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Build Your Brand for FREE

You can launch a full-blown brand for FREE. No, really!

Merch allows you to take your brand to the next level at no extra cost. Spreadshop is a print on demand merch platform that is free and easy to use. You don’t need to be a marketing expert to launch your own brand. Spreadshop gives you all the tools you need to succeed.

See how merch can help you launch your brand!

Pick Your Colors

Colors are a great way to define your brand. If you have a distinct color palette, it makes it easier for people to identify you. Merch is a crucial part of this. Spreadshop has an array of color options for t-shirts, hoodies, and much more. And you can toggle off colors that don’t suit the style of your brand.

You also want to make sure this is carried through with your designs. Design tools like Canva allow you to upload your own color palette. You can easily create text and graphics that match the aesthetic of your brand on your own. Make sure you use these brand colors in the theme of your website. This makes for a more immersive experience for visitors of your shop.

Design Time!

Once you have your brand colors, and can have fun making merch designs for all kinds of products. Merch is more than just t-shirts, you know. Think about what designs would work best on tote bags or as stickers. Depending on the niche of your brand, you want to give your customers options that work for them and their lives.

Ask your followers or close friends for input on design ideas. They know you best and might have suggestions you wouldn’t have even thought of. That could be turning one of your catchphrases or a quirk you have into a design. You need to think outside of the box if you want your merch to stand out from the crowd. This is going to make your brand unbeatable.

Market Your Merch

Now that you’ve taken the time to build out your merch, it’s time to promote your brand! Let followers know that they can now support you by buying your merch line. Even though it might not seem like a big deal, it is! You took the steps to build your brand and launch your own custom merch. You better put some marketing force behind it.

Have continuity with your shop and socials through brand colors and continuing that aesthetic. Make short videos, do sneak peaks of designs, and have an official photoshoot for your merch. Building a brand is easy when you use Spreadshop!

How to Make Money as a Digital Artist

We know how tough it can be to make money as a digital artist. You can create amazing, quality work day and night, but how do you monetize it?

You need to know who you’re trying to reach with your art. This will make it easier to market yourself and make money in the long run. Build out your socials, offer paid workshops, and even sell your art on custom apparel.

See how you can start to make money as a digital artist!

Personalized Work

One of the best ways to make money from your art is to take commissions. If people love your design style, this is a great opportunity for you to work with them and create something custom. Offer different price points based on design time and consultation services. You set your rate!

Promote this service on your socials and have a link on the homepage of your website so people know this is an option for them. If you don’t have the following or resources to take commissions on your own, use a design service like Fiverr. They have thousands of digital artists offering their services for paid work. Use your design style and niche to your advantage when building your profile!

Get Followers

It’s obviously important to have a presence on socials. But it can be difficult to build up a following. Don’t try to do what everyone else is doing; be true to your own voice. That’s what will really help you grow.

Make sure your socials reflect your personality and showcase what your art is all about. Take people behind the scenes. Show your process of making a piece of art from beginning to end. People love this kind of content and it will help expose you to a whole new audience. It’s important to stay active on these platforms and create conversations that will generate engagement, and in turn, sales.

Paid Courses

If you’re comfortable with being on camera or doing video montages of your work, this can be a lucrative opportunity for you. Workshops are a great way to showcase your art while teaching other aspiring artists the skills they need to succeed.

These workshops don’t have to be overblown or complicated. You make them what you want them to be. If you have an art community in your town, consider doing this as an in-person at a local library or school. This is a great way to not only flex your schools as an artist, but as a working professional. And it looks great on a resume or website, too.

Put Your Art on Apparel

Sell your personal artwork on custom apparel! Print on demand merch services like Spreadshop make it easy for you to upload your art to hundreds of merch products and start selling. You can also customize the look and feel of your site to make it an experience for visitors.

And since it’s print on demand, you won’t need to have boxes of T-shirts sitting in your garage. We take care of the entire production and shipping process for you. You just need to promote your merch on socials, a weekly newsletter, where you can! When you launch your merch with Spreadshop, your customers can get 15 percent off orders for a limited time. So use that to your advantage!

Make and sell your own merch with Spreadshop. It’s FREE!

New Year, New Merch

It’s a new year, and that means it’s time for some new merch!

You can update the look and feel of your shop in just a few easy steps:

Exclusive Merch

If you want to drum up serious interest in your shop this year, you need to roll out limited edition merch designs. Tell your followers they only have a couple weeks or a month to purchase products with a design before it’s gone for good.

You can do this periodically throughout the year and even make your designs timely. Create a Valentine’s Day-themed design for February, or promote an annual summer event with exclusive merch. People like when they can get their hands on something that’s limited edition. It generates that FOMO feeling and can really drive sales to your shop when you put some marketing power behind these designs.

Stick With the Season

While it’s all well and good to have exciting new merch designs, you need to sell them on the right products. Make sure you alternate the products that are displayed on your homepage. Now’s the time to push hoodies and cozy pajama sets. Leave products like water bottles and tote bags for those hot, sunny days.

Your customers might not even realize you sell certain products in your shop. Merch is so much more than T-shirts, and a lot of people don’t realize that. Create marketing materials for your socials that highlight these special products. They might not know what they want until you show them.

Get Feedback

We’ve said it a thousand times, but the best way to know what merch your followers want from you is to just ask them. Be upfront and let them know you need their input on new designs for your shop. Ask them to vote on their favorites in a poll on Instagram, or offer design suggestions in the comment section for your latest YouTube video.

If you want to get your followers more involved, consider running a merch design contest. You can give the winner a small prize and and even send them FREE merch. Your followers will be more likely to buy your merch when they see you care about their involvement. You’ll generate interest in your new merch and creating meaningful conversations with your audience.

We hope these tips inspire you to create new merch for the new year!

Don’t have a shop? Launch your merch shop TODAY. It’s FREE!

How to Sell More Merch

You launched your merch, now what? Your merch isn’t going to sell itself. But it’s not as complicated as you might think.

Start selling when you target the right audience and market your merch effectively. We’ve seen a lot of shop owners find success using these strategies. They take the time to think about your niche and what potential customers would be interested in wearing. That’s key.

Here are some tips you can use to start selling more merch in under a week!

Create an Experience

The look of your shop can have a big impact on your sales. Potential customers will know immediately whether they connect with your merch or not. Make sure your site highlights your merch and showcases the aesthetic you want for your brand.

Pick the theme that works best for you and your merch needs. We personally love the CLASSIC theme. This allows you to have a banner across your homepage. Put a fun graphic of yourself or a photo that will stand out like Eric Feldman did for his online alter ego, Tami Langalang.

He made his Spreadshop look even more cohesive by continuing his brand colors throughout his site. When you use the classic theme you can also preview a number of products on your home page. This is a great place to feature new designs and products that match with the season, like hoodies for winter and tank tops for summer. You’ll make the purchasing decision easier for your customers.

Get the Word Out

No one’s going to know about your shop unless you talk about it. We’ve seen too many shop owners make this simple mistake. Even just telling your family and friends is so important. These are the people that are most eager to help and support you.

Before you roll out a whole online marketing strategy, make sure to tease your merch drop or at least mention your merch in your content. Talk about it in the intro for your latest YouTube video, or wear one of your designs and tag your shop in a TikTok post. This is a great way to drum up excitement before you officially launch your merch.

Start Promoting

Promotional materials are essential to selling more merch. Within a week of launching your merch, you should have quality photos, short videos, and call-to-action captions in your social posts.

Drummer and streamer Ludawissy recently launched her own merch. She did a great job rolling out her merch, especially on Twitter and Instagram. She took great photos of her rocking different products, like hoodies, tees, and hats. This is essential. People want to see real people in your merch, NOT stock models.

When you launch your merch, your customers can get 15% off your entire shop for a limited time. This is a great incentive for people – let them know! Make bold graphics that you can share on socials or you even add to your weekly newsletter or website. If you want to sell more merch, consider launching with exclusive designs that you’ll plan to expire in a couple weeks or a month. People want to feel like they’re part of something special, so give it to them.

The Right People

Having a niche is going to make it easier for you to market your brand and connect with the right people. When people launch their merch lines, they often don’t take the time to think about who their target audience is. As a result, they end up merch that appeals to a wide range of people, which can be difficult to sell. It’s important to have a clear understanding of who your target audience is so that you can create merch that speaks directly to them and sell merch.

Someone like Clueless Bushcraft, for instance, knows who his audience is: people who want to survive in the wilderness. His brand of content is a subsection for people interested in wildlife and the outdoors, but it’s niche enough to be its own thing. Like his audience, he’s new to learning a lot of these things. His merch features catchphrases he uses and other fun graphics. This survival 101 design fits perfectly into his brand. Having a niche may sound limiting, but it actually gives you the power to fully be yourself and market your merch effectively using appropriate hashtags and messaging.

Create Quality Designs

It’s important that your designs look official and not like something your kid brother made. You can create quality merch designs yourself in 5 minutes. FREE design tools like Canva have built-in graphics and text you can use to make your designs. You can make transparent designs and size them to your liking.

If you want something that feels more original, it’s worth it to hire a professional graphic designer. Ask your friend group if they know someone with design skills that wants to gain experience. Use a design service like Fiverr to find someone to fulfill your merch design needs. Search the kind of design or style you want and hundreds of designers will pop up. You can pay them a small fee for their services and get print-ready designs that will look great on all kinds of merch.

Start selling merch with these tips – open you own shop for FREE!

2022 Spreadshop Year in Review

2022 in review saw many big things happen here at Spreadshop. We had the opportunity to attend VidSummit, and connect with our creator advisory board and giveaway winners. We collaborated with more creators and announced new integrations that made it easier for people to make money selling merch.

At the start of year, we were looking forward to all of the possibilities ahead – which is what makes this year end review so exciting! We are thrilled to be able to look back on all that we’ve accomplished and the impact we’ve had on creators.

So what did 2022 hold for Spreadshop? Let’s take a look!

Athletes Making a Difference

For years, college athletes couldn’t accept partnerships or make money off their name due to NIL (name, image, likeness) legislation. We were one of the first print on demand merch providers to partner with college athletes once they were able to monetize their brand. This opportunity has inspired a lot of athletes to give back, like Amari Carter.

Amari – safety for the Miami Hurricanes – is creating change with his nonprofit, Survive Foundation, which provides food and resources to underserved, homeless communities. His merch has allowed him to raise money, and it’s also been a great way for him to promote his message.

Exclusive Merch Partnerships

Spreadshop partnered with experimental rap/rock band Flobots for exclusive merch drops on their tour last spring! Limited merch releases took place throughout their run of tour dates in the US. We’ve been a big fan of them for years, so it was exciting to help them with this exclusive merch.

Buying band merch online is a great option for people who can’t make it to a live show and still want to support their favorite artists. That’s why it’s so important that all bands (big or small) have accessible merch for their fans!

Clamour Creator Summit

We flew out to Arizona in May to attend the Clamour Creator Summit. We connected with some of our favorite content creators, like Mixed Tarxan and Rachel Pizzolato. It’s the only conference designed exclusively for online video creators.

Spreadshop was able to reach a new generation of creators that want to monetize their brand and connect with their fans.

Workshop with Modern Millie

At Spreadshop, we believe creators are more than just a “commodity” or a buzzword to be exploited. In the age of the “creator economy”, there’s more pressure than ever to produce and feed the “content machine”. That pressure also with comes anxiety, creative depression, and burnout.

That’s why we partnered with Modern Millie for a workshop about how to find your content compass. Once completing this workshop you’ll be able to:

– Establish and stay on track with hitting your ultimate goals/dreams.

– Stay true to YOU as you grow as a creator.

– Maintain healthy boundaries to prevent burnout.

– Stay on track with your content without added stress.

The workshop is completely FREE to watch, and best of all, you can work at your own pace!

More People Can Make Money on YouTube!

This year, YouTube announced they were adjusting the requirements for their product shelf, making it easier for more people to monetize their channels.

YouTube Shopping now allows eligible creators (with at least 1,000 subscribers) to showcase their products and official branded merchandise directly on Your audience might not follow you on every platform, so having merch accessible on your channel makes it easy to monetize your content. Stop stressing about AdSense and sell your products on YouTube!

VidSummit Trip and Giveaway

Spreadshop was able to send 3 lucky creators to VidSummit with an exclusive giveaway! The contest required participants to record a YouTube video answering questions about their passions and what they envision for their channel.

A wide range of creators responded to the video challenge. Their Youtube channels cover an awesome range of topics. Van travel, cryptocurrency, original music, fishing, social commentary, comedy, and history creators entered. Each one shows great potential and we know that they all have the ability to grow their channels and succeed as content creators.

Grand Prize Winner: Fishboss (RJ Macalanda)

Runner-ups: Vanderwoman (Christina Doppler) and The Banks Sisters (Keisha and Courtney Banks)

Creator Advisory Board

We announced the formation of the first ever Spreadshop Creator Advisory Board. This is a huge step in our journey of empowering creators. Bringing top notch creators into our internal conversations will keep creators at the forefront of the Spreadshop decision making process.

Since the beginning in 2002, creators, influencers and entrepreneurs have partnered with the Spread Group family of brands. Promoting made to order merchandise helps creators diversify revenue streams and grow their brands. Putting out merchandise boosts your bottom line and helps deepen connections with your followers.

Learn more about the 12 creators!

Spreadshop in Print!

Roberto Blake is one of the leading creators in the creator economy that’s helping motivate other creators to succeed and find ways to monetize their content. And he just published a book all about it!

In his new book, Create Something Awesome, Roberto explores the opportunities available for creators in the creator economy. He provides insights on how to unlock these opportunities and grow a successful channel as a full-time creator.

Roberto has helped hundreds of channels grow from zero to 100,000 subscribers and knows what it takes to succeed in the content game. In his book, he covers topics such as understanding the “creator mindset”, setting goals, and monetizing your channel. Spreadshop is proud to receive a shout out from Roberto in the book!

If you’re looking to get started in the creator economy or want to take your channel to the next level, Create Something Awesome is a must-read. Order your copy today!

Make and sell your own merch for FREE! Who knows, you might end up in our 2023 year in review.