Bottom Line Up Front: This screen printer set up an online store, complete with custom products, to help spread one movement’s message. The result? Massive sales. Here’s why you shouldn’t overlook cause-based marketing.
Today’s edition of Spotlight On is oriented around a screen printer that took its capabilities and responded to its community’s needs.
We’ve seen apparel decorators and print shops jump at the chance to help their communities flourish these past few months, through setting up online fundraising stores and creating custom online stores for local businesses.
But now, in today’s feature, we’ll see a screen printer that helped give its community a voice in another way. By offering its custom-designed products and its e-commerce capabilities not to a fundraiser, not to a business, but to a cause.
We’ll see in this Spotlight just how effective apparel decorators and print shops are at lending their capabilities to cause-based marketing, and how you can leverage the ability to help advocacy and special interest groups spread their message into massive selling opportunities.
So, let’s jump right into today’s feature: Design A Shirt and their Take Action Prints Store!
The Online Store Breakdown
Design A Shirt, a Tempe, Arizona based screen printer, took notice of the widespread movements gaining traction all over the country and knew that the people behind the cause could use some custom apparel.
Because, as we know, not only does custom apparel work to spread messaging — whether branded or otherwise — but it also works to spread the notion of community. And when it comes to movements, and cause-based marketing as a whole, showing up as a community — as a united front — helps to push the cause even further.
So Design A Shirt, led by John Anton, saw an opportunity to put his team’s capabilities to work. He got started developing the apparel, and he created the custom Take Action Prints online store.
Going to the online store today will show you plenty of custom t-shirts options, each with its own cause-related messaging. With 17 t-shirt options in all — and most coming in a wide array of colors — John and his team wasted no time in making sure they were providing something for everyone within the movement.
At the top of the online store, the heading reads: “It’s time for actionable change. Your message. Your cause.”
This signifies to end-consumers that they have the power to choose which message most resonates with them, and that they have the power to choose where they want the $10 of their purchase to go. With six different organizations to choose from at checkout, the Take Action Prints store ensures that all consumers feel empowered to make their own decisions throughout the buying process.
On the homepage of the online store, the Design A Shirt team made sure to include a “Donor Recipient Highlight” section, where the six organizations included in the dropdown list at checkout get featured.
Site visitors can scroll through each of the organizations, learning about what they do, what the donations will help with, and where they can learn more.
Throughout the store, the message is consistent: by wearing t-shirts and donating to organizations that are in line with the movement you believe in, you’re working to spread the message — and grow the community.
Decorated Apparel & Cause-Based Marketing
As we see through this example, custom apparel and e-commerce capabilities have the power to dramatically increase the marketing potential — and sales/donation potential — of cause-based movements and organizations.
Screen printers have the unique ability to produce message-oriented products — and, with the e-commerce technology like what we offer here at InkSoft, sell those products in easy-to-access online stores.
Everybody knows the power of a t-shirt. With the right messaging, it can single-handedly work to raise awareness and bring new people into the cause — without the person wearing it ever having to speak a word.
These t-shirts are especially effective when groups of people wear them (or versions of them) when they’re together, at a demonstration or community event. And they’re also especially effective when a photo of someone wearing one hits the news.
Apparel with the right cause-based messaging design gets the point across clearly — but it doesn’t require a stage or a microphone to do it. It can be worn anywhere, while the person advocating for the cause is doing anything, and its purpose of spreading the message will be successful.
From the standpoint of a business in the decorated apparel industry, this equates to massive selling opportunities. You should be reaching out to advocacy groups and organizations, asking how you can get involved.
You can set up the same kind of donation system we saw in the Take Action Prints store, where $10 of each purchase goes to the cause — this won’t only showcase that you’re a community-minded business, but it’ll also help impress end-consumers that could have decorated apparel needs of their own one day.
Don’t overlook cause-based marketing. You already have the capabilities, and the demand is certainly there — especially right now. So why not help people spread their message?
