New Ideas for Your Embroidery Business for 2024

Embroidery business ideas for growth – here’s what usually happens when you are brainstorming ideas to grow your embroidery business:

First, you break out a notebook and start jotting down your ideas…

And then… the next order comes in, or the next call, or the next big business decision you must make to keep going.

So, nothing more gets done!

In this post, we’ll clarify and simplify your options to help you direct your efforts:

You can grow by expanding WHAT you sell.

Or you can grow by expanding WHO you sell to..

Changing the What You Sell

There are hundreds of things you can make and sell with a commercial embroidery machine. And if you’re already in the business you KNOW that’s true.

But it’s likely that you’ve developed a specialty that’s made you successful to this point. Like embroidered polos or workwear for example.

One way you can grow your business within that same niche, or even the same exact customer base, is by adding to what you’re already good at with complimentary products. Then UP-sell the people already coming in the door.

In the workwear example, you might offer them laptop bags or tablet covers with the company logo on them. Or add caps or outerwear for our increasingly cold winters.

Each one of those new products can be more profitable on an individual basis AND should be an easy upsell for a good percentage of your current customers.

What you sell – and now for something completely different

The other option you might consider is breaking out of the embroidery-only business and choose another technology completely.

For example, if you have a good business selling Schoolwear or Sportwear, you might make a BIG and PROFITABLE addition by adding Spangles to what you do. (Wildly profitable!)

Or white toner transfers for custom printed tees.

Or even UV-DTF for custom decals.

The “What you Sell” advantage.

This strategy for selling more in 2024 – for growing your “embroidery” business – can be a big win because every time a current customer calls, every ad or event you do, is a built-in opportunity for you GROW.

Changing the Who You Sell TO

Believe it or not, while it seems like adding new products or technologies to your business might be the most challenging option for growth… in most cases it’s really not.

When you change or add a vertical market (niche), it requires you to almost start from scratch.

If your current customers are buying custom workwear from you, you already know them.

You know what they need and why.
Understand the language they speak.
You know where to find them.
And how to reach them.

Imagine that your current clients are all local service providers – like plumbers. You are the go-to embroidery business for every plumbing business within 100km.

Now you want to get into the holiday goods niche and sell retail online.

That’s a much more general market – WHO inside that niche will you focus on?
There are a million embroidered gift ideas, which will you pursue?
Do you have the relationship in place to buy blanks?
How will you test the new blanks and whether or not they’ll sell?
Are there different technical skills you’ll need to learn for those items?
How will you reach this new market? Will you buy ads, go to social media?

The “Who You Sell To” advantage.

Don’t let the bigger hurdles dissuade you from considering expanding Who You Sell To!

Because THIS is where the payoff can come fast, and in at least one surprising way…

The payoff comes if you add another niche and do just as well, or even better, than you are in your current focus area.

It’s in this way that a successful work wear embroidery company can double it’s business by conquering the school uniform or high end gift market.

Or really compound benefits from reaching both a local market with their original product line and a completely new business-life through online sales of the new one.

But the sleeper, surprising advantage is…

It’s a smart financial self-defence move.

The reason that “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” is a common warning is that if you trip, even through no fault of your own, you’ll have no more eggs.

If you are a single market embroidery business, you’re at risk. Risk of a strike, new regulation, new competition, can trip up your 2024 plans in one fell swoop.

But if you have expanded your niche to something completely different, you’ll have some built in resiliency to those trip-hazards you can’t control..

The future of embroidery in specific and the customization business in general is very bright for the UK and beyond.

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