Build your print on demand empire with Ideogram and Printify
Ideogram is a brand new generative image platform with insane text rendering capabilities and ultra high quality, photorealistic images. Read on to find out how to use Ideogram to build a high earning print on demand business.
If you follow me on Medium, you know that I’m obsessed with Ideogram
But, you might not know that I’m also obsessed with making money online — especially when I can do that with AI tools.
Let’s merge those two topics right now and start building a print on demand empire.
Ideogram and print on demand
We’re living in a digital era, and that era has spawned countless opportunities for passive income generation. One such lucrative opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs, artists, and designers is the Print On Demand (POD) industry.
Imagine creating a design once and selling it an infinite number of times without worrying about inventory or shipping. Sounds like a dream, right?
However, the reality so far often involves grappling with design tools that are either too complex or too limited, especially when it comes to generating all-in-one, text inclusive images worthy of printing.
That said, there’s a new groundbreaking tool that’s poised to disrupt the generative art AND POD landscape in the months to come.
Launched in 2023, Ideogram.ai has already garnered attention for its advanced text-to-image rendering capabilities. This feature alone addresses a significant gap in the market, offering a level of customization and quality that was previously not possible.
Generating print on demand images with Ideogram
First, you’ll need an Ideogram account. Head over to Ideogram.ai and sign up for an account.
Once you’re all set up and logged in, you’ll see the main prompt interface, as well as a sortable live feed of generations from other users.
We won’t go into the specifics of prompting in this story — this is all about making money. If you want to learn everything there is to know about prompting in Ideogram, check out our guide:
Pro Tip #1: All prompts are public, so you can peruse the live feed and pick out images you like to remix their prompts
Step 1: Remix a prompt
Pick some prompts from the live feed, and remix a new image to get a feel for what Ideogram can do.
For example, we changed the above prompt to “Work Hard Play Hard.”
Ideogram text rendering isn’t perfect every time, but the above prompt rendered at least one usable design. If the text is not rendered appropriately the first time, just click “generate” agian to re-roll.
Step 2: Find a niche
If you’re looking to get into print on demand, the best practice is to a find a niche that will generate traffic. If you already have a niche or an established audience, skip to the next step.
Otherwise, I use two main platforms to identify topics: Youtube and Google Trends.
Pro Tip #2: Use Youtube and Google Trends to find trending topics for your print on demand products
Search trending content on Youtube
Go to youtube.com/feed/trending to see what videos and content items are getting circulated by the YT algorithm
Use Google Trends data
You can use Google Trends data to identify trending search topics. This is especially helpful if you plan to rely on organic search to drive traffic to your site.
Step 3: Pick a topic
Find a topic that you want to start with for print on demand items. It’s important to think ahead when you select a topic.
Some key questions that you should ask yourself are:
- Is this topic something that a lot of people like?
- Are there groups of people that care deeply about this topic?
- Would I want to be seen wearing something with this topic on it?
For this guide, let’s use the Google Trends strategy and search trending topics in Hobbies and Leisure.
Not surprisingly, the top search topic was dog.
This makes sense, because dogs are awesome. This topic isn’t something I would normally use however, unless I was able to reduce competition for the keyword.
Pro Tip #3: Try to find high traffic low competition keywords in your niche
Trying to compete for organic traffic on the keyword “dog” is going to be extremely difficult due to the sheer volumes of content being produced around dogs and pets.
That said, we’ll run with it for educational purposes.
Step 4: Generate your design in Ideogram
Head back over to Ideogram and find another prompt to remix, or if you’re feeling confident, write your own prompt!
Once you land on a design that you like, download it!
Step 5: Create an account with Printify
If you haven’t heard of Printify yet, I highly recommend you check it out. This guide is not sponsored in any way, but I’ve had good results using their Shopify intregration to get set up really fast.
You can also start for free, so you can literally start selling within a few minutes if you’re savvy.
Step 6: Create your first product!
Once you have your account all set up, head on over and click on “Catelog” in the dashboard.
Let’s create a mug with our Ideogram design!
Choose which mug you want to print on. Once in the page, select “Start Designing” on the bottom right.
Now you need to upload your file and scale the design to the printable area using the Printify designer.
Pro Tip #4: this image works directly out of Ideogram because the print surface on the mug is small enough— with most AI generated POD images, you’ll want to vectorize the image for smooth scaling, or upscale any photorealistic images.
Learn how to vectorize your graphics for free here!
When you’re done sizing the image, click on “save product.”
You now have a completed product! Click on the product to view mockups:
Step 7: Connect your store and start selling!
From the product page, scroll down and click on “publish.” If you have a store connected, you’re ready to go!
If not, you’ll need to set one up and connect it so your customers have someplace to purchase the print on demand items from.
We won’t go into setting up a store — that’s for another guide. But here is a great resource from Printify if you’re ready to create your own.
Final Thoughts
Now that you’ve created your first product and it’s in your Printify store, there’s nothing left to do but watch the money roll in. JK, print on demand is definitely rewarding, but it’s also hard and requires consistency to pay off.
Keep building on your store to include new and exciting print products that your audience will love, and you’ll put yourself in the best possible position to be successful.
I hope this guide has been helpful — now go create some stuff!
