- Tip number one is to make your merchandise
about your community and their identity
and not your face and not your logo.
And so what do I mean by this?
Well, what a lot of content creators tend
to do is they complain about their T-shirts
and merchandise not selling, but it's making it
all about themselves.
They slap their face or their logo on something
and expect people to buy it because they support them.
Now, as much as we all wanna be supported by our audience,
the thing is, that happens when you,
wait for it, create more value,
and what's gonna be valuable
to somebody is repping a T-shirt
or a hoodie that speaks more about who they are
instead of who you are.
So the best thing you can do is understand your community
and their culture and what really represents them.
Or you can lean directly into it, like I do,
with the Creator hats, hoodies, and T-shirts.
If you're a creator, you will want one of these,
and so I try to make them as interesting
and cool as possible, but I make it about you
and less about me, and that's why it works.
Tip number two is about design quality.
Not everybody can be a graphic designer
and a master of Adobe Illustrator,
Photoshop, and InDesign,
but you can hire someone who is.
Oh, not me.
I'm not making time for that.
But what you can do is you can hire somebody
on a website like Fiverr or Upwork.
Probably the best thing for most of you,
and the simplest thing, is going to be Fiverr.
I'll leave an affiliate link for you guys down below
if you wanna check out some designers over there.
But you're gonna find people within your budget
that can do a good job and help fulfill your creative vision
and make something dope for your community.
Design quality's important.
You can't just slap things together.
You can do simple designs.
You can do typography.
You can do those things, but also,
you don't have the background,
so sometimes you'll not know exactly
what you're doing and how to make sure
that it's quality and that it matches the specifications
of the design platform that you're using.
One of the other things I do like
about using Spreadshop, by the way,
who is today's sponsor,
you can sign up with a link for $0
in the description down below,
is they actually not only have in-platform design tools,
but if you wanna use something like Photoshop
or Adobe Illustrator, or your designer does,
they give you templates so that
there's much less wiggle room for errors
because you have exactly what you need.
You're asking your audience to buy and support something.
Make sure it's something that's of quality.
Tip number three.
Don't be afraid to plug your merch in your videos,
and one of the best ways to plug your merch is
to actually wear it in your videos
when you're promoting it.
And you can make this fun.
It doesn't have to be a sales pitch
and you don't have to feel scummy about doing it.
Just make it interesting.
Make it fun.
I don't mind if you shoot a 15-second cinematic ad
for yourself and make it a joke or make it a meme,
but it actually ends up being a meme in real life
in the fact that they can buy the thing
that you're talking about
and that you're making a joke about.
So I think one of the best things you could do is buy
your own merch, make it into your uniform
on your videos, and so you are literally endorsing
your own brand.
You are your own sponsor,
and any video that isn't sponsored,
sponsor your video yourself by plugging your own merchandise
and your own products.
This is YouTube salesmanship 101.
Plug your merch.
And speaking of plugs,
that brings us to today's sponsor, Spreadshop.
Spreadshop is probably the easiest
and most convenient way for content creators
to make extra money on YouTube
and other social media platforms by making
and selling their merchandise
and giving it to an audience that loves it
and wants to support them.
And the best part is Spreadshop costs $0 up-front,
and you can set your price and profit margins
to what you feel comfortable with
and what your audience can afford.
You can print on quality materials,
and like I said, it's $0 to sign up
and they have a lot of fantastic in-platform tools.
Thank you to my friends over at Spreadshop
for sponsoring this video,
and if you want to go step-by-step
through making your own merch
and you don't know where to start,
they also sponsored a free workshop here
on my YouTube channel that you can watch the replay of,
where we walk you through the entire process of making
and selling your own merchandise completely from scratch.
So both of those will be linked
in the description down below.
Thanks to Spreadshop, again, for sponsoring this video.
Tip number four.
Get samples of your merch.
You want physical samples of your merch
so that you can guarantee the experience to your audience,
and in the case of hats,
you'll know how they're going to look
and feel when somebody is rocking them out
in the streets.
So this is something really important
that I think a lot of content creators take for granted, is,
they don't get samples of their merch,
and then people complain when they wash them
or they don't understand why the colors don't match
what it is on the website, or whatever,
and that's another thing.
Just make sure, when you're posting this stuff,
don't over-edit any of your promo material.
That way, people have kind of an accurate sense
of the colors and something like that.
So just be careful about those things.
But it's really important to have physical samples
of your merch before you start pushing it heavily
to your audience, so that you can guarantee the quality.
Tip number five.
Speaking of promoting, you need to go ahead
and make promotional material and mock-ups
for your merchandise so that you can push this
across your other social media platforms,
like Twitter, Instagram, and your Community tab in YouTube.
A lot of you don't think about using your Community tab
to sell directly to your audience,
and the fact that it can reach people outside
of your subscribers.
And this is actually a great way to monetize on YouTube.
In fact, actually, I could probably make a video:
10 YouTube Monetization Tricks You're Probably Not Using.
That sounds like a really good idea for a video,
now that I think about it.
But yeah, the Community tab is an excellent way
to reach your audience with your merchandise,
and because you can use images in your Community tab,
it's perfect for doing these mock-ups.
Now, if you wanna make mock-ups
and you want a great tool to do that,
I'm gonna recommend placeit.net.
This is what I use for my print-on-demand products,
and I also use this for my digital products
in Awesome Creator Academy,
and I think that this is gonna be wildly useful for you
for a long time to come,
'cause technically I can also use this sometimes
when I wanna make some assets for my brand
or for, even, YouTube thumbnails, sometimes.
So it's something you should definitely look at.
Technically you could also look at Canva
for mock-ups, but for mock-ups, specifically,
of putting your designs on T-shirts,
I'm definitely gonna recommend Place it.
And a lot of content creators don't realize
this is what bigger YouTubers are doing, specifically.
Tip number six.
Highlight your community and the fans that buy from you.
A lot of you are having your audience tag you
in Twitter or Instagram, but you're not promoting them
and kind of shouting them out for buying your products
and saying thank you.
If somebody tags you and they're wearing your merchandise
in Instagram, go ahead and plug them
in your Instagram Stories.
It costs you nothing and it's a good way
to show love to the fans.
You should actually do it as often as possible,
and it's gonna encourage more people to buy
and more people to say, hey, I wanna feel
like I'm part of the community,
and then, hey, I'm gonna get a little bit
of a plug on Instagram?
Hey, that's a good reason to spend $15,
$20 on a hoodie or a T-shirt.
That's a good reason to go ahead
and buy some of your Creator merch.
That is something that can incentivize your audience
and celebrate your audience.
So if they're tagging you in Twitter and Instagram,
show them a little bit of love.
They've shown you love.
Give some of it back.
Reciprocate.
And there you go.
Six simple tips for making
and selling merchandise on YouTube.
It's gonna help you move some more of those hats,
T-shirts, and hoodies, and monetize your channel.
I hope this helps you, especially all of you new creators
who just got access to the YouTube Merch Shelf
and YouTube Shopping.
I know that you're really excited about that.
Used to be only 10,000 subscribers for you to have this.
Now, almost every single feature in YouTube is available
to you at 1,000 subscribers, if you're monetized.
So congratulations.
Welcome to the family.
If you enjoyed this video,
I have several other videos that you should absolutely watch
on monetizing your YouTube channel and making money.
But if you wanna specifically know
how to make merch from scratch,
remember, I have a free workshop,
and those will be linked in the description down below.
As always, thank you so much for watching
and don't forget, go out there
and create something awesome today.
Take care.