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

0:28Welcome to a new special series called The Bathroom Break. Thanks for checking it out. We are back with another bathroom break. I'm here with one of the top podcasters in the world, Jay Schwedowson. And I'm Daniel Murray of the Marketing Millennials. And we're going to talk some fun today about merch. But I want to ask you, how much merch do you actually keep when you go to a conference? Or do you even grab a piece of merch? Well, I'll tell you. it's funny you say that what i won't grab is 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 um i'll never grab that because i just don't care right uh 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 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 uh i i i like a good hat here and there um or a good if it's a a useful pen but that's about as far as i go but now 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 well i'm gonna give you the number one tactic that marketers should use as it relates to swag and merch um and by the way i'm a huge believer in swag and merch i think you drive everything registrations people sharing on social media everything.

2:23The biggest mistake that marketers do is they'll have a contest. They'll give away 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?

3:08You'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. I love that. I think when it comes to giveaways, you have to, I mean, that's one try. And also the cost per the impressions you get are so cheap. You probably are spending 25 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 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're a luxury or high-end brand or want to seem high-end go with higher and merge higher and hoodies higher and 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 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.

5:14Then 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, it'll be out there. People actually see it. You have to actually think about very intentionally about how you're utilizing merch. I 100 % agree. I also think that think about it earlier in 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?

5:52I mean, you've come up with creative stuff. What is the number one piece of merch that has the most success for your events that you've done? So one of the things that we do for, let's say, our events is we create something called a VIP swag box. 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 things. You're going to be entered in to win one of 25. five. So tying together kind of, you have to be in the first thousand to be entered into this thing, right?

6:33It'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 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.

7:24The one thing I was thinking about 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 things, and this doesn't mean for market, like service companies, if you're a coffee shop or if you create cool merch 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, 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.

8:11It's just something to test. do I have a good brand or branding or is that cool merch or not? 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. I don't, I think it's less the logo and more of the name because I think there are so many marketing millennials out there. So I think the logo is pretty cool. The way I thought, when I thought about the logo, it wasn't very deep thought.

8:47It 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 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 two people talking. So I just went to Lily on Fiverr and made a logo. And now it's adapted into more custom my logo. But the first logo, Lily, was scrappy, cheap. But it had some thought into it. This is the reason I wanted to do that. Would you ever get a tattoo of your logo? No. Would you get a tattoo of my logo? How much are you paying me for that?

9:36guru events is like 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 a good thing sometimes he makes his logo a little too big underneath it but we could we do 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 um i was We had like 50 shirts left over. The problem was we put the year on this shirt. We wrote 2024 on it. I go, what do we put the year on it for? It was so stupid. Who puts a year now? No, no, no, no, no. It's not like a rock concert.

10:17Reframe it. It's vintage. In five years from now, it's vintage. Right now, it's just old. Vintage guru. You get old guru swag. Oh, my God. I feel like I can sell your merch. That's rad. So sell out for sure. That's it. It's going to be fire. What is like the oldest clothing you have in your closet right now? Oh, goodness. Probably. Like my high school letterman jacket, maybe. Look at you walking around like it's greased lightning. I never wear it, but it's in my closet. I think I have socks that are older than you. I'm not sure. Probably. Probably. That's embarrassing. All right. Speaking of embarrassing, we're embarrassing, but not anymore because we're ending this episode.

11:08This has been awesome. Everybody go follow the Marking Millennials. Follow Do This, Not That. And, you know, rep your brand with merch. Daniel, anything you want to say? Send us some merch ideas in the DMs. We want to know what type of merch you like, what cool merch you see out there. So DM me and Jay on LinkedIn. And I just want to know what type of merch you like. Merch medium. Later.

11:31Daniel, come on, man. I got to 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 I hope you give it a try. Oh, here's Daniel. He's finally out. Back from my bathroom break. This is Daniel. Go follow the Mark and Millet 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.

12:05We'll talk about it. Just give us a shout on LinkedIn and tell us what you want to hear. Peace out. Later.