Vincent Drouin, the success story of a SEO expert turned Ziler
Hello, Vincent, can you introduce yourself briefly?
In short, I have been working in Communications and Webmarketing since 2007, my partner and I headed on an adventure to Montreal in 2011 and have been living there ever since.
My expertise for the last three years has been in search engine optimisation and I am now moving towards media purchasing. I also have a blog, lebutineur.com, to complement the beginning of my launch as a freelancer, a launch which Teezily has largely contributed to, many thanks!
How did you discover Teezily?
Through the brilliant blog of a friend of mine, Medhi. In February 2015, he revealed the best affiliate marketing opportunities. T-shirt marketing appeared as an extremely interesting and lucrative industry.
T-shirt marketing appeared as an extremely interesting and lucrative industry
Why did you choose Teezily over other platforms?
For various reasons. The first was that the Teezily team could have set up in a foreign country to avoid taxes. However they had the courage and the self worth to set up in France, and it's all to their credit. They have added value, created jobs and boosted the economy in their country, it's a fantastic business initiative! Bravo!
Additionally, I have worked with various platforms offering the same service and products, Teezily is by far the best.
Teezily added value, created jobs and boosted the economy in their country. It's a fantastic business initiative!
I really like the fact you can directly use vectorised files as part of the design. This may seem like a small detail, but it guaruantees a high definition design with no worries for the buyers and no nasty surprises. Other platforms don't do this, and you have to check the file quality beforehand, which requires a minimum understanding or experience with the production chain.
The online marketing tools are also much more extensive than their competitors. For example, you can use remarketing to finish a campaign, and minimal purchasing costs of approximately 2 $ CAD per purchase. The competition is swept under the rug again!
We could also talk about the statistics tool or the feature enabling reservations after the end of sales.
The team works tirelessly to improve their services, both for clients and for sellers. They even offer extensive personalised training and coaching. Far from copying, they don't stop improving the platform and it's services. In my opinion they are the best in the world and I hope they can gain further market shares over their competitors.
Their design tool is also a feat of engineering, as is their sellers dashboard, far superior to that of their competitors.
It is user friendly, pleasant and flexible, which is important when working from your telephone at the weekend for example.
How was your first Teezily campaign?
I spent a little more than a month launching my first campaign, I had previously followed a great Teezily webinar relating to campaign design, finding niches and targeting.
I then joined the french Teezily Facebook group to share the story of the start of my journey.
Saturday 7th March, I took my chances with a nice design and a slogan I liked, for the supporters of my hometown club.
Unfortunately, a charity had just uploaded the logo (my slogan) a few weeks previously. From Canada, I had absolutely no idea, and so to leave them to it I stopped the campaign after the first 10 sales, made after only a few hours. It was a shame, but definitely informative.
I would never have imagined that such a ROI was possible, so quickly, and so easily
I was impressed by the Investment Return. At 9€ gross for each 1€ invested. I would never have imagined that such a ROI was possible, so quickly, and so easily; the latter I add in inverted commas, because a lot of work is still required.
Which was the most challenging part of launching your campaign?
It's the fear of investing money in advertising without a guaruanteed return on investment.
Apparently you need to invest approximately 300 € in advertising for T-shirt Marketing to understand and start earning money. This is an average figure however and can put people off depending on their own budget.
I have since learnt that this investment shouldn't be considered as a loss if the campaign fails.
You don't lose money, you invest in acquiring data.
You gain experience, a better understanding of your audience, your niche and more broadly the whole system.
What has been the most enjoyable part of launching your campaign ?
Starting with a campaign for my rugby club, a club I have been part of since my childhood and also been succesful with, was particularly enjoyable. I really liked that, I was the target audience. It was also a 100% original design which I havn't done since. My creative side was certainly satisfied.
Tell us a story from during your campaign ?
I start my campaigns bang on midnight in Montréal, in order to start at 6am in France. I couldn't help myself from waking up several times throughout the night to check on my results. I've become an insomniac :)
What advice would you give to those who are hesitating to launch their own campaigns ?
I am still new to the industry, but during my first few months of experience, I have developped a less than ideal approach, even if it is working for the moment. There are other possible ways to go about launching campaigns.
I would say, keep up with your benchmark and your competition ; what's happening abroad, especially in the most competitive countries like the US, UK and Canada. Find a recent T-shirt design for an existing niche with an engaging quote, adapt it and improve it for a niche or a country or region where Facebook adverstising is less saturated; France, Germany or Spain for example.
You should know that the design is still very important, but the engaging quote should come first in my opinion. The target group should be able to relate to it emotionally and say 'wait, that's totally me! :)
Once the campaign is launched, listen to your audience as they are often the source of inspiration for great ideas for similar niches to use.
Listen to your audience as they are often the source of inspiration for great ideas
Let's imagine you didn't include a tank top in your campaign, and there are comments demanding one, quickly launch a campaign to fill the gap. If a group close to your niche uses the same T-shirt, get there before they do!
Our agility is without doubt our biggest asset when using a tool like Teezily, by reacting quickly, I was able able to make 1000 $ in my first week, that was two months ago.
Thank you for making these opportunities possible for me and thank you to the entire Teezily for their brilliant work.
- Want to become a campaigner as Vincent? Go to our Teezily University Group -GLOBAL- and learn more about creating and selling custom apparel with Teezily!
- Want to read more campaigners' stories: check Daniel's, Jordan's and Maxime's!
- Want to launch your campaign? Go to www.teezily.com
