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Use Merch as a Fundraiser For Your Nonprofit

Making merch is a great way to raise money for your nonprofit. Get donations AND provide supporters with a reminder of your organization.

Merch allows you to build your brand and connect with people in your community. Think about how you want to represent your brand. Keep your mission in mind when it comes to the marketing of your nonprofit and merch. By following these tips, you’ll be on your way to making great nonprofit merch that will help raise money for your cause!

Make Money Easily With Merch

Do you want to raise money for your nonprofit, but don’t have a lot of time or money to invest? Merch is the perfect solution! Setting up a Spreadshop is quick and easy, and best of all, it’s FREE.

You can start selling in minutes, and donate 100 percent or a portion (it’s up to you) of profits to your cause. Let people know where the money is going when you’re promoting your merch so they’re more motivated to support you. It will also make them feel better about their purchase. Merch allows you to personalize your nonprofit. You don’t want to feel like a faceless organization – people will be less motivated to make donations or merch purchases. We’re all about the power of personalization and designing and selling your merch plays a big part in that. It’s also a great way to build your brand.

Build Your Brand For the Better

When you think about branding your nonprofit, merch isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. But incorporating your logo, graphics, and brand colors onto merchandise is a great way to raise money and solidify your nonprofit as a recognizable entity. You’re already a brand, whether you know it or not.

People are more likely to donate to a cause they feel connected to, so by creating merch with your branding, you are building a stronger sense of community and connection with potential donors. And when people see your branded merch around town, they’ll be more likely to learn about your nonprofit and what you do – which is exactly what you want! It’s going to boost brand recognition, overall. The more people see your logo and your colors, the more likely they are to remember you.

Market Your Mission Effectively

Ad campaigns work well for large corporations, but not everyone has that kind of cash. For small nonprofits, merch is a useful promotional tool that costs a fraction of these big budget campaigns. And Spreadshop does all the heavy lifting for you. We’ve got payments, production, fulfillment, and shipping covered. All you have to do is upload your designs.

Sure, ads can be targeted to different demographics and wide-reaching, but merch feels more personal. Your merch itself would even make for good promotional posts on socials. Do giveaways on your social media asking people to follow you and comment for the chance to win merch. Take photos of volunteers and supporters at events in your merch for authentic marketing material. This kind of post is going to be beneficial on multiple fronts. You’ll increase social engagement, draw attention to your business, and bring awareness to new merch.

Merch Has Extra Value

Making merch is not only an efficient marketing initiative, but a chance for you to showcase the values of your nonprofit. Partners and supporters will associate you with your merch. This can create more responsibility, but should be taken seriously to benefit your organization. You will become a unique and engaging brand. Whether that’s people investing in your resources, or sharing your social media posts, it’s all beneficial.

The t-shirt may as well be the new business card. Sure, business cards are still important to help build brand exposure, but merch leaves a lasting impression a piece of paper can’t. Having merch on-hand when you’re at community events or large fundraisers is going to set you apart. You want people to remember what you’re about long after the events of the day have wrapped up.

Merch is a fun and easy way for you to raise funds for your nonprofit. It’s also going to help you build you brand and give you more visibility. Start marketing your mission with merch!

Making and selling your own merch is FREE with Spreadshop.

Why You Need to Make Band Merch

Are you a musician looking for a way to connect with your fans and generate some additional income? Then you need to make some merch!

Band merch is a great tool for small musicians. It helps you to promote your music and form a deeper connection your fans. It’s also a great revenue stream considered streaming services like Spotify pay artists pennies. See how some of our shop owners/musicans are using band merch to their advantage:

Create Your Logo

A logo is an important branding tool. It makes your band look more professional, and becomes an identifier for fans of your music. Your logo can also sway potential fans. It sounds shallow, but it can have an impact on whether people listen to your music. It should reflect the style or vibe you are portraying with your sound.

Talkalots wanted to make their band merch look simple, yet feel unique. So they used a couple versions of their logo for merch designs, which are available to shop on hoodies, hats, and buttons. They looked at other bands’ logos for inspiration, which is something they’d recommend to artists looking to create their own. As long as you don’t try to rip off material and credit it as your own. Having those influences and inspirations is important.

Your logo can dictate what the rest of your band merch and branding looks like. But it’s just the jumping off point.

Build on Your Likeness

You can start to have more fun with your band merch after you design a good logo. Trestles are an indie band based in Santa Cruz, California. They started their band when they were in high school and started selling merch right away. They saw that they could form a connection with their fans and began experimenting what they could do with their merch designs.

“The first Trestles merch drop was literally a sketch that our bass player, Sophia, drew on the back of a flyer while we wear waiting to go on at a show. We liked the drawing so much that we digitized it and released it as our first drop.”

These kind of ideas can take your band merch to the next level. You don’t need to play it safe all the time. When you’re comfortable in your music and know who your audience is, it makes it easier to take risks and do something different.

Make Exclusive Online 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 an artist. Want to drive sales? Make your releases exclusive so people are more motivated to make purchases. That’s what Flobots did!

They partnered with Spreadshop for exclusive merch drops on their tour this spring. Limited merch drops happened for fans that couldn’t make it out to the live shows. Having an online presence is so important for bands today, and it’s important that your merch is a reflection of that. This also makes it easy to promote to people on socials: you just direct them to the shop link in your bio.

Stylize Your Show Promotion

Have a big show coming up? Preparing for a mini tour? Use band merch to get the word out ahead of time. Make posters and post them to bulletin boards in your community. Make buttons and stickers with your band name to hand out to people who buy a ticket in advance.

Anton Johansen is a singer/songwriter who promotes his brand of grunge rock by playing live in his community. We love the poster he created for a show he was playing! You can create designs like this using design tools like Canva. They provide you with tons of different templates and graphics to play with. You don’t need to be a professional designer to create band merch.

Band merch is more than just stylizing your sound, it’s taking the next step in your musical career. These shops know how to brand themselves because they know their music. Are you ready to take that step?

Start making and selling your own band merch for FREE with Spreadshop!

Scheduling Tools For Your Brand

Scheduling tools are great for managing your brand. You can plan content weeks or months in advance that will post automatically. This way, you have more time to focus on the day-to-day aspects of your business.

When you can plan content like this, it also gives you the opportunity to get the most out of it. Recycle old posts or find new ways to promote a piece of content. A social media scheduling tool is going to make your life so much easier. There are a lot of scheduling tools out there, so how do you choose the right one? We have some options for you to consider:

Buffalo Your Content

Before we get into the scheduling tools, it’s important that you have a good method when it comes to creating your content. Back on the plains, the Native Americans used every piece of a buffalo when they killed it: they didn’t let anything go to waste. Different parts of the buffalo would be used for food, clothing, shelter, and tools. That’s also a great way to approach social media content and marketing!

It all starts with one good piece of social media content. Could be ablog post or a long form podcast, etc. You take that content and chop it up into different segments. But it shouldn’t be a copy and paste situation; it’s all about serving the socials and being authentic with your tone of voice. For example, you’ll likely have a different voice on Youtube than you do on TikTok.

It takes time and effort to craft something like a blog post, so make sure you’re using it for all its worth. Don’t go on to the next thing without considering how much value you can get out of that one piece of content. Your posts will be plentiful and consistent when you stick to this content method. And it’s easy to do that when you use a good scheduling tool.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is one of the most popular scheduling tools on the market. They’re a trusted brand used by big companies and small creative teams, alike. Their business model is built for collaboration and integrates with the most popular social platforms. You can do so much from Hootsuite that you don’t even need to sign-in from your individual social channels.

See what your followers are saying and responding to right from your Hootsuite inbox. Monitor engagement with your posts on all social channels – this makes responding to comments and re-sharing content so much easier. The social analytics dashboard also allows you to see what content is trending or not meeting expectations. This is useful in determining what you want your social strategy to be moving forward. You can even chat with co-workers and collaborators within Hootsuite – no Slack channel needed!

You can start Hootsuite with a 30-day FREE trial, and after that you can pick what kind of plan you want. A professional plan allows one user to access the platform and up to 10 social accounts to be connected. The team plan grants three users access with integration for up to 20 accounts. If this isn’t the right fit for you, don’t worry, there’s other options.

Metricool

Metricool is a more affordable option for small creators and businesses just starting their brand. It covers all the core aspects of your business: social posts, ads, and reports. It’s also easy to navigate for people who don’t have experience managing content calendars and dealing with the promotion of their product or services.

The FREE version of Metricool allows you to connect one profile per social platform. You can run ads on Google, Facebook, and TikTok and track their performance. You also have access to all scheduling features to best plan and manage your content. Even access Instagram Story analytics and more within Metricool. If you want to view reports of your social performance you need to be on the Pro 5 plan ($18 monthly).

You can consult this data anytime you need to so you can improve your strategy. Beyond that, you can also monitor your competitors’ strategies to see what people are doing within your field. Knowing what works for you and is successful in the market is only going to make it easier for you to grow your brand.

CoSchedule

Another leading social media scheduling tool is CoSchedule. CoSchedule allows you to manage posts and social projects. This is a great option for individuals or teams that need manage a lot of different content: socials, video, blog, etc. You can decipher content by colors to make your work flow go smoother.

CoSchedule has a FREE tier, but their monthly plan ($29) gives you way more features. Add more social accounts and manage work flow with different templates and lifecycles for your content. This is using the buffalo content method to its fullest – you’ll be getting more out of your content and save time and effort in the process. This automatic life cycling of posts will help ensure you always have a stacked content calendar.

You can even select certain posts to be part of a ReQueue. This content will automatically go out on days where there’s nothing already scheduled for that social channel. It’s a great backup when you find yourself away on vacation or tied up in other aspects of your business.

Airtable

Airtable prides themselves on the fact that you can begin building on day one. They have templates that will help you fulfill whatever content needs you have, which feels less overwhelming to people new to social media marketing. Airtable gives you the power of personalization. It allows you or individuals of your team to focus on the things that matter most.

Pick extensions from their Marketplace that will help you take your brand to the next level. Add a color palette that houses your brand colors and makes it easy to generate quick content. Visualize data through different charts if you want to get a bigger perspective. Add Google Hangouts so its easy for you and your team to jump on a quick call. They have more extensions to use, but what you get is also up to the plan you choose:

– FREE: 1 extension

– Plus ($12 monthly): 3 extensions

– Pro ($24 monthly): 10 extensions

Airtable wants you to pick solutions that work for your business, whether that’s paid or unpaid. They provide you with the ability to scale your business however you see fit.

We hope this gave you a better idea of some of the scheduling tools that are out there. Determining what kind of content you want to promote and what you want your business model to be will make it easier when choosing a scheduling tool for your socials. And your whole brand will run smoother!

Merch is a great way to promote your brand. Start making and selling your own merch for FREE today!

10 Mistakes People Make Selling Merch

Spreadshop makes it easy to make and sell your own merch, but promoting and generating merch sales can be an endeavor. There are mistakes every first-time shop owner makes. There are ways to avoid them, though.

Being authentic and connecting with your audience is key. If your merch doesn’t resonate with them, they’re not going to buy it. That’s why it’s important to get specific and tap into your niche. It’s better to have a small group of supportive followers than a large community that doesn’t engage with your content/endeavors.

We hope knowing these 10 common mistakes merch sellers will save you some time and frustration when you launch or revamp your merch!

Word of Mouth

Its cliche, but word of mouth is still one of the most effective tools for businesses big and small. Thanks to the different social channels we use, it’s more amplified than ever. If you have merch or a new project you’re working on, no one’s going to know unless you talk about it. And it doesn’t have to be something profound, either.

It can be as simple as directing someone to the link in your bio at the end of a TikTok or Twitter post. It’s important for social content to be informative and have a call to action so your followers will engage with your content. And the content doesn’t have to be related to merch, necessarily. It’s just a good reminder for people who might not see everyone of your posts on their feed.

Word of mouth can mean good old-fashion networking, too. Talking about your brand at in-person events or community spaces online is important to see growth. You’ll attract potential costumers and collaborators the more you intersect with different creators. And it’s only going to make you feel more comfortable talking about your merch.

Don’t Want to Hear It

Creating merch designs that resonate with your customers AND generate sales can be difficult. So, why not go directly to the source? Your followers have a different perspective of your brand and content than you do. They might know you better than you know yourself. They’re more likely to catch on to the fact that you repeat certain “catch phrases” or have mannerisms you do over and over. Use this to your advantage to help create merch that has a meaningful connection to your audience.

If your followers are more involved in the design process, they’re more likely to buy your merch. It shows you value their opinion and understand how important they are to your success. Here are some ideas for how to engage them:

– Ask an open-ended question in posts

– Run a poll so people can pick their favorite design

– Go live to talk about your merch

Having Trouble Finding Your Audience?

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 market effectively. 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.

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.

Build on Your Brand

As a shop owner, it’s important to make sure that your merch designs are an accurate reflection of your brand. Unfortunately, many shops don’t take the time to flesh out their designs, resulting in merch that doesn’t feel authentic or representative of who they are trying to sell to.

If you want your merch to be a true reflection of your brand, there are a few things you can do. Take the time to design your merch with intention. Consider what message you want to communicate with your designs, and make sure that they are cohesive with the overall aesthetic of your brand. Canva is a great tool for this. You can upload your brand colors and any logos you may have. Plus, they have a large stock library of images and graphics to choose from.

But don’t be afraid to experiment! Try out different design elements and see what resonates with your audience. Then you can ask for their feedback on socials. This will make the design process feel way less intimidating.

Make Your Shop a Stylized Experience

How your website looks will directly impact your sales. If it looks unfinished, people won’t feel comfortable making purchases. Spreadshop gives you the power of personalization, so use it to your advantage! We have different themes you can use to highlight different aspects of your brand. You can put your products front and center, or make it feel more like a part of your brand. Our classic theme allows you to have a banner on your homepage. This is a great place to put a picture of yourself or team.

It gives customers reassurance to see you took the time to have these details. It also will make you feel more confident when you’re out there selling your merch. Having pride in your brand will only propel you to achieve greater success.

You Don’t Have to Do it Alone

People often think they have to do everything on their own when it comes to their merch line. But that’s not true! Asking for help from friends and family can be a huge help. And you never know, they may have some great ideas for product photos or merch design. Use the people in your life and you’ll be surprised at how much support you have.

If there are small businesses in your community that you admire, ask them how they found success. Most people are more than willing to help people just starting their business journey. At Spreadshop, we have so many small business owners that use as for their merch needs. Selling merch is a great tool to grow your small business.

Compliment Your Merch With Great Photos

Most of the time your merch designs don’t sell themselves – you’ve got to put some extra effort in! That’s why you need to have high quality photos of people wearing your merch. It seems simple enough, but it can be a determining factor on whether your followers connect with your brand or not. It also makes for great social media content.

Shop owner Nikki Connected is killing it with the merch photos on her Instagram! People are going to buy her merch cause they follow her Youtube channel and like her content, so it only makes sense for her to be in the pictures to make that connection stronger. This way, she’s the face of her brand without having to put photos of her face on a t-shirt. If you don’t feel comfortable being in front of the camera, recruit people in your life to be in photos. Use it as an excuse to get together with friends you haven’t seen in ages. Plus, you’ll get a nice memory out of the experience.

Amplify Your Merch With a Microphone

Some people get nervous about the idea of “selling” something. But if you have the platform, you might as well use it. Don’t be scared to cross promote your merch. Your followers follow you for a reason and would love to show their support. Talk about it on a podcast you host, or your Youtube channel. You never know who might be interested in buying some merch to support your work!

Plus, merch is a great way to make extra money and keep your fans happy. So go ahead and give them the chance to show their love for you by buying your merch!

Merch Makes Good Content

Since we have so many products, you can find any kind of merch you want to feature in your content. The easy way: wear a t-shirt whenever you go about making your everyday content. But there’s ways to make your content AND merch feel more stylized. Incorporate unique items like fanny packs and bucket hats when you’re making trendy or fashion-related videos. Even use merch as a way to teach your audience something.

Clueless Bushcraft made a TikTok testing our water bottles in frigid temperatures. He discovered that our insulted water bottle prevented water from freezing, and that our regular water bottle would come in handy if you needed to boil water. He found a unique way to promote his merch but still provide value with his content. These are the kind of tips and tricks that his audience wants to learn from him. How can you use merch in your content?

Figure Out Your Brand

You already have all the tools needed to build a brand, you just don’t know it yet. Celebrities and corporations aren’t the only ones capable of branding. Creators, artists and more are in a position to brand themselves. And it doesn’t have to feel overwhelming.

Spreadshop is here to help bridge the gap between creator and consumer. Merch helps deepen that relationship and is essential in building a brand. But you may think: “What can I make for my merch?” You have an online presence that’s worth something, whether you have 100 or 100,000 followers. Discover what makes you unique and sets you apart from other creators. Your followers should be involved in the process. Find your logo/brand imagery, identify what you want to say that’s going to make an impact. Building a brand isn’t as daunting once you start to break it down.

If you avoid these 10 common mistakes, there’s no telling how far you can take your merch. Open your own Spreadshop and start making and selling your own merch for FREE!

Merch For Summer

It’s officially summer! And with a new season comes a whole new wardrobe. We have merch for whatever you’ve got planned this summer: camping, baseball games, or even just lounging by the pool.

There are some pretty amazing people that use Spreadshop for their merch needs, so we thought we’d give them a shoutout! Here are some shops selling some of the must-have merch items for summer 2022:

CFL Plants

You can’t go wrong with a classic white tee – it never goes out of style! Cayla is a passionate plant mom that runs CFL Plants, a plant swap business. She cares about the impact plants have on her community and wants to educate others on how they can be the best plant parents. Her merch is clean and aesthetically pleasing. She has different phrases she uses and logos that reflect her social handles and look of her business.

We love how her logo looks with the different plant leaves. This would be perfect for other plant parents to wear while they tend to their garden; white is the most breathable option, after all. We also like the idea of wearing a white tee over a swimsuit, by the pool or on the beach.

Windy’s World

If you’re into Minecraft or pixelated art in general, Windy’s World has some summer merch for you! They create original pixel art designed to brighten your day, like this super cute cinch backpack (cat not included, unfortunately).

This type of backpack is perfect for a day where nothing’s set in stone and you need room for all your essentials. Throw one of our reusable water bottles in there and same protein bars if you’re going on a hike. Taking a day trip to the beach? Store your bathing suit, sunscreen, and a book perfectly in this backpack. You can even personalize it with buttons or patches, like Windy’s World did with buttons they also sell in their shop.

Junkyard Fox

Junkyard Fox has a pretty great shop motto: for those that go out and get their boots dirty. If you’ve got any hiking or camping trips planned this summer, they’re gonna help fulfill your merch AND survival needs. Their Youtube channel teaches viewers how to adapt to the wilderness through hunting, gathering, and other survival tips.

Camper mugs are an essential merch item for the summer in more ways than one. Use them for hot coffee in the morning, or for mixed drinks at night. We even like the way they look as decor on shelves. But camper mugs can also come in handy if you need to boil water over a fire and don’t have a pot or larger container. We love a multipurpose item!

Soso_Swag

The best thing about merch: seeing your fans, friends, and family wear it. TikTok creator Sophia, soso_swag, has found a dedicated following on the platform thanks to her hilarious content. She posts fun commentary videos about what it’s like to be a lesbian in the dating world. And it’s resonating with her audience! We love this photo one of her followers snapped in her merch.

Tie dye is a summer staple. It’s timeless like the white tee, but in a different way. There’s a fun, hippie sensibility to it and it really makes different merch designs pop. Tie dye is perfect attire for whatever you’ve got planned this summer.

Nikki Connected

Nikki Connected has been a content creator for 7 years and just dropped her own merch for the first time! Designed with girl bosses and hustlers in mind, her shop is a perfect representation of her brand as a finance blogger. And she’s got some fun merch items to bring out your inner girl boss this summer.

Also available in red, navy, and heather gray, this baseball cap is perfect for shielding your face from the sun. Put a logo or a fun design on the front. If you’re looking for cute summer graphics to design with, Canva has plenty of options to choose from. Make merch that your friends and family will envy!

We hope this inspired you to get some summer merch essentials. But why not sell them in your very own shop? Launch your Spreadshop for FREE today!