Personalised embroidered items are the foundation of my business. While I do sell some generic pieces, the vast majority of my income comes from personalisation.
Offering personalisation on things that you manufacture as part of your business can be a game changer. It opens up new income streams and will bring create customer loyalty bringing them back time and time again for repeat business.
Monogram Basics
Monograms were one of the basics that I started with when it came to personalisation. Being able to add a set of initials, or similar, to a simple stock line can improve your profit considerably with only minor expense – assuming that you already have the equipment. Certainly from my perspective, monograms have helped me expand out of my costume and cosplay niche and into giftware and personal purchases.
Many of the software packages for embroidery machines have the ability to easily create monograms. But if you’re looking for a style that your machine doesn’t offer, then you might find yourself stuck.
There is the option of drawing a monogram yourself by hand, but this is time consuming and beyond the skill of many. And that’s where free monogram design sites come in handy.
Using a monogram maker online can be a good way to start the design process for a customised embroidered item. Many are free sites that you can use to play with monogram designs and find something that works for your customer or yourself.
With just a few clicks I was able to come up with a monogram design that I was good enough to take into my embroidery software to serve as the basis for my customised design.
After exporting the file I then took it to my digitalisation software for my embroidery machine and simply used the auto digitize option. It produced a great working file that I could then load onto my embroidery machine.
Sewing the Monogram
Once you’ve designed your monogram, getting it onto a product is the next stage! After all – if it’s not on a product then it won’t sell!
One of my more popular ranges are the embroidered pouches that I sell both for costume and for more general use. I’ve made quite a few of them with monograms on in the past as custom orders, but I decided I wanted to add them as a regular product line to my Etsy store.
If you’re going for this approach then choose fairly generic initials that look good in the monogram style that you’re using. ‘AB’ is always a pretty good pair to try out new designs with. You want people to be able to imagine their own initials on the product – so don’t choose anything too wacky!
Once you’ve got your prototype made go ahead and photograph it so that you can get it listed on your Etsy shop. These kinds of monogrammed products sell great around Christmas time when everyone is looking for something unique to give as a gift to their loved ones.
