You don’t need to spend $3,000++ to find winning products if you know this trick…
(I wish I’d known it many years ago…)
When I started selling print-on-demand products in 2014, I *blindly* selected quotes and used them to create products to sell.
What I mean by *blindly* is that when I found any quote related to my niche, I slapped it on a product and started advertising…
…without doing any more research.
I just went to Google and searched for something like “[NICHE] quotes”.
(Replace [NICHE] with any niche like Army, Navy, Engineer, Nurse, etc.)
For example, at the time, I tried to promote print-on-demand products in the Army Veteran niche.
I googled “Army Veteran Quotes” and chose any quotes I *felt* would look good on products.
When I thought a quote looked cool, I selected it to create a t-shirt.
I passed the quotes on to my graphic designer and paid him $20 to create each design.
He sent me some badass army designs. I put them on t-shirts and launched Facebook ads to promote them.
I spent over $3,000 on designs and Facebook ads before I found my first winning product.
Luckily, that winning product turned a good profit and covered the $3,000 in losses I’d incurred during the ad testing.
Finally, I had a sense of what kinds of quotes Army guys liked. I made many sales in this niche for many years.
Also, when I tried to crush my Mother’s Day and Father’s Day coffee mug sales a few years ago, I did the same thing.
I *blindly* searched for quotes related to Moms and Dads to create coffee mugs, and tested the quotes using Facebook Ads.
Trust me, I’m intimately familiar with the “throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks” method.
Again, I spent lots of money on designs and Facebook advertising before finding a few winning coffee mugs for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
Although I ultimately made tons of sales, I recently realized that it’s not necessary to lose tons of money to test products like that.
You heard me right. “It’s not necessary to lose tons of money to test the products like that” – if you do a bit of research.
Let that sink in…
After creating tons of print-on-demand products and finding many winners and losers, I’ve learned that TWO main types of quotes sell well:
- Funny quotes (ones that make people laugh)
- Poignant quotes (ones that make people cry – with happiness).
As I said, “A Print-on-Demand product is a *medium* people use to say something to someone else.”
So, when you research quotes, you need to find ones that make people laugh or cry.
Don’t just find bland general quotes that don’t make the reader feel anything.
Find quotes that people will read and think, “Oh sh***t, I have to get this for my friend!”
Anyway, to choose the tone of your quotes – Funny or Poignant – you also need to check these three things:
- The Niche
- The Sender
- The Receiver
For example, if you want to create a coffee mug for a mother (the Receiver), you need to know who will be buying the mug. Is it her Son or Daughter?
If your target customer is a son (the Sender), remember that most sons usually don’t say anything tender to their mom. They like to make their mom laugh.
So, a funny tone might work better in this case.
Like this one:
The message on this coffee mug is “Thanks for wiping my ass & stuff. Love, Your Son”.
It’s a funny message that a son might want to say to his mom.
As you can see, this mom coffee mug has been selling well on Etsy and has many positive customer reviews.
But if you want to sell a coffee mug to a daughter who wants to give it to her Mom, a poignant message might perform better.
Check out this one:
The message emphasizes the loving relationship between mom and daughter.
But if it’s a coffee mug for a dad from his daughter, something funny might work better. Most dads prefer something funny.
Like this:
I created this Father’s Day mug a few years ago. I made over $167k in profit from it.
The message is “Dad, thanks for teaching me how to be a man, even though I’m your daughter.”
The sender and receiver of this coffee mug are obvious.
Only a daughter, not a son, can buy this mug. The quote is something funny that only a daughter can say to her dad.
I tested loads of quotes and designs before settling on this one.
I started out with a loving message because I thought daughters might say something like this to their dad.
But it turned out that funny quotes worked better.
When choosing a quote, you must understand the niche it’s for and know the sender and receiver.
Only then can you can choose a tone for the quotes you use to create winning products.
Knowing these basics could have saved me over $3,000 in testing when I was getting started.
But never mind. I’m glad to give you this info so you can save tons of money and avoid the mistakes I made. 🙂
Okay, once you know the tone of the quote, the sender, and the receiver, the next question is …How can you find or write quotes that sell?
To answer this question, I’ll share some tricks that will help you create interesting quotes that people love to buy.