You don’t have to think too hard to come up with a couple good reasons why so many brands give away cheap custom tee shirts to promote their companies.

First of all, it works. Custom tees can produce 200 impressions per advertising dollar, which is the equivalent of 200,000 people seeing your brand for the first time for just $1,000. Plus, a survey revealed that nearly three out of four (73.5%) respondents stated that custom tees were more effective than TV advertising.

Second of all, people love tee shirts. About 95% of American wear them, and nine in 10 Americans own a tee shirt that they refuse to throw away because of its sentimental value.

Except, that doesn’t mean that they’re definitely going to wear your custom tees. It just means that they like them.

If you want to turn your brand’s loyal followers into walking billboards, you’re going to have to make custom tees that they want to wear, which can be a little tricky for someone who doesn’t have any fashion or graphic design knowledge.

Luckily, you can take a couple steps that will help. Here’s what you need to do.

Choose a High-Quality Shirt Material.

The thing about about cheap custom tees is that they’re, well, cheap, which to many companies is a good thing. They’re a cost-effective way to market a brand. However, you get out what you put in, and many times cheap custom tees wind up looking and feeling, well, cheap, and who wants to wear a cheap shirt?

Instead of buying a few hundred cheap custom tees, it’s better to buy only a couple hundred higher-quality shirts. Although this means that you won’t get your branded logo on as many people’s backs, it does mean that they’re more likely to wear the shirt, which is the entire point, right? What good would it be for 300 people to have your custom tees and never wear them? It’s much better to give 200 out, and have each one wear them.

Choose a High-Quality Ink.

You also have to consider the ink that your shirt printing service uses. Cheap ink will fade and peel away after only a couple washes, which obviously causes a couple problems. First of all, it means that the shirt will no longer represent your brand. No one will be able to see your brand’s logo if it’s not there anymore. Secondly, it also makes people less likely to wear the shirt, because, let’s face it, who’s going to want to wear a shirt that looks all faded and worn out, even if it’s relatively new?

If you want people to wear your shirts, you need to make shirts people want to wear. It’s that simple. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments.