Having your own line of gaming merch is something many streamers dream to achieve, and it’s actually not as complicated as it may appear. Many A-Lister gaming streamers have not only their own merchandise but also their own websites where you can select and buy your favorite garment with their logo or special design.
The thing is, you don’t even need to go that fancy if you want to produce your own merch, here, we give you five simple tips for you to step up your game as a rising star in the streaming community with a cool merch line of your own.
What You’ll Find:
- What’s Your Brand?
- How Will You Design Your Merch?
- What Will You Sell?
- How Will You Sell Your Merch?
- Will You Promote It?
STEP 1: What’s Your Brand?
No, I’m not actually talking about a clothing brand but your personal brand as a gaming streamer. This might be quite obvious for some, but for some others, it might be the first time you really questioned, “What’s my brand?” we’re not here to answer that question for you, but we can help you take it one step further once you’ve defined it.
Now, if your question is instead, “what’s a personal brand?” then we can give you an answer to help you make yours. A personal brand is what defines an individual or community in the eyes of the world; it’s their personality, identity, logo, colors, gimmicks, and everything else that makes them unique so they can really stand out from the crowd.
If you don’t have a personal brand yet, our suggestion is you work on that first because it’ll be a fundamental step to getting your own merch. I mean, what are you going to sell if you don’t have a brand to be actually printed on the gaming merch?
You can start by creating a logo that represents your identity as a gamer. Having a logo can help you produce your own visuals for your streaming channels, such as panels or banners -even offline banners– and have a more cohesive brand online.
Now you may ask, “Why do I need a Twitch panel? I want to make my merch!” Well, having a cohesive brand with its specific brand colors will help you create merch items that people see and immediately relate to you.
STEP 2: How to Design Your Video Game Merch?
All are valid questions, and you can answer most of them by yourself; it’s your merch line, and you can make it look any way you like it.
How to Design Video Merch with Placeit
- Get to Placeit’s gaming template library and explore our collection. You can filter using our tags or the dropdown menu. Once you’ve chosen the right design template for your, click on it.
- Customize your design as much as your need to ensure an original design. You can type your message, change fonts, colors, add graphics, images, change colors, and so on.
- Once you are happy with your design, you can simply hit the download button to get your file right away!
⭐ Bonus Step: Use Placeit’s mockups to showcase your design on an actual object. These images will be super helpful for your shop and your social media when promoting your merch.
Another way you can create your video game merch is to hire a designer to make a very specific piece, but if you don’t know anyone at all, you can find one on sites such as Fiverr or Upwork, where you can post your project and look for talented creators to bring your idea to life.
These sites are super safe, and you can chat with the artists through them to make sure your design ends up just like you need it.
If your idea for your gaming merch design is something simpler, or you have the skills to do it, then go for it! Sometimes, a design actually made by the streamer can bring more attention, and more of your followers can get interested in buying a garment with it on it.
If you think you don’t have the skills to create your own design, you can always use a t-shirt design template for it; include gaming-inspired graphics and quotes, or even include your own logo in your design. The most important thing is that you’re happy with the result and that it talks about you as a gamer.
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STEP 3: What Will You Sell?
The real question here is, “What do you want to sell?” because if you can produce it and deliver it, you can sell it. Once you have your design or logo, you just need to decide where you want to print it and find a way to manufacture those garments that are the typical gamer merch.
You can find a local provider who produces your custom merchandise and delivers it to you, so you can actually send it to your buyers. This supply chain can be tiresome, but it also is a way in which you can be closer to your fans and followers since you’ll be personally sending each product to each one of them, and you can even include some handwritten thank you note or autographed stuff.
If you have a bigger market or don’t want to spend that much time in packaging and sending stuff, there are also websites that do all that for you, so you don’t have to worry about that tedious work, but we’ll talk about that in the next step. The most important thing is that you decide what kind of items you want to sell and then find a way to manufacture them.
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STEP 4: How Will You Sell Your Merch?
Here comes the tricky part, but it is also not as tricky as you might think. You can obviously find a way to sell online through your social media, using Paypal, or an infinity of services out there. But we can suggest you go the easiest road with this step, especially if you’re only beginning as a gaming merch seller.
If you use a POD site (Print On Demand) to showcase and distribute your merchandise, you can reach even more people, and the site can take care of all the logistics so your original design garment gets to the final buyer’s hands.
There are a lot of POD sites out there, and each of them can have its pros and cons. It’ll depend on what you are looking for from them as service providers, what they can offer, and what they’ll need from you. Having this information in mind can help you find the best site to sell your gaming merch. But you can also check our Definitive Guide for Print On Demand Websites, so you can make an ever more thoughtful decision.
STEP 5: Will You Promote It?
Of course, your own streaming can be the main promotional media for your custom merchandise, but you can find other ways to promote it and reach a bigger audience. Yes, you can invite your viewers to buy your merch every time you’re streaming, you can display your designs on your Twitch banners or screens, so they know that they can buy them any time they want, but you can also create cool promotional content for social media.
You don’t even need to produce a photo shoot with models using your original garments, you can always use mockups, even in 3D, and if you don’t have the design skills to produce a promotional banner, there are tons of templates out there that you can use. The point is that you shouldn’t limit yourself to just mentioning you have original merch. Here you can find some tips to create the coolest ads for Facebook!
Wrapping It Up!
Launching your own gaming merch can be very overwhelming, especially if you’ve never done something like this, but thanks to platforms like Print on Demand sites, you can begin selling your custom merch in no time. So go on and start following these steps, so all your viewers can start buying your merch now!
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