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How to Start Your Own Merch Line

There are currently an estimated 50 million content creators worldwide.

Content creation has never been bigger than it is right now. It's made it possible for anyone to showcase their talents and produce online content that can be consumed by users all over the world.

As a content creator, there are various things you can do to build your brand and reach a wider audience. One thing that a lot of content creators are doing is creating a merch line. Having your own branded merchandise may seem unrealistic, but it may not be as difficult as you think.

In this guide, we'll discuss the many steps to creating your own merch line so that you can get started. Keep reading for more.

Why You Should Make Merch

Creating and selling custom merchandise will produce a new and passive income stream for you, and many people consider this to be the main advantage of it. With that being said, there are several other reasons to start a merch line.

More Engagement and Traffic
Releasing custom merch creates buzz around a brand. This will help bring more traffic to your social channel and/or website and allow your audience to interact with you in a deeper way.

Stronger Sense of Community and Belonging
Fans who buy your merch will feel a stronger connection to you and the rest of your fans. This helps them build a closer relationship to your brand, building loyalty and trust.

Better Brand Exposure
Good exposure is one of the best ways to grow your audience. A merch line will get visibility on your brand, and more people will be talking about it.

Fans Can Support You
Fans of creators are looking for new ways to show their support. This is a great way for them to do that, and they get something back for it.

Creating Your Own Custom Merch

At the most basic level, creating merch can involve just putting a logo on a shirt. If you want to build a quality merch line, however, there are several things you can do to ensure your merch is as good as it can be.

Define Your Brand
If you don't already have a brand identity, it’s important to establish one. This should align with the type of content you produce so that your brand and your content send the same message.

Consider what makes your brand unique, and emphasize this in the design and aesthetic of your merch. Your fans will be more likely to buy merch that effectively reflects your brand image. Promoteer can help you with designs that fit your brand.

Identify and Understand Your Target Audience
You likely have a solid audience already, and these are the people that your merch ideas will be focused on. Look into the personalities and shopping habits of people who consume your content. Think about things like age, gender, location, and other factors that will affect what kinds of products they typically buy.

One of the benefits of being a content creator is that you can easily interact with your audience. Ask them directly about what they want and you may get some helpful answers.

Research Other Content Creators
There are already plenty of other content creators that have merch lines. Look into what they're doing well, and what they're doing not so well. This will help you plan things out so that your merch line will sell from the start.

Brainstorm Different Ideas
When you have an understanding of what your fans want, you can work with your Promoteer Client Success Manager to start coming up with ideas. There are all kinds of merch choices such as:

• Shirts
• Hats
• Coffee mugs
• Drinkware like wine glasses, pilsners, and stainless-steel tumblers
• Bags
• Notebooks
• Phone cases
• Stickers

You don't need to cover everything, but if you know what your audience wants, you'll be able to start generating some initial ideas.

Create Your Designs and Select Your Products
With some concepts in your mind, you can start making different designs. If you're looking for the best merch partner, Promoteer is a great choice. We have years of experience in creating custom merchandise for small startups as well as major brands like Nike and Pokemon.
Quality is one of our main priorities. Delivering high-quality products to your customers will make them more likely to continue buying merch from you.

Marketing Your Merch

Once you've started making your merch, you need to sell it. Most people won't just stumble across it, so effective marketing is essential.

Generate Word of Mouth
If you already have a fanbase, one of the best ways to market your merch is through word-of-mouth. Encourage your audience to showcase themselves with any products they've bought from you. Anyone who follows them will see it, and you can then share this content on your own pages.

This is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to promote your merch. On top of that, your audience will feel more involved. This will help build a stronger community and greater brand loyalty.

You can even do things like competitions or promotions. For example, create an Instagram post or TikTok video showing you wearing or using your merch, and ask people to share it. Offer a prize to one randomly selected user who's shared the post. This will quickly get your brand out there.

Leverage Your Existing Channels
As a content creator, you're likely using various platforms. Make use of all of these to share information about your merch with your audience.

On YouTube, you can talk about your merch and provide links in the video description. A strong call to action to visit your storefront and place an order at the end of videos is always a good idea.

Instagram is another great platform where you can share posts and stories relating to your merch. This is also one of the best ways to get other people to share your content which can be very helpful. You can also use any other platform you're on, such as TikTok or Facebook, to reach all of your followers.

Tips That Can Help

All of this is essential if you want to make a successful merch line. Once you've got things going, you can work to reach a wider audience and increase your sales.

Make It Easy to Find
People on the internet these days put a lot of value on convenience. Many people won't bother looking too hard for your merch, so if it's difficult to find, you'll lose out on sales.

Use simple links and make the whole experience as easy as possible. A link-in bio tool such as Linktree can be helpful, and you can utilize the YouTube merch store as well.

Create Engaging Visuals
Using mockups and visuals is great for promotion. Photos and videos of yourself or friends/family wearing your merch are ideal for this. Make sure these visuals stand out so that people will take the time to look at them rather than just scrolling past them.

Vary the Content
If your merch promotion content is too repetitive, people will get bored of it quickly. Switch things up to keep it fresh so that people always have something new to engage with. Don't be afraid to get creative, and always try to think of new ideas.

How Promoteer Can Help

Our branding and merchandise expertise is ideal for any content creator. We can look at your brand and help in a way that's ideal for you. We’ll curate products and designs for your brand, set up your storefront, and handle all of the manufacturing, fulfillment, and customer service. We can also provide marketing tips and ongoing reporting on your sales.

You're a content creator first, so designing and selling merch may not be your forte. We can cater the entire process around you and your goals so that you can spend more time doing what you do best — creating content.

We're all about helping creators share their hard work with their fans and creating new opportunities. Your fans will be able to support you, and we can offer them products that smash current merch stereotypes.

How to Start Your Own Merch Line
Even with a guide like this one, understanding how to start your own merch line can be tricky. If you want to work with the best merch supplier to create products with a fresh feel that will stand out, Promoteer has got you covered.

Contact us today to find out more about how we can help you start your merch line today.