SPECIAL SERIES ==> Swag & Merch SECRET TIPS! 👚🧢<== | BATHROOM Break #45 (COLLAB: The Marketing Millennials + Do This, Not That)

Summary

Podcast Summary: "SPECIAL SERIES ==> Swag & Merch SECRET TIPS! 👚🧢<== | BATHROOM Break #45"

Hosts:

• Daniel Murray – Marketing Millennials
• Jay Schwedelson – Do This, Not That Podcast and Subjectline.com

Release Date: March 10, 2025

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Introduction to the Bathroom Break Special Series

In this special episode of "Do This, Not That," hosts Daniel Murray and Jay Schwedelson collaborate to present "Bathroom Break #45," focusing on the niche yet influential topic of swag and merchandise (merch) in marketing. Designed as a quick 10-minute session, this episode delivers actionable insights for marketers looking to optimize their merch strategies.

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Maximizing Conference Merch Strategy

Daniel Murray kicks off the discussion by inquiring about Jay's approach to conference merch:

[00:34] Daniel Murray: "How much merch do you actually keep when you get going to a conference, or do you even grab a piece of merch?"

Jay Schwedelson emphasizes the importance of quality over quantity:

[00:58] Jay Schwedelson: "What I won't grab is... unless your logo is really cool. Like Daniel happens to have a cool logo, 99% of logos are uncool."

Jay advises against generic logo merch, advocating instead for creative and meaningful designs that resonate with audiences. He shares that his team often opts for apparel with catchy phrases like "Stay Rad" instead of mere logos to increase the desirability of their merch.

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Enhancing Contest Participation with Multiple Prizes

A significant portion of the episode delves into effective strategies for running contests to promote merch.

Jay Schwedelson reveals a game-changing tactic:

[02:08] Jay Schwedelson: "The biggest mistake that marketers do is they'll have a Contest, they'll say AirPods, they'll say, Enter into this and you could win a hoodie... it goes up exponentially when you go to like 25 winners."

Jay explains that increasing the number of winners from one to multiple (e.g., 25) dramatically boosts participation rates—from 50 to 5,000 entries—by enhancing the likelihood of winning. This approach leverages the psychological principle of loss aversion, making participants feel a genuine chance to win, thereby driving higher engagement without significantly increasing costs.

Daniel Murray concurs, highlighting the low cost per impression:

[03:22] Daniel Murray: "The ROI on that compared to other things is very good."

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Merch as a Reflection of Brand Identity

Daniel Murray shifts the conversation to the intrinsic value of merch in representing a brand:

[04:51] Daniel Murray: "Merch represents your brand. If it's low quality, people can associate low quality with your brand... It's a touch point and people think of it as the last thing of your strategy instead of thinking of it as a strategy to drive things."

He emphasizes that the quality and creativity of merch directly influence brand perception. High-end brands should invest in premium merch, while creative brands might opt for unique and humorous items. This strategic approach ensures that merch serves not just as a giveaway but as a meaningful extension of the brand's identity.

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Visibility and Shareability of Merch

Jay Schwedelson underscores the importance of merch being visible and shareable, particularly on digital platforms:

[05:30] Jay Schwedelson: "We only make merch that can be visible on screen... something that can be seen when people are on screen because that is how your brand is then seen."

Jay advises against items like water bottles or socks, which often remain unnoticed. Instead, focus on apparel and accessories such as hoodies, T-shirts, hats, and headbands that people are more likely to showcase on social media, thereby increasing brand visibility organically.

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Sourcing Merch: Bulk vs. Boutique

The hosts discuss sourcing strategies for merch, balancing between bulk orders and bespoke creations.

Jay Schwedelson shares his experience:

[06:01] Jay Schwedelson: "If you're going with a big buy, like 500 of whatever, work with the big swag companies... But if you're going with a small buy, like 20, we've found the best creators on Etsy for high-end quality stuff."

He highlights that large orders are best handled by established swag companies, while smaller, more creative batches can benefit from platforms like Etsy, where individual creators offer unique and high-quality items. This approach allows for flexibility and creativity without compromising on quality.

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Testing Brand Affinity Through Merch Sales

Daniel Murray introduces a method to gauge brand strength using merch sales:

[07:13] Daniel Murray: "If someone wants to buy your merch, you probably have pretty good branding behind it. Create a small amount and see if people buy it."

By launching a limited merch line, marketers can test if there is genuine interest and affinity for their brand. Successful sales indicate strong brand loyalty and effective branding strategies, while lackluster performance may signal the need for reassessment.

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Anecdotes and Lessons Learned

The conversation takes a lighter turn as the hosts share personal anecdotes about merch mistakes and logo perceptions.

Jay Schwedelson admits to a recent oversight:

[09:52] Jay Schwedelson: "We put the year on this shirt. We wrote 20, 24 on it. I go, what do we put the year on it for? We're so stupid."

This mistake serves as a reminder to avoid transient elements in merch designs that can quickly become outdated. Daniel Murray humorously suggests rebranding it as a "vintage" item to salvage the oversight.

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Conclusion and Engagement

As the episode wraps up, both hosts encourage listeners to engage with their respective platforms for more merch ideas and marketing tips.

Daniel Murray invites the audience to share merch preferences:

[11:15] Daniel Murray: "Send us some merch ideas in the DMs... what type of merch you like."

Jay Schwedelson promotes his podcast:

[11:10] Jay Schwedelson: "Check out my podcast, Do This, Not That, for marketers. Each week we share really quick tips on stuff that can improve your marketing."

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Key Takeaways

1. Quality Over Quantity: Invest in high-quality, creative merch that reflects your brand identity to enhance brand perception.

2. Increase Contest Winners: Boost contest participation by offering multiple prizes, leveraging the psychological appeal of increased winning chances.

3. Visibility Matters: Choose merch items that are easily visible and shareable on social media to maximize brand exposure.

4. Strategic Sourcing: Balance between bulk orders from established swag companies and unique, high-quality items from platforms like Etsy for small batches.

5. Test Brand Affinity: Use merch sales as a metric to assess brand strength and audience loyalty.

6. Avoid Outdated Designs: Ensure merch designs remain relevant and avoid transient elements that can quickly become outdated.

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This episode of "Do This, Not That" provides a comprehensive exploration of effective merch strategies, blending practical advice with real-world experiences. Whether you're a seasoned marketer or just starting, the insights shared by Daniel Murray and Jay Schwedelson offer valuable guidance to elevate your swag game and strengthen your brand.

Transcript

[Daniel Murray]

Welcome to a new special series called the Bathroom break. That extra 10 minutes you either have to listen to marking tips or use the bathroom or both. But I don't recommend both. But that's your choice.

[Jay Schwedelson]

This collab is going to be super fun. We have Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials, and me, Jay Schwedelson from the do this, not that podcast and subjectline.com each episode in the series, we are going to go over quick tips about different marketing topics. And if you want to be in the bathroom, fine, just don't tell us about it. Thanks for checking it out.

[Daniel Murray]

We are back with another Bathroom Break. I'm here with one of the top podcasters in the world, Jay Schwedelson. And I am Daniel Murray of the Marketing Millennials. And we're going to talk some fun today about merch. But I wanted to ask you, how much merch do you actually keep when you get going to a conference, or do you even grab a piece of merch?

[Jay Schwedelson]

Oh, well, I'll tell you, it's funny you say that. What I won't grab is. And what people should never do is if you just have the logo of your company, like, on a shirt or whatever. Unless your logo is really cool. Like Daniel happens to have a cool logo, 99% of logos are uncool. I will never grab that because I just don't care. Right. So that's why on a lot of our merch, we'll put, like, funny things, like we had a hoodie that said stay rad or something like that. But in general, I don't grab merch with logos because, first of all, it's embarrassing. I mean, do you. I mean, I feel like you're the. You're the king of wearing merch. Every time I see you, you're wearing somebody's merch.

[Daniel Murray]

I like them as workout shirts if I. If I have to do it. But it's not like something I'm repping in the streets, like, people's merch. I like a good hat here and there or a good, if it's a useful pen, but that's about as far as I go. But now I. I'm trying to declutter merch. So I have very limited merch in my closet, and I think I have four, four guru events hoodies in my closet right now. So that's, like, the only thing I've been keeping.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Well. I'm gonna give you the number one tactic that marketers should use as it relates to swag and merch. And by the way, I'm a huge believer in swag and merch. I think you could drive everything, registrations, people sharing on social media, everything. The biggest mistake that marketers do is they'll have a Contest, they'll say AirPods, they'll say, Enter into this and you could win a hoodie. Everybody has, you have one winner. Nobody wants to enter in contests that have one winner because you don't feel like you're going to win. So we did all this testing. If you were giving out one prize, if you were giving out five of that prize, if you were giving out 25 of those prizes, what would happen? What is the difference in terms of the number of entries that you get or the participation in that thing? And when I tell you that it goes up exponentially when you go to like 25 winners, it is like goes from like 50 entrance to 5,000. Because why you're like, oh, I might actually win this thing. And the cost of the additional 25 things you have to give out is nothing. So that is the absolute best hack. You have to give people the perception that they actually can win the thing.

[Daniel Murray]

I love that. I think, I think when it comes to giveaways you have to, I mean that's one trend. And also the cost per the impressions you get are so cheap. You probably are spending 25 to 30 to 50 a hoodie. You're probably going to end up getting a million and two impressions if you're doing a social campaign on it. So the ROI on that compared to other things and you're getting marketers hyping up whatever you're doing. So it's a very good strategy. I, the one, the one take I, I believe strongly within about merch is, and people don't think like this a lot is merch represents your brand. So if it's low quality, people can associate low quality with your brand. If it's not creative, they're going to think you're not a creative brand. If it's boring, they're going to think you're a boring brand. So if you're going to go, if you a luxury or high end brand or want to seem high end, go with higher end merge higher end hoodies. Iron. If you want to be seen as a humorous or creative brand, go with creative work. It signals what you're doing. It's a touch point and people think of it as the last thing of your strategy instead of thinking of it as a strategy to drive things or have people wear them because most of them are going to go in the junk drawer or in the trash if you don't think of it as a part of your brand, you know, and.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Along those lines, another thing that we always are focused on is we only make merch that can be visible on screen. Meaning, like, I'm not a big fan of a pad. I'm not a big fan of, like, socks because you can't see them on screen. A hoodie, a T shirt, a hat, a headband. Something that can be seen when people are on screen because that is how your brand is then seen. Then people can share pictures of themselves on social media. You don't want to give out the world's best water bottle thing because that's just going to sit in their house. A hoodie, that it'll be out there. People actually see it. So you have to actually think about, very intentionally, about how you're utilizing merch.

[Daniel Murray]

I 100% agree. I also think that think about it earlier in the pro, the process, if you're going to do it or not. And also sometimes it's not. It doesn't have to be part of your strategy. If you're not going to do it, great, don't do it. Um, but going on that note is, what other tips do you have that you use? I mean, you've come up with creative stuff. What is like the number one piece of merch that has the most success for your events that you've. You've done?

[Jay Schwedelson]

So one of the things that we do for, let's say our events is we. We create something called a VIP swag box. Okay. And we say we are going to be giving out, let's say, 25 VIP swag boxes to the full. First people, first thousand people that register. And so we are saying there's a speed to registration. We're trying to create that fomo. And it's not even that we're going to give out a thousand of these things. We're going to. You're going to be entered in to win one of 25. So tying together kind of, you have to be in the first thousand to be entered into this thing. Right. It's not that everybody that registers gets entered in because you want to build that sense of urgency and using swag. And it works so, so well. I mean, we spend more on swag than we do on almost any other marketing tactic. And the other thing I'll tell you is if you're going to go with a lot, you're going to buy a big, you know, 500 of whatever you need to work with the big swag companies. There's a lot of them out there. But if you're going to go with a small buy, like 20 of something. We've gone on Etsy and we have found the absolute best creators of the coolest, like highest end quality stuff because these Etsy people care so much. So think a little bit creatively about where you're sourcing if you're not getting, you know, 500 hats or something.

[Daniel Murray]

I like that I never heard anybody use and I know you did that for Inbound last year with the coaches and the speakers around there. The one thing I was thinking about when it, when it comes to merch specifically is if someone, a good test that you have brand is someone wants to buy your merch. So I think a lot of, a lot of things and this doesn't mean for market like service companies, if you're a coffee shop or if someone, if you create cool merch that people and people buy it, you probably have pretty good branding behind it. So a good test to do sometimes is just create a small amount and see will people buy that merch or not. As a good tested, one, you have a good brand or good brand affinity and two, that you're on a path of creating something good and you could break even with that cost. It's just something to test. Do I have a good brand or branding or is that cool merch or not?

[Jay Schwedelson]

So your brand is very cool. The marketing millennials. You guys just have a really cool logo and really cool stuff. Like when did it hit you that like, wait a minute, our logo is something that people are into. Like people would actually be all over this just as a regular brand.

[Daniel Murray]

I don't, I think it's less the logo and more the name because I think there are so many marketing millennials out there. So I think it, I think the logo is pretty cool the way I thought. When I thought about the logo, it wasn't very deep. Thought it was like, what are some things that millennials like at this point in time? And I was like, oh, light up signs are like pretty in. So like I was like, let me just create mine as like a light up sign. And I started as a podcast so I wanted to seem like a light up sign behind to the people talking. So I just went lily on Fiverr and was made a logo and now it's adapted into more custom my logo. But the first logo, Litty was scrappy, cheap. But it had some thought into it. It was, this is the reason I, I Wanted to do that.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Would you ever get a tattoo of your logo?

[Daniel Murray]

No.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Would you get a tattoo of my logo?

[Daniel Murray]

How much. How much are you paying me for that? Guru Events is a. I think you. You have. Jade is very good swag in the sense that he says funny one liners, and I think that's a good thing. Sometimes he makes his logo a little too big underneath it, but we could. We.

[Jay Schwedelson]

I'll tell you the best thing. We screwed up. I'm so. I had me and my team today because we had, like, extra swag. And so it was for one of our conferences, and I was like, what do we had, like, 50 shirts left over. The problem was we put the year on this shirt. We wrote 20, 24 on it. I go, what do we put the year on it for? We're so stupid. Who puts a year now?

[Daniel Murray]

No, no, no, no, no.

[Jay Schwedelson]

It's like a rock concert.

[Daniel Murray]

Reframe it. It's vintage.

[Jay Schwedelson]

In five years from now, it's vintage.

[Daniel Murray]

Right now it's just vintage Guru. You get old, old guru swag. Oh, my God.

[Jay Schwedelson]

EBay for $4.

[Daniel Murray]

I feel like I could sell your merch. That's rad. Would sell, sell out for sure.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Oh, that's. It's going to be fire. What is, like, the oldest clothing you have in your closet right now?

[Daniel Murray]

Oh, goodness. Probably like my high school letterman jacket, maybe.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Look at you walking around like it's greased lightning.

[Daniel Murray]

I. I never wear it, but it's in my. My closet, so.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Yeah, I think I have socks that are older than you. I'm not sure.

[Daniel Murray]

Probably.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Probably. That's embarrassing.

[Daniel Murray]

All right.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Speaking of embarrassing. We're embarrassing, but not anymore because we're ending this episode. This has been awesome. Everybody go follow the market. Millennials follow, do this, not that. And, you know, rep your brand with merch. Daniel, anything you want to say?

[Daniel Murray]

Send us some merch ideas in the DMs. Like, we want to know what type of merch you like, what cool merch you see in the. See out there. So DME and Jay on LinkedIn and I just want to know what type of merch you like.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Merch Mania. Later, Daniel. Come on, man. I gotta get back to work. Get out of there. All right, while he's still in there. This is Jay. Check out my podcast, do this, not that, for marketers. Each week we share really quick tips on stuff that can improve your marketing and hope you give it a try. Oh, here's Daniel. He's finally out.

[Daniel Murray]

Back from my bathroom break. This is Daniel go follow the Mark and Millennials podcast, but also tune into this series. It's once a week, the Bathroom Break. We talk about marketing tips that we just spew out. And it could be anything from email, subject line to any marketing tips in the world. We'll talk about it. Just give us a shout on LinkedIn and tell us what you want to hear. Peace out.

[Jay Schwedelson]

Later.