Rethink Your Knit Shirt Marketing Strategies

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What are you selling? Are you just selling garments, or are you selling a strategy to assist your customers to differentiate their employees, their products and services, and their businesses?

The answer is critical in improving your credibility, image and selling power, and in differentiating you from your competition.

Think about it this way. Put a customers logo on a garment and the garment and logo immediately cease to be just commodities. They become a powerful way to image and brand a company. The impact can be radical. Think of a generic knit shirt and then a Nike knit shirt. Think of the power the Nike shirt wields on consumers, the higher expected price, the revenues that the brand generates, and the impact is clearer.

Your customers probably have a well-defined corporate branding strategy. However, their understanding of how their logo on the garments they buy from you fits into their branding strategy may be sketchy or non-existent. Unless, of course, the connection is understood and presented to them by a skilled sales person. The branding/imaging proposition represents the value level our industry should market and sell at.

As a start, you might ask your most profitable customers or targets for their branding guidelines and use these to help write a proposal and shape a presentation that is meaningful, relevant and will get you a positive return. Research and read everything you can get your hands on about these customers, their core values and what drives them. Differentiate yourself by becoming your customers branding and image experts. Look at them from the inside out, not vice versa. Youll stand out from the competition, and your customers will love the approach.

From a product perspective, think knit shirts. Knit shirts are worn every day by employees in thousands of businesses where interaction with millions of customers takes place. Knit shirts, therefore, should be part of your selling and presentation strategy to your customers and potential customers.

You will find that, as you make your presentation to your customer or targets, your research on a company will give you a fluency and a context to best present and position your products. As you verbally present, be sure to also present and showcase knit shirts with the customer or company corporate colors and exact logo either embroidered, silk-screened, or sublimated on emblems that are heat sealed to the garments.

It is important to understand that anything goes in selling knit shirts from upscale solids to underarm gussets to a multitude of surface interests and patterns. Show your accounts everything, and do not pre-judge their taste. Remember, every item sold adds to the bottom line. In developing your selling strategy, another important thing to be aware of is that there is a growing market for custom upscale casual wear. You can create an added and compelling selling advantage when you offer garments in styles and patterns not readily available to the market. Customers can be offered styles in their corporate colors tailored to their unique needs. With todays technology, your customers name and logo can even be knit in the collar and sleeve cuffs.

Demand for product made in the U.S. has shown significant growth in the last several years. Give yourself an advantage over your competition by researching available knit shirt and emblem products made in the U.S. You will find many corporations in addition to unionized workplaces and government agencies will prefer U.S.-made products if offered to them.

Follow-up is also critical. Be sure to call back to determine if you can address issues and concerns. To maximize opportunities, it is important to leave catalogs behind as well as sample garments and emblems that customers can refer to and will keep you, your company and your products and services fresh in their minds. The catalog and samples are also critical because they keep on selling long after you or your representative leaves.

The market is healthy, alive and growing. Ensure your success by knowing your customers and prospects and their businesses. Get to know them from the inside out. Use this knowledge to your advantage in making presentations and closing business. Also rethink your business strategy, and give them what they want. Remember anything goes styles are in today when it comes to knit shirts.

Mike Carter can be reached at 800-762-7452.
Randi Blumenthal can be contacted at 800-793-7366.

Above story first appeared in MADE TO MEASURE Magazine, Spring & Summer 2005 issue. All rights reserved. Photos appear by special permission.
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