May 20, 2019

Nice shirt

Sent by Jonathan Stark on May 22nd, 2019

It may not surprise you to learn that I’m a big Game of Thrones fan. It’s kind of hard not to be with a last name like Stark.

This past Sunday, a few hours before the big series finale, I was shopping in Target and saw a woman wearing a GoT t-shirt.

I’m not in the habit of chatting up strange women in department stores, so I didn’t go over and strike up a conversation with her about the show.

But boy, was it hard not to. The temptation to drop what I was doing, interrupt the lady, and geek out about plot twists, character arcs, and fan theories was almost overwhelming.

I see the same thing happen all the time with my kids, too. If we go to the park or karate or the zoo and there’s another kid wearing a Minecraft t-shirt, they immediately strike up a conversation.

In a certain sense, you can think of t-shirts like these as a broadcast medium. They transmit a message to everyone around you that you’re into a certain tv show or video game or sports team. For better or worse, people who are interested the same thing will often interpret this broadcast as an invitation to strike up a conversation.

Here’s the thing...

You can use this phenomenon to passively invite potential clients to strike up a conversation with you by wearing a t-shirt that broadcasts a message that your ideal buyers would be very interested in.

You can do this literally at IRL events like meetups and conferences. But you can also do this virtually on your website, email signature, social media bios, and other digital marketing materials.

As you make your way around the web interacting with folks, they won’t be able to help noticing your “t-shirt” and striking up a conversation. It’s like magic.

So the million dollar question is... what are your ideal buyers interested in?

Yours,

—J