Like anyone about this time of the year, I start thinking about the holiday season, visiting family and working out the schedule with friends and relatives. All our lives probably get busier with coordinating vacations, trips and gift purchases on a tight budget. But what I really want to know is, are you ready for the holidays with relation to your business?
The holidays can be a very lucrative time of year for many garment decorators, especially those that think outside the box and plan ahead. So put off the vacation planning just for a moment, and let’s discuss some marketing ideas and some easy-to-produce items that are ideal for the holidays. Besides ideas, I’m going to give you some graphics you can use to print out posters for your shop. Just download and customize them with your information.
Personalized T-Shirt Transfers: Many people struggle this time of year to find the ideal gift for that person who already has everything. Grandma and Grandpa don’t need another fruitcake, and Dad doesn’t want another tie that he won’t wear (unless it is customized, see #3). These are the perfect candidates for one-off customized t-shirts. You can put a picture of the favorite grandkid, pet or even car onto a single shirt with a transfer. You won’t have the excessive set-up that comes with screen printing and prices people out of this type of gift, and you don’t have the huge capital investment you would have with a DTG machine – let alone all the headaches with clogging and maintenance. Just make it easy for the customer as they won’t typically be artists and will show up with a picture to be scanned or a low-res image for you to clean up. Have some pre-designed borders with different themes that you can easily drop the picture into after doing a little vignette work in PhotoShop. Don’t charge for the artwork, just include it in the cost of the shirt. You will have at most $2 in the finished product and can charge $20 to $25 for these one-out shirts. Invest in a $250 cutter and you can give the customer a great shirt without the edge around it. The quality of transfers these days will amaze you! Download a great customizable sign for this type of work here. You can also just grab a full size JPG here.
Custom Bags: Today we are all realizing that it is important to do our part to help make the planet a little more green. You see grocery stores selling reusable bags all the time, because the amount of plastic being wasted and pumped into our landfills from grocery bags is massive. Why not offer your customers a customized bag that can be used over and over again. This makes the perfect shopping bag for Mom to show off her kids pictures and Grandma would love one of these personalized bags to carry her knitting around in. They are the perfect size for going to the beach when summer rolls around or for carrying the kid’s toys on those winter break vacations. By customizing it you make it special for the customer, but again you have to make it easy for them. They will love the idea but need your creativity to make it worth the extra money. Have customers bring you 5 to 10 pictures per side and put them into a nice collage with the text that they want. Again include the artwork charge in the price of the bag, and your customers will tell their friends about the neat gift idea. All you need is a sublimation set-up and you will be ready to go. Here is a customizable sign for you to use and also the JPG.
Sublimation Ties: So Dad is tired of the boring ties he gets every year for Father’s Day or the ugly Holiday Tie he has to break out once a year for the candle light church service. Well, why not let Dad wear a tie that he can rock with pride? These easy to imprint ties (make sure to download the template for really easy decorating) will be a hit year round for your business, but can certainly also be a big hit at the Holidays. Why not create a few ready to go templates with nice holiday images where they can drop three to four of their own pictures into them and have a personalized neck tie. Like before the key is to make it as easy as possible for the customer by leaning on your creativity. Here is another customizable sign for you to use and also the JPG.- Ornaments and Other Sublimation Items: Along with the customizable items we discussed above, Coastal Business Supplies, Inc. carries a large assortment of great customizable items like ornaments, cutting boards, food trays, ceramic tiles, picture frames and other neat little things that people are willing to pay a premium for, as long as it is customized to make it special to them. Each of the items have easy-to-use templates available for download from our website, and if you spend a few hours working on it, you can again have some easy-to-use pre-made borders for customers to drop their personal picture, etc. into. By having a heat press, a very cost effective sublimation printer and our phone number (800-562-7760) handy, you can offer a huge range of customizable gift items to your customers. We are normally no more than a 3-day ship from most people in the U.S., and we ship the same day up to 7PM CST, so you don’t need to hold a ton of items in inventory. If you get into a bind, we also have some great overnight and 2-day shipping rates worked out with FedEx that we pass along to you. Also remember every order over $199 gets free ground shipping. Get a sample pack today and show your customers what you can do.
Those are just a few of the things you can do to take advantage of the holiday season. Yes, you will need to spend a little time planning and making it easy on your customers, but the extra money for a much nicer holiday vacation should make it all worthwhile. So put those personal holiday plans on hold and start planning for your business. Then you can get back to the family and friends while planning a nice beach vacation as opposed to freezing at home.
