T-shirt drawers around the world are overflowing with custom tees. But, only a select few of those tees get the honor of being worn again and again. To the supermarket, the beach, the bar, everywhere. By making a few smart decisions, the brands that designed those tees get exponentially more marketing value. So how do you give your brand the best chance to create a shirt that your audience will love for years?

Choosing any old cheap, boxy shirt and slapping a logo on it just won’t cut it anymore. While price still matters, savvy brands should care about durability, fit, weight, and design versatility of their promotional tees. After all, each time your t-shirt gets worn, your audience is marketing your brand for you! Put the right design on the right shirt, and it can become iconic. So why not give your tee a chance to be someone’s favorite, and not just a bottom of the drawer throwaway?

In order to make the most effective t-shirt choice for your brand, it’s first important to understand the ins and outs of price, fabric, and fit. I’ll help you understand all the style combinations and price ranges. Then you’ll be ready to make an awesome choice that’s perfect for your brand’s target market.

Tee Fit

What’s the point of putting your brand’s awesome design on a t-shirt that’ll never get worn? Before you make a single choice about what type of tee you’d like to create, consider who your target market is. Every audience is different.

That’s why it’s important not only to choose high-quality printers and distributors, but also to make an informed fit choice. If you can appeal to your brand’s audience today, they’ll help create and grow your brand’s audience of tomorrow.

So, now you know how important it is to choose your tee with your audience in mind. Let’s look at what fit options are out there.

Men’s and Unisex Tee Fits

Women can usually fit into men’s tees, but men often have a harder time fitting into women’s tees, so men’s and unisex fits are often just the same thing.

Knowing this, if you’re intent on creating just one awesome shirt, the best option would probably be to go with one of the male-tailored unisex styles. For example, if you’re planning to attend a tradeshow and don’t know exactly who will be visiting your booth, ordering quantities of a unisex shirt is a much safer option.

Luckily, this won’t really limit you choices. From classic to basic, v-neck to crew, baggy to long body, there are a ton of style and color options to choose from in the unisex category.

Women’s Tee Fits

While many women can make do with a unisex style, it isn’t usually an ideal fit. This is an especially important consideration when choosing promotional tees for audiences that are majority women. For these brands, it’s a good idea put in an additional order of a women’s fit style as opposed to just a unisex/mens fit.

Women’s fits run the gamut in terms of style, more so even than men’s tees. From slim and sporty to relaxed and flowy, from deep vees to scooped necks to basic crews, there’s no shortage of great style options to choose from.

For both men’s/unisex as well as women’s fits, make sure to evaluate the range of style options that are out there, and then try to match those up with the needs of your target audience. If you’re still not sure what would be best, make sure to order samples of your favorite styles before you commit to a large order.

Tee Fabric

When choosing the fabric for your tee, there are several questions you should be asking yourself:

• How will your brand’s design be printed onto your shirt? Will you use water or oil-based ink?
• Where is the tee most likely going to get worn?
• How often will people where it?
• What types of people will be wearing it?

These are all important questions to consider when thinking about what kind of fabric to use.

For example, if you are targeting a surf/skate/streetwear audience, then you would likely want to use a heavier weight fabric. These soft, structured cotton shirts traditionally come with looser, more relaxed style options.

However, if you’re targeting a more boutique customer, a medium weight fabric would work better. Medium weight fabrics generally come with more fitted, slightly more refined style options.

In addition, don’t forget that the type of fabric you choose also affects the ways in which you can print your design. Make sure to check if the fabric is versatile enough to handle your preferred design method (i.e. screen printing, DTG, sublimation, custom embroidery, etc.)

No matter what type you choose, the fabric for your tee is just as important as the fit when it comes to its wearability. Just like with the fit and style, don’t be afraid to order samples and conduct tailored market research in order to determine the best option for your brand’s core audience.

Tee Price

After targeting the best fit and fabric options for your audience, you’ll then be able to target the perfect tee for your budget. This is because within each tee style there’s a diversity of good, better and best options tailored to fit budgets of all sizes. At DTLA we handpick our partners’ products that we think represent good, better, and best options.

For example, let’s say you want a crew neck, relaxed fit shirt for a primarily female audience. Well, within that style, you’ve got a wide range of price options to choose from. If you’re on a tighter budget, you might want to go with one of our simple, high quality 100% cotton tees from Bella + Canvas. If affordability is less of a concern for your brand, you might consider something like a burnout cotton/poly blend, or a semi-relaxed triblend.

The point is, once you’ve made an informed decision about the best fit and fabric for your tee, there will be a diverse range of products for you to choose from depending on your budget.

The Takeaway

The promotional tee is a foundational pillar for both your brand’s design and the relationship it has with its audience. By just taking a little bit more time to understand your options for fit, fabric, and price you can make the perfect choice for your target audience! And if you’re ever feeling overwhelmed, don’t hesitate to reach out to our experts. Having worked with a huge range of brands, we know target audiences as well as we know our inventory.