So your online store is fully operational with the freshest product designs on the market.
But why aren’t any orders coming in to justify all the effort you’ve put in?
Find the answer in this episode of Ask Printful.
Hi, I’m Elizabete.
There’s no point in having a perfect product if no one knows about it.
That’s why I’ve invited our very own Head of Marketing, Raitis, to share why content
marketing is the key to letting the world know of your online store.
It doesn’t matter how good your marketing is, it’s not going to solve the problem
that nobody wants to buy your product.
That’s fair enough.
But is content marketing specifically still relevant in 2022?
Yes, I think nothing has changed since forever.
Content is almost everything you can imagine.
People want to be entertained, that’s probably where TikTok comes into the game.
You want to be educated, so it’s a chance for a company, for anyone to be an expert.
You’ll see that people will think differently about your company and have some association
with your business as well.
There’s another purpose of content marketing.
When you put the content online, people search for that, and you get this extra discoverability.
When you create content, you shouldn’t think: “I will sell it, so that’s why I’m creating
content.”
You have to give additional value.
If you give value, then those people can end up also becoming your customers, and basically,
you can achieve your business goal.
And what content types do you think are the most relevant right now?
It actually depends on your audience.
You have to always ask the question: “Where does my audience live?”
Because when you think about marketing, your goal is to reach the potential audience who
will likely become your customers.
For example, if your audience is mostly youngsters, they most likely consume a lot of TikTok.
There are not so many things you can do on TikTok, it’s just video.
If your audience is someone else who spends time on other networks or usually searches
things on Google or YouTube, then you create different types of content.
So it all depends on the audience.
You have to think about what your audience needs.
You will be discoverable, and you will then reach your customer.
So, what do you think are the most relevant marketing tactics right now?
Maybe your top three or something?
Yeah, good question.
First of all, it can be short video content.
I think it’s gotten shorter over the years because of social media, and now the king
is TikTok.
So something you can quickly look at, be entertained, and quickly find value.
So that’s number one.
The second is user-generated content.
The question is, how can you get the user-generated content, and why do you need it?
You can always film a fancy video or fancy photo shoot, but people want to see more from
people like themselves.
So you don’t have to be fancy.
You can just shoot a video with your phone.
More and more people know how to do that because almost everyone is an influencer these days.
Then you have to figure out a way to ask your customers to send you their pics or videos
for your needs.
You can do giveaways or reward them with coupons.
It will also provide you with extra visibility.
If your customers take a photo for you, there’s a chance they’ll also publish it online,
and you’ll get this extra visibility from their social channels as well.
The third thing is making your social media shoppable.
Your customers should easily learn more information about the product and ideally can checkout
on the platform without leaving it.
They should easily make purchasing decisions there, so that’s why you have to make all
the information there basically shoppable.
If you put an Instagram story for a product, include a link to the featured product.
Instagram allows that, and almost any social media channel provides that option as well.
OK, those seem kind of also achievable, not just relevant for small businesses.
Yeah.
100%.
As a business, we actually don’t know what will work.
Even now, we’re playing around with TikTok, and you can see we try to post multiple times
a day.
Not everything’s going to work.
Maybe something will go viral and we’ll get this extra visibility.
Any small business can do that.
I’ve posted myself on my private social media account.
It’s easy.
Now just do that for your business.
Regarding UGC or user-generated content, I love to say that if you still don’t have
your customers, you can fake it till you make it.
Use your phone and take a couple of selfies with you wearing the product.
Ask your mom, ask your friend, and use that as a beginning for your ads and your website.
That content probably will work even better than a super expensive photo shoot or video
shoot for your product.
Everyone has a camera.
So it’s just a matter of time when you have to invest to actually achieve those things.
So let’s say I’ve tried all of these things out, and I’m getting some followers, but
they’re not converting into buyers.
What mistakes am I making?
Is there anything I’m missing?
You have to ask yourself, who are these followers?
If I’m offering t-shirts with a fisherman’s design, you’ll probably not buy my products.
You need someone who loves fishing.
I don’t know if fishermen use TikTok; maybe they have some community.
Maybe I can buy ads online and reach them there.
Or maybe I can do a collaboration with some fishermen brand to actually reach that audience.
You have to be a real expert in that niche.
Don’t try to start a business because you want to start a business.
Find the thing you’re passionate about, and all the other answers will come back into
the place.
You sort of end up finding your audience anyway.
Yeah, and probably you hang out with them.
Just ask your friends some questions.
What do you like?
Who do you follow on YouTube?
Who do you follow on TikTok?
Then you can build your marketing strategy, you can understand your audience better, and
then you will find somewhere online more people like them.
Does Printful offer any kind of resources to help our customers with marketing?
Yes, it’s in our interest that anyone who starts using Printful actually succeeds.
Because if you don’t have any sales, there’s no business for us.
That’s how our business model works.
And we have a lot of information, like almost anything you can imagine.
Printful Academy.
There are lessons for anyone from A to Z on how to start your print-on-demand store and
get to your first sale.
We have a lot of blogs on almost any topic you can imagine as well.
We have a YouTube channel where you’re actually watching this video.
We have a lot of videos there about almost any topic you can imagine.
So you can easily get this information.
You have to just find the time to watch it, read it, and implement that knowledge according
to your audience, so you can actually launch a store and be happy when you get your first
sale.
We have a group on Facebook, Printful Insiders, only for Printful registered users.
We have our community managers there as well.
You can ask questions.
The audience there and the community are pretty helpful to each other.
So you can ask questions there, ask for tips, and meet people like you who want to achieve
the same thing.
And it’s all kinds of people with different stores, with different niches.
You can really find your own there?
Yeah, there are different niches, but you have to learn from others, especially myself
as well.
When I’m running the Printful’s marketing team, I love to learn from others, so it’s
just an option to ask questions and tickle your mind to find the right answer, find the
right direction, and make the best decision possible to actually achieve your goals.
OK, that was super informative.
Thank you for coming and explaining all of these things to us.
If people have any questions, where can we find you?
Add me on LinkedIn.
So I post updates about Printful, and ask questions here in the comments, I will find
the time to answer them.
So which one of these marketing tips did you find most useful?
And if you happen to be an ecom pro, comment down below with the marketing tips that worked
for you.
By the way, did you know that you can join our active community of print-on-demand sellers
and learn more about ecommerce?
Here’s how.
Follow the link in the description and join our Printful Insiders group on Facebook.
We’ll see you there, thanks for watching.