Individualitee shop just got a nice write up over at t-shirt alert. Tshirt blogs are a great place to get some traffic for your store and love for your designs. The writers of these get a lot of mails with requests to be featured though, so it might take some patience and even a little persistence to get coverage even if they really like your shop.
Some tips for getting featured:
- Send them a shirt from your store, they can see the design and quality up close or give them away to their readers.
- Send content that is ready to be posted, a blurb or pre-written news item.
- Have a specific reason to be featured - new designs, site face-lift, give-away, sale
- Don’t send generic text or blurb or mail which isn’t personalized.
- Read the blog, get to know the writer, the shirts they like, how often they post, if they will or wont post slogan tshirts etc.
Tshirt island has a comprehensive list of tshirt blogs.
Ami
Dave
Michel
Tobias Huber
Speaking as a t-shirt blogger, I feel like “Dont send generic text or blurb or mail which isnt personalized” is the most important of these points. I hate getting emails that have obviously been sent to other people that don’t make an effort at all to show any interest in what we’re doing; it makes me feel like all I am to them is free advertising. Well… to THOSE people, I’m not
Another tip that you didn’t mention is: “Don’t contact every single t-shirt blog ever.” I know I don’t like posting the same thing that everybody else already has, so providing blogs with exclusive content is key.
“Send content that is ready to be posted, a blurb or pre-written news item.” I personally like to write my posts myself, but it is very useful to be given information that you would like to see posted about your own shirts.
Yeah I tend not to use the pre-written content as well, but I’ve notice quite a few of the other T bloggers do.
Couldn’t agree more on the exclusive content part. A chance to preview a new design, give-away, sale or coupon code is a really easy way to get coverage.
Good advice here. we’ve found that tshirt blogs are the best drivers of traffic to the site, but as pointed out, personalised emails to each blog is well worth the effort. As Joe and Adam point out, stagger your emails to these blogs too. It may mean more work and not blanket coverage, but the bloggers will appreciate it plus it increases the chances of your site getting featured.
I`m quite new at posting in blogs, but I think you`re right, pre-written content does not make reading posts interesting. But, do you really generate more traffic with blogposting?
Yep, you’ll definitely generate more traffic, but good quality traffic which is the most important. Take a look at the click rates on my fairly new tshirt deal blog tjunction http://tjunction.hiphipuk.co.uk/, a single post with very little actual content other than here’s a deal, can net you 50-80 referrals. That might not seem a lot, but the traffic is very specific, its people looking to buy tshirts. They are valuable referrals.
Hi adam, thanx for your reply.
Your blog looks highly professional.
If you want to, I can put your bloglink into my
VAN TRIBE-Blog.
http://blog.vantribe.com
I consider 50-80 refferals pretty much for a single post.
I have to also agree with this post, I have only recently set up a blog on my t-shirt site and I already find that it is paying dividends