Marketing

We should also include the public marketing list to get feedback, there's nothing secret in it

Olivier to talk to Eliane about the design, there was some confusion
Sophie, is there any idea about more prominently linking the store, e.g. at the community section of the website?

WORD-OF-MOUTH PROMOTION

• Send T-shirts, mugs etc. to well-known FOSS-related people - Eben Upton, Larry Wall, Damian Conway, Matthew Garrett, John Sullivan, Jan Wildeboer, etc. as "thanks from the LibreOffice community for your work"

• Would take a small portion of the budget, but the goal is that they mention the gift, and maybe even add a photo of it to their communication channels

• Best to send to people who've been positive towards LibreOffice in the past (so they don't use it to rant about a bug or missing feature)

SOCIAL MEDIA PROMOTION

• Many studies show that people shop online the most on Mondays

• Therefore post regular reminders of the shop then (or Sundays on quiet weekends)

• Add a new item each week to shout about? Are we getting baseball caps?

• Weekly draw to win one item? Would spread awareness about the shop, but there are legal issues involved with running competitions

WEBSITE PROMOTION

• Static button in top-right of site (next to Donate)

• Link in About Us submenu

• Big picture of merchandise after download starts? Makes sure it doesn't interfere with donations

• Link to shop in About dialog box in the software itself? "Love LibreOffice? Tell the world"

I have added one new design and several items (mugs, t-shirts, caps). Mike will advertise the shop next week on the social media.

OK, some updates here:

1) I've added a link to the merchandise shop in the About Us menu on the website

2) I've added a repeating reminder to my calendar to highlight an item from the shop on social media every Sunday

3) Here are some more items that we can add, that Spreadshirt offers. Sophie, do you think it's possible to add one per week? Or I can do it if you let me know the login credentials:

• Mobile phone cases: https://www.spreadshirt.com/iphone-cases-C6862
• Mouse pads: https://www.spreadshirt.com/design-your-own-t-shirt?product=1007572776
• Frosted glass beer mug: https://www.spreadshirt.com/design-your-own-t-shirt?&productType=826
• Water bottle: https://www.spreadshirt.com/design-your-own-t-shirt?&productType=757
• Umbrella: https://www.spreadshirt.com/accessories+other-P?q=D4P54
• Backpacks: https://www.spreadshirt.com/custom-bags-C3736
• Teddies: https://www.spreadshirt.com/design-your-own-t-shirt?product=1008869213

How much flexibility do we have with the prices? The T-shirts seem a bit expensive (eg compared to the SpaceX shop), but if they're really good quality then it's OK.

As it's summer and the weather is good (at least in some places), I've been promoting the baseball caps as a way to protect your eyes and show love for LibreOffice.

Now I've taken over the shop from Sophie and have added a new section for cases:

https://shop.spreadshirt.de/documentfoundation/cases

I still want to add a few more (for tablets) and then will promote them.

I finished the new phone/tablet case section on the shop and promoted it over the weekend (when sales are usually strongest).

• 5,254 Tweet impressions
• 8,150 people reached on Facebook
• 44 "+1"s on Google+

...but no sales yet (Monday afternoon after the weekend). Will leave it a week and report back.

Still no sales of phone or tablet cases, despite the initial excitement on social media. (One person has promised to buy 10 cases after we helped him find the Android version, but nothing yet.)

Spreadshirt's range is rather limited, and we've only had 10 sales so far this year. It might be worth doing a relaunch at some point using another provider (eg CafePress, but I guess it's best if we use a German company). But we could have new items in a relaunch and generate activity around it.

Can you gather some statistics (I think Spreadshirt provides at least numbers, maybe also charts) if there was any measurable success? It sounds as if not - as the merchandise source is not meant as revenue stream, but rather as a convenience for users, I tend to think we shouldn't spend a lot of time in creating new products, at least not on a regular basis. Doing some every once in a while is fine, but given the very low improvement rate this doesn't sound too worthwhile. Thoughts?

We've only sold one mug in the last three months, so there aren't really any meaningful statistics to gather. Leaving the shop open is minimal work, however, so we can just let it be and I won't dedicate regular time to creating new items.

Here's an idea, though:

I think merchandise sells better when it's promoting a cause or campaign, rather than an individual product. When people bought mugs from the Linux Voice magazine shop that I used to work on, they often said it's because they wanted to highlight our principles of FOSS and free speech, and spread the word about digital freedom. (Rather than just saying that they read Linux Voice.)

So maybe that's the approach we have to take. Don't just sell mugs and T-shirts with the LibreOffice logo on, but make the items all about document freedom, digital liberty, open standards. LibreOffice is part of this, but the merch carries a much broader, more active message. We could tie this in with a marketing campaign.

When I have some spare cycles I'll look into this in more depth and make some proposals for early next year.

Mike Saunders wrote:

I think merchandise sells better when it's promoting a cause or campaign, rather than an individual product.

Looks as a good combi. There are some campaign ideas, I guess ;)

We've only sold one mug in the last three months, so there aren't really
any meaningful statistics to gather. Leaving the shop open is minimal
work, however, so we can just let it be and I won't dedicate regular
time to creating new items.

Given these sales numbers I indeed don't recommend spending more time
for the moment. For those who want merchandise, there's a store
available we can point them to.

One (last) thing I'd like to try is to add the shop to the blog; if we
merge "TDF Docs" and "LibreOffice docs" menu items there should be some
space for a "merchandise" link. As the blog is quite frequented, we can
see if that yields any results.

So maybe that's the approach we have to take. Don't just sell mugs and
T-shirts with the LibreOffice logo on, but make the items all about
document freedom, digital liberty, open standards. LibreOffice is part
of this, but the merch carries a much broader, more active message. We
could tie this in with a marketing campaign.

Would that come with some LibO branding still? I'd like to avoid having
a generic merchandise store, but focus on TDF/LibO. :-)

Florian Effenberger wrote:

One (last) thing I'd like to try is to add the shop to the blog; if we
merge "TDF Docs" and "LibreOffice docs" menu items there should be some
space for a "merchandise" link. As the blog is quite frequented, we can
see if that yields any results.

OK, done.

Would that come with some LibO branding still? I'd like to avoid having
a generic merchandise store, but focus on TDF/LibO. :-)

Oh yes, LibO would still be the focus. I just mean, instead of a logo and nothing else, make it more exciting: the LibreOffice logo and "Fighting for digital freedoms", or "Take back control" or something like that. Indeed we could have two or three slogans suggested by our community (good way to get people into the calls!)

Then we could re-launch the shop with lots of goodies featuring these slogans, and make an event out of it (lots of social media activity, getting links from other sites). Adding new items to the shop isn't difficult, so I could just spend a couple of days on this early next year, and see if it has any results.

One (last) thing I'd like to try is to add the shop to the blog; if we
merge "TDF Docs" and "LibreOffice docs" menu items there should be some
space for a "merchandise" link. As the blog is quite frequented, we can
see if that yields any results.

OK, done.

Thanks a lot! Can you let me know if there was any measurable change in
the last week?

Oh yes, LibO would still be the focus. I just mean, instead of a logo
and nothing else, make it more exciting: the LibreOffice logo and
"Fighting for digital freedoms", or "Take back control" or something
like that. Indeed we could have two or three slogans suggested by our
community (good way to get people into the calls!)

Let's ask for that during the next marketing call indeed and see - just
not sure if it's important for 2016 still or we do it later, but the
approach sounds good if there are community volunteers to drive that at
least. :-)

difficult, so I could just spend a couple of days on this early next
year, and see if it has any results.

In time for FOSDEM would be fine IMHO.

Thanks a lot! Can you let me know if there was any measurable change in
the last week?

Unfortunately, there were no new sales in the last week, so it hasn't done much.

I'll bring up the shop relaunch topic in the next marketing call and we can see what's doable.

Someone placed an order for eight items on the 25th (mugs, T-shirts, baseball caps), which is the first activity in a while. Due to data protection laws, Spreadshirt doesn't provide us with any information about who placed the order though.

Given we spent quite some time for that and sales didn't grow a lot, I would lay this ticket to rest. We can work on the shop every once in a while if we see fit, but it's no recurring task for me anymore.

Thoughts?

Florian Effenberger wrote:

Given we spent quite some time for that and sales didn't grow a lot, I would lay this ticket to rest. We can work on the shop every once in a while if we see fit, but it's no recurring task for me anymore.

Thoughts?

Yes, I don't want to spend too much time on it. But I would like to try one line of items with a slogan, to see if it has any effect. Also, it's a way to improve activity in the marketing community -- I can ask on marketing@ for slogan ideas.

Then I can spend a couple of hours creating a few designs and spreading the word. If it's a success, we can try more; if not, leave it to rest like you say.

Any updates on this?

Florian Effenberger wrote:

Any updates on this?

I started a thread on the marketing@ list a couple of months back but it didn't get many answers. I've bumped it again today with more sense of urgency, asking for people to "vote" on slogan ideas. I'll give it a few days and then look at adding some items with a slogan.

Finally got a couple of hours to work on this, so I've added a new design to the shop and four items based on it:

https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2017/06/21/new-items-merchandise-shop/

Let's see how it goes. If we get some sales, I can consider adding more items. Otherwise I won't spend much more time on it.

So after adding the new items, we had nine orders (selling 15 products in total). So I don't think it's worth spending more time on this, and maybe we can close this ticket.