Building a new brand

[black2002ls]

I have the graphic design thread down below, however, I wanted to start a new thread, to chronicle this journey.

TOTS headwear

This idea came about a few years ago when our son was about 2. We tried to find hats that didn't look goofy, or cheap, and there just wasn't a good product. I threw together a quick sketch of an idea I had, and it ended up going nowhere. Fast forward a few years and our laser business comes along. Right now, the majority of our business is hats with faux leather patches. I've developed a small network of boutique owners who buy from me regularly and they all ask for children's and youth hats. About a month ago, I found that Richardson was working on releasing a 112 youth (their most popular snap back trucker style hat), so I searched high and low and ended up with a few dozen on back order. Their release date keeps getting pushed back, but I was trying to be patient.

Re-enter TOTS headwear. I finally took the leap, had Blake design a logo, registered a web domain, and started a Facebook page. While all of that was going on, I started looking for a manufacturer for custom hats. We initially landed on a brand/mfg that had some designs, already available, that fit what we were wanting to do. Trucker and snap back style hats, that appeared to be top quality. Next thing you know, samples were ordered. We discovered the level of quality (same plane as Richardson) before our samples arrived at our door step. So, what does an incredibly impatient person do? They order inventory, to move the process along, quicker.

Our samples arrived on Friday afternoon, I placed the bulk order Friday morning. My order had shipped by the time I realized that we had a problem. We wanted to begin with Children's hats and it turned out that these styles and blanks were all youth hats. I was pretty upset, almost resolved to sell through the blanks and give up on it, again. After a few hours of wallowing in my displeasure, I re-centered and got focused for our Facebook live "launch party". We would proceed, as planned, with youth hats being our initial offerings.

Between my disgust, and going live on Facebook, I made contact with a manufacturer that had a reputable list of brands they make children's hats for and had some light at the end of that tunnel before we went live.

In less than a week, our Facebook page has almost 250 likes. Not bad for a brand new brand, though it is no where near what we need to have a successful launch for the product. I'm hopeful that we can continue to build the following over the next month and have an amazing Launch on June 1st.

I'm leaving this here, for some accountability, for myself. I'm hoping that even a few of you, will take the time to share our brand with your Facebook friends and help build the excitement! I will hopefully have a landing page up on the web domain in the next few days and be able to start building an e-mail list to send out updates, product launches, and help build the excitement.

[black2002ls]

Here is our brand logo

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[BLAKE]

You’re heading the right direction starting with social media. That’s definitely the best bang-for-buck. Edit: we have a client that sells medical scrubs, and their success hinges on Facebook advertising. Spends less than $200 a month and that does a ton of work for them. Worth noting, I'm talking about Facebook ads manager, not just boosting posts. That way you can fine tune the demographics. Geography, job title, pretty sure you can single out people with kids and grandkids too.

In the apparel space, I think design is going to be king. Fun/funny shareable stuff. Think trucker mudflap girl, but with a teddy bear silhouette or something like that.

Have you considered the long term as far as distribution? Getting in with a big children’s or full service apparel store brand will do a ton of work for you. Going B2B changes the conversation. Instead of making thousands of sales, you can make your year with one big sale. Just a thought.

I’m glad you’re happy with how the logo turned out. A little advice there: give the logo some more breathing room by adding some more black around it so it doesn’t feel so crowded. That’ll give it a bit more of a pro look. I can do that for you if you like.

[black2002ls]

You’re heading the right direction starting with social media. That’s definitely the best bang-for-buck. Edit: we have a client that sells medical scrubs, and their success hinges on Facebook advertising. Spends less than $200 a month and that does a ton of work for them. Worth noting, I'm talking about Facebook ads manager, not just boosting posts. That way you can fine tune the demographics. Geography, job title, pretty sure you can single out people with kids and grandkids too.

In the apparel space, I think design is going to be king. Fun/funny shareable stuff. Think trucker mudflap girl, but with a teddy bear silhouette or something like that.

Have you considered the long term as far as distribution? Getting in with a big children’s or full service apparel store brand will do a ton of work for you. Going B2B changes the conversation. Instead of making thousands of sales, you can make your year with one big sale. Just a thought.

I’m glad you’re happy with how the logo turned out. A little advice there: give the logo some more breathing room by adding some more black around it so it doesn’t feel so crowded. That’ll give it a bit more of a pro look. I can do that for you if you like.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your insight! I have played around with boosting posts on Facebook with Canyon Ridge. I've found that a lot of what we get are bot type posts. It feels like we get a lot of "how much?" type messages with zero response when we respond to them. Almost as if there is an algorithm to boost their "boosted post" statistics. I will have to start playing around with the ad manager. I have boosted TOTS, nation wide, to help gain some page likes, hopefully that is working

I have been considering B2B type sales. I reached out to the buyer for Cavender's stores last week and left a voicemail. I haven't heard anything back yet, however, I've got some contacts from my time as an assistant manager to reach out to. We will see how that all plays out.

We had some patch designs ready to be worked up for the launch, though they were all children related. So we have had to go back to the drawing board. In the beginning, our custom line will be geared toward "family continuity". Essentially a dad and me type deal. So everyone in the family can wear the same hat. We are still working through how we plan to market this long term. There are a few "niche" children's hat brands that focus on custom prints and designs and that is where this was headed in the beginning. I'm sure it will change as we get more into having our own hats manufactured.

I've been playing around with some banner type designs today, and I definitely noticed that it needs some breathing room to help offset the tail on the T. I put together this quick "coming soon" banner just now.

[Ruffdaddy]

....

I’m glad you’re happy with how the logo turned out. A little advice there: give the logo some more breathing room by adding some more black around it so it doesn’t feel so crowded. That’ll give it a bit more of a pro look. I can do that for you if you like.

I didnt want to say anything because I don't know graphic design...but i had the same thought with adding more black space. The cropping makes the asymmetry stand out and it drives me crazy. The idea about the teddy bear mudflap is great and always remember that "basic" parents love to show off the fact that they drink while parenting. So anything that screams "im a rebel parent but not really" seems to sell really well at higher price points.

Thats is next level impatience but hopefully the only time you gotta learn that lesson. Best of luck with everything and I look forward to seeing how well the launch goes.

[black2002ls]

We got our first round of inventory. We are still working through branding. Retail will urilize hang tags with logo and product info/price. Hopefully our brand labels will arive in the next week. We have been trying to generate some excitement on social m3dia with contests and giveaways though it has been a bit slow. Last night I dug into Facebook marketing and was able to target parents of children 3-12, hopefully that is fruitful.

Www.totsheadwear.com is now active, for the time being, it is a landing page with a form to sign up for oyr email list.













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[black2002ls]

I got our first two patch styles finished up a couple of nights ago. We are tracking to release June 1st. Everything seems to be in order for that if I can get the website up and running by then.

[Ruffdaddy]

Can you go younger than 12? I can't think of many kids around 10-12 that would wear that...but 1-5 year olds may because its their parents putting them in it anyways.

[black2002ls]

Can you go younger than 12? I can't think of many kids around 10-12 that would wear that...but 1-5 year olds may because its their parents putting them in it anyways.

We found that they fit our soon to be 4 year old. He has a bigger head, but they fit the younger kids. We will be working on stuff for the older kids soon

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[black2002ls]

Well, we launched on Memorial Day. We were generating a lot if buzz around the fruit snacks and gangster rap hat that I hoped to capitalize on. Unfortunately, it has bee slow going.

We have built a following of about 1500 people in a month. We had our first photo shoot a couple of weeks ago and we have those back now from editing. The next step will be a dedicated Instagram account and trying to find the right mix of hashtags to get these trending on a larger scale.

Customs are now available. Hoepfully that will help drive some sales to get hats out into people's hands and getting some shares on social media.

The website is a free template. It has some nuances that I don't like, the main one being the way the product pages are displayed. I've sent it over to my tech guy to see if he can resolve that. That should make it easier to shop.

The next step in this journey is going to be full custom headwear. We have started procuring some prints, now we just need to find the right manufacturer to partner with. Unfortunately, the MFG of our current hats is not accepting custom accounts right now.

I know that was long winded, and unorganized, but I needed to dump it somewhere.









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[black2002ls]

I decided to have some shirts made as well. Since July 4th was coming up, I wanted to do something patriotic and there wasn't enough time to have hats made.





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[TX_92_Notch]

How’s this going for you? Hopefully it’s working out.

[black2002ls]

How’s this going for you? Hopefully it’s working out.

Non existent. I was able to generate a fair amount of buzz before we launched. I have a feeling the price point killed it. Our most talked about hat was $30 plus shipping. Our supplier for hat blanks required us to maintain a certain price point

The other brands in the space offer hats with printed fabric. Making them "cuter". They sold at similar or higher price points. We did have a girls hat made for us, though, it hasn't done well.

We have, for the most part, shelved the brand for now. The shopify is still active, but unmarketed. I attempted to get google ads set up for the shopify store, however, I have violated some ad policy, and they will not tell me which one. They are essentially shut down due to Covid and it seems there is no way to get it resolved. I haven't checked in a few months, however.

With everything else going on in our world it took a back burner. We are building a new house, work has been chaotic, and the laser business has bee quite steady and taken a good bit of what free time we have.

I haven't given up on it yet, though the business model will need an overhaul.

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