99 tips for branding on the cheap: Excellent article on the Aviva Directory

This gem of an article is quite lengthy, but worth the read. I've already added it to the learning resources section at the right for future reference.

The author covers a whole host of ideas for getting your website off the ground. Some conventional, some more creative & some just plain different ideas I hadn't heard of before, like branding free email accounts so others don't "steal" your company name and water down your brand or paying someone to walk around with your logo "tattooed" to their forehead.

But most of it's practical advice and can be applied especially well to Cafepress shopkeepers who are starting out and are not sure how to market their products on a small budget.

Categories covered in the article:

• Branding in the Blogosphere

• SEO and Reputation Management

• Social Media/ Bookmarking/ Wikis/ E-Profiles

• Additional Linkbuilding

• Usability, Accessibility and Design

• Personal Communication

• Going Viral to Develop Your Brand

• More Unconventional Ideas - Online

• Unconventional Ideas - Offline

• Resources + References

Thanks to Fricka from Tips and Tricks for T-shirt Entrepreneurs for posting about this!

Goodstorm's "Create a T-shirt" Tutorial on YouTube

I just love this use of YouTube. Goodstorm, a print on demand company where you can create and sell your own shirts, has created a great overview of their service with a little video tutorial on YouTube and also imbedded it in their site. What a great way to kill two birds with one stone. Throw it out there to the YouTube community as marketing, and put it on the web site to walk potential customers through the steps of making a T-shirt with them. Brilliant, simple and cheap!

Have you ever created a video to promote your T-shirts?

Plea for help! Will someone offer a print-on-demand throw pillow with no black border?

To continue on with my ModPillows story, I have to address the obvious...the big black borders!

So what about those black borders?

So far the only downside to my new pillow store, is, unfortunately, the pillows themselves! Don't get me wrong, they are great soft pillows, they're a good size, they feel nice, the printing is nice, and I have some at home right now. I just am not a fan of the big black border I'm stuck with designing within. I'm doing my best to come up with designs that will look good within the confines of bold black borders, and I see my store as a starting point. But eventually I need to be able to expand my designs beyond these borders.

From my experiences with pillows and Cafepress, I've come to these conclusions:

1. Cafepress is the only place I've found where I can print and sell my own pillows on-demand.

2. They currently offer ONE style of pillow with black borders.

3. I'm guessing they aren't a huge seller for Cafepress (due to CP's lack of interest in my request for new pillow styles), and I know T-shirts are their biggest selling product. It is what they specialize in.

4. They may not sell well because Cafepress doesn't appeal to textile designers, and CP's pillows are best suited for printing T-shirt phrases and photographs (which don't typically sell well on pillows).

From these conclusions all I can say is that there needs to be another way. Another pillow design. More shapes, more styles, no borders. There is a market for this stuff! So I'll throw this business idea out there to any young, ambitious entrepreneurs:

If someone out there would create a print-on-demand website and service that focused on textile design, curtains, throw pillows, pillow cases, reversable pillow coverings, and maybe even sheets, placemats and cloth or paper napkins, you'd have me signing up before you can say "beta!" And I bet you'd attract a different type of designer.

Does anyone know of another print on demand pillow available? Is anyone out there willing to add them to their current line?