We’ve seen that there are many text-based design coffee mugs in marketplaces like Amazon and Etsy. These designs have sold really well because people like the messages on the products.
Most of the top-selling mugs on Amazon are just simple text designs.
This is proof that we don’t have to spend much time to create complex designs to make sales, because simple text designs with the funny or meaningful quotes can sell easily.
Most of my top-selling products contain only simple text, in a black color design. These types of designs can be created easily in a very short time, and I can hire a graphic designer to create them for a very cheap price.
All we have to do is find interesting quotes and use them for other niches.
For example:
“Keep Calm, I’m an Engineer”
“Keep Calm, I’m a Nurse”
“Keep Calm, I’m a Teacher”
Remember this technique?
I have over 80,000 products in my Amazon account that use these simple text designs.
Anyway, I recently noticed that some of Amazon’s top-selling mugs are coffee mugs that have “different” designs.
Check out these mugs:
These are in the top-seller list. You can see that they’re a bit different.
The core of the design is still simple text and a funny quote, but there’s “an image” in the design.
This image makes the product look different from the others.
Before the past Mother’s and Father’s Day, I noticed that many top-selling mugs contained a cartoon image of President Donald Trump.
One had a modified quote from Trump: “You are a Great Great [SOMETHING]”, and the sellers used this quote with something like Dad, Mom, Engineer, etc.
This was the product results I got after inserting the keyword “Father’s Day mug”:
You can see that adding an image to your design can make the product different from the others. Most coffee mugs contain only the black text. But we can create a new type of design to attract buyers’ eyes.
The Trump coffee mug at the top right of the image is the #40 top-selling mug on Amazon.
Okay, one more example:
These are the search results for the keywords “Mother’s Day mug”. You can see that a few products here contained an image, too.
Just simple images, like hearts, flowers – and a Donald Trump cartoon.
All of these products have many customer reviews that prove that these products see many sales.
Also, one of them was picked up as an “Amazon Choice” too. A product that’s eligible for the Amazon Choice badge must have a good sales record, good customer reviews, a reasonable price, high quality, fast delivery time, etc.
I recently asked my designer to add an image to my designs, and many products that used this technique have sold pretty well.
In this module, I’m going to show you how to easily add an image to your design to make your product stand out from the crowd –– and be sold.
Where to find image ideas
Let start with where to find ideas for images.
It’s quite difficult to find these types of designs on Amazon, because most of the products here are just simple text.
So I usually turn to Etsy to find ideas.
Etsy is a unique marketplace. Most of the products here are handmade and look very different from what you find on Amazon.
Let’s search for a “Mother’s Day mug” in Etsy. You’ll get the results like this:
You can see that all of them contain at least one image – such as flowers, bears, hearts, and children – in the design.
Only 1 of the 12 items here contains text and a small heart a black line drawing. Most of the items here include at least one image in the product.
This is the search result from the keywords “Father’s Day Mug”:
These are pretty much the same results as what we got for “Mother’s Day mug”, but there are no flowers in the designs. The images in the product are funnier, such as the Donald Trump head, bear, and superhero.
These are some examples of products you can create and easily sell on Amazon.
Are these designs difficult to create? Will we have to pay our designer an extra fee to create a cartoon?
The answer is NO!
These designs are very easy to create. Actually, I think it takes just a few more seconds to make one than it does to create a simple text design.
Let me show you three techniques I use to easily create a unique design that sells.
Technique #1: Adding a basic object with a color
This is the easiest way to make your design different from the others. Just add one small object, in color.
For example, you might add a pink heart to your product.
Like this:
Not only a heart – I recently found this mug in Etsy. It’s about auditing:
The main quote for this product is “Auditing is as easy as riding a bike. Except the bike is on fire, you're on fire, everything is on fire, and you're in hell.”
Instead of just letting the designer create a simple text design for this quote, this seller added a red image of flames in the design, which made it different from other mugs.
This seller lists this product on Amazon, too. I searched Amazon using the keyword “auditing mug” and found this:
You can see that most of the audit mugs on Amazon are text-based designs. Just a few of them contain an image or color. So, it’s easy to create a design that stands out from the others on Amazon.
One more thing: this quote is also a famous funny quote that many people use for other professions.
If you search for “riding a bike mug” on Amazon, you’ll get results like this:
You can see that many people use this quote for other niches such as parenting, jockey, chemist, teacher, CPA, lawyer, etc.
This fire object can be created easily. You can ask your designer to create a template and use it for the other 500 profession niches.
Technique #2: Adding a flower
The flower is another thing we can add to a design to help get more sales. It works well with products whose target audience is women.
Let’s check out “Mother’s Day Mug” on Etsy again. You’ll see results like this:
Seven of 12 products contain a flower image. The quotes on these products are very common – such as “World’s Best Mom”, “Blessed Mama”, etc. But they look different because of the flower image in the design.
You can do this easily without asking your designer to create a flower for your design.
This kind of the flower image can be found easily on stock photo sites such as ShutterStock, iStockPhoto, Fotolia, etc.
The cost for one image isn’t high. They’re just a few bucks. I am a contributor at Fotolia, and I use the credits I earn from selling some of my photos to buy images. It costs just around $3-4 for one image.
Most of the image sets also contain flowers, so the cost of one flower image will be a lot less than that.
You just need to select ones you like and pass them on to the designer to combine with the quote. No need to let the designer create new ones, which might be more expensive.
Use the flower images you have to create new designs in thousands of different niches. If you search for products in other niches on Etsy, you’ll find that most products contain a flower in almost every niche.
Technique #3: Adding a Cartoon Image
This is a bit more costly than the previous two methods – but if your cartoon is attractive, it can generate many more sales.
As you see in the examples above, the coffee mug with a Donald Trump head in the design can sell really well.
This mug has sold well since 2017, and is still among the top-selling mugs every year.
If you check the quote, “Dad, let me tell you something. You’re a model and a great father, literally a great one and I love you…”, it’s just a modified funny quote from Donald Trump.
I have used this one too, but I created Trump products for other niches. I found some other quotes and modified them for other professions, dog breeds, and cat-breed niches.
Many of them have sold a lot.
But I didn’t copy the Trump cartoon from the internet. I hired a designer to create one for me. I found the designer on Fiverr.
Many awesome designers on here can draw a mascot for you. I hired a graphic designer to create the Donald Trump cartoon for me for $45.
That’s very cheap, because I put it on over 5,000 products. Many products with the Trump cartoon have sold over 1,000 units. This was really worth the investment.
You don’t just have to use a Donald Trump cartoon. You can also add other cartoon images, such as dog or cat cartoons.
There are many cute dog and cat images on ShutterStock.
I searched with the keywords “dog breeds” and “cat breeds” in the vector category, and I got these results:
There are many images of dog and cat breeds you can use with your design. You just need to buy some image sets and pass them on to your VA so he or she can combine the designs with quotes.
For example, if your main quote is “[Dog Breed] Mom”, instead of creating a simple text design with the word “Labrador Mom”, it’s better to combine a dog cartoon with the text, like this:
This is one of the top-selling Labrador Mom mugs on Etsy. The seller added the Labrador cartoon image to the design, which makes this product different from the others.
This seller also has other dog breed mugs that use the same design template. There are mugs for Weenie Moms, Beagle Moms, Poodle Moms, etc.
I checked the customer reviews in this shop, and found that these dog mugs have many good reviews. This means these mugs have sold well.
If you’re too lazy to find images of every dog or cat breed, you might prefer to use a common image that can represent all dogs or cats and add that to your design.
I added a dog or cat footprint to a design and use it for all dog and cat niches.
Like this one:
The main quote is “Life is better with a Corgi”. This design contains the dog footprint, which I can also use for other dog breeds.
Okay, these are the techniques I use to create unique designs that sell. I have over 80,000 products in my Amazon account, and these techniques help me create new designs and get many more sales – all thanks to a few simple tweaks.
