My brand is the Zac Electrifly brand. The sub brands of this brand are Zac Plays hockey and Zac Plays soccer. This is why all of my social media is branded Zac Electrifly even with three YouTube channels. I made a choice when I first started making YouTube videos that it would be to difficult to create a brand (mainly on social media) for each channel. I just wanted to define that to clarify things in this blog.
As some of you may know I had some new merchandise designs for 2019. I tried to sell them on tee spring. That did not go as well as I had hoped. That sentence is an understatement. I sold zero shirts within a 2-week period. While I am disappointed at the result I think that I might have been too ambitious. I think that I do not have a large or devoted enough audience to take my brand to the next level.
In the past, I tried to sell shirts in almost the same manner. The same thing happened. I didn’t sell any of those designs either. I blamed that on not fully understanding what I was doing. So, I did some research to see what I might have done wrong or how to get better. I came to the conclusion that there was two reasons my shirts didn’t sell. The first reason is that at the time I had almost a micro audience. There were less then 15 subscribed on my YouTube channel and less then 100 followers on Facebook and Twitter. On top of that most of those people at that time were close friends and family. The second reason I found that the shirts didn’t sell was that I didn’t create marketable designs. This basically means that the designs did not resonate with the audience I was trying to reach that was outside of my own audience. It also meant that I needed to do a lot more market research before I tried again.
Chalking that up as a failure, it took two years before I thought I was ready to try again. This time I did two months of market research. It still fell apart. I think no matter what I do at this point I will not be able to sell merchandise in the same way. I to that it is clear that I just need to take a step back and try to grow my audience. This means , my presence in the world of social media and YouTube. I still have a lot to learn about that. I still have a lot to learn about how to start and grow a business. I think that there are a lot of similarities between owning a bossiness and being a YouTuber.
That brings me to my next point, where do I want to take my brand. Obviously, film making is the most important part of what I am doing right now. Where do I want my brand to go outside of YouTube and social media? For most people, it’s just merchandise that can be bought on their website or something along those lines. Honestly, I want to take that a step further. I want my clothing brand to be more unique. If unique is the right word. I would like my entire brand (YouTube, social media, merchandise, etc.) as a whole to reach a large audience. However, I want my merchandise brand to be a mostly local thing. Mostly local meaning my target audience is Reno, people living in Reno, and fans of Reno’s sports teams. As the brand grows I would try to have a storefront. This storefront would start as limited. Meaning that its only open for a month or something along those lines. I really do want to work with local companies to create exclusive merchandise. I want to work with store fronts like the Greater Nevada Field team shop to sell exclusive and limited-edition merchandise in their store. I would love to have some of the soccer players for Reno 1868 FC or Nevada Coyotes FC become brand ambassadors. That is mainly the direction I would like to go with my merchandise brand.
Right now, I can’t do most of that. If I can’t sell my shirts online how can I start taking the next steps in building my brand? So, where I want to go from here is just to focus on filmmaking and building my audience. You can check out what that might look like in this blog What’s New In 2019 When I get to 1000 subscribers on YouTube I will reevaluate what the next step should be for my overall brand. But I am not there. I am not even close to there.
My (merchandise) brand in its current state is a failure. I don’t know what a quick fix looks like. So the future of my brand is unclear. I know I am going to reevaluate it at some point, but that could be another two years from now. I don’t want it to take that long. Ideally, in six months, I will be in a better place. One in which I have a large enough audience to start taking my brand to the next level. At this point, I am not looking to the future for answers. At this time I just want to emphasize the need to stay in the present.
What I want to do now is continue to have my shirts available. I know I did not sell any. That doesn’t matter. I want to put that behind me as quickly as possible. I don’t think it will be healthy for my brand if I don’t let the fact that no one bought my shirts stop me from trying. After all business is trial and error. It’s how I choose to move on from those errors that will allow me to be successful. My shirts are still available if you want any. You can check them out here. If you want any merchandise contact me here.
In the coming weeks and months, I will be coming out with more designs and possibly a wider verity of merchandise. Meaning things like hats. I am currently working trying to get a deal with the Battle Born Brigade to create an exclusive lineup of merchandise for them from me. Also as the soccer season starts I might get some local soccer players to become brand ambassadors.
Lastly, I just want to let you know that you can stay up to date about news regarding this topic and more by following me on all of my social media.
Zac Electrifly 