Be Remarkable
July 1, 2010 | 8 Comments »Every week I get a bunch of emails from people that are in the process of starting their own brand wanting to know how to market their company and get the “buzz” that will bring them customers. Traditional marketing people will suggest buying banner ads, implementing SEO, and adding affiliate links. While those methods may work for some companies depending on the industry, my advice for small startup brands is to not worry about any of those tactics.
I don’t currently do any paid advertising for Ugmonk. My main focus has always been creating unique, high-quality products. If people like them they will tell their friends and they will tell theirs and the word will continue to spread. My products are my marketing. If there’s nothing special or different about the products themselves, how can I expect people to want to buy them. Every tshirt design I create I put it through this simple test and ask: “Is this something that I personally would pay for and want to wear?” If not, then it’s back to the drawing board. Clothing brands are a dime a dozen these days, many struggling to survive, so more than ever it’s important to focus on creating products that are remarkable and will stand out from the masses.
For more on this topic, I highly recommend watching this great talk by Seth Godin on “Standing Out.”
Great advice. Thanks for sharing and keep doing great stuff.
I feel you! If you give them a product to talk about you will have your advertising. Quality comes first. I’m focusing on that.
Thanks for the great advise-putting into practice with my own shirt business!
Great read Jeff
#respect
Thanks guys. Glad you enjoyed the post.
Good stuff.
While I completely agree with you regarding product quality… I found your site because your store was featured on a creative website… which is marketing…which brought me to your website.
I think that it would do you and everyone else a disservice by not doing marketing of some sort. You have an amazing product, great! Market it and people will flock to you even faster.
@Tyler: Thanks for the comment. I think you may be confusing “marketing” with “paid advertising.” Doing some type of marketing is essential for any brand to grow, but I am suggesting focussing more on the products and less on doing paid advertising. In my opinion, there are other methods of marketing that are much more effective. More on that later.