Having a swag store can be a great way to support your marketing objectives while also creating extra revenue and boosting your employees’ morale and engagement.
What is a swag store exactly, though? Does your company really need one?
Both customers and employees appreciate being able to represent their favorite brands. When you have a swag store, you give them the opportunity to do so while also increasing brand recognition and so much more.
Not convinced yet? Let’s take a deep dive into everything you need to know about swag stores.
What Is a Swag Store?
The term SWAG stands for “stuff we all get” but more generally describes cool stuff that you most likely want.
When your company has a swag store, it means that you have a place where your fan and customers can buy items branded with your logo and other designs. There are a lot of different benefits to offering swag on an online platform. Let’s take a look at the different benefits of starting your own swag store online.
Swag store basically is for clothing and fashion products, people are selling T-shirts, dresses on online stores, you can take reference from T-shirts store here.
Consistent Branding
Brand consistency is when your brand delivers a message that is in line with your brand’s values, identity, and strategy. This means that your target audience is repeatedly being exposed to visual branding, core messages, and other brand elements. This can help to increase brand recognition.
When you start a swag store, it can help you achieve consistent branding. Your unique branding as a company will become more and more recognizable to your target audience. Through your store, you can help to shape the identity of your brand in a way that is incredibly positive for your business.
Brand consistency is essential when you are trying to build credibility and trust among your customers.
Boost Employee Engagement
When you have an online swag store, you have the opportunity to reward your employees with branded gear. This can help them to feel more appreciated and feel more of a connection with the company. There has been a lot of studies done recently pointing to just how positive employee engagement can be for the culture and revenue of organizations.
Employee engagement can lead to safer, healthier, and happier workplaces. It can lead to greater employee satisfaction, less absenteeism, and higher employee retention. On top of that, it can contribute to better customer service, better quality, greater productivity, and more sales and revenue!
A company swag store is a great way to help your employees build a deeper connection with your business.
Get Rid of the Need to Hold Physical Inventory
In the olden days, you might have had boxes of physical inventory like t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, and bags. Now, having an online swag store means that you don’t have to make space for physical inventory at all. That means no more digging through that bin to find the one remaining medium-sized t-shirt when a customer comes in looking for one!
When your swag store is online and managed by a swag management platform, they handle all of the requests, shipping, and inventory for you. This means that you don’t have to spend your valuable time and space dealing with this merchandise.
While having a swag store is great, you aren’t trying to fill up your employees’ time with dealing with this type of minutiae. You want them to have the time, space, and energy to focus on what really matters: fulling their required tasks and responsibilities so your business runs smoothly and efficiently.
Boost Employee Morale
Who doesn’t love free stuff? When you reward your employees with the option to pick something out from the swag store, it helps to boost their morale. It also increases their sense of connection with the company, which is vital to ensuring that they are motivated and invested in doing the best work possible.
Make It Easy For Customers to Rep Your Brand
When a customer loves a brand, they typically want to share that information with everyone else they know. While word of mouth is great, they might only get the chance to tell a few other people about your brand. What if they were walking around the world in a t-shirt with your logo on it, though?
That changes everything. It means that countless people are being exposed to your logo whenever they wear your swag, and there’s a high likelihood that other people will ask them about the company.
When you have a swag store, it means that your loyal customers can easily represent your brand whenever they want to. Not only is this increasing the amount of connection your existing customer has to your brand, but it’s helping to generate more high-quality leads, too!
Promote Your Values
Designing swag that represents your brand can also help to promote your company’s values. If one of your values as a company is to be ecologically responsible, make sure that you’re printing your t-shirts on earth-friendly materials. If one of your core values is supporting American companies, team up with some 100% American businesses to produce swag that represents your values.
Loyalty and Retention
When your customers have the opportunity to rep your brand on t-shirts, totes, hats, and more, it helps solidify the relationship they have with your brand.
Customers that receive or buy your swag will be reminded of your brand a lot more often, which means they’ll remain a more loyal customer. This means that you’ll be creating repeat customers, which all business owners know are the cream of the crop.
Increase Brand Recognition
A central aspect of nearly all marketing campaigns is the desire to increase brand recognition. When your target audience can identify your brand in a lineup quickly, it leads to more sales and more profits.
Promotional product marketing is a great way to increase your brand recognition. Not only are people drawn to repping brands that they like, but when they wear your promotional products they are essentially acting as walking, talking advertisements. The more you can put your brand out there and the more places your branding can be seen, the more people know about your company and your product.
Cost-Effective Marketing Strategy
One of the great aspects of having a swag store is that it’s cost-effective. Your customers are essentially paying you to advertise for you. Having an online store can help your brand generate more revenue while also increasing the exposure of your branding to your target audience.
Increase Leads and Sales
Beyond just creating brand recognition, having a swag store can help to generate leads. Swag can help to make a lasting impression on your existing customers so that they keep coming back for more. It can also help advertise your services and products to people who will become customers in the future.
What Kind of Swag Should You Offer at Your Store?
The sky is the limit when it comes to what kinds of products you can sell at your company store. A good way to generate ideas is to take a look at the company stores of some of your competition and see what they’re offering. You might even be able to sort by their most popular products to find out what seems to be a hit and what’s more of a dud.
T-Shirts
The classic branded item, you can’t go wrong with a well-designed t-shirt. These are great to give away as prizes to employees or as a part of a promotional campaign.
Hats
Designing both winter hats and baseball caps is another great swag idea. Let your branding keep your customers’ heads warm all year long!
Sweatshirts
Another popular choice when it comes to swag is sweatshirts. Typically a bit more expensive, you might sell fewer sweatshirts than t-shirts, but when you do you know it’s going to a loyal customer.
Water Bottles
Branded water bottles are a great way to promote eco-friendly values as well as advertise your brand. Everyone needs their go-to water bottle when they’re out and about, so why not make it one of yours?
Fitness Gear
There are a lot of branded fitness gear ideas out there if your brand values are promoting health and wellness. This might mean branded yoga mats and cases, custom armband phone holders, branded duffle bags, or more.
Eco-Friendly Products
Is your company all about sustainability? Then make sure your store reflects that. Consider offering branded reusable straws, clothing made out of sustainable materials, and reusable coffee mugs.
Swag Stores Are a Win-Win Situation
Few things and life have so many positives without many negatives. Having a swag store can both help generate revenue and advertise your business, while also keeping your customers and your employees happy. While it might sound too good to be true, this might be the one circumstance where it’s really all good!
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