Trunk Studio

So if you're part of our marketing group, you've already seen these pics, but just realized that I haven't updated here in a while so some of you may not have realized that Erin and I packed up everything and headed to Spain earlier this month.

The beauty of POD is we can do it from anywhere, along with the mock-up business that we have.

I'm hard at work even though we're on the road to build-out our FB group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/trunkstudio

If you haven't joined it yet you should hop in.

For the next month, I'm going to be focused on email marketing and building out your core email automations along with providing weekly email campaign ideas that you can use to help drive sales from your email list.

Happy Holidays!!

Hope you and your families are doing well!

I’m in the middle of brainstorming some new ideas to write and make videos about and wanted to ask if there is anything you’re really wanting to learn more about when it comes to Etsy and Print on Demand?

Erin posted some new styles of Valentines mock-ups this morning. Planning on starting with Valentines mockups and St Patricks day and then adding in evergreen stuff.

Really like how these came out and can provide some variety to your listings.

When Good Morning America is talking about shopping on Etsy due to supply chain issues, I'd say that is a sign that the holidays are going to be very bullish for Etsy sellers.

I probably sound like a broken record, but make sure you have backups on backups for your POD providers.

Find other items you can add to your stores: T-Shirts will be the hardest hit with shortages since they are the most popular SKU, get other apparel items up to go with your shirts.

Sweatshirts were our best selling item in our apparel stores last year, and because they have a higher price point resulted in massive profits.

Longs sleeves, hoodies, look for stuff that people will be looking for seasonally, and then don't forget about New Year's resolutions and add in some tank tops or leggings.

We're in the middle of moving, so it's a little hectic here but Erin's trying to shoot as much as possible to add new items to Trunk Studio.

Hope all of you are doing well, and let me know in the comments if there is anything I can help you with!

ETSY Strategy Tip Of The Week

The #1 factor for growing our Etsy stores today is consistently and steadily uploading new products.

This works for a couple of reasons.

1. The Etsy algorithm uses a honeymoon period for new listings that give them a boost in search.

This boost combined with the fact all our stores are niched means that even if people aren't buying those new listings, buyers are being lead to our shops constantly.

2. If you have an established shop and a lot of followers, your followers get a notification about the new items in your store which will lead them to come back and buy more.

3. There is a halo effect on all of your listings that is caused by purchases as well as high ranking listings. Stores that rank high with their average listings and do well in daily sales get pushed harder in the algorithm.

Think of it from Etsy's terms: Wouldn't you rather push a store that has a proven catalog of good sellers, rather than pushing random new listings without a track record?

At the end of the day Etsy is a business focused on maximizing it's sales.

They are definitely making bets right now on successful shops new listings.

To take advantage of this, what we are doing currently is batching new listings on Monday typically enough to upload a minimum of 5 new listings a day to the stores.

So for example if you want to do 5 a day for a week you'll need to have a minimum of 35 new listings done.

Then every morning around 9am EST we will push those listings live.

The results from days we upload versus days we don't is dramatic.

One of the challenges with writing a newsletter for a pretty wide range of interests is that certain interests of mine don't necessarily align.

NFTs / Crypto and Web3 are all things I've been spending a lot of time on the last 6 months, but haven't written about because I wasn't sure how much it would apply to the world of POD.

With the corporate adoption of NFTs by Budweiser and Visa in the last week I think it's time to explore NFTs with you all and what I think we could be looking at.

More importantly, I have an angle by which POD ties directly with NFTs, Audience and Merch after the Hundreds launch of their Adam Bomb Squad NFTs on Sunday.

So a simple question: Would you be interested in learning more about NFTs?

What if I told you the single biggest boost to your Q4 isn't in your designs, SEO, Advertising or Customer Service.

It's in securing your supply chain to ensure you can actually fulfill orders for your customers.

I know in POD land this is something a lot of people take for granted, but from someone who is in this day in and out the supply chain for apparel is worse off in many ways than it was in 2020.

100% if you haven't already you need to being working on a minimum of 4 backups to process orders for you.

Ideally you should be looking for a local printer who you'll have a better relationship with and be capable of getting honest answers on production timeframes.

Those that are preparing in Q3 are the ones who will find success in Q4. Begin now, it's going to be here before you know it!

Our newsletter post about partnering with creators and helping solve their monetization problems with POD is finally done and will be hitting your inbox this morning!

If you haven't signed up yet, link is in bio on IG or you can visit thetrunkstudio dot com and sign up!

Some personal stuff interrupted the newsletter last week, but planning on finishing it up tomorrow.

In the meantime would you guys be interested in a live to answer any of your etsy questions?

Feel free to add any questions you'd like to have answered and I'll answer them tomorrow.

We'll have our guide to working with influencers out this weekend, I actually have some really cool links to share along with practical tips and strategies on how to make this work in your businesses.

In the meantime Erin's been hard at work putting together bundles to prepare you for the holidays.

She released a Gildan 18000 Holiday bundle today that has mockups for Fall, Halloween and Christmas of all the colors of the 18000 that major PODs sell.

We'll be adding more like this for the 3001, Gildan Softstyle and other blanks as well.

Finishing up the newsletter for release tomorrow morning.

A little preview of what I'll be talking about...

Drops, Merch, partnerships... You don't have to play the same game as everyone else.

Ever heard the phrase, "The Creator Economy", or "The Passion Economy"?

It refers to the ways that "creators", youtubers, podcasters, influencers etc generate income.

It might be YouTube adsense money, podcast sponsorships, ad sales etc, but more frequently it involves physical products and solving pain points for their tribe.

This can be anything from Kylie Jenner's billion dollar makeup empire, to the Merch company Maverick by Logan Paul.

This week on the Trunk Studio newsletter I'll be talking about how you can take part in this new economy.

How by solving problems for creators you can completely transform how you think of Print On Demand and what it's capable of.

Keep an eye in your inbox Tuesday.

If you haven't signed up yet, link in bio or go to thetrunkstudio dot com

Conversion rate optimization is hard. There are a lot of tools out there, but they don't tell you what to do with them.

We get it! You're busy and have no time for another tool that doesn't solve your problems. We've been in the Print On Demand space for years and we know how frustrating it can be trying to make sense of all the data you collect from your analytics or social media accounts.

That's why we wrote the latest edition of The Trunk Studio Newsletter

A guide to improving your conversion rate through improving your customer's journey using customer reviews for better copywriting, social proof and better product images.

Our guide will help you understand where customers struggle on their journey so that when they land on your listing and find exactly what they need to convert into sales.

Keep an eye out for it in your inboxes tomorrow morning.

And if you haven't signed up yet click on the link in our bio

Do you ever think about why you buy something?

What were the things that helped you make a decision?

When you bought something from an ad why did you click on it?

Diving into these decision points can help us to think through what our customers are thinking as they look to buy our own products.

Good copywriting, great images, and a strong offer were probably the reasons behind you making most buying decisions.

This week I'll be touching on all 3 of these things along with examples of brands that do them well.

My goal is to teach you a framework that will allow you to look at your shops and listings and determine where you can tweak them to improve your conversion rates.

Sign up for the latest edition in the link in bio

The customer journey is something that isn't talked about enough in the world of POD.

Customers don't just magically show up and purchase our stuff.

The best sellers on Amazon and Etsy didn't get there by accident, and they aren't just lucky with the products they chose.

Thinking through your ideal customers journey from lack of awareness, to awareness, to interest can be pictured as a funnel.

At the top of the funnel they have no idea your product exists, or may not even know that they need this product at all.

On the edge of the funnel they are now aware of products existing that can help them.

Slightly further in they have interest in your products and are on the fence about making a decision to buy.

This week we'll be diving into how to get customers to cross over and go from interested to buying and how you can help them to do it.

If you'd like access to this newsletter as well as past editions, click the link in bio or go to TheTrunkStudio dot com and sign up!

Just sent out this week's newsletter to all our subscribers.

Focused on actionable tips to improve your copywriting.

This will be worth revisiting and spending some time digging deep

If you haven't signed up yet, you can still receive the latest issue by signing up with the link below.

The Trunk Studio Print On Demand Newsletter A newsletter focused on strategies the best eCommerce businesses use to grow and how they apply to Print On Demand.

Our 4th year of doing Print on Demand, and Etsy a couple of things stand out this Summer.

1) Seasonality is more pronounced this year. Summer is sloooow for retail normally, but this year post Pandemic there is definitely way less action.

People are out doing everything they couldn't last year, school is out, and the money that last year poured into eCom is being spent elsewhere.

2) With in-school teaching returning to the entire US this year, Back to school spending is expected to be higher than ever this year, and companies are already starting to try to grab those dollars.

While sales may be slow at the moment, working hard at preparing for Back To School themes should be a big part of how you're spending your POD time.

3) Q4 Success begins in Q3. The factor that doesn't get talked about enough in the difference between successful shops and mediocre ones is quite simply the number of listings on marketplaces.

Unlike Merch By Amazon, there is no limit to what you can have up on Etsy.

Want to make it easier for customers to find your stuff?

Open up another niched Etsy shop etc.

The way to make more money on Marketplaces, is to have more items to sell. It's the simplest way to grow your earning potential.

This means while sales are slow, and there are plenty of distractions you should be setting goals for yourself to put out consistent steady output to prepare for November and December.

Have a plan for how many listings you wish to have up in Q4, then back into that and figure out how many designs and listings per day you need to produce and then stick to it.

I promise it will pay off when we hit the craziness of Q4.

Hope this Saturday is the best Saturday you've ever had, and looking forward to hear about your successes.

We've finally hit the point in our business that we are starting to have more time for content and consistently putting out strategy and tactics.

I've got some ideas for what I'd like to write about and make videos on, but curious if there is anything you all would love to hear more about.

On the agenda:

Building a database of all of the large POD providers in the industry, as well as a database of independent printers with their various price points as well as what products they carry.

Also planning on doing a series of compare and contrast videos of these PODs and what the actual quality of their product, as well as what ship times, look like.

Explaining in depth what goes into making your own products with DTG, from costs to products to why anyone thinking about doing it should buy a Brother GTX.

How supply chains will affect production times and availability as we go into Q4 and retails busiest time period.

Why you all should be focused on building out social channels and lists OR... finding creative partners in niches you focus on that you can build joint ventures with.

Anyways that's what I have on my list and I'll be working towards but I always love hearing feedback from others. It's fascinating to me how Print on Demand has grown and evolved in the last 4 years.

If you haven't signed up for the newsletter, it's super easy now.

https://www.thetrunkstudio.com

Look in your inbox tomorrow for our first email in a while.

As we celebrate the 4th of July and move into the 2nd half of the year which is typically a slower sales time, there are opportunities that all sellers should be looking at to increase their sales.

I'll also be sharing some optimizations we've made in the last few months to our stores and how they have boosted our average order value and rankings.

If you'd like to sign up, click the link below
https://trunk-studio.ck.page/447ef1e079?