Moteefe Live: The Hidden POD Sales Formula
Moteefe Live: The Hidden POD Sales Formula
There are certain strategies sellers can use when it comes to creating and marketing their Print on Demand products. In this weekās live stream, POD experts Thomas Gentleman and Aidan Kessell share the hidden POD sales formula that has helped them succeed in the POD industry.
Some of the topics they cover include:Ā
- 01:20 – Find a high passion nicheĀ
- 05:55 – Use personalized textĀ
- 07:47 – Create readable artwork
- 10:54 – Test, test, test!
Donāt have 30 minutes to spare?Ā Hereās a summary of what you missed:
Find a high passion niche
Find an interest that inspires and motivates a group of people.Ā Though many hobbies and activities are considered niches, they may not be considered a high passion niche.Ā Cooking and exercising can be a chore for many people.Ā However, cooking can be a high passion niche if you are targeting chefs.Ā Exercising can be a high passion niche if you niche down to activities like power lifting, cross fit, or cycling.Ā Ā
Use personalized text
When creating phrases for your design, donāt use generic phrases and statements.Ā Instead, try incorporating more pronouns like āIā or āmeā.Ā Using first-person pronouns helps make the phrasing a bit more personal to the wearer.Ā Instead of āIā or āme,ā you can also use specific occupations or familial roles.
Create readable artwork
The next stage is artwork that’s readable. Although there may be a market for quick hand drawn art, itās better to create digital art work designed specifically for POD. It is important that the design is clear, large and legible to the human eye. Based on our sellersā experiences, the buyers that tend to buy POD products are usually a little bit older. This means you need to create designs that include big text that can be easily read.
Test, test, test!
Ā Testing is the only way to determine what does and does not work, so might as well use this as a learning opportunity.
“So what’s a high passion, niche? Well, cooking is a high passion, niche. Cooking is a chore. Hoovering is not a high passion. It’s a chore, ironing is a chore. But being a chef, if you’re a chef or a sous chef, lots of different types of chef out there, then that’s a high passion.”
Learn more
If you are still aiming to increase your POD knowledge, use our free resources to help you increase sales in your POD business:
- Moteefe SchoolĀ – A free 13-video Teachable course taught by POD expert Thomas Gentleman.Ā The course takes you through the process of how to create original POD designs, advertise your product and use Facebook Ads.
- Moteefe x Marcazo Global Facebook Group Ā –Ā Join our community Facebook group and connect with active sellers who are keen to share their experiences and knowledge on all things POD.
- Moteefe Live streams – Moteefeās YouTube channel features live streams every Thursday with POD experts Thomas Gentleman and Aidan Kessell.
- Facebook Ads Translation GuideĀ – A downloadable PDF containing common phrases in multiple languages for marketing purposes.
You can watch the full live stream on YouTubeĀ or read the transcription below.Ā Want to be notified next time we go live?Ā Donāt forget to tune in every Thursday for weekly live streams with Thomas and Aidan where they discuss all things Print on Demand!
Contrast is important to make the design stand outāPop.
ā Thomas Gentleman
Full transcription
[00:00:01.040] – Aidan
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to this week’s Live Stream. We were talking about the POD hidden sales formula, where we’re going to be talking with none other than Thomas Johnson about this formula and how you can use it to increase your sales. Tell us, how are you?
[00:00:18.950] – Thomas
I’m good. And hello, everybody out there. I hope you’re doing well. Yes. So welcome to our weekly show, where we take you through the the journey of selling POD products with Moteefe Moteefe.com. So the hidden the hidden formula, the secret formula, secret sauce, whatever you want to call it, and our secret sauce is just catch up, there is really something here. So what makes the difference? What what do you need to do?
[00:00:50.390] – Thomas
What do you need to put together to formulate to actually generate sales in 2021 with POD? It’s quite simple, but often overlooked. You need to put a design. In front of the right people where that design will resonate and they will buy it now, there’s a few steps here. The first thing that you need to do is to find buyers. Now, everybody buy something that you want, people that are passionate enough about what you’re going to be selling them or what they’re already doing.
Find a high passion niche
[00:01:23.920] – Thomas
But when you put something in front of them, you interrupt their flow as they scroll through on social media and they see your ad or wherever they see your advert that they’re going to stop that, click on your ad, go through, make a purchase. So you need to find people that are extremely passionate about what they’re doing, love what they’re doing, want to show it off, want to walk around with a shirt on that talks about what they do or a mug that says what they’re doing on it and really represent publicly their interest.
[00:02:03.400] – Thomas
So what’s a high passion, niche? Well, cooking is a high passion, niche. Cooking is a chore. Hoovering is not a high passion. It’s a chore, ironing is a chore. But being a chef, if you’re a chef, chef, a sous chef, lots of different types of chef out there, then that’s a high passion. This is your profession is something that people tend to be passionate about. Not all chefs are as rich as the TV chefs are.
[00:02:39.680] – Thomas
It’s actually, for most chefs, something that they’re doing because they love to cook and they love to be in the environment of a kitchen and money, although important. So they too can eat is not their primary focus. Their primary focus is that they’re doing it for the love of doing it. And they’re the kind of people that when they are not in the kitchen or maybe when they are in the kitchen as well, when they’re not in the kitchen, they will want to walk around with a design or a product with a design on that product to show off to the rest of the world.
[00:03:14.300] – Thomas
That their chef. Yeah. Does that make sense?
[00:03:19.230] – Aidan
That makes perfect sense, and it’s and it’s getting something from it and it hits home and it just clicks and resonates with them. So like, sorry, as we talk about this and I every now I have I have designs pop up in my head and it. Could you talk about money? Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it can buy you sharp knives because head chefs and chefs love sharp knives. That could be something that hits home and resonates with them.
[00:03:46.380] – Aidan
What would you think? And maybe box that’s in the maybe box. The man, the Mr. Sous Chef, I don’t know something. Whatever it is. The point is that you found you identify people that want to buy. That will be. Will be buyers in the end, so there’s no point in designing, even if it’s a great idea and it would really resonate with the people that are doing that particular thing. Now, you might of course, this is a big plan out there.
[00:04:13.960] – Aidan
There will be some people to want to buy a shirt that says I love ironing the the man, the myth, the collar starcher. But on the whole. No, no, no, no. So you want to find a high passion niche that’s big enough to support a bit of scaling as well. So there’s lots of things out there that will be high passion, ideally. Have a look. If you’re looking for a new niche, you’re looking for something to sell.
[00:04:44.110] – Aidan
Have a look around and see what you think is already selling. Because, you know, if it’s already working for somebody else, there’s a good chance that you can sell into that same niche. I hear a lot of talk about saturated niches, this nation’s saturated, etc. It’s not saturated, is big and it’s popular and people are buying. That’s why people are making more designs for it. Unsaturated niches at this point is that on the whole, probably aren’t going to be great for you now.
[00:05:09.370] – Aidan
There will always be niche niches, little niches that you can tap into. You know, this is print on demand with Moteefe. There is a demand for certain things that you could be flexible with and have some hyper targeting and get into some small groups. But really, you want to try and concentrate on the higher passion stuff, the higher content. Bikers love biking. They wear t shirts as well. Accounts that might live like biking, but they’re going to wear a t shirt.
[00:05:35.800] – Aidan
Maybe not. They won’t. Maybe they will. Maybe they won’t. Who knows? It’s 2021, all sorts of wild stuff going on. Some people aren’t even wearing ties. Who who knew this could happen? So. Yeah, so. Hyper hyper targeting works, but basically it’s still got to be high passion, so you take the high passion, you find something that’s high passion. Now you’ve got to put an offer in front of them.
Use personalized text
[00:06:00.530] – Aidan
You’ve got to come up with an idea that’s going to work. Words that people like to buy on their products are not cooking is wonderful or being a chef is wonderful. Have you ever considered being a chef? Thank you to all the chefs out there. That isn’t what the key is to tie into them personally. This guy loves preparing broccoli. I know this guy loves being a chef. This guy at World’s greatest chef, world’s number one chef, father, hero, sous chef, legend, that’s the kind of stuff that people want to walk around in.
[00:06:41.450] – Aidan
All I want for Christmas is a chopping board. This is the kind of stuff that because it ties it into the I into them, it’s not general about the thing. It’s my eye and my my children. My my favourite daughter bought me a T-shirt. Her name is Aiden, but is not a girl’s name. Well, maybe it’s who knows. It doesn’t matter. You get the point. That’s the kind of stuff that ties it in then if you can add personalisation in that name.
[00:07:10.670] – Aidan
So world’s greatest chef, my favourite daughter Anna told me. So that ties in to the nation and at that layer of personalisation. So now you’ve got high, high passion and an idea, a design idea with me, my I, i those words, that self identifying words or words that identify closely with a loved one, a relative, a friend, very, very good for this kind of thing. Always works no better.
Create readable artwork
[00:07:42.980] – Aidan
It’s quite a powerful triple combo. Yeah. You can go ahead and boom, you’ve got high passion, nature of what they’re into and what they’re about. Self identity, how they perceive their self image. I might and then use adding if you are adding a relation. Yeah. Brother, sister, mother, daughter, whatever. And adding like an emotional connection and emotional ties. Well to.
[00:08:04.850] – Thomas
Yeah. So that’s obviously you’re going to need good artwork. The next stage is artwork that’s readable. Right. Not a hand drawn thing that no one can read. People are scrolling through social media. People are moving through the internet. Hyper warp speed. Yeah. Mind engage, make it so as they say. So they are going through 100 miles an hour. Imagine how many million miles of news feeds get scrolled every day. You have to stand out.
[00:08:33.590] – Thomas
You have to be readable. People that buy a little bit older. Some of those people are a little myopic. That means that they have to wear glasses because they’re short sighted. Not everybody that’s short sighted will admit that they need glasses or have glasses on hand. So you want to remember that accessibility. Imagine that you’re designing for somebody that can’t really say that. Slightly squinted. That’s the kind of readability that the text, big words, big, beautiful words.
[00:09:02.900] – Aidan
So in terms of using that for an area, it’s not about using half, it’s about making the most of it.
[00:09:08.990] – Thomas
That’s it. A few words big that are readable are better than the perfectly formed two hundred words that no one’s ever going to be able to say or small text, a big, beautiful words and then high contrast so you can see accessibility. You you wouldn’t put a grey box on a grey background and then expect people to be able to click on that box. You want high contrast. So if you’ve got a dark coloured shirt, use light coloured text, use some high light colours like yellow on dark blue works very well that just draw draw you in maybe a heart, a red also that helps with just some visibility.
[00:09:49.740] – Thomas
It stands out if you’re designing something that’s going onto a light product. Dark, dark text. Black, dark blue, dark, dark, green, dark, dark, dark. By contrast, you want to get the contrast right up. Then when you take that product, when you take that image and you put it onto a mock up, take the mock up into Photoshop, don’t just leave the mock up and push the contrast up a little bit.
[00:10:16.370] – Thomas
Now, you still want it to be representative of the final design. This is just you know, you don’t overdo it. You’re gonna blow it right out. You don’t want to make push the saturation up. So people are expecting some shining, backlit, glowing Taisha that’s going to light up the room when they walk in, although some buyers will do. Be careful about that, avoid glitter, avoid those kinds of effects. That’s all. No good.
Test, test, test!
[00:10:42.350] – Thomas
So high contrast. Mock up, good, mock up, you want to zoom right in on the mock up, so you’ve got the text if it’s a sharp bang, right, filling the whole screen bang all the way wherever we are. Fill it up. You can zoom in. 20 percent tax roll has been removed by Facebook. Still might charge you a little bit more for ads with higher tax levels. Just make sure it’s readable. Just make sure it’s readable.
[00:11:07.020] – Thomas
So do take it in Photoshop. Push a contrast up a little bit. You can take the vibrance up a tiny bit, but don’t overdo it because you do want a good representation of the product and then is just about testing. If you’ve got a good design, you can test for three, four or five dollars. Where do they find out that half the time, Facebook ads and the free free Moteefe Facebook ads course, which you can find in the YouTube link description for YouTube or on the Facebook group, you can actually go to Moteefe DOT school and there’s the course there.
[00:11:42.330] – Thomas
Or if even you struggle with that, if you own Facebook group, message me and I’ll give you all the links and more whatever you need.
[00:11:49.680] – Thomas
W w w dot Moteefe dot school, not dot com. After that, that’s these new high level domains, top level domains. So we are living in the future.
[00:12:00.570] – Thomas
We are living in the future and it’s powered by print on demand with Moteefe. That is the future, the future of production and the future of all things. E-commerce is the demand meeting the demand with the production. So that of course, with Moteefe you don’t have to have a lot of stock. It’s a beautiful, beautiful business model. You come up with an idea, so you’ve got all of these things. Do you have to print 500 T-shirts?
[00:12:25.890] – Thomas
Do you have to pay us any money? No, you don’t have to do anything. We only produce we only print when the demand has come in. When the order comes in, then we make it especially for the seller, for the buyer, for your buyer, print it, send it directly to them through our worldwide network of production facilities dotted strategically around close to the major buyer locations. So if your buyer orders in Coventry, Colorado or any other city that I can’t think of Copenhagen.
[00:12:58.800] – Thomas
Yeah, always pick an easier letter than that. But anyway, Cologne straight from the production facility to their door in the minimum amount of time, cutting down on the delivery time, the carbon impact, if you will, if you’re into that kind of thing and some of you are of of the delivery and of the production. No warehousing. And that means that. As much as the profit, as much of that can be passed on to from from us to our users, and you can also keep your your prices down for your buyers, it’s a wonderful way to do business.
[00:13:37.450] – Thomas
It works fantastically well. We have thousands upon thousands upon thousands of users from all around the world making money in this way online.
[00:13:50.150] – Aidan
And fantastic, if you shout, I’ll get back to all of your comments later today. No doubt there’s some really good comments about Marcus. Earlier when I mentioned my design, he liked it, said, you know, there are people who like to design ideas as we see every day with some of the things that our users upload. There is no accounting for taste.
[00:14:16.550] – Aidan
Who knows? This is it. Until you test it. You don’t know. You don’t know. It could be the greatest thing ever. This is it. So this is why testing for three, four or five dollars is important. And you might take that design, do three or four different versions of it, upload it, get it out, find that it does. Well, it does. Okay. You might you might want to come up with the next version of that three different slightly different pieces of text, test, test, test.
[00:14:40.770] – Aidan
You can test for two, three, four or five dollars a design even in the United States, which is one of the more expensive locations to sell, celebrate, but a great market. We encourage people to definitely run everywhere. I, Aidan, has access. If you’re sitting on Moteefe, you can contact Aidin or Anna are the customer success manager and drive your sales through the roof. How how you ask? Because your design would almost certainly be in at least in one language.
[00:15:13.340] – Aidan
One language I would have thought not to. Maybe you’ve got something out there with the crossover, but one language and that’s setting. So you’ve got to in English are setting in the United States. It’s selling well, it’s doing well. How do you scale you contact out and you say, Aidin, it’s winning is beautiful. Let’s go. And ADA will give you a translation of that design in lots of different languages. Lots. How many? A lot more than you could possibly probably need, but definitely all worth a go.
[00:15:42.950] – Aidan
And for the top sellers out there, we have a design service tailored for you if you’re doing really well, super well. Not only that, we will also help you with your artwork. I’m going to say help you, I mean, directly give you artwork, but only for stuff that obviously we can’t extend that to everyone on Earth. So you will have to be doing well first with a particular design. But we are here to support and if you’re stuck for design inspiration, we have in the group how many designs in our give away paquet over four.
[00:16:11.570] – Aidan
I think it is about 44, if I remember correctly. So it’s a pleasure. And not only that, that PAC had the dopiest funds so you could tweak change into it like with so that forty could be four hundred. It depends on your creativity.
[00:16:26.520] – Thomas
Indeed, indeed it does. All available in our group, our Facebook group. Join the group or join Moteefe.com Moteefe.com. Go there, sign up, create an account, log in to the platform at the top you’ll see a little message, click on the message, click on the link in the message and you’ll be taken through. And there’s all kinds of special resources for our users, record sellers, because we they’re not just users, because they sell.
[00:16:50.720] – Thomas
So they sellers in that link. And that’s it. That’s that’s the secret formula. You, me and Moteefe.
[00:16:58.490] – Aidan
And I would like to say I have see obviously working so closely with and the good the good top sellers, I have to say some things that they are extremely successful. I would never have dreamt that that design would be the one that sold that many, but it hits those free buttons. It’s it’s something of self-importance, as I might. Well, then it’s a high passion, right. Something that person does or and or and it ties into an emotional tug or an emotional pull.
[00:17:32.090] – Aidan
Right. As someone said, if it makes him cry, it makes good by to Phoenix that something they’re passionate about as well. It’s just a formula for success.
[00:17:43.430] – Thomas
Try winning. Try winning last year. That’s the formula that you went through. Three things and you win that. This is how you do it. This is how you come up. And the other thing is. You’ve got to be determined. You’ve got to keep on going, you’ve got to keep on testing. You can’t test who designs and then say, oh, does it work? This is no, no, no. You have to be determined.
[00:18:04.440] – Thomas
You can methodically move through the designs. You’ll get better. You’ll start to understand the target, the people that you’re targeting. You’ll understand the numbers that you’re getting in from wherever you’re running new ads, better as you as you test and test and test and test and test to stonner. And no doubt, when the different types of ads within Facebook ads manager or within the Facebook ads platform, one of them is an engagement ad used to be called a PPA or post page engagement ad.
[00:18:32.760] – Thomas
And it’s a simple ad if you’re asking Facebook to go out there and get you like reactions now, reactions and reactions in 2021, if you will, reactions, reactions likes angry faces, smiley faces, all of that other stuff, care, whatever you’ve got in their reactions, comments and shares. What’s most important, comments and shares. You want to see a ton of comments and shares and don’t please don’t. Please stop now. Please stop immediately testing one design with seven different engagement ads.
[00:19:07.380] – Thomas
That’s not the point. That’s not the point. You take a broad target, 500000 to two million, maybe three million people. You test three, four or five dollars for a day. You let it run for a day and you’re looking for comments and shares. Comments and shares. Yes, of course. You want to see a low cost per engagement, you know, at 25 cents is no good. But if you’re getting comments and shares that stick in the comments, if the comments are saying this is the worst that I’ve ever seen, they’re probably not going to buy it.
[00:19:34.170] – Thomas
If the comments are I want this, I love this tiger tagging, Uncle Bob, Auntie Matilda, whatever, then that’s what that’s what you’re looking for. It’s a test. It’s not seven, eight, nine. Trying to find the target. No, you do the target testing later. You do the broad. If you’re in fishing, you pick. Angling is a big niche. It’s bigger than I’m probably saying that the numbers should be. You put an engagement ad out.
[00:20:00.960] – Thomas
There you go, 25 years, 25 to 54 years old and you let it run for a day. You look at the results, comments and shares, comments and shares and a lot of them in the group. You’ll see some of my results from some different types of engagement ads that I’ve run. And you will see what a lot of comments and shares look like. And I’m not talking about one comment and two shares. It’s not a lot, is it?
[00:20:27.480] – Thomas
It’s not a lot. That’s none. That’s as good as none. So you want to see an awful lot. And when you see that, then you can move on. Old explained in the free ads course. But do watch it and actually obey the rules because they are important. You don’t want to just spend money. This is the point. You do what you want, but the more money that you save in testing, if those seven ads that you were running at five dollars each, you could have tested seven designs for the same price.
[00:20:52.860] – Thomas
And that’s what you should have done. One design at a time, one test per page engagement. When you’re starting out, you can do more later on, but you don’t need to let it run for 24 hours. That means you can test how many in a week? Seven designs in a week. One day, because you start one, the next day, you stop that, you look at the results, is it going to conversion or not?
[00:21:11.570] – Thomas
No, that one’s no good enough comments and shares. Move on. Move, move, move on. Move on. In 30 days, you tested 32 times for hardly anything at all. Yes, of course, there is going to be some money that you will pick up the old sale from from adverts like this. But really what you’re doing is testing, testing, testing, testing, testing.
[00:21:29.300] – Aidan
Yeah. And I think that is for our for some of us, sort of a consistent sell as they fall in the trap of of they find a few good designs and they stop or they slow down and testing more new stuff. Now that’s the biggest mistake a lot of people make is keep finding more stuff to test. Don’t get don’t get lazy, keep testing, because that’s that’s how the super supercell is born, is because they’ve gone and found themselves 10, 20 winning designs and they’re just consistently selling the and they keep testing their own stuff.
[00:22:04.400] – Thomas
That’s it. That’s it. You just keep on testing. And on that, I think the half a half hour mark. So I think, you know, what to do is go to Moteefe.com. You make an account, you create an account, you log in, you go to the dashboard, as we call it. There’s a link there with lots of resources. You join the group, you message Aidin. We’re here to help you Moteefe free, free to use.
[00:22:29.060] – Thomas
So the only way that we’re successful is if you’re successful. So if you sell, we’re happy. And if we’re happy, you’re happy. Everybody’s happy. So we’re here to support you doing that. Aiden and Anna are available in the group. They are our customer success managers and they will guide you as they have with hundreds and hundreds of other people just like you towards the success in the print on demand world with Moteefe.
[00:22:56.180] – Aidan
Oh, yes. Oh yes. And take care, guys. Have a great weekend. And they will be back next week and see the.
[00:23:03.910] – Thomas
Indeed. And John, a final note. Don’t don’t go out and enjoy the sun and have a barbecue this weekend. And if you get thinking of being creative and coming up with designs and and make sure that you’re successful, yes. You can have dinner. Quick, quick run out onto the grill, throw a couple of hamburgers on there or whatever you should. So vegan burgers in 2021, whatever, whatever you do. But you want to get back and spend at least three or four hours this weekend, if not longer, thinking about how you’re going to be successful in print on demand because hard work now pays off in the future.
[00:23:40.520] – Aidan
Yeah, and if you stuck Friday’s my door open message me.
[00:23:44.360] – Thomas
Well, not is it literally open Aden. Where do you less. He’s in the ground. Was ready to help. Oh I know what he means. I’m playing with him. OK, well thank you very much. And we will see you next week with another installment of of our. YouTube phenomenon.
[00:24:03.760] – Aidan
Yes, oh, yes, guys. Take care, bye bye.
Do you design yourself? Or is it better to use a designer?
[00:09:04.910]
Thomas: Well, it’s always good if you know the basics of how to use design software so that you can make little adjustments to the designs. And yes, if you are just using fairly simple text based designs, you should be able to learn to use a program like PhotoShop and Illustrator within 10 or 20 hours of messing around with it to the level of, you know, getting some text onto a t shirt, however, really, if you want to do this long term and you want to test a lot of designs and really scale up your business and also free yourself up to do other things, you know, like live streams with Aidan, then you want to get and find a designer to do all of this stuff with you, for you, in fact.
Now, that doesn’t mean that you can just expect them to deliver all of these things without telling them what you want. You’re still going to have to brief them. You’re going to have to work with them. You’re going to have to say, hey, Mr. Designer, this design that you gave me, it didn’t sell. But this design, which was very similar for, you know, very similar messaging, but different colours, different different layout, different font, maybe this is what’s working in this niche.
Can we have more like this? Less like that. So there is a period of working together to try to find a style that resonates with your niche and it will be different. So fishermen are going to want to have different things, different things, different design styles, different styles, different designs, different fonts, different messages are going to work in the fishing niche vs. the Mother’s Day niche or the Father’s Day niche. So it’s not like there’s just one thing like, oh, you must use this font and you must use these colours because every single niche is going to be different.
Aidan: OK. When Hillary in the chat said, yeah, livestreams with Aidan, she said a solid niche indeed! Thank you, Hillary.Ā It is a solid niche.
Thomas: A little niche, a little niche, but a beautiful one.
But yeah, don’t copy this niche. Go find your own niches out there. And we also had a comment saying, Thomas, fishermen, I don’t know who who that person is referring to. But yeah, any questions on POD designs guys, feel free to comment. And a quick self plug here. Right. So if you guys are watching over on YouTube, you’ll find in the description below a link to our Moteefe global Facebook group where you can find me, you can find Flor, you can find Ana, basically.
And we help all the sellers find success from translations if they want to scale into other countries tips and tricks on Facebook, how to upload a design that’s finished. We help with that with some designs that are showing it initial success. We can even help you get them redesigned in other languages to really scale and take over the world. So definitely join the group if you were new to all of this. We have a free Moteefe ads course and it doesn’t just go through ads, it goes through anything and everything.
How to get started from step one is that twenty nine? So take that.Ā
Thomas: Twenty nine? Twenty nine steps.
Aidan: Who knows! Twenty nine steps. Yep.Ā Go and count them. And in the comments, prove me wrong.
Thomas: Not the twenty nine steps. It was a different, a different number, a different number of steps.
What design styles work best?
[00:12:20.560]
Aidan: I’ll have to go look at it straight after but I’ll check it out. Please do the Moteefe ads course, join the group. Message me and I’ll be happy to help. So good question from Hillary when it comes to designs, what styles work best for you? Cartoon, realism, abstract? To be honest. Simple is good.
Thomas: Simple is good. Simple is good. Yes. If you’re selling to fairly serious fishing types, farmers, you know that that kind of men, really, and their men, adult men, then cartoon styles are probably wants to stay away from. If you are going to put an illustration of a fish on something, if you think sort of a 19th century gentleman, amateur style illustrations of the beasts rather than anime style illustrations or sort of along the, I donāt want to say the word or else weāll get striked but the theme park in Florida style ones, big eyes, you know, that kind of thing.Ā
You want to stay away from that unless you’re targeting to people that maybe appreciate that. So maybe honour that kind of an illustration. Obviously always be original. Don’t just copy. But that kind of an illustrative style. If a father was buying something for a daughter might be appropriate for that kind of thing, but not maybe for a grandfather biker that wouldn’t really want sort of a pony on a bike or a unicorn on a bike.
I mean, maybe they would. There’s always someone out there. But in general, I would go for a little grittier, 1950s and 1960s tattoo style of illustrative work for bikers in general, notwithstanding their age or gender. Whereas, you know, large eyed illustrations.
Aidan: AnimeĀ
Thomas: You said you said, I know you’re into that item,Ā
Aidan: Everyone needs a vice. That might be mine. Good stuff. So I think we’re looking good. There’s no more questions in the chat as of yet Thomas. They’re all just smashing their keyboard. And on that, you should also smash the like and subscribe button if you are on YouTube canāt forget those.
What NOT to do when creating your design
[00:14:43.920]Ā
Thomas: Make sure also that your designs can be printed. Well, so don’t use glitter effects, don’t use, don’t make don’t have sort of light shining out of when somebody’s views something on a screen, the screens backlit, it’s projecting light out when they print it flat on a T-shirt. You don’t want to disappoint your buyers because they think it’s going to have a neon glow or anything like that. So don’t use any transparencies. If you want a glowing effect or like text that’s got sort of a glow around it, then you want to you want to do that in a different way.
Don’t use a transparency layer at all with anything you want, everything 100 percent on or off so that it will print well, don’t make it don’t make a glitter effect or make a any kind of lighting based effect on anything that you sell. Because in the end, yeah, it might look good on screen, but when it prints, everyone’s going to be disappointed. So stay completely away from anything like that. Glasses are always not these type. The ones you drink from drinking glasses with light shining through them, don’t you know, don’t do it.
You don’t need to do that. Know your audience. Keep everything sustainable in terms of artwork, legitimate artwork that you’re allowed to sell. By contrast, always high contrast, vibrant colours and big readable words when you put them on there. Yes, in some niches can go you can put a lot of words out there, but still keep it readable. There’s no point in having Aās that look like O’s or whatever, like some of these weird fonts that nobody can read easily.
Readability, readability, readability is the number one thing across everything, and that’s it. You just keep on testing work with a designer, as Aidan quite correctly say, work with a designer and work with that design as well. Don’t just you’re not buying a designer, but design is lot like a a bag of coffee beans. You can’t just get a designer and blend it up and all of a sudden you’ve got great stuff. Now you have to work with them because they will need to be guided, briefed and taken along the journey as well.
Give them feedback and find somebody that you can work with. Ideally, in the end, you’re paying them a monthly fee like they’re working for you for a set amount of artwork every month. And you’re just that encourages you to keep filling up their inbox with new stuff and it makes a commitment to them. And then if you start making money, give them a little bit more, give them more designs, give them more money. It’s it’s it’s a win win.
And after you’ve worked with somebody for six months or a year, they don’t need to ask. It’s just, oh, that’s in that niche bank, you’ve got something that, you know that’s going to be selling very well from the beginning. So there we are. Aidan, why don’t you wrap it up?
Aidan: So thank you to everyone who’s tuned in. We will be back next week on Thursday at 5pm GMT for our next episode. We’ll keep you posted what that will be. And if you do want to get started on print on demand, making money from home, making a little side hustle, and then check out the description and the links in the description Moteefe group, you can find me, Thomas, Ana, Flor, everyone. All the success team to help you.
You’ve got any tips and tricks, anything, any questions about set stuff up, whatever, where they’re for you. Secondly, don’t know where get started? Moteefe ads course. Itās there in the description. That’s your first step.Ā
Thomas: Moteefeschool.com. Oh no, Moteefe.school.
Aidan: If you’re not sure it’s in the description. So I’ll see you guys all in the Facebook group. It must be directly. And you see Thomas either in the group or next week. Thank you very much every.
Thomas: Thank you.
