My Tog Blog About Awesome Content Creation

My Merch Store Gets a Marketing Audit, with Grace Clemens

• Tim (Mytogblog) • Season 3 • Episode 32

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Having a merch store is cool! Having one that gets traffic and sales is even cooler.

Thanks to Riverside.fm for sponsoring this episode. It's the software I use for recording all my podcast interviews, and you can try it out with a 15% discount using the code MyTogBlog. Check it out using this link. (Note: This is an affiliate link, which means I would earn a commission if you purchase using this link.)

In this episode, Grace Clemens provides a digital marketing audit for my podcast merch store. Grace is a marketing professional with over 13 years of experience leading growth initiatives across various sectors, including managing digital strategies for projects such as the $100 million XPrize for Carbon Removal. 

She is currently the Founder and CEO of SCC Marketing, specializing in digital marketing audits that help eCommerce brands increase revenue and generate meaningful customer engagement.

If you'd like to contact Grace Clemens, check out her website or LinkedIn.

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Please note that some of the links shared below are affiliate links. That means if you purchase through these links, I or my guest will receive a commission.

Vexels Membership, My Teepublic Store, and Fiverr. 

Thanks for listening! Do you have a comment or question about a topic or episode? I'd love to hear that. Feel free to contact me via Instagram, LinkedIn, or the Contact Us page. You can also check out these links for resources and merch for content creators.

[00:00:00] Tim: Hey everyone, my name's Tim and this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Riverside. And since today we're talking graphic design, I thought it would be cool to take a few seconds to show you some of the graphic elements that you can add to your podcasts or YouTube videos using the Riverside editor.

[00:00:15] And so for example, one of the things you can do with the brand kit is add your logo anywhere on the screen. I'm going to put it in the top right corner there. It's really easy to upload this and then you can adjust the size to however you like. Next, you can add speaker labels and you can adjust the colors to match your brand style and also make sure that the words stand out on the video.

[00:00:40] And then you can adjust the positioning of the speaker label to wherever you like. And in addition to that, you can add titles for different sections to indicate what they're about. And then lastly, you can go into the design tab and add a cool border to make the whole thing look even more professional.

[00:00:57] Probably that's going to encourage people to visit your profiles or those of your guests. And make it more likely that they're going to give you a follow or reach out about information regarding services or potential collabs. Cool thing is that you can try this out for yourself by following the link in my description and using the code MyTogBlog.

[00:01:17] And now on to the show.  

[00:01:18] Intro Music

[00:01:23] Tim: So let's imagine this. You've just launched a brand new digital product or online store. Enthusiasm is high as you get it rolled out there. And people start checking it out. And you even get a few sales out of the gate. But then things start to slow down after the initial splash, and you're kind of left wondering what to do with this thing that you've created.

[00:01:42] That's where I've been at with my podcast merch store, which I launched close to when I started the podcast. And I think this is a situation that a lot of content creators or entrepreneurs find themselves in at some point. Because let's face it, these days an online store or digital product is relatively easy to whip up on your laptop in a very basic way.

[00:02:03] What's hard is to make it good. And to generate the traffic that will get you the feedback that you need to continue improving the product or store over time. And the initial challenge in this starts with generating that traffic. Because online stores don't market themselves, they don't generate their own publicity. We have to do that for them. 

[00:02:22] And that's why I was super excited to talk with Grace Clemens for this episode. Grace is a marketing professional with 13 years of experience specializing in digital marketing audits for e-commerce brands. She's led growth initiatives with companies across various industries, and that includes managing digital strategies for projects such as the 100 million XPRIZE in carbon removal, sponsored by the Musk Foundation.

[00:02:47] In our conversation, Grace shares some amazing tips that are relevant not only for my merch store but for anyone with a digital product or an e-commerce idea that they would want to market via digital marketing. Seriously, you're going to want to have a notebook for this one, so grab that and let's get into it.

[00:03:06] Hi, Grace, welcome to the show. 

[00:03:08] Grace: Thanks for having me. 

[00:03:10] Tim: Yeah, it's great to have a chance to talk with you. I've been excited because, as you know, I have a merch store connected with my podcast. I think merch stores are one of the lowest barrier to entry forms of monetization you can do with your podcast.

[00:03:24] So I got that going early. Had some fun creating some designs. I'm at that point where I'm not exactly sure where to take it next. And so having a chance to talk to someone who's a digital marketing expert, such as yourself, it's a really great opportunity and looking forward to what you have to say.

[00:03:42] Grace: Yeah, absolutely. And I've had a look through in terms of your website and your social media and the merch store, as well as your resources, you have some great resources on there.   

[00:03:53] And I'll go through a couple of marketing ideas that I had as well of. As some more sort of niche things as well. So I think the number one thing that I noticed about your social media content with the merch store is that you're not wearing your t-shirts in any of your content.

[00:04:09] Tim: That's a good point. Yeah. Fair point. Yeah. 

[00:04:12] Grace: I think that's the number one place to start. I would say pick your top 3 set best sellers, you know, the ones that you've sold the most stock out of maybe the top 5 top place to start and those are the ones you want to order samples of and make sure you're make sure you're always wearing at least 1 of your products in your video because if people see you wearing it, then they're more likely to say, oh, I can see myself wearing that.

[00:04:37] Especially that's 1 of my questions is. Who would you say your audience is for these T-shirts? Does it fall right into content creators only? I know you said you were targeting digital photographers. Who's your audience? 

[00:04:51] Tim: Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I started out doing photography mainly for designs because that's what I was sharing mainly on Instagram, and then as a creator, I migrated into doing podcasting and YouTube and more forms of content creation, so I started broadening the focus for the shirts as well, and then I was all over the place, I think, with offering shirts for different niches, but more recently I've tried to refine it a bit more, just like content creators, people like interested in creating photography and video content, and trying to focus more designs like just based around that.

[00:05:30] Grace: Okay, awesome, because I was wondering if gamers would fall into their sort of the twitch category because 

[00:05:36] Tim: Interesting 

[00:05:37] Grace: obvious to me that is. Just, you know, is having your guests on your podcast and also giving your T-shirts to any influencers that are out there. I think take talk is a huge platform for teaching people how to create content. I know myself, I often save a lot of creative ways to fill my ideas. I saw one of your videos pointing out a reflection, you know, I thought, oh, wow, this is a great piece of tip that would do well on TikTok. So I was thinking in terms of how you could expand who you do collaborations with.

[00:06:10] And if gamers and that Twitch, because I know people who are gamers and in the Twitch world can really have some incredible reach on there. 

[00:06:18] I think that's a really big piece that might be missing from your Merch Store is just having people out there wearing the product, and anytime you have people on the podcast or anything like that, just getting it's like product placement.

[00:06:32] So getting those shirts and even your other merch for, you know, the tech stuff. I also would say incorporating mentions of this stuff. So let's focus on email marketing for a minute. I think creating maybe a little bit of Merch promotion at say, the bottom of your emails, would be nice having it in your signature.

[00:06:53] It's great with emails because it doesn't have to be the entire email. It's a little thing. If you want to do a direct sales promo for the Merch, which is totally. Totally. Okay. I know when we talk about content strategies, we say, you know, 50, 40, 20, however you want 50, 40, 10, you want to break it down, but that 10 percent can be a direct sales and promo.

[00:07:16] So if you wanted to do, say, a t-shirt of the month, that could be an email that goes out, and it says, this is the T this is the t-shirt of the month. This is our bestseller. That's why. So really incorporating a little bit of promo into your emails, I think would be good. 

[00:07:31] Tim: That's a good idea, and I think TeePublic, they often have sales, so it would be a good time to advertise it that way, and on some platforms, you can also offer a discount code, so that's something you could do, too special discount for your subscribe, email subscribers, or something like that.

[00:07:48] Grace: Absolutely. Subscribers or anybody who is, you know, in your direct community, or if there's an incentive or an objective that you want, if you follow us here, you follow us there, whatever that objective is, you guys, yeah, tying that into a discount as well. I know you have a discount going on right now. That is a great incentive that says, 46 hours to buy with the countdown. That's great. 

[00:08:13] I would wonder if there was a Black Friday sale going on, you know, you can promote the Black Friday stuff, a gift guide, you know, you have the holidays coming up. So that's a great way to promote it is here are some of our best t-shirts and they're, you know, for the gifts. 

[00:08:28] Back to the audience point. Because I noticed on it was Benable, am I pronouncing that correctly? The description of your store on there, as well as on Podchaser, it's a little bit more elaborate, and that's something that I think that's missing from the MyTogBlog's merch store. I would add, both for SEO reasons and for the user to say, this is why I have t shirts. This is who they're for. And then this is a copy focus here, but also looking at your product descriptions and seeing if you can inject any personality into them. 

[00:09:10] Tim: That's good. 

[00:09:11] Grace: Because you are working with a creative audience, you can get creative and have fun. This has been done in the chefing industry a lot where they've had chef books that's all about, you know, swearing while they cook or things like Whatever your personality is, try to incorporate that product descriptions as well as the meaning the stories behind those designs. I saw you did a recent competition and you were asking people to vote for that. And that seemed to do quite well on your social channels.

[00:09:42] And that's because people love, you know, people love to see you getting involved in contests and that kind of stuff. But it would be great to put more meaning behind the t-shirts and maybe say, this is the story behind them, or this is where the design came from, or this is the meme or the trend. I think that's something you could definitely play.

[00:09:59] Tim: I like that. I really like that because, you know, I hadn't thought of it this way, but you just tweaked an idea that you could think of the shirt posts as posts, like as social media posts, and I often do even if I share a photo, I tell something, here's the story behind the photo that, how I got it, what it means. I could do more of that for sure with the with t-shirts, that's a really good point because often there is a story behind it.

[00:10:25] There's one in the competition right now, for example, that I put. It's just a silly one. It's this is my Christmas sweater. And it's about I don't know, if you go to office parties over your career, you know, sometimes people say like, where's your Christmas sweater? And I would never have one because I just never took the time. I'd get busy around the Christmas season and I'd forget about buying one. So I'm like, man, one day I should make a shirt. That's this is my Christmas sweater. So things like that. 

[00:10:51] Grace: Yeah, that's the way. 

[00:10:53] Tim: Yeah, that's great. I love that.

[00:10:56] Grace: Yeah, and then working and also into the copy, so I used to write product descriptions during my time at Silkthread and something I often did was try the clothes on and say, where can I imagine myself in this and what does it feel like and working in actual scenarios for the reader. 

[00:11:13] Tim: Yeah, we're 

[00:11:14] Grace: reading novels. The reason that make them. So the reason they feel so exciting to us is because there's such a detail that says, you know, the wind was blowing and I felt the dew on my face and the musk and the moonlight. You know, there's all little tiny details. So that's what I would try to do with product descriptions to say, where can you see yourself wearing this? Or if you're buying it for someone who can you see yourself buying this for? What does it feel like? What does it smell like? What does it make you feel like? Do you feel . You know, super cool in this T-shirt. 

[00:11:43] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:11:44] Grace: And that can be displayed through your actual content too, right? . So if you work with any influencers or any collaborators where you know, they have a certain vibe about them. And putting that vibe along with the T-shirt. So I think copy is definitely a place where you can step things up and just give a little bit more to the stories of the t-shirts. 

[00:12:03] Tim: Yeah, for sure. I just wanted to go back to what you said about also sharing the merch. 'cause I think that's a good idea. I started doing a little bit of that with, I got some stickers and magnets relating to the podcast. So just giving them out, like you say, sharing them with with guests.

[00:12:20] And it's good because it's like you're sending an acknowledgment for the people that are collaborating with you, but also they'll carry, if it's a mug or if it's a shirt, you know, they'll have it around and people might ask them about, you know, where's that from? You know, what show does that relate to?

[00:12:37] Grace: Exactly. These can also be great client gifts as well, because that usually encourages UGC. 

[00:12:45] from your clients. You know, I've bought a plant as a thank you gift to a sponsor before and they posted on LinkedIn, you know, thank you so much for this gift. And that usually is how it goes.

[00:12:55] Obviously, when you're gifting someone, you can't expect it. 

[00:12:58] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:12:59] Grace: Nine times out of 10, someone will want to take to LinkedIn or Twitter or wherever you're connected with them and say, wow, this was such a nice gift. I appreciate it. I received a T-shirt and an SEM rush T-shirt at a social media summit. And I wear that all the time. I love T-shirts. So you can't go wrong with that. 

[00:13:18] Tim: Same here. I got one. I did a collaboration with Dehancer and they sent me a T shirt and I'm like, I wear it a lot too. 

[00:13:26] Grace: Yeah, exactly. So I feel like sending them to your clients is another great kind of, you know, gifting way to encourage content.

[00:13:34] I think you are also taking a look at your e-commerce imagery. I think this will be 2 birds, 1 stone when you start. Taking pictures of yourself or somebody else, or getting content with the T-shirts in them, but something that really stood off the bat for me was I can't see any pictures of people actually wearing T-shirts when I'm shopping online for e-commerce; you'll notice sites like a sauce.

[00:13:58] They have a front side of back. They have a flat lay. They have video now. That's even important. And for me, especially with accessories and clothing, seeing the size of it on a person really does make a difference because you can see, okay, that earring as a, you can't tell the size. That's right. The same idea with the eCommerce going hand in with the detailed copy is really. What we want to give people the experience is that we want to be able to experience a product before it comes off the screen. And that's the hardest part. We have to sell smell, we have to sell touch, all of these things. 

[00:14:35] Tim: Yeah, it's one of the things about TeePublic is they tend to display the designs just as the, as a graphic design, and they have some mock ups, but they're pretty basic. So that, that's an interesting point, because if that's your only interface with the product, it is hard to get a sense of or it. Or, I would say it's even hard to create that desire because it's more just a static image of what the product could be, and unless there's something in your mind that says, oh, I would like to have that, I could see that it's not as effective for the sales process, yeah.

[00:15:06] Grace: And that's where I think your social media comes in. If you're not able to override that feature of the e commerce issue on a 3rd party site, which is reasonable, that happens. That's where your social and your personal content, your brand's content, is going to really fill in the blank. 

[00:15:24] The other option that I thought about, I don't know if it's possible tech wise is: can you somehow integrate that 3rd party website onto your website? So you have a storefront on your website with your branding and maybe your photos, and then if they want to shop they can click through, and go to the 3rd party site but I don't know if that's possible with tech 

[00:15:47] Tim: It is, like with there's a workaround for it I'll say, because like right now on my site I have a a link to tpublic, and I don't know that you can embed a tpublic store in your site, but what I could do is I could shift it to Printify or something like that, where you're like, getting basically, somebody else to print the t shirts. You can put up your own kind of e-commerce interface and create your own literally your own store within PodcastPage because you can control that site. You have really a lot of creative freedom for it. So I think that would be an interesting idea. I hadn't thought of that I'd always thought of driving traffic to another site. 

[00:16:26] The nice thing about Tpublic is they've taken care of a lot of the back end part of it, right, that they'll if there's any returns, or if there's any issues, they'll handle it And so it's a balance, but I could see taking like, I'd say some of my best designs, and maybe having them embedded within the site.

[00:16:43] And then also if you want to see more, here's a link kind of thing. And I will say It's potentially more profitable too when you're handling more of the back end part yourself, but you have to just do the extra two steps. That's all. 

[00:16:57] Grace: It would definitely be worth testing. You know, like we said before, starting with just your three top bestsellers like in general of promo always only pushing for, you know, the ones that you know people are buying. General rule of thumb is that's the one you want to promote because that's the one getting the most clicks and you know data wise that's going to be the most beneficial.

[00:17:19] I think that takes me to my next point which would be if you've experimented with any paid ads for it. 

[00:17:25] Tim: Yeah, I haven't. I have had done ads for like my social media profile before but I haven't done one in a while and I think it would be like it'd be interesting to test that. I'm really curious about how it would perform but I have a question for you related to related to ads and related to the target audience.

[00:17:45] Do you think there's a disconnect between like photography, video, and then okay, suddenly, graphic design trying to sell a t shirt, or do you think that it can be made to be cohesive enough? Because a lot of print on demand sellers. They just run a print on demand account, and they're just trying to sell their t-shirts that way.

[00:18:06] I think the drawback of that is that you don't always get the personality of the creator. It's more here's my print-on-demand store, here's my t-shirts, you know, please go to the site and buy my t-shirts. Whereas I'm trying to, I guess in a way go more of an influencer route with this where it's you know, people like your personal brand, maybe they like your content and they're also interested in content creation. So they perhaps might buy a shirt. Do you think that's a clean enough, buyer journey? 

[00:18:33] Grace: Yeah. Yeah, no, for sure. I do think so. I think it makes sense. I think for me, it's the question of what's the purpose of the t shirts. If you're selling them, that's all that matters. And if there isn't a clear purpose of why they need it and if there isn't like, a T shirt may not solve a solution for somebody. But that's where the story comes into play. Yes. Okay. That's where the story comes into play. That's where seeing it visually on other people comes into play. And also looking at the designs and thinking, how can we play on more trends as well?

[00:19:10] Because I feel like with your audience, there are so many memes out there. Like Charlie bit my finger, even that we all know and love and if you can maybe have a play on that or, you know, I think that's something just in general, because we have so much stuff to buy out there today. Really honing in on what makes your T-shirts a little bit more different and why they're a little bit more special in the marketplace. And most likely it's going to be the story behind it. 

[00:19:40] Tim: That's amazing, I hadn't thought about memes, but that really would be a great tie-in, or trends, anything that's hot at that time, people might want to buy the shirt to participate in that, or because they like that trend. And then the other thing, just in a larger sense, I guess my goal or my hope is that, I don't know, people that like my content, they might share my sense of humor, and then they would find something that I find funny, they'd also find it funny.

[00:20:05] Grace: Absolutely. Humor is the best selling tactic of all the selling tactics, especially on social media. 

[00:20:12] But I did have a cheeky peek in ads manager, so I knew you hadn't done any ads, but I think that would be a great place to really just test around. I've noticed Instagram is your most popular platform. Is that fair to say? 

[00:20:25] Tim: Correct. Yes. 

[00:20:26] Grace: Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, you're on all of them. I'm a little surprised there's not as much traction on TikTok, but I would say don't give up on it. 

[00:20:35] Tim: Yeah, thanks. I hadn't, I'm a little inconsistent on TikTok, so I think that's what it is. I'm trying to get a little more consistent, but like that's an interesting point too about Instagram. Just so folks know you can run an ad for 5, 10, you know, 15 bucks. It doesn't have, you don't have to break the bank to run an ad on Instagram, which is one of the things that I like. Some other platforms, I think Xapp, they have a higher minimum threshold for ads, so it's a little bit more investment, but yeah, I do like that idea about Instagram. And the other thing that I think is good about merch that other people might want to consider is that if you do get big enough on Instagram or TikTok, you can have a shop and then shoppable products. And I think you could even I could probably even do that now with Instagram like you said if I bought one of my own shirts for it and you could do like tag the product in the in the post so Lots of good options there.

[00:21:33] I'm getting lots of good ideas here. 

[00:21:35] Grace: I'm glad. And honestly, payouts are the best way to get any data. And like you said, I usually do when I'm testing a dollar a day for 7 to 10 days, you know, just to get a feel for what's working. And that e commerce imagery that we were talking about, that's really where you can get your answer.

[00:21:50] You can do an A B test and see which ad performs better. The original e commerce image does better than that's your answer. And my theory trumped, you know, but if it wins, then I've got proof. Yeah. 

[00:22:03] Tim: You know the beauty of this too is that's my content, is, I like to just test different things it's the almost like a theme of my channel let's test this thing and see what happens.

[00:22:13] And I I think ads is a really good idea, so it's like I could test it, and then make content about how the test went, and so it's you know, getting two things done at once. Yeah. 

[00:22:24] Grace: Two hearts, one stone. 

[00:22:25] Tim: Exactly. And they both, in a way, become ads, right? 

[00:22:29] Grace: Yes. For content marketing it never hurts to have that extra data, too.

[00:22:33] Tim: Yeah. Absolutely. 

[00:22:34] Grace: So something else that kind of falls under collaborations would be giveaways, which is, I'm wondering if you've done any giveaways? 

[00:22:41] Tim: I haven't. I like that idea too. You have any platforms you recommend to organize those? 

[00:22:47] Grace: Not necessarily. It's really about which platform you have the highest audience. And usually that's going to be Instagram for you because that's where you get the most engagement. 

[00:22:57] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:22:58] Grace: So it's the question of whether or not you want to collaborate with the giveaway and maybe team up with a brand, an influencer, or you just do it solo and say, you know, you have to follow me. And that's the plus of working with someone outside of just yourself. Is that you have immediate audience exposure and trust. 

[00:23:17] So I feel like a giveaway is usually you're going to get higher reach when you do work with another relevant brand. 

[00:23:24] Or any sponsors that you may have as well. 

[00:23:26] Tim: Yeah, I like that. And what would you envision as the kind of giveaway? It would be like something like, follow me and this post, and then how would you determine a winner? Did you have any ideas about that? 

[00:23:37] Grace: I'll have to check which websites I know there's a website that I used to use where you just take all the names and It randomly selects.

[00:23:43] Tim: Oh, I see. Yeah 

[00:23:45] Grace: Ethical Win. That's right, 

[00:23:46] Tim: right 

[00:23:48] Grace: But I always say no more than three steps to enter a Competition. 

[00:23:52] Tim: Yeah, 

[00:23:53] Grace: What is your end goal? And that's going to determine what those steps are. So an obvious would be Follow, like this post, and share it. Sharing is a great one because that's usually how things spread. But the other idea being is, you know, comment with something, asking your audience, something that might answer a future question for you or create content inspiration. So love that comment with your favorite content creator tips 

[00:24:25] Tim: like a poll. 

[00:24:27] Grace: Yeah. It's like a poll. But even 

[00:24:29] Tim: The biggest challenge, right?

[00:24:30] You can say, what's your biggest challenge? And then you like, based on that data, you've got content ideas. 

[00:24:36] Grace: Exactly. That's the beauty of it. So asking a question that benefits the viewers and yourself, so you can get some fun content out of it or some sort of conversation going. And then obviously a free prize would be one of the t shirts. And then if you can always say tag your friend who you think would love this t shirt or something. Anyway, to get people sharing.

[00:24:57] Tim: I like that. And it brings people into the community in a way, right? Getting more people to participate in the community. Somebody wins the shirt, they probably become even more of a loyal subscriber and all that. 

[00:25:09] Grace: And they'll probably post something saying, I won this Get yours here. Maybe you can even give them a discount code to share. People do love to have personalized discount codes. Obviously, depends on your profit margin. If you feel like that's worth giving a discount, Another thing that kind of is back to the discounts, but bundles, if you have any, buy to get one free, buy 50 percent off or.

[00:25:38] Is there, if you're a podcast follower, if you're a VIP podcast, podcaster in the community, you get this amount percentage off or anything like that, or you get, maybe you get behind the scenes of podcasts. So perks can also be outside perks of rather than a product, but better customer service or a free audit or something that you can provide to them.

[00:26:02] Tim: Yeah, no, that's a good, that's a great idea. 

[00:26:05] Grace: Yeah, for sure. And then, do you ask anyone for UGC now as it is? What's your kind of UGC strategy?

[00:26:13] Tim: I haven't because I haven't because I haven't done any giveaways or anything like that. I guess I haven't had as much opportunity for that, but that would be, that'd be interesting too.

[00:26:23] What I was going to say about the idea you just mentioned there with the giveaways, I think sometimes creators think of this in terms of a cost, right? Okay, if I run a giveaway, there's a cost to it for the product, sending it, all of that. But just the things that you mentioned, I think is worthwhile for people to think about because there is a cost involved in creating content. There's a cost involved in if you're just trying to promote that content, you know, with your time, whether you're commenting on other people's posts or whether you're, you know, trying to be more consistent in your post output, you know, to ramp that up. So it is you have to think of, I guess what I'm trying to say is think about cost-effectiveness, holistically, because you just shared a great example where someone would wear the shirt, they might share it, their friends might share it. And when you start to think about it this way, It's okay that maybe that is you know, twenty thirty dollars well spent 

[00:27:17] Grace: A hundred percent. The way we all look at it really is an investment, right? And the whole question of marketing is we can invest our money in a ton of things, but what's the best thing to invest it in? Especially for smaller companies. We have a smaller budget. We have to be super particular about what we spend our money on.

[00:27:35] You know, I would always stop and ask yourself, what's going to bring me the most ROI and the most long-term impact. Yes, it costs money to do PR, but. That ROI, you know, every time, say, there's a dog food company on Twitter that sends people a free, they send them a gift when their dog passes away. If you're a customer and it's such a genuine gesture, we'll always tweet about it and I guarantee you when you leave people with a lasting impression that makes them feel heard, valued and seen as a customer, especially in today's day and age, when we just feel like we can't even get a human on the phone, that lasting impact that you're making on a customer is totally worth 20 because they are going to spend another, you know, say 2000 in a year. 

[00:28:29] I know myself personally, if I go to a certain shop and I have a problem with a product, they say to me, we're going to honor your purchase and fix it. Or, you know, I will be back to that store and I will spend more money because I know that they honored the issue with the product I originally purchased. If they don't. I won't go back. There's no way. 

[00:28:53] Tim: Exactly. And just showing like you're saying is showing appreciation, creating a sense of community, all those things that really is an investment and like creating your brand. 

[00:29:02] Grace: It's an investment and it can't. It can't be faked. There's no way to fake authenticity or genuineness. And we've seen this, you know, in social, when brands try to get involved and it doesn't feel genuine, that's all it comes down to. And these kinds of gestures are the most genuine I find where it's literally just doing something nice for your customer, you know, saying, I know you're having a hard time. I'm going to give you a discount just out of kindness. Obviously, you can't do that with everybody, but usually you can gauge, you know, what's an appropriate situation. 

[00:29:39] Something I have encouraged companies to do is set a monthly budget for their employees. To gift to their customers and say, Oh, you know, you had an issue with this or whatever it may be finding opportunities to give back because that is an investment that is really just long term for people.

[00:29:59] Tim: Absolutely. 

[00:29:59] Grace: Yeah. So 1 other thing I would say is if there's any sort of seasonal drops or limited additions, that's going. That you can cause some sort of excitement around. I feel like limited edition is a psychological 1 that really always works with marketing. 

[00:30:18] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:30:19] Grace: We've dropped this meme. It's only available for the next 48 hours, and we're only selling 50 of them. I think that could be an interesting tactic of we've made this shirt, it's custom, and it's never being made again. 

[00:30:33] Tim: That's very interesting. You know, I so rarely see that with print on demand, but it is a very interesting approach because I know you, I know that who among us hasn't been sucked in by those ads where it's you know, 10 minutes left. This offer is going to expire and yeah, and it's the same idea. It works on the same principle. 

[00:30:55] Grace: Yeah. It works well. And obviously with clickbait, we like to keep ethical, but with limited edition, I know for myself, it works on me and I'm a marketer. So just round up all the points so far, cause we've covered most of them, but bundles and discounts, UGC, email marketing, seasonal drops and limited editions.

[00:31:16] Tim: Yeah. Thank you. 

[00:31:17] Grace: Merch stories, so stories behind your products, collaborations, paid ads, and giveaways. And the most important one is product placement, I feel in terms of making sure we, we get your t shirts seen off to people. 

[00:31:32] Tim: Amazing. Grace, you've given me like so much food for thought here. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about your background, because this has been some amazing advice, and you're obviously, you know, helping a lot of people out there. If people want to connect with you and learn more, or you could just maybe start by telling us a little bit about how you help other creators.

[00:31:55] Grace: Yeah, sure. So I'm a digital marketer of 13, almost 14 years. I can't believe it. I've been around since before Facebook ads even existed, but I have started. I studied at Queen Mary University of London, did my thesis on consumer psychology and social media and went right into B2B marketing from the get go.

[00:32:13] I was doing B2B marketing for about 3 years, and then I moved into fashion and did digital marketing in Fashion for four years, help take a company five times growth within those four years and then went freelance. After that, I had a couple of freelance jobs and consultancy in between there as well.

[00:32:31] Then I was picked up by X prize, which was a nonprofit and I oversaw the launch of the a hundred million dollar carbon removal, which was sponsored by Elon Musk. That was probably my largest project to date. And since then I've done audits and strategies for tons of different types of companies. Mainly e commerce is my focus, but, you know, I just finished a book launch strategy that went really well.

[00:32:53] I've done a lot of industries, but e commerce is my focus. So right now I'm offering digital marketing audits for social media and email marketing. You can find that on my website at Gracie Clemens dot. I also offer marketing strategies and consultancy. I also offer email copywriting, but that's a side surface.

[00:33:14] If you're interested in connecting with me, I'm on LinkedIn slash Grace Clemens or again, Gracie Clemens dot com, and you can have a look at my services, my client reviews. I even have some resources on there as well, and a blog and some case studies. So feel free to connect or reach out anytime. 

[00:33:33] Tim: Excellent.

[00:33:33] Amazing. I really have gotten a lot of good ideas, things I hadn't even, you know, reflected on before. So I really appreciate you spending some time with me today and encourage folks to check out your site and your services.

[00:33:48] Grace: Yeah. Thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure brainstorming with you. You know, it's always helpful to have a fresh set of eyes on your content because when we're in it, it's hard to see outside of it. So I'm really glad I could help. 

[00:34:01] Tim: Absolutely. Thank you.

[00:34:02] Okay, well, that was quite the truth bomb that Grace dropped right out of the gate there about wearing your own designs and your content. It's like, boom. 

[00:34:10] But it's true. If you want other people to believe in your product, then you need to show that you believe in it as the creator. And as Grace said, this is not only good for your brand image, but it's also a good form of organic online advertising.

[00:34:24] So for this episode, I'm actually wearing one of my own designs right here. It's the skyline of my hometown, London, Ontario. And there is a story behind the creation of this design because I didn't create it directly, but I had it created. Under my Vexels membership, in which you can actually commission their designers to create a design for you.

[00:34:45] You describe what you want and they'll make it. And so, I sent them a list of, um, iconic buildings in London. So we've got, like, University College. We've got, um, Courthouse. One London place. And, um, St. Peter's Basilica. Iconic London buildings here, um, which I had asked them to put in a skyline, and they did.

[00:35:08] This created this shirt, and this is the result. You can actually, uh, check it out in the link in the description, and it is one of my best selling designs. So this brings us to an important point that Grace made when it comes to telling the story behind your designs. Now, this is really great. Not only for the captions of social media posts, but also for the search optimization of the descriptions themselves.

[00:35:31] It lets you put more relevant content in there, and gives those designs a better chance of being found, and also a better chance of being purchased when they are found. As they say, stories sell. They add perceived value to the designs, and with the right buyer, they also can make all the difference with the buyer conversion.

[00:35:51] And that kind of brings us back to the larger issue about why I haven't worn the designs in my own content, or advertised them as much on social media as I could have. I mean, I've got the merch store, I've got the social media presence. Clearly, there was something that was holding me back. And that is the issue of going all in as a creator or a business person.

[00:36:14] And I don't mean all in in terms of like, that's the only thing you're gonna do. That's probably not a good idea off the bat. I mean going all in. In terms of being fearless about doing the things that you know need to be done in order to help you build something. 

[00:36:30] You see, when I started out, I thought the idea of the podcast merch store was cool. It kind of legitimizes the podcast and the brand and helps to build his profile. And as Matt Hughes said in our episode about YouTube monetization, it's kind of good because it gives people a way to engage with your brand. And support your brand while also getting something in return. 

[00:36:55] But at the same time, I was also faced with this hesitation in moving forward. And it's the same thing I know a lot of other creators and entrepreneurs struggle with. It's called imposter syndrome. Who was I to have a merch store? Who was I to design shirts or anything else for that matter? And wouldn't people just think this whole thing is silly? And I think that if you want to be a creator, you can't let this hold you back.

[00:37:19] First of all, you've got to realize that almost everyone feels this at first. Whether you're a content creator, a business person, or someone in an organization that's rose to a new position that's got more responsibility than you've had before. It's a natural reaction to putting yourself or your work out there and stretching beyond your comfort zone.

[00:37:40] It's gonna feel uncomfortable. And it's only through doing the thing over time that feeling ever really goes away. And it can still come back. I mean, it never really, I think, completely leaves us. But it lessens over time, and you know, you can manage it. It's kind of a lot like when you first start teaching. You know, you feel kind of uncomfortable doing it, because you haven't done it before. And gradually, um, you fit into the role, you get accustomed to it, and it just becomes part of what you do. 

[00:38:12] And secondly, because imposter syndrome is such a common issue, it's actually an opportunity to demonstrate leadership as a content creator by pushing through it and setting the example for others in your community so that they can push through it too.

[00:38:28] Okay, so let's round this out with where I think that a merch store fits within the broader monetization strategy for a podcast or YouTube channel. So as I've joked about before your merch store is probably not going to be part of your retirement strategy. If you think about it, with TeePublic the average sale commission that you get is between two and four dollars. So even if you made like 250 sales within a year, you're probably only looking at five to six hundred dollars in revenue 

[00:38:59] But let's think about this for a minute. Five to six hundred dollars is gonna give you more than enough to hire a professional thumbnail designer from a site like Fiverr. And there you're gonna be able to never have to design a thumbnail again, the thumbnails you do use are going to probably produce better results than what you're able to produce yourself -- unless you're actually a graphic designer have a lot of experience designing YouTube thumbnails -- so you're going to get Better results on your videos, more click throughs, more time.

[00:39:30] And then, when it comes to something like AdSense, once you've got AdSense revenue coming in, you've already got your thumbnails taken care of, you can actually use the AdSense revenue to do something like hire a video editor, which is going to free up even more of your time, going to produce better videos, and going to help you focus mainly on things like strategy and ideation, and the key things that can help to keep scaling your channel up. 

[00:39:58] And so I think that one of the mistakes that part time creators make sometimes is that they want to go from nothing to having a big full time income. off of YouTube or their podcasts, and it's just not realistic. If you want to get to that upper level, you've got to start somewhere down here, somewhere where you're taking the initial revenue that you're getting from the podcast or YouTube channel and investing it in infrastructure that will actually build the foundation of something that can be scaled up to something higher, because now you've got a team behind you and it is going to take, realistically, a team to get to that level. If you look at all the big creators, almost all of them have some kind of team that they're working with that helps them do all of the things that they need to do to produce content at that level and scale.

[00:40:50] And so what you can imagine here is a multi-pronged income stream approach where you've got things like the merch store, affiliate sales, sponsorships, AdSense revenue, all kind of feeding into providing you with the resources to get these team members that can help to scale things up. 

[00:41:13] Or if nothing else, these kind of monetization options are going to give you options as a content creator. Because if you want to dial back your own, uh, amount of time that you're spending on YouTube channel. Having access to team members who are familiar with your content and how you work. It's going to make it easier for you to do that and it's going to help you maintain consistency over time even at times when you yourself can't spend as much time on the podcast, you know, for various reasons that we all have those reasons that come up.

[00:41:48] And so this is really a great part of the solution to that. But, you know, monetization is only one aspect of growing a successful podcast or YouTube channel. And if you want to learn more about three other aspects that I talk about, then you're going to watch this next video here, called Save Your Podcast, where I go into other things that'll help you in the future.

[00:42:11] Thanks for watching. I hope you've enjoyed this episode, and we'll see you in the next one.