[General Stalin]

Hmmm. Sounds almost too simple to be true and lucrative. I'm interested in this.

[NKD]

Yeah it is simple and very lucrative. I don’t think WeekendCasanova would have quit his investment banking job to sell Tshirts if it wasn’t worth it.

[Heart Break Kid]

Any of you guys have artistic skills? Or do you guys pay people to design shirts?

[Vienna]

Thank you for showing us your journey in the world of online business WC. Solid datasheets!

Is customcat a viable option for the European market, or would shipping times be too long? Is there a European alternative with a similar product line?

[gringoed]

WC, I'm curious how much you spend on average on advertising per shirt sold with your POD model. Thanks to you I'm creating designs now and I'd like to know if what I'm spending on FB ads is typical.

[Thrill Jackson]

What would be the best book to read to understand facebook advertising?

[WeekendCasanova]

(11-29-2017 01:24 PM)General Stalin Wrote:  

Curious about POD as I was in a band a while back and have some pretty novice small-time experience in printing custom merchandise:

How do you automate this? We used to make up designs, pay a screen printing company to print them, then sell them at shows and on our webstore (so therefore we held an inventory and handled all shipping and customer interaction directly ourselves).

It's simple to automate once you have your processes in place - you can hire a team, and have them follow your processes.

Quote:

Do you acquire an inventory of all your products before you sell it? Or do you only submit order(s) when you have order(s). The latter of course being a lot of wait time for the customer.

Do you have other people package and ship your products for you? If so, do you have all your orders shipped to them along with a list of outgoing orders?

I don't hold any inventory. As another User said, it's an application within Shopify - once a customer places an order, their information is passed to this third-party application.

Their warehouses print, and ship the product with my business name/logo on the packaging. It's exceptionally useful, and profitable.

[WeekendCasanova]

(11-30-2017 12:33 PM)DarianFrey Wrote:  

Thank you for showing us your journey in the world of online business WC. Solid datasheets!

Is customcat a viable option for the European market, or would shipping times be too long? Is there a European alternative with a similar product line?

CC is viable yes. Shipping is a bit more expensive, and a bit longer - but still way shorter than Aliexpress and other companies, so I would still recommend it.

(12-03-2017 01:27 AM)gringoed Wrote:  

WC, I'm curious how much you spend on average on advertising per shirt sold with your POD model. Thanks to you I'm creating designs now and I'd like to know if what I'm spending on FB ads is typical.

It depends. My normal CPP (cost per purchase) was anywhere from $2 to $9 depending on which product I'm advertising (i.e t-shirts vs. a higher priced item such as sweaters). But my ad account is in Canadian dollars, and I sell in American - so you can do the conversion there to figure out the exact numbers.

(12-05-2017 10:59 AM)Thrill Jackson Wrote:  

What would be the best book to read to understand facebook advertising?

Youtube videos. You don't need to buy anything to learn the basics.

But in terms of books for overall online selling, and funnels (if you're interested):

NO B.S Guide to Social Media Marketing - Dan Kennedy
The Ultimate Sales Letter - Dan Kennedy

You don't need any other books on copywriting/learning basic funnels. Use these, and you're already ahead of your competitors that don't learn these two options.

[WeekendCasanova]

[Service-Selling Update]

I'm creating a new service-selling funnel to add a niche to my business. For this specific niche, I'm going to be hopefully documenting my progress within this thread. The niche I'm targeting is going to be Physiotherapists.

The general idea is this.

Research phase:

When I'm exploring a new niche, I always call businesses within that specific niche to get a general idea of 'what they need'. I've done some research, called some therapists and found that their #1-need is more 'assessment clients'. This is where a client comes in, pays $80 for a one-time 45-minutes assessment. This, of course leads to new referrals and further booked appointments.

Funnel planning phase:

Now that I have that, I've started to plan my funnel (haven't got much further as I just came up with this niche yesterday morning).

I'm going to run this campaign under a new Facebook Page/Business (Physio Lead Guys etc..).

The funnel:

Facebook Ad (I.E Struggling to generate Physio assessment clients/leads? Let us help you. Visit this link <inserted> to download our FREE report showing how to generate more leads for your business using the power of social media marketing)

Landing page (Make them fill out name/email, send them to the thank-you page with a thank-you video/upsell video, and a link to download their free report). For those that click on the video, have a popup appear that asks them to book a strategy call (with me).

That's all I've done so far - I need to create the report still, but I'll do that today.

Ryan,

[Suits]

There are 81 million people selling goods and services online. 72% of them are selling Internet marking services and "coaching."

[WeekendCasanova]

(12-06-2017 09:54 AM)Suits Wrote:  

There are 81 million people selling goods and services online. 72% of them are selling Internet marking services and "coaching."

I fail to see the point of this comment.

Of those 72%, how many are making money & doing it correctly? I'd wager not many.

Running a FB ad agency correctly means understanding copywriting, funnels and driving traffic.

Everyone wants to do it because you can make a lot of money with it - but not everyone does it correctly.

81 million people sell goods and services online - 81 million people call themselves entrepreneurs.

People fail to see just how big the market is for lead generation. Businesses have a real issue competing online, and they often don't know how to drive traffic, or create a funnel. I could care less if 100% of people were doing this business model - it's a money making machine.

[Suits]

(12-06-2017 10:19 AM)WeekendCasanova Wrote:  

(12-06-2017 09:54 AM)Suits Wrote:  

There are 81 million people selling goods and services online. 72% of them are selling Internet marking services and "coaching."

I fail to see the point of this comment.

Of those 72%, how many are making money & doing it correctly? I'd wager not many.

Running a FB ad agency correctly means understanding copywriting, funnels and driving traffic.

Everyone wants to do it because you can make a lot of money with it - but not everyone does it correctly.

81 million people sell goods and services online - 81 million people call themselves entrepreneurs.

People fail to see just how big the market is for lead generation. Businesses have a real issue competing online, and they often don't know how to drive traffic, or create a funnel. I could care less if 100% of people were doing this business model - it's a money making machine.

I completely invented those statistics.

[WeekendCasanova]

(12-06-2017 12:03 PM)Suits Wrote:  

(12-06-2017 10:19 AM)WeekendCasanova Wrote:  

(12-06-2017 09:54 AM)Suits Wrote:  

There are 81 million people selling goods and services online. 72% of them are selling Internet marking services and "coaching."

I fail to see the point of this comment.

Of those 72%, how many are making money & doing it correctly? I'd wager not many.

Running a FB ad agency correctly means understanding copywriting, funnels and driving traffic.

Everyone wants to do it because you can make a lot of money with it - but not everyone does it correctly.

81 million people sell goods and services online - 81 million people call themselves entrepreneurs.

People fail to see just how big the market is for lead generation. Businesses have a real issue competing online, and they often don't know how to drive traffic, or create a funnel. I could care less if 100% of people were doing this business model - it's a money making machine.

I completely invented those statistics.

[Johnnyvee]

(12-06-2017 12:21 PM)WeekendCasanova Wrote:  

(12-06-2017 12:03 PM)Suits Wrote:  

(12-06-2017 10:19 AM)WeekendCasanova Wrote:  

(12-06-2017 09:54 AM)Suits Wrote:  

There are 81 million people selling goods and services online. 72% of them are selling Internet marking services and "coaching."

I fail to see the point of this comment.

Of those 72%, how many are making money & doing it correctly? I'd wager not many.

Running a FB ad agency correctly means understanding copywriting, funnels and driving traffic.

Everyone wants to do it because you can make a lot of money with it - but not everyone does it correctly.

81 million people sell goods and services online - 81 million people call themselves entrepreneurs.

People fail to see just how big the market is for lead generation. Businesses have a real issue competing online, and they often don't know how to drive traffic, or create a funnel. I could care less if 100% of people were doing this business model - it's a money making machine.

I completely invented those statistics.

Hi,

Is there anything similar to customcat in Europe that you know off?
Couldn`t find any print-on-demand providers for clothing.
(Lots of drop shipping providers though.)
I don`t suppose it`s possible to run a business selling on the US
market from a European country via a company lie customcat?

Thx.

[NKD]

Whats the best way to drive traffic for a POD business?

I got a designer friend that made some badass designs for a specific niche. Should I start with FB ads? If yes, how? I suck at them.

Instagram hasn’t generated any sales for me for my dropshipping businesses

[Teep]

Hey awesome thread! I actually joined because of it...

WeekendCasanova: How are you going about targeting business owners with your social media advertising biz? This seems immensely difficult to do with Facebook ads. I tried a campaign targeted towards 'page admins' and 'small business owners' but there's a lot of people on FB who have business pages that aren't actually in business. I ended up with a lot of "cat ladies" liking my ads lol.

I could see it working if you target by education credentials (ie..dentists), but if you wanted to say target owners of a small manufacturing business (or even something like a cleaning business)...how would you go about that?

[Pump_IT]

I don't hold any inventory. As another User said, it's an application within Shopify - once a customer places an order, their information is passed to this third-party application.

Their warehouses print, and ship the product with my business name/logo on the packaging. It's exceptionally useful, and profitable.
[/quote]

Hey, man! Since you don't hold an inventory, in which way the costumers are able to see the available shirts? Do you leave in your "store" only the images, phrases or whatever is the print on the shirt?

English is not my native language, there might be some mistakes in my writing!

[TooFineAPoint]

(12-07-2017 11:51 AM)Teep Wrote:  

Hey awesome thread! I actually joined because of it...

WeekendCasanova: How are you going about targeting business owners with your social media advertising biz? This seems immensely difficult to do with Facebook ads. I tried a campaign targeted towards 'page admins' and 'small business owners' but there's a lot of people on FB who have business pages that aren't actually in business. I ended up with a lot of "cat ladies" liking my ads lol.

I could see it working if you target by education credentials (ie..dentists), but if you wanted to say target owners of a small manufacturing business (or even something like a cleaning business)...how would you go about that?

I ran into the same issue with auto shop owners.

Some categories on Facebook are very specific and others are woefully vague (or do not attract the certain demographic that accurately completes their profile).

[Teep]

(12-09-2017 08:23 PM)TooFineAPoint Wrote:  

(12-07-2017 11:51 AM)Teep Wrote:  

Hey awesome thread! I actually joined because of it...

WeekendCasanova: How are you going about targeting business owners with your social media advertising biz? This seems immensely difficult to do with Facebook ads. I tried a campaign targeted towards 'page admins' and 'small business owners' but there's a lot of people on FB who have business pages that aren't actually in business. I ended up with a lot of "cat ladies" liking my ads lol.

I could see it working if you target by education credentials (ie..dentists), but if you wanted to say target owners of a small manufacturing business (or even something like a cleaning business)...how would you go about that?

I ran into the same issue with auto shop owners.

Some categories on Facebook are very specific and others are woefully vague (or do not attract the certain demographic that accurately completes their profile).

Yea, I found Facebook's "behavioral" targeting to be questionable. A lot of the so called business owners that my liked my ads were 'CEO of nunyabizness' and shit like that.

The interest targeting is even worse. Everybody likes everything on facebook, even things they're not remotely interested in. Facebook has actually gotten into trouble with their ads metrics, and fluffing the numbers.

Anyway, there's a lot of hype with FB ads. I think they have some utility for B2C companies, especially re-targeting. But I'd really like to see some proof of a successful B2B campaign. I've been in online marketing circles for a long while now, and I haven't seen anyone who's cracked the code.

[nomadbrah]

B2B.

Retargeting combined with other traffic sources?

[Teep]

One surefire way to reach a target business owner with FB ads is to get a list of businesses in that niche, type their name in the 'employer' section, and then narrow that by page admins.

The trouble with that approach is the ad set maxes out at around 500 employers. And with a target audience that small, its hard getting optimized deliverability.

I was messing around with "scraping" emails and phone number from Facebook groups. Apparently it used to be a goldmine, and you could upload the UIDs into a custom audience. FB has pretty much shut down that loophole now though.

I hate to say it but for B2B lead gen, direct mail is probably the best bet. That and in person networking.

[renotime]

When doing the product images with POD should you do it with models or just the t-shirt?

[WeekendCasanova]

[Update]

As mentioned above, I was working on a brand new funnel to target clients that run a certain type of business. The funnel has been running for about a week now, but I wanted to give some more tips for those of you that want to start a service-selling agency.

Infocanada/US is a goldmine to find business owners and clients based on net-worth, location, income and many other factors.

You have to pay for the lists, but you can directly input these into Facebook ads.

Currently, I'm getting about $20 for every $1 I spend from FB ads from this specific funnel.

I want to start answering more questions related to the technical side of setting up a business.

[WeekendCasanova]

(12-10-2017 09:07 PM)renotime Wrote:  

When doing the product images with POD should you do it with models or just the t-shirt?

Both.

Split-test and let the data speak.

[WeekendCasanova]

(12-09-2017 08:23 PM)TooFineAPoint Wrote:  

(12-07-2017 11:51 AM)Teep Wrote:  

Hey awesome thread! I actually joined because of it...

WeekendCasanova: How are you going about targeting business owners with your social media advertising biz? This seems immensely difficult to do with Facebook ads. I tried a campaign targeted towards 'page admins' and 'small business owners' but there's a lot of people on FB who have business pages that aren't actually in business. I ended up with a lot of "cat ladies" liking my ads lol.

I could see it working if you target by education credentials (ie..dentists), but if you wanted to say target owners of a small manufacturing business (or even something like a cleaning business)...how would you go about that?

I ran into the same issue with auto shop owners.

Some categories on Facebook are very specific and others are woefully vague (or do not attract the certain demographic that accurately completes their profile).

Use the info sites I mentioned above.

You can get a massive list of auto shop owners by geographical location.

Otherwise, write your ad so that it speaks to auto shop owners.

It works.