I'm working on a little business experiment and thought I'd share.
It may not seem backwards to marketing people start with the market, but in the Cafepress community of designers, there seems to be a common school of thought regarding design:
1. Think up a clever design.
2. Put it on a T-shirt.
3. Promote it and sell it.
This is not a bad formula and works well with cartoon characters, clever text phrases, and funny comic strip art which all work well on T-shirts, mugs, aprons, or caps. I even use the above formula for my T-shirts and do quite well. And most Cafepress shopkeepers, for that matter, design something clever, put it on a shirt, and then either wait to see if it sells, or maybe pay for a little advertising.
Cafepress' throw pillow
But what about pillows?
Cafepress sells them, you know. I'm not sure how big of a seller they are, as most of what I see in the marketplace on their pillows are cartoons, T-shirt phrases (which work best on T-shirts), some fine art and photography (which usually work best on framed prints or posters). And speaking from personal experience with BusyBodies I rarely sell pillows. I feature them "just in case" but I know my stick figures don't lend themselves well to home décor as well as they do to T-shirts. I did not design BusyBodies with pillows in mind.
Now to think backwards...
I thought I'd open up a new Cafepress Premium shop from a different angle, appeal to a different market, and design with a new perspective:
1. Determine my market and figure out places and ways I will promote my products.
2. Consider one product family to feature.
3. Design specifically for this one product and market segment.
THEN promote (see step one)
It's a fresh way to approach designing for Cafepress and so far so good. The market I've been wanting to tap into for a while is that of modern home interior & product design (step #1), and people who appreciate a bargain.
But to narrow it to a product (step #2), I was specifically interested in decorative throw pillows. I LOVE throw pillows but am usually disappointed at the price tag. Sure, it's often worth it as many of these great pillows are made of things like hand printed silk or embroidered wool (and I admit to having some throw pillows custom-made to match our livingroom a few years back), but sometimes I just like the pattern on a pillow and want it on my couch for under $110. Heck, under $20 would sure be nice, especially since trends are always changing, and my pillow addiction has already costed me a bundle.
That was the "ah-ha" moment. Why not come up with my own modern pillow designs? Then sell them for under $20 through Cafepress, and market them to the IKEA shoppers of the world who appreciate good design but don't want to pay an arm and a leg for it.
And ModPillows was born.
OK there really are more than three steps to all of this. Somewhere after "step 1" I bought a domain, reserved a Cafepress shop name (by opening a basic shop for free), decided on a color pallette for my first few collections, completed several designs (222 to be exact!), created a logo for my shop, created graphics for the web site, uploaded and tagged all of my images, upgraded my shop to a premium shop, customized my shop, ordered pillows to photograph, and put the shop together piece by piece and it continues to grow.
Now time to start spreading the word, which is where I'm at right now. Being that I thought this through at the very beginning, I have some ideas of how I'll go about it. I will keep you updated on my progress. It will take some trial and error and I'll continue to massage the look of my site and it's designs and marketing methods, but it's a good start and I'm excited to see what comes of it.
Do you have a unique method or approach to designing for Cafepress?
