and i know kind
of what t-shirts translates into
as far as other products that look good
he's got a lot of like unique
real world artwork that then he makes a
digital version of
so i mentioned like you know printful is
awesome but
and this is something that you guys if
you're selling a lot of coffee mugs
listen up to this advice real quick
because i told them i don't know exactly
what your best product your best selling
product types are going to be but if
it's something
like for instance coffee mugs printful
as awesome as they are like they charge
a lot for coffee mugs
and i'm not like going to tell somebody
to kind of like brainlessly
push forward with printful when it's
going to really eat into your margins
and make it hard to succeed selling a
certain product type so what i mentioned
is
this is the advice if you want to sell
something like coffee mugs where
printful is charging like way more than
a lot of their competitors
create the product listings on amazon
using the printful integration
because if the alternative to that is
doing it manually and that's going to
take
way way way too long so use printful to
create the
product listings via the integration
when you make a sale
cancel the order in printful or put a
hold on it basically don't let printful
fulfill the order if it's a coffee mug
right we're saying
theoretically like if it's a product
type where
uh you know it's not printful's pricing
isn't competitive
don't let printful fulfill the order you
can hit cancel you can hit hold
but don't delete the order then manually
recreate it
in whatever other print on demand
production company
is best for that product type so if
we're going with coffee mugs use custom
cat
manually create the order upload your
design have custom cat fulfill the order
to your customer don't forget though if
you do it that way
you have to manually upload tracking but
you can
dramatically improve your margins and uh
allowing you to be competitive
so it's just little tricks like that i
know it may seem like
kind of crazy to be hearing but not
actually see it in action
but i promise you it's as simple as i
made it sound
uh so that's just another little tip i
guess that came out of this call
and um you know ultimately i asked him
what was the what are you trying to do
okay you're trying to make an extra
source of passive income you're trying
to diversify income streams
love it and you're i was like dude
you're already really qualified to
succeed your your art is incredible
and another thing that i mentioned i
don't want this video to go on too long
but i mentioned like
you know whereas i'll look for you know
when i do niche research niche
validation i'm looking to like carve out
a piece of internet real estate
for me and i'm willing to cater to
that niche without even knowing what the
niche is prior to me finding it whereas
like he's doing the artwork first
and then trying to enter a niche
regardless of you know because the art
already exists
so i mentioned given
that his art is actually really good and
very unique
it's basically the opposite of mine
right i'm going in going to places like
all sunsets
or vexels and using graphics that people
have already used you know what i mean
and i'm just kind of making it my own by
adding text
but nothing about what i do is really
that special right i'm just playing the
game the way i can
i know best to play it but for him the
artist
i said hey man you might be able to get
away with like
selling your work on products that
people maybe
don't buy as often but can command a
higher price point like the
framed posters or wall prints you know
what i mean and there's various
different um
production partners you can go to with
some really interesting stuff i mean he
already knew that he was on
fine art america he was on redbubble he
was on society6 so he knows what he's
talking about you know he knows what
he's doing
and i said you know with your good
original art you can also
potentially command a higher price point
which then allows you to can anybody
complete my sentence to get
more visibility advertise
and you know i don't want to throw too
much at somebody early on
in their print-on-demand journey but i
just said you know make a note of it or
store it in the back your head
because when it comes time like or or
for instance if you have a design that's
selling really well
organically that's validation that
should be advertised as soon as possible
because you already know people love it
so go and create you know some higher
end higher ticket
print on demand products price them up
and run ads because often sales getting
sales is a function of visibility
and if you're not on page one you don't
get any any eyes on your products what
are you gonna get you're gonna get zero
sales you guys already know that so
um if you guys hey this is all i really
wanted to talk about if you guys learned
anything from this video do me a quick
favor hit that like button and if you
have any questions or comments or ideas
for future videos
i'd love to hear from you just drop me a
comment uh below and that's it guys
thank you so much for watching i'll see
you tomorrow
[Music]
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