The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

Marketing for custom sneakers

Marketing, social media, advertising

EternalX

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
115%
Dec 10, 2017
41
47
FR
Hey everyone ✌️

So I decided to create my first product in order to do some bootstrapping for later :
I'll customize sneakers for people (basically I'll paint on them, I'll link some photos at the end of the post )!

My product is highly visual, so it could be great for social media (I have a community of 100k people around that on Instagram, so I'll promote them there) but maybe it could have some local demand too

My sneakers would be air force 1 that is custom, and I would charge ~180$ / 200$ depending on the type of customs.


How would you go about marketing that product?

I came up with some ideas (doing a local giveaway with all my friends promoting it / tell that I custom sneakers on my ig pages / offer discounts for my first customers in order to get testimonials) but I'm always down to have other point of views!
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

ecommercewolf

Bronze Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
95%
Jan 8, 2019
258
246
Dallas, TX
Used to be big into collecting sneakers but not so much anymore as I've focused on building wealth but anyways... thought I'd drop some ideas...

The first thing that came to mind is IG shoutouts (you may already be doing so)

2nd thing: paying to be a sponsor for any of the YouTube sneaker shows that you see. No idea what that costs nowadays but just based on the views some of these YouTube sneaker shows and sneaker review channels get, it may be worth it. Even something quick like a 30 second shoutout on their show can bring a lot of additional traffic to you.
 

Boychamp

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
149%
Jun 13, 2019
96
143
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
A couple more ideas that play off what you already said: you could collab with local stores - if you have any clothing/shoe stores that fit in with your clients, that might be a cool thing to do. With the giveaway idea, this could fit in nicely - a featured spot with your shoes, people put down their email for the chance to win benefits you because you grow a customer list of emails and benefits the local shop because they also get that customer list.

Find influencers on IG and reach out to them. Either pay them or offer free customization for them in return for a shoutout. Also in this same vein, see if there are any people in your local area (with a decent following) that might be interested in doing an ACTUAL collab (maybe another artist, musician, or something along those lines) and create a shoe together. This is something they're naturally going to push out to their audience which will help exposure for you.

Last idea, I've seen a lot of videos on both IG/YT around customization for loads of different products. This is obviously a longer term play, but making videos around the process you're taking etc might be a good way to also drive some business.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

EternalX

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
115%
Dec 10, 2017
41
47
FR
StockX is only a marketplace for original products, but maybe I could advertise on other platform such as Grailed and other things like that
 

EternalX

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
115%
Dec 10, 2017
41
47
FR
Used to be big into collecting sneakers but not so much anymore as I've focused on building wealth but anyways... thought I'd drop some ideas...

The first thing that came to mind is IG shoutouts (you may already be doing so)

2nd thing: paying to be a sponsor for any of the YouTube sneaker shows that you see. No idea what that costs nowadays but just based on the views some of these YouTube sneaker shows and sneaker review channels get, it may be worth it. Even something quick like a 30 second shoutout on their show can bring a lot of additional traffic to you.
Yup, I'll do ig shoutouts, I can even get them for free with most pages around my size in exchange for a promo on my main page

I really like the 2nd idea! It isn't something that is done by other customizer and it's always better to see the product in video that in photo!

A couple more ideas that play off what you already said: you could collab with local stores - if you have any clothing/shoe stores that fit in with your clients, that might be a cool thing to do. With the giveaway idea, this could fit in nicely - a featured spot with your shoes, people put down their email for the chance to win benefits you because you grow a customer list of emails and benefits the local shop because they also get that customer list.

Find influencers on IG and reach out to them. Either pay them or offer free customization for them in return for a shoutout. Also in this same vein, see if there are any people in your local area (with a decent following) that might be interested in doing an ACTUAL collab (maybe another artist, musician, or something along those lines) and create a shoe together. This is something they're naturally going to push out to their audience which will help exposure for you.

Last idea, I've seen a lot of videos on both IG/YT around customization for loads of different products. This is obviously a longer term play, but making videos around the process you're taking etc might be a good way to also drive some business.
I have a footlocker and another franchise sneaker store, I'll see if I can make this workout!

For the ig influencers : it could be something great to do, there are several influencers in streetwear that could be a great fit for this
In my area I think there isn't much people who have a lot of followers except the footballers of the local team (which plays in the Ligue 1)

Youtube could also be an excellent way to get customers, I watch videos of some people who do customs and they are growing really rapidly + it could bring ad revenue too!


Thanks for pointing these ideas!
I'll write everything somewhere to get an overall view of this and to see which strategies to implement first
 

MichaelCash

Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
34%
Apr 7, 2013
109
37
48
New York
How would you go about marketing that product?

Think about something creative. E.g. Sneakers for Santa :smile2: Come up with a viral story that can be shown in the news. Maybe donate you Sneakers to local children sport team. I always admire when they show stories like this on TV
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top