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The goal of an apparel campaign is to get the word out about your company. You want more eyeballs on you so that people can consider your product or cause. However, you need to approach your campaign carefully, as a bad apparel campaign can hurt your company’s PR just as a good one can help it. Apparel serves as your company’s business card and how attractive your clothing is will be taken to speak for your brand’s quality.
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Essential hacks for better sales
Below are the top apparel mockups hacks to boost your sales.
Keep it clear and memorable
You are going to want your t-shirt to project a clear image with a clear focal point and message. Whether you are just trying to sell the actual clothing or market your company, there must be both sufficient and consistent spacing around the main features of the apparel. Adding in too much will confuse people’s gaze.
Whatever you do, be absolutely sure that your image is easy to quickly grasp, that it’s professionally designed, and sticks in people’s memory.
Use high-quality imagery
This is a huge factor in any type of marketing. TV channels invest in advertising agencies with expensive Hollywood-style cameras for a reason. People want to set their sights on images that are easy on the eyes and will look away quickly otherwise.
Opt for models rather than flat lays
It’s better to have models wearing the apparel in the photo rather than flat lays as photos benefit from having a realistic and relatable human touch. Models showcase fit and style and put people mentally in their places.
Crop and frame to create visual interest
While people are picturing how a sweatshirt, hat, or pants will look, they often have a psychological need to see how it will look from each and every angle. Be sure to satisfy this need to give people confidence and satisfaction. It’s best to crop out the model’s face, however, as it may distract from what you are trying to present – the clothing items.
Variations
People may or may not like the initial style and colors of your t-shirt. For that reason, it pays to redesign the image with different colors, fonts, images, and other variations, as the more alterations you make, the greater the opportunity for one to hook.
Tie dye and watercolor
Tie-dye is an ever-popular design since it offers vibrant, unique, and artistic visuals with blends of colors and organic patterns, ushering in creativity and individuality. Watercolor’s soft flowing transitions create a calming ethereal effect. Both are enjoyed by those who seek a distinctive, eye-catching, expressive design.
Understand your audience demographics and interests
There is a good chance that you are already aware of who your typical customers are. If not, you should conduct research and find that out quickly. Your customers might be predominantly men between the ages of 50 and 70 or they could be middle-aged housewife soccer moms with children around the age of 10 at home. Come up with designs that tickle their fancy.
Leverage Emotions and Trends
It’s one thing to present images and concepts that resonate with people’s sensibilities and beliefs, but there are temporary zeitgeists that really have people worked up. Take advantage of these popular phenomena and ride off of their coattails.
Causes
If there is a political cause or a non-governmental organization promoting a movement, this is something you could latch onto. An example could be environmental protection such as keeping cities safe from nuclear energy or promoting animal shelters, especially if your business is environment or animal-related. Political parties and the goals they support also are great sales engines.
Seasons, Holidays, and Events
A couple of the most entrenched zeitgeists that exist are the coming of the seasons, sports events, and holidays. Whenever a big season comes around like Easter, Thanksgiving, or Christmas, there is lots of merchandise sold. If your company produces home insulation, this will do well for reminding you to keep your house warmer for Santa or lowering your bill during the sweltering Summer. Otherwise, people always enjoy being reminded of Spring break and how nice and sunny June is going to be.
Humor, art, and text
One of the best examples of zeitgeists is memes. Research Gate performed a study on just how quickly memes spread culture globally. A lot of people see the same memes on Facebook and Twitter dozens of times. You’ll benefit from people thinking of your company whenever they see a meme that you’ve used on clothing. This evokes a positive emotion that you can latch onto. People also like to see a nice-looking image, which is why the combination of text and pictures will catch people’s curiosity.
What not to do
Now for some pitfalls to look after in designing your apparel.
Avoid oversaturated trends
There are certain trends that already have a lot of competition with not enough of a market left to claim a stake in. These include pictures of camping, nature, or cars.
Movie characters and celebrities
The problem with using celebrities or movies on clothing is that they are copyrighted. Those franchises were created for commercial purposes and others are usually not allowed to sell their likenesses for commercial gain.
Do not use basic designs
Overly plain-looking clothes that don’t feature anything eye-popping at all are unlikely to grab people’s interest and they would defeat the purpose of producing the merchandise or worse – could give your company a dull image. Medialoot provides a lot of flashy designs on how to dazzle potential customers.
Do not overcomplicate things
If you have an excess of features or text on the t-shirt, especially if the t-shirt lacks design structure, people will be too confused to be able to understand the style and message you were going for.
Using Professional Mockups
Actually coming up with a design from scratch is a time investment. While you make the finishing touches to adjust the colors, saturation, and other metrics you want, you may consider starting off with professionally designed mockups.
YellowImages.com is an available online database of clothing mockups with options for each category.
Here’s how you find what you need
- If you already know what type of clothing you’re looking for, click in the search bar at the top of the screen, type it in, and select the option you’re looking for in the suggestions.
Otherwise, find “Apparel” in the left-side menu of the screen.
- When the menu expands, select the specific clothing item you’re looking for.
- Scroll through the results which appear in the bottom center of the screen until you come across a mockup that’s to your liking. Click it.
- Click the thumbnails to view the product from different angles.
- Choose PSD or JPEG image.
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