Hi Merchies,

Did you know there’s a Promotional Products Association International? Not only does it exist, it’s released an economic impact report about merch!

See the report here, and our fave stats below:

I’d (Kayla) love to know how much of that is merch being used to close sales because a 1.9 return sounds like something that could be improved on! Maybe if it was segmented data we’d know more. For something like a poster, is it the additional purchase of a frame and hook to hang it? What’s the ROI of employees wearing company hats?

Gaz & Kayla

I wrote about how paper makes for great merch way back in DRIP DROP #06, and since then I’ve continued to collect new paper-based merch when I’m out and about. Recently that looks like:

Bonus example Gaz showed me
At last week’s first ever NFL game in Australia, people were throwing paper plans onto the pitch. Here’s a LinkedIn post from him about it!

Q: How do you make an inherently “cheap” and simple piece of merch high quality?

A: Card stock, a little pizazz in the print (risograph anyone?!), and pay a designer don’t AI slop it for the love of god.

Something that works as a piece of art that people hold onto or journal with, OR is functional (recipe, postcard [bonus if you give them a postage stamp too,] bookmark, coaster, etc.) is a winner in my books.

Embroidery. I love using it on merch. So much. You know the only thing I could possibly love more than embroidery? Heart-warming stories, with merch (and embroidery) at the core of it. Happy Friday, here’s story-time:

So, I love using embroidery on merch. It signifies effort, and thoughtfulness, and perhaps even signifies that you’re not actually frugal when it comes to producing merch because you want it to be good and you want it to be remembered.

Anyhoo, I made this jacket a while ago with a merch group called Full Cowboy here in Melbourne, Australia - Geremy who runs it ended up on my radar a little bit when he ended up A) working closely with someone I knew well and B) funnily enough he suddenly lived a street away from me so I’d see his van all the time with this new ‘Full Cowboy’ brand name plastered all over it and lots of references to ‘All Gas No Brakes.’

Geremy also has this interesting backstory of being friggin’ huge so he played basketball for his country, and apparently went super close to pro football too, and worked extensively in merch sales and ops prior to starting his own business, which has outgrown its space a few times, and he also turned himself into a bit of a weapon with Claude running ops for the biz too…

The jacket! I thought I’d do my usual custom 1-of-1 jacket creation for an upcoming podcast (coming soon on my SEEDS publication), and I picked Geremy & FC as I knew he had been banging on about new embroidery services he was keen to do with whoever wanted to dig in. I also knew that he would frequently do posts on his work with AS Colour, and they would never accept his invite to be a collaborator on the posts (Geremy had a backstory with AS Colour too, it wasn’t that far out of the realm of possibility)

For the indie shops, visibility and exposure and advocacy by big brands can have a material impact on the business, potentially driving a significant amount of inbound opportunities. If you do the work, you should reap the rewards etc etc.

Lo and behold, I see this this week an AS Colour written Instagram post - collaboratively with Full Cowboy, finally - showcasing an awesome embroidered AS Colour jacket, filled with logos of companies and people Full Cowboy have worked with. I’m especially pleased to see the ones in green, indicating GROUP GROUP, my company (Geremy missed the second GROUP, I think he thought I was joking) and my main GG logo, the thumbprint.

A win for the indies, a win for embroidery, and a win for Geremy as it is but one small win amongst many, in building a small business, and now, onto the next challenge to solve 👏

Please. Do embroidery. It doesn’t have to be huge design size-wise, but it looks fantastic and indicates the things I mentioned above (plus has this really interesting side-effect where people immediately reach out and touch it. Must be a brain thing)

As you’ll see in the post I did bemoaning how shit most startup merch is and how I wanted to make a jacket with a bit of substance, I selectively used bits of embroidery throughout, so it meant a bit on the sleeve, some on the collar and some on the breast pocket.