The Scared Panda brand has been around for more than a year now which means we are relatively young, but not so young that we haven’t made mistakes and learned from them. We’re growing more and more every day and starting to understand the ins and outs of running a start-up t-shirt company. It’s been no easy feat by any means – we both hold down demanding full time jobs and  just taking care of the day-to-day stuff takes up a lot of our nights.

I spend a lot of time on T-ShirtForums.com reading, asking questions and taking in as much knowledge as I possibly can about the t-shirt business, or really any indie start-up for that matter. After a year I think that I can finally give something back to all the folks who have helped me out along the way.

We’re starting a new weekly series about some small business lessons we have either learned along the way. This week I’m going to share with you what I’ve learned about media relations.

A lot of “experts” will tell you to define your “target audiences” and then go after them. But how do you narrow down these segments for such a general consumer product like a t-shirt? Nearly every person all around the world wears t-shirts – so how do we determine who will like our shirts?  If someone doesn’t like a particular design does that mean they won’t like something just a little bit different? I don’t think so.

Our main target audience (I’ll never be a fan of the that term)  is made up people who like t-shirts,  pandas and generally the same things we like (music, travel, cities, etc.). But that’s just one audience. Our Chicago-inspired shirts are geared towards people who live in the city  or have lived in the city at some point. We try to get our food shirts in front of foodies and our bike shirts in front of bikers. Each of these audience groups read different publications, communicate in different ways.

Let’s take our Chicago audience, for example. Kate and I read websites like DailyCandy, Thrillist, Gapers Block and Chicagoist. By creating relationships with the people behind these sites, we are able to connect with their readers (Chicagoans) and let them know about our shirts, for free. My advice to other business owners: Get your name out there. Just the smallest exposure through a blog, newspaper or email will bring attention to your brand.  This can lead to more exposure from other media outlets, too.

For example, when DailyCandy featured Scared Panda in its Weekend Guide, a producer from ABC Chicago’s 190 North contacted us about filming a segment for the show. Bob’s your uncle and we just filmed a segment with them that airs January 30th.

Once you build a list of target media outlets, spend a few weeks reading their posts/articles to familiarize yourself with their content. While you’re at it, leave a few comments here and there when you have something to say related to the post so that the editor begins to get to know you. Then, when you send the editor an email to introduce yourself and your company in a few weeks he or she will already be familiar with you. Make sure your email is sincere and has a connection to their site, otherwise they won’t care and your email will be deleted right away.

One last word of advice: Don’t spam websites or blogs with comments promoting your product, I’ve tried it and it only pisses people off. Instead write comments that pertain to the post or article with a link back to your site in your profile.

Take a look at our Talking Pandas page on our website. We’ve listed all the publications and blogs that have written about us. Feel free to use this as jumping off point and motivation for you.

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