Using Special Offers To Sell More Tee Shirts

As a whole, humans are programmed to avoid loss and danger. Without this basic instinct, the human race would have a difficult time surviving. Subconsciously, humans are constantly watching for cues that might suggest danger or the possibility of experiencing dramatic loss that lead them to flee or evade the problem as quickly as possible.

In fact, our nervous system is fine tuned to make us react quickly when signs of danger or loss present themselves. There are many stories of mothers who have exhibited nearly superhuman strength and lifted whole cars off their babies who were caught underneath. How could this happen? The idea of the loss of their child was so unbearable that the nervous system kicked in to give them the boost they needed to overcome that problem. It made them act in more extraordinary ways than normal to take action immediately.

Obviously, losing money or an opportunity can never be compared with the potential loss of a child, although the same dynamics are at play. A possible loss of money or opportunity can create a sense of urgency. The greater the potential loss, the more the nervous system kicks in to take immediate action. That’s why most financial experts warn that people are risk adverse and shouldn’t watch the stock market. If they do and see their investments drop substantially, they pull their money out instead of waiting for the market to correct itself. This is because the loss triggered a subconscious risk that caused them to take immediate and emotional action, rather than to think the situation out.

This works in the sales arena because if you give your prospect time to think about other options, odds are they’ll either think up more objections or decide to buy from someone else. It may not even be a better t-shirt, just better marketed. If they aren’t given a reason each time they come into contact with your brand as to why they shouldn’t walk away and give it some thought, it can become the most damaging of objections to your sales effort simply because once you are out of sight, it’s guaranteed you are out of mind.

Taking Advantage Of Human Programming

Your offer will have to invoke a sense of urgency since over the internet you do not have your prospect in front of you as in a physical store location. You can push this as much or as little as you like. You can simply call prices “introductory” and not say anything about whether the price will change in the future or not. But, the word implies that something can change later down the line. On the other hand, you could clearly state that it is a one-time or a limited time price to create more of a sense of urgency.

There are even more creative ways you can invoke a sense of loss and they have nothing to do with a time element. This is what can make them very effective. You really aren’t rushing anyone, but you give the implication that if a potential customer doesn’t rush themselves, they will experience a loss. An example of this would be if you offer a specific t-shirt as a limited edition that will not be printed again after the current inventory is sold. Well, there is not an actual time frame that you’ve mentioned or a time limit on the offer, but you’ve very effectively lit a fire under most visitors due to the potential for loss of the chance to get that t-shirt in the future.

Another way to invoke a sense of urgency is when it’s a matter of style or status. When is the best time to get something that really sets you apart from others? When the product is first released. If it is going to be a sought after t-shirt design, then your potential customer will have to get one before they are all sold. This is a powerful marketing strategy that can even help with pre-sales, so that prospect can reserve a t-shirt before it is even printed.

This type of logic is also used when marketers say:”Be the first to own this fully loaded cell phone.” Or, whatever the product might be. They are hoping to increase your sense of urgency by getting people to jostle for being the first in line to buy their product. After all, once everyone has one then it’s not such a big deal anymore and the urgency is lost.

Making your offer in a way that creates an impulse to take action and buy is very important to online sales. If you can’t get that urgency across, people will drift off to some other site or activity and be gone for good.

You want to make sure that your visitor understands why it is important for them to make that purchase now and know that you are offering a great deal that they shouldn’t pass up!

Anthony Marsh is the owner of Popular Threadz and Crack Smoking Shirts. He runs the online resource TeeBiz.com and the t-shirt community TeeBurb.com.

Selling Tee Shirts Through Social Networking

Some of the most visited sites daily on the internet are various social networks. The largest demographic of these sites are the people who purchase the most tee shirts of any other group. There are many tee shirt brands that have launched to success with just a small beginning presence on a social network.

Depending on which network your strategy will differ according to their individual policies. Some networks allow open promotion of your product while others don’t. You can bring in external content to build up your profile on some networks but not others. They all have their own methods of keeping in touch with other people, whether it is through profiles, messaging or a blogging platform. It is impossible to provide a run down on just one way to use all social networking sites. Of course, you can build from a simple starting place that most incorporate:

Set up a profile with information about your brand and develop an authentic personality for the specific social network,

Search out and contact friends and associates you already know who are members of the network.

Explore their friends lists and look for others you may already have in common and invite those people to join you.

Get involved in the networking and keep your profile updated and fresh with new content. Add photos, videos and do blog postings.

Stay active, visit daily to answer any inquiries or requests and put in the effort to make new friends.

Join groups and make comments using a signature line to link back to your website

Network with as many people as you can and identify major players to connect with. Use the site’s tools to search for others who fit into your target market and make contact with them.

Check out any applications or features of the network that can be used for building more contacts and marketing your brand.

Develop strategies to funnel your friends and contacts to your blog or website if you are not allowed to openly market

Even though social networking is a fancy term, exactly like in real life it’s still all about making friends and influencing people.

There is a continually growing number of social networks. Myspace and Facebook may be the largest, other sites can also bring more sales for your brand like Bebo, Friendster, Hi5 and Orkut to name a few. There are also thousands of smaller sites that appeal to different niches and are also worth exploring if your shirt designs target those interests. One example would be if you sold t-shirts targeted towards dog owners then Dogster or Pawspot could be a good place to start a presence.

One of the ways to build a successful network is to constantly stay in touch with people. As your network grows, this task will become harder and harder to do if you belong to a number of social networks. This is where Twitter.com comes in. You can update your contacts and friends on a multiple number of social networking sites about your every activity if you want.

People have used Twitter at times when they were getting fired or laid off, giving minute by minute details of what was happening, and by the power of social networking had a job again or offers almost immediately. How can this happen? The people on the social networking sites found a persons story so compelling it caught the attention of others who wanted to help. Twitter has a way of engaging people with a constant stream of by the minute news, which many find intriguing and compelling.

Successfully using social networks to sell t-shirts isn’t instant and will not happen overnight. If you start now in building your presence, before you know it, you can have viable marketing channels hitting the right demographics that will produce sales for your shirts.

The more time you spend and explore each site, the more successful strategies you will come across that people have used to develop a strong presence. As with everything else you do to increase your tee shirt sales, always be sure to cross link all of your efforts to create a vortex that will eventually pull in customers and make sales.

Anthony Marsh is the owner of Popular Threadz and Crack Smoking Shirts. He runs the online resource TeeBiz.com and the t-shirt community TeeBurb.com.

An Advanced Strategy To Sell More T-Shirts

Plenty of t-shirt sites offer specials. Buy three get one free, free shipping of orders totaling a certain amount, percentage off an order and a bunch of others to increase the amount of the purchase. One method that isn’t seen too often is the standard up sell. Many large online retailers use this method successfully, but it appears that most t-shirt sellers have been convinced that the shortest path to checkout is the most successful which it may not always be.

Most customers are creatures of habit and basic human nature is what it is. With this knowledge visitors can be converted into customers. If you monitor your customer’s actions you can identify when a visitor is triggered to get out their credit card, and use that information to develop a strategy to improve your sales efforts. If you understand what triggers create sales you can come up with a plan that will work on a large portion of your buyers.

If you learn to exploit a visitor’s tendencies to develop habits, you have everything you need to create sales that become larger and larger as the person becomes more involved with your site. Obviously, this will sell more shirts and make more profit.

For a habit to work for you, you need to drive a visitor to complete a purchase. For example, you’ll understand how this works to create larger sales if you’ve ever been to a deli. Say you order up a pound of roast beef, the employee will put more than that amount on the scale, never less. Then they’ll ask you if you want some taken off or if it is okay.

As the customer making the request you have already committed yourself to the pound of roast beef you asked for. Now, most of the time someone will say that the additional roast beef is just fine, not wanting to make a big deal of it. It normally doesn’t stop there, when you are handed the roast beef you are then asked if there is anything else you need. You’ve already committed to a purchase so there is a good chance that you would be inclined to purchase additional items like some cheddar cheese.

The reason this works is because you originally committed to a purchase and asking for additional items is taking advantage of the habit you’ve already exhibited. On the outside it may just seem like a little additional money here and there, But if it done to every single customer that is encountered, it can multiply into a significant amount.

This is a strategy that works with retail sales, but can be many times more powerful on the internet. If you can get a visitor to commit to a small sale at the beginning and during the checkout process, present them with additional items, it is surprising how the amount of the purchase will grow.

If you’ve ever registered a domain name with Godaddy you understand the concept. First, you pick the name which has a minimum one year registration, but a 2 year registration is automatically set for you, doubling the order amount right off. As you proceed through the checkout process you are offered the opportunity to add a whole slew of additional products and services to your order like hosting, email, additional domain names and more. There is a simple reason why they do this and that is because it works.

Now, you’re not selling domain names or lunch meat, so how can this work for your t-shirt site? Let’s say you have a new shirt and for a limited time you are offering it at a special price. A visitor recognizes that getting that shirt at your special price is too good to pass up, then adds it to his or her cart and begins to check out. That visitor is then presented with another special offer on a second shirt or say a package of limited edition prints that is only available to them when purchasing the first shirt. If the second shirt or package is added to the order the total of the sale increases as do your profits.

You don’t want to overload your customer with too many options and you may only want to use this strategy from time to time so not to wear it out. If you use your imagination you can come up with all kinds of offers that can increase the amount of a sale and add to your bottom line using this type of strategy.

Anthony Marsh is the owner of Popular Threadz and Crack Smoking Shirts. He runs the online resource TeeBiz.com and the t-shirt community TeeBurb.com.