Case Study: Clay Martin
Clay Martin is a former Green Beret and Special Forces Marine. He was a scout sniper, and now teaches precision rifle for a living.
So basically, he’s not a guy you wanna piss off. Which is why I was equal parts nervous and excited that he trusted me to bring the world he had written about to life.
You are one devious bitch. and where I come from that’s a high compliment.
-clay martin
First things first. Merch. Clay had the book and with it, a world outlined to play into visually.
We started with patches, t shirts, and tank tops. Utilizing POD (Print On Demand) services for the shirts and tanks to minimize the inventory Clay had to stick in his garage. He travels a lot for his personal clients, so delegation and automation was of the utmost importance.
We started with some simple designs. To be honest, we really didn’t know if anyone would care about stickers and shit. We also didn’t want this to seem like some big cash grab. So we kept it basic. One little extra I came up with, was a QR code on the stickers you see pictured above. The link to the store, and were given with every order so people could stick them on places.
(If you see one of these on a gas pump in the Midwest, high possibility Clay put it there.)
Soft launch happened in January of 2023. The store made a whopping $2,008.47 that month. Revenue, of course.
Time to crank it up
So the interest is there, but now what? More designs? Cooler ones? More products?
The answer is yes to all of that naturally. This is where I really stepped in and flexed. February 2023, I introduced some new designs, and new products, like jersey shirts.
The result? $6,427.65 in sales. In 28 days. And I was out of town the first week of the month.
Not bad. This solidified merch as being a solid decision. Now, let’s really run it back.
Lets build a world
Time to crank this sucker to 11, expand the world Clay wrote about, and build a community/cult all at the same time.
We let the store do it’s thing through the summer. Adding tank tops, more patches, womens v necks, etc. From March until May we kept a steady $2,000 average. In June, I added some new designs people had been itching for.
From June until the end if August, the store total (rev) was just shy of $12k. We march on, and continue to give the people what they want. And what they want is rash guards and hoodies.
Baby its cold outside
September came, and with it a bitter, unseaonable cold. You know what that means… Hats.
Now listen. I knew people liked hats. But holy shit, I didn’t know people liked hats this much.
With the new addition came a major increase in sales, momentum, and motivation to try something risky…
Beating a dead cryptid
Wendigos are cool. But we’d beaten that dead horse about as much as we were gonna be able to.
Clay calls me one day. He says “hey, so…I saw some shit. I think we need to pivot”
Which sounds risky because it’s going so well. But I’m all ears because honestly? I’d been feeling the same thing.
If you’ve read the book, you know where we go with this. But if not (fix that now, go read the book) let me explain briefly.
The book covers these things called Wolf Lodges. They’re gathering places for people to go, talk, plan, and strategize through the collapse of the country.
It was time to make those real.
The Wolf Lodge Symbol. Or as we in the biz call it, a logo.
Clay saw this in a dream and described it to me, hoping I’d be able to pen it out and make it real thing.
I’d love to say I knocked it out of the park the first time, but that’s not the case. After a few iterations, we arrived at this. Which is the official symbol for the Wolf Lodge.
Lodge meet cult
So we’ve got the symbol for everyone to rally behind, but sticking a logo on a shirt and calling it good wasn’t enough.
Not to brag, but this is a case study on how good I am, so I’m totally about to brag.
This is where my ideas got real fuckin’ good. After iterating the logo I was left with a lot of “assets.” Different shaped axes, lightning bolts, wolf heads, etc. All stuff I used to get where we finished.
It’d be a shame to let all that go to waste… Especially when there’s a perfectly good cult building opportunity built in to it, that acts as a lead magnet.
oh fuck yes!!! that’s awesome.
-Clay martin
Make your own logo/stencil kit. A collection of design assets that are dummy proof, so you can make your own stencils and logos.
I even included a video of me spray painting some 5.56 magazines to show how easy it is.
In addition to that, a social media kit. A collection of PFPs (profile pictures) and twitter banners that advertise the lodges.
People love free stuff. They get free stuff, we get leads for potential customers, and the word about the message is spread to people who will probably listen. Win-Win-Win
Lets get Physical
The idea of a lodge is awesome, but the actual physical reality of it could change the world. The next step in the master plan, is how do we make these things real.
Well, obviously we’re only 2 people. We can’t do that ourselves. But with the dedicated following Clay has built, and my crafty brain, we can get people to do it for themselves, with our guidance. We can give them the digital space to plan, and meet like minded people.
And we can divide the country into regions so people will have a specific lodge to rally behind and be proud of.
Wow. now that is completely ape shit.
-Clay martin
The Legions Are Here
After months of hard work, the legions had finally become official. We launched on November 1st. 6 different legions, all with their own “brand” identity and merch. Lore was written for each as well. People love stories, and since they’re all here from reading a book anyway, it made sense to start to flesh out things that couldn’t make it to the final cut of the book.
The need for digital can not be ignored. As such, I decided a digital lodge was an obvious solution.
Using Discord, I created exactly that. A free, online meeting space where all of the lodges could get together, chat, game, hang out, and organize meetings.
This was a great success. We amassed over 600 members in the first day. We’re now at 800 as of November 28th.
Did we start a cult?
Listen, I knew the legion stuff would be awesome. I knew the merch would sell well.
I did not expect this. The Discord was going crazy, sales were through the roof, everyone was loving it. To top it all off, someone actually got the lodge logo TATTOOED ON THEM.
Yes, a tattoo! I’m glad I make good logos. Tattoos are forever!
Absolutely unreal. Humbling and exciting all at once.
We may have just started a cult, for real.
Cult status = achieved
-Clay martin
International Day Of Shopping (BFCM)
Our next task was to have a killer Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM)
Our printer was running some promotions that we decided to take advantage of with specific designs. There’s two main things we wanted to do-
-Increase AOV.
-Offer products we never had before to capture new customers.
First- AOV. Easy, free shipping on orders over $100.
Second- New products. A little more complicated but with some creative problem solving, we got it done, and stayed true to Clay’s brand.
A very cheap t shirt
Yes, it is. Tons of new designs, new products we’d never had before, and a Clay Martin Army of Poors special.
A cheap t shirt. Now, we could have advertised this as just a sale. But people have come to expect a certain quality from us. These were not the regular shirts we sold. These are the cheap, boxy, Gildan t shirts we all know and hate.
Why would we sell them then? Clay has a saying. “If there isn’t a way, you make a way.” He’s also dead set on keeping our people’s wallets in mind when we make this stuff. We wanted to do a shirt that practically anyone could afford, but with our regular choice of T, that wasn’t always possible.
This gave us the perfect opportunity to offer, what we have now named, Cheap Ass Tees. They’re thin, boxy, and only $12. Taking the “features” of the shirt, and being upfront about it helped sales of this product, and achieved goal 2- capture new customers.
Now, there’s more people in the ecosystem, more on the email list, and more ways to get them further down the pipeline.
