What Kind of Creator Are You?
You are a risk taker! You‘ve decided to put your designs out in the world for others to see and buy on Zazzle. If it's your first time or if you’re a seasoned designer you‘re probably feeling a bit nervous to open a store and start adding your designs to products. What if people don't like your designs? How do you know people will find your work? What the heck should you design?
Over the next few lessons, we’ll not only help you bring your amazing designs to life, but you’ll also learn how to share them with the world!
First things first: let’s identify what it is that made you join the Creator Community. This may seem like a strange question to ask, but the answer will have a lot of insight and will be important in the next steps you take.
Do you like creating cosmic cats? Do you like coming up with funny sayings? Or maybe you want to share the cover art from your latest novel? Our designers come from all walks of life with very different goals. Maybe you’re looking to create some amazing products with your blog logo, or maybe you’re looking to raise money for your next charity event. There are many different design styles, product interests, and reasons that drive people to want to create products on Zazzle. They’re all valid and they all have customers who are looking to buy those product designs.
There is no wrong answer, but having a firm understanding of what you‘d like to accomplish as a Zazzle Creator, will help you experience greater results when it comes to identifying (and soon marketing to) your audience.
Which leads us to our next question:
Who Am I Designing For?
The first, and possibly the most important, step into becoming a top-selling Zazzle Creator is to identify who your buyers are. Your buyers, often referred to as your audience, will not only drive the ideation of your design, but will also influence the way in which you promote your products as well.
So where should you start? Well, according to our most successful designers, the secret to success is in something called a ‘niche audience.’
A niche audience (or just ‘niche’ for short) is a smaller, more distinct set of people with unique interests that can be found within a broader audience. Let’s face it: you’re not the only designer out there offering awesome designs. Your customers are most likely swarmed with marketing results for every one of their Google searches, and they have absolutely no idea where to begin looking in that ocean of designs.
By targeting a niche, you can cut through the noise and help your products rise to the top of search results. Choosing a niche allows you to focus on a specific segment of a target audience and make it your own. Also, focusing on a specific niche is the best way to compete.
A quick search for ‘firefighter shirts’ will result in thousands of results that pretty much all resemble each other. The competition is large, so the person searching may not be fully sold on any one design. So let’s drill it down a bit:
- What if the person searching is a female firefighter? The choices get slimmer.
- A female firefighter part of New York’s FDNY? Even slimmer.
- A female firefighter part of FDNY who is also a mom? Bullseye!
- She can customize the shirt with her firehouse number as well? SOLD.
By catering your design to this very specific niche (firefighter, female, New York, mom), you’ve essentially cut out a vast majority of your competition by differentiating your products from the rest. Remember, niche marketing is all about offering something that is special, unique and rare to a group of people who identify with it.
However, don’t feel discouraged if you don’t nail down your niche audience right away. You are building a following, a fan-base, and ultimately, your own brand. These things take time. Some of our most successful creators are still fine-tuning their ideal audience.
Spend some time thinking about the niche you would like to connect with and in the next lesson, we’ll give you some tips and tricks to help you lock down your audience!
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