Comments on: Ask A Kent: T-Shirts to finance early episodes

By: Web Design Denver, Video Production Denver, Streaming Video Denver

Web Design Denver, Video Production Denver, Streaming Video Denver — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:39:10 +0000

[...] to monetize other things down the road, once you have established an online fan base. The team at Ask A Ninja, for example, used DVD and t-shirt sales to finance their work before the big ad dollars started to roll in. Reznor suggests collecting [...]

By: 5 Ideas Online Video Makers Should Steal From Trent Reznor

5 Ideas Online Video Makers Should Steal From Trent Reznor — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:09:17 +0000

By: da bishop

da bishop — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 07:29:54 +0000

LOL, the record label I work with did pants. With “you need this” written on the crotch. LOL. They were such a hit, the venue stole all the stock.

By: Tomboys

Tomboys — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:39:00 +0000

I agree. I think this sounds risky. Ask a Ninja is the only web show that I know of that actually makes a decent amount of money selling stuff. Most people I know (with fairly decent audiences) just have stuff available in case. Through sites like zazzle or cafe press.

By: Guy

Guy — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:42:03 +0000

Definitely make your own T-Shirts. We started with Printfection and are a still using it. We’ll be moving over to printing our own, but we should have been doing it from the start.

Not only does it mean more profit, but as a consumer/fan I’m much more likely to buy two $15 shirts over one $20 shirt. Threadless.com gets me everytime when they’ve got a $15 shirt.

By: John Kankley

John Kankley — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 04:26:56 +0000

Sorry about the redundancy in my last comment. Just reloaded the page and read your latest comments. I definitely see what you are saying about building an audience.

Great one liner about the Cruiser. I’m still waiting to see the Tom Cruise reality show.

By: kentnichols

kentnichols — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 04:17:58 +0000

@john again, it’s not views, it’s viewers, or more accurately fans. Many vids can get up to 500k views, but how many fans are generated off a single video?

I would spitball and say that if you have a single video that gets up to 500k views, you could sell 500 tees if all of the stars aligned (on the high end). More if you marketed well. Much less if there was no loyalty generated.

So that’s .1%

Right now the only good way to track fans is through subscriptions through the sites and RSS. So a randomly featured video on YouTube will generate X amount of traffic for that one video, but a significantly smaller number of subscribers.

The act of watching and waiting for the next video is what builds the loyalty, etc. That doesn’t happen over night.

We use Amplifier.com, same deal. It’s always a tradeoff between your time and money. Only move to a paid solution if you truly don’t have the time.

By: John Kankley

John Kankley — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 04:07:28 +0000

Shipping will definitely crank up the price. We are thinking about switching to a company like http://www.districtlines.com/ after we build up some traffic. I would like to focus on creating more content and have a vendor process shirt orders.

Do you think 5% t shirt sales out of 500,000 video views is reasonable?

By: kentnichols

kentnichols — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 04:02:42 +0000

@rick yeah it’s still a risky business plan (albeit without Tom Cruise). But it’s a better plan than nothing or hoping that someone is going to rush in to make you a millionaire. And it’s not 10% of views, but 10% of viewers and over the course of a year. So 10% won’t buy it immediately, but as time goes on, etc.

But that’s $12.5k for about 300-400 man hours of work. Not a great return, but enough to pay off mom and dad if they invest a little. And it certainly is a better investment than the $40k student film.

By: Rick Rey

Rick Rey — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 03:56:53 +0000

I wouldn’t recommend banking on this sort of strategy for a brand new show. Unless the series is an instant hit or you already have a built-in viewership, expect only a handful of orders from friends and family in the beginning. T-shirt and DVD sales are more of a longer-term monetization plan, because you really need an audience to support it. But definitely start thinking about bonus content like behind-the-scenes, outtakes, and all that fun stuff.

The 10% statistic of viewers-to-buyers seems on the high end, but I’m sure it’s possible with the right audience.

And no, $20 a shirt isn’t unreasonable – but don’t forget shipping costs. A $20 t-shirt can easily turn into $28 at checkout.