SPECIAL SERIES: You’re Doing Merch and Swag Wrong | Bathroom Break #46 🚽

Summary

Podcast Summary: THE MARKETING MILLENNIALS – SPECIAL SERIES: You’re Doing Merch and Swag Wrong | Bathroom Break #46 🚽

Episode Overview

In this special episode of The Marketing Millennials, host Daniel Murray collaborates with Jay Schwedelson from the Do This, Not That podcast and SubjectLine.com to dive into the often-overlooked realm of merchandising and swag in marketing strategies. Titled “You’re Doing Merch and Swag Wrong,” the conversation unpacks effective tactics, common pitfalls, and innovative approaches to leveraging merch for brand enhancement and audience engagement.

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1. Introduction to the Bathroom Break Series

The episode kicks off with Daniel Murray introducing the special series titled "Bathroom Break," a collaboration between The Marketing Millennials and Jay Schwedelson. The concept is to provide quick, actionable marketing tips suitable for a short 10-minute listen—ideal for multitasking listeners.

• Daniel Murray [00:01]: “That extra 10 minutes you either have to listen to marketing tips or use the bathroom or both. But I don't recommend both. But that's your choice.”

Jay adds a playful touch, emphasizing the casual yet informative nature of the series.

• Jay Schwedelson [00:13]: “If you want to be in the bathroom, fine, just don't tell us about it. Thanks for checking it out.”

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2. The Role of Merch in Marketing

The discussion swiftly moves to the core topic: merchandising as a critical component of marketing strategies. Both hosts share personal anecdotes and professional insights on how merch can influence brand perception and audience engagement.

2.1. Quality Over Quantity

Jay underscores the importance of quality in merchandise, cautioning against generic logo-laden items that fail to resonate with consumers.

• Jay Schwedelson [00:58]: “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.”

He advocates for creative and meaningful designs that align with brand identity, which can foster a stronger connection with the audience.

2.2. Strategically Selected Merchandise

Daniel echoes Jay's sentiments, sharing his selective approach to owning merch. He prefers functional items like workout shirts or hats, rather than bulkier or less practical merch pieces.

• Daniel Murray [01:35]: “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.”

He emphasizes the importance of decluttering and maintaining only high-value merch that serves a purpose.

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3. Effective Merchandising Tactics

Delving deeper, Jay shares actionable strategies that marketers can implement to maximize the impact of their merch campaigns.

3.1. Giveaway Strategy: Quantity vs. Scarcity

One of Jay's standout suggestions is optimizing giveaways by increasing the number of prizes to boost participation rates. He explains how offering multiple winners significantly enhances engagement.

• Jay Schwedelson [02:08]: “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? … it goes from like 50 entrants to 5,000.”

This approach creates a perception of higher chances to win, thereby encouraging more people to participate without substantially increasing costs.

3.2. Brand Representation through Merch Quality

Daniel stresses that merch is a direct reflection of the brand’s quality and creativity. Low-quality or uninspired merch can negatively impact brand perception.

• Daniel Murray [03:22]: “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.”

He advises aligning merch quality and design with the desired brand image, whether it’s luxury, creativity, or humor.

3.3. Visibility and Shareability

Jay highlights the importance of selecting merch that is visible and shareable on social media. Items like hoodies, T-shirts, and hats are preferred because they are easily showcased in photos, amplifying brand exposure.

• Jay Schwedelson [04:51]: “We only make merch that can be visible on screen. … people can share pictures of themselves on social media.”

He cautions against giving out items that are likely to remain hidden, such as socks or water bottles, which do not contribute to brand visibility.

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4. Innovative Merch Ideas and Sourcing

4.1. VIP Swag Boxes

Jay introduces the concept of VIP swag boxes tailored for events. By creating exclusive bundles for early registrants, they generate urgency and FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), driving quicker sign-ups and increased event registrations.

• Jay Schwedelson [06:01]: “We create something called a VIP swag box … tied together kind of, you have to be in the first thousand to be entered into this thing.”

4.2. Creative Sourcing from Platforms like Etsy

For smaller, more bespoke merch orders, Jay recommends sourcing from platforms like Etsy to obtain high-quality, unique items that stand out compared to mass-produced swag.

• Jay Schwedelson [06:40]: “If you're going 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.”

This strategy ensures that even limited runs of merch maintain a premium feel, enhancing brand perception.

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5. Testing Brand Strength through Merch Sales

Daniel proposes using merch sales as a litmus test for brand strength and audience loyalty. If consumers are willing to purchase merch, it indicates a solid brand affinity and effective branding efforts.

• Daniel Murray [07:13]: “If someone … wants to buy your merch. So I think a lot of things … a good test to do sometimes is just create a small amount and see will people buy that merch or not.”

This method provides valuable feedback on brand appeal and the potential success of larger merchandising initiatives.

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6. Branding and Logo Design

The conversation touches on the significance of brand names and logos in creating a memorable and marketable identity. Daniel shares the origins of The Marketing Millennials logo, emphasizing simplicity and relatability.

• Daniel Murray [08:17]: “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.”

This highlights the balance between a catchy name and an approachable logo in building brand recognition.

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7. Engaging Audience with Merch Mishaps and Humor

The hosts inject humor into the discussion by sharing anecdotes about merchandising mistakes, such as outdated logo designs or unnecessary annual branding elements, illustrating the importance of thoughtful merch planning.

• Jay Schwedelson [09:52]: “We screwed up … we put the year on this shirt. We wrote 20, 24 on it.”
• Daniel Murray [10:15]: “Reframe it. It's vintage guru.”

These stories serve as cautionary tales, reinforcing the need for timeless and versatile merch designs.

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8. Conclusion and Call to Action

As the episode wraps up, both hosts encourage listeners to engage with their communities and share merch ideas. Daniel invites the audience to send merch concepts via LinkedIn, fostering an interactive dialogue.

• Daniel Murray [11:15]: “Send us some merch ideas in the dm. We want to know what type of merch you like …”

Jay promotes his podcast, urging marketers to implement the discussed strategies and stay tuned for more tips.

• Jay Schwedelson [11:27]: “Check out my podcast, do this, not that, for marketers.”

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Key Takeaways

1. Quality and Creativity Matter: Merch should reflect the brand’s identity and values. Avoid generic logos unless they are inherently appealing.

2. Strategic Giveaways: Increasing the number of prizes in contests can significantly boost participation and engagement.

3. Visibility is Crucial: Opt for merchandise that is easily visible and shareable on social media to maximize brand exposure.

4. Innovative Sourcing: Utilize platforms like Etsy for unique and high-quality merch, especially for smaller batches.

5. Test Brand Strength: Use merch sales as an indicator of brand loyalty and market appeal.

6. Humor and Relatability: Incorporate humor and relatable elements in merch design to enhance audience connection.

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Notable Quotes

• Jay Schwedelson [00:58]: “99% of logos are uncool.”
• Daniel Murray [03:22]: “Merch represents your brand.”
• Jay Schwedelson [06:01]: “We create VIP swag boxes to create FOMO.”
• Daniel Murray [07:13]: “If someone … wants to buy your merch, you have pretty good branding.”
• Jay Schwedelson [09:52]: “We screwed up … who puts a year on merch now?”

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Final Thoughts

This episode of The Marketing Millennials offers a comprehensive exploration of merchandising as a pivotal marketing tool. By blending practical strategies with personal experiences and humor, Daniel Murray and Jay Schwedelson provide listeners with valuable insights to refine their merch strategies, ultimately enhancing brand engagement and loyalty.

For more marketing tips and engaging discussions, join The Marketing Millennials community on LinkedIn and Instagram. Don’t forget to follow Daniel on Twitter and LinkedIn, and subscribe to The Marketing Millennials newsletter at workweek.com/brand/the-marketing-millennials.

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 can 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 entrants to 5,000. Because why you're like, oh, I might actually win this thing. And the cost of the additional 25 things that 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, I love that. I think, I think that when it comes to giveaways you have to, I mean that's one trade. 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 gonna end up getting a million and two impressions if you're doing a social campaign on it. So the ROI is 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.

[Jay Schwedelson]

And 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. Just, 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. 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 you? 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 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 one of 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 test that 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 of 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 Liddy was scrappy, cheap, but it had some thought into it. It Was. This is the reason 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 like, I think you. You have. Jay does very good swag in the sense that he says funny one liners, and I think that's a. 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. We had, like, 50 shirts left over. The problem was we put the year on this shirt. We wrote 20, 24 on 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]

Like a rock concert.

[Daniel Murray]

Reframe it. It's vintage.

[Jay Schwedelson]

In five years from now. It's vintage right now.

[Daniel Murray]

Vintage guru. You get old, old guru swag. Oh, my God. For $4, I feel like I could sell your merch. That's rad. Would sell, sell out for sh.

[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 dm. We want to know what type of merch you like, what cool merch you see in the. See out there. So DM, me 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 market. 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.