For many independent artists, live shows don’t come as frequently so you want to make sure you’re maximizing these opportunities to sell when you’re performing live.

In this blog, we’ll go over all of the basics that you should keep in mind for selling merch in person and some tips to maximize your efforts.

Please Note: This blog contains affiliate links to Amazon, meaning that I get a small commission when you purchase any of the items I recommend. This is a great way to support all the work that went into this blog at no extra cost to you. Read my full affiliate link disclosure here.
 

Offer various payment options.

 
By default, you should at least be able to accept credit cards as it is the most popular form of payment. Square is the most commonly used payment service and they offer a free basic card reader when you sign up that attaches to your smartphone. There are other POS options as well such as Shopify and PayPal.

In case you want a backup or you lose it, you can also just order a Square Reader on Amazon for about $10.

If you want to invest in a better Square card reader, the next level up that costs around $50 to $60 dollars.

If you want a portable Square terminal that you don’t need to connect to your SmartPhone, you can get the Square Terminal.

Cash is ideal but you’ll need to have a change available. If so, it would be smart to invest in a cash box and have enough change before each show. You don’t really need anything big or fancy. Even a small cash bag will work fine.

You may also want to price items strategically to minimize the change you need, like selling items in increments of $5, $10 and $20 so you don’t need $1 bills. $200 in change should be enough.

Venmo, PayPal, Zelle and CashApp are also very useful payment options to have. To make transactions quick, I would print out a sheet of QR codes for each payment option you have set up along with your usernames. That way, customers can have their app out and ready to pay.

Here’s how to find the QR codes for each of the digital payment options:

• Venmo
• PayPal
• Zelle
• CashApp

Ask the venue beforehand about where merch is sold.

 
You want to make sure you know where the merch area is and what supplies are available to you. Do you need to bring your own table or racks to hang items up? How is the lighting? Is there actually good foot traffic or can you set up somewhere else?

Chances are the music venue will have a designated merch area that is optimal for selling. In case you’re performing somewhere that is not typically for music, try finding any space closer to the entrance/exit where foot traffic is forced to go.

Most of the time, music venues should have tables available for you to set up on. If not or you’re performing, here’s a great 6ft folding table option and a black table cloth.
 

Stick around after your live performance.

 
This is such a big opportunity for you to build deeper relationships with your fans and potentially sell merch. Whether it’s to chat, take a photo with you or have something signed, you want to stay around your merch table for your fans as long as you can after your set. When talking about building your brand, making yourself available physically for fans is one of the best things you can do. It’s not scalable but it’s important especially for emerging artists. Just be sure to let people know you’re doing it and where after your set.
 

Have someone sell merch for you.

 
Your priority after performing is to spend time interacting and engaging with fans. Having someone handle all of the merch transactions will free up time for you to focus on those who support you. Try to see if you can have a friend offer a couple of hours to sell merch for you at the table.

Otherwise, some venues might have someone available to sell merch for you, but they’ll charge you and take a small cut of your sales. Depending on the venue, they may only take a cut of soft sales (shirts, hats, sweaters) as opposed to hard sales (CD, Vinyl). Some may take a percentage of both. Make sure to ask ahead of time so you’re clear on their policies and maybe try to negotiate better terms.
 

Mention you have merch for sale during your set.

 
Not everyone is going to know that you have a merch table set up so be sure to mention it sometime during your live performance. You can even point it out if it’s in view. To remind yourself, make a note of it in your set list or do it at the end, especially if you’ll head to the table after your performance.
 

Have prices, sizes and color options visible.

 
Have a tag or label next to the item with a price and any other details. You can also have a printed price list that is visible. This is particularly important if you’re by yourself at the merch table. You don’t want to waste any time having to answer any questions about prices when you might have a line of people wanting to get your attention to talk or get a photo.

If you’re printing something out, be sure to laminate it to prolong the use of it.
 

Give away something free at your merch table.

 
Leave some free stickers, mini prints, posters or pins at the merch table to give a reason for people to stop by. Be sure to have a sign or note to let people know it’s free.

Stickers are relatively cheap to make. There are tons of companies that do them but here are two popular options:

• Sticker Giant
• Sticker Mule

Presentation matters.

 
No one likes to shop in a messy, unorganized shop so you need to make sure your table and setup is inviting. Bring some nice hangers to hang up shirts and hoodies on a grid wall panel display so they aren’t wrinkled. Some venues may have display racks for you to use so ask first since they’re a bit pricey.

As for clothing, instead of rummaging through boxes to find sizes, create a system that allows you find the size you’re looking for. For example, if you fold in the flaps of a cardboard box, you can use each of the 4 sides to lay one size of shirts. Typically, you’re dealing with S, M, L, XL and 2XL so maybe one size like 2XL can stay folded at the bottom of the box. If you’re dealing with multiple clothing designs, arrange the sizes to same sides of the box to avoid any confusion. Larges can be on the left side of the box. The top side furthest away from you can be smalls.

Make sure the area is well lit so bring battery powered or rechargeable lamps for the table. If there’s a display rack, using a clampable reading light can help shine a light on the merch and make it more visible.

In addition to your table, you should also keep your products organized and in protective storage bins. It’ll make your life easier and keep your inventory protected.
 

Offer a discount or free item for email sign ups.

 
A live show is a great opportunity to collect emails for your mailing list. You can incentivize fans by offering a discount or a free item like stickers, poster or even a CD for signing up.

This can be done with a sign up sheet you printed out (just make sure they write legibly) or use a tablet like an iPad that has a digital sign up page set up. This can be done in email apps like MailChimp.

You can also create a QR code that goes to your email sign up page.
 

Bring Permanent Markers (Sharpies).

 
One of the perks of attending a show from a fan perspective is having the chance to talk to the artist, get a photo and have things signed. Not everyone will bring things with them to the show so having products to sell and Sharpies already at the table will make it more likely for people to buy something.

The default for autographs is a black fine point Sharpie, but it really depends on what’s being signed and the type of surface. Typically, you’ll most likely be signing the jacket sleeve of a vinyl record, a CD cover or a poster so Sharpies will work fine. If the surface is a bit glossy or metallic, you may need to be more careful. Make sure to let it dry and not to smear your autograph.

Blue fine point Sharpies work well too and are generally considered better for autographs because black is more prone to fading.

If the merch you have contains dark colored surfaces, you may consider having silver or gold fine point metallic Sharpies on hand.
 

Offer bundle packages or 2-for-1 discounts.

 
We all love a good deal. If you have multiple items for sale, like a shirt, hat and CD, offer it together for a little cheaper.

Another type of discount is offering 2-for-1 or “buy one, get one free.” This can be useful for something like CDs. The original idea is that if someone buys 2, they’ll likely give the other one away to a friend. Unfortunately, that tactic isn’t as effective in the streaming era since the majority of people don’t use CDs to listen to music but it’s something to consider if your demographic still uses them.

Make sure you have a sign that advertises your deals.
 

Check your internet connection and power for devices.

 
In order to process card transactions, you’ll need to be connected to the internet. Your typical music venue or small business should have Wi-Fi so be sure to get access. For festivals or outdoor gigs, make sure you have good enough reception or Wi-Fi to take credit card payments.

Whether you’re using your smartphone or a POS terminal to accept credit card payments, make sure to charge up your devices before the gig. Always bring chargers with you or consider buying a portable power bank you can carry with you as a back up.
 

Don’t offer too many design options.

 
Chances are you’re not going to have a ton of different items to sell in early stages of your career so this is nothing to really worry about. But in general, you don’t want to offer too many design options and give fans “choice overload.” You want to keep it relatively simple so fans don’t get overwhelmed and distracted by too many choices.

For example, 3 – 5 different shirt designs is more than enough. Of course, if you have multiple physical music releases, make sure to have them all on display.
 

Have an inventory and sales tracking system.

 
Before the show, do inventory to count how many of each item you’re bringing with you and quantities for each size. It will help a lot of you set up a spreadsheet and keep a log of sales for each show.

By the end of the night, count to make sure the sales totals at the end match up with the amounts you sold and how many of each item did you sell. This is helpful to let you know what sizes do you need more of in the future and what are the big money makers.

From my experience with the artists I work with, we notice that L and XL sell the most and that black is the preferred color for clothing when there are other color options.

If you’re already using something like Square as your Point-Of-Sale (POS) platform, you should be able to in put your products and track all of the sales.

For more advanced merch tracking apps, look into:

• atVenu
• Merch Cat

Conclusion

 
In this next and final blog of the series, I’ll be covering how musicians can maximize merch sales online.

D4’s Merch For Musicians Blog Series

– Part 1: What Merch Should Independent Artists Make That Fans Will Actually Buy
– Part 2: Bulk Ordering Or Print On-Demand? What’s The Best Way For Musicians To Order Merch
– Part 3: How Musicians Can Maximize Merch Sales At In Person Shows
– Part 4: How Musicians Can Maximize Merch Sales Online (Coming Soon)

The post How Musicians Can Maximize Merch Sales At In Person Shows appeared first on D4 Music Marketing.

For musicians, a big part of marketing is accessibility. Whether it’s at a live show or on social media, you want to meet fans where they are at and make it as easy as possible to support you.

With Instagram being one of the top social media platforms for musicians, setting up the Instagram Shopping feature is a great way to do this. After launching in 2019, Instagram Shopping has become more widely available now for most business account users.

Unfortunately, the process to get set up can be a bit confusing. In this blog, I will go over all the steps in detail so you can get Instagram Shopping up and running on your Instagram account.
 

What is Instagram Shopping?

 
Instagram Shopping is a feature that allows you to create a shop page where fans can easily buy your physical products directly on Instagram. You can tag individual products in your newsfeed posts and stories so anyone who clicks it will be taken to a link to buy it. Activating this feature will also add a ‘View Shop’ button on your Instagram profile as well.

The process of getting this feature requires a bit of work and some patience.

Here is an overview of the individual steps:

1. Check that you meet the requirements below.
2. Make sure your eCommerce website already has products for sale and fans can make purchases there.
3. Connect your Instagram account and Facebook Page to your Business Manager account.
4. Verify the domain name for your eCommerce website in Business Manager under ‘Brand Safety’.
5. Create a shop and catalog in Commerce Manager.
6. Add products to your catalog in Commerce Manager.
7. Customize the layout of your Instagram Shop.
8. Add a collection with the products you added to your catalog.
9. Publish your shop and wait for Facebook to approve your account.

Step 1: Check Requirements

 
Before getting started, you should check to see if you meet all the requirements to use Instagram Shopping.

– Is the Instagram Shopping feature available in your country? If you’re not in the U.S., click here to see a list to see if you can use Instagram Shopping.

– Do you have an eCommerce website on a platform like Squarespace or Shopify? You can only sell physical products on Instagram that are currently on your website. Additionally, you will need to verify your domain name to prove it is yours. This means you will need to have backend access to your website or know someone who can access it for you.

– Is your Instagram account type a Professional or Business account? If it’s personal, you would need to switch it to a Professional/Business account. Click here for instructions on how to switch.

– Does your eCommerce website comply with Facebook commerce policies? As long as you’re selling physical products (not digital or services) that are typical merch items from your website, you should be fine. Otherwise, you may not get approved during the review process. Read their commerce policies here.

– Does your brand demonstrate trustworthiness? Facebook just says you need an authentic, established presence that may also include maintaining a sufficient follower base. They don’t get into any details, but assuming you’re not a new artist with a brand new account, you should be okay. Otherwise, you may need to be active and age your account.

If you check all the boxes above, then you should be ready for the next steps.
 

Step 2: Setup Your Facebook Business Manager

 
To get things started, you need to gain access to your Business Manager account.

What is Business Manager?

 
Chances are you have a Facebook Business page as an artist. For example, like this. That Facebook page is managed by an umbrella/overhead account called Business Manager.

Facebook Business Manager is a tool to manage and organize all of your Facebook business-related assets in one place. Think of it as a master account that oversees your Facebook page, Instagram account, Ads Manager, etc. It allows you to grant your team members or collaborators access to your individual business assets.

It can get a little confusing because there are 3 other “manager” accounts under the umbrella of Business Manager – Ads Manager, Events Manager and Commerce Manager. The only two we’ll be working with in this guide are Business Manager and Commerce Manager.

Technically, everyone who has a Business Facebook Page should have a Business Manager account even if you’ve never used it. If for some reason you don’t have it, you can follow these directions to create it.

For this step, there are two important actions you need to take in Business Manager.

1. Connect Your Facebook Page and Instagram account to your Business Manager account
2. Verify the domain name of your eCommerce website

1. How to connect your Facebook Page and Instagram account to Business Manager

 
First, you’ll need to link/connect your Facebook Page and Instagram account to your Business Manager account.

From the Business Manager home screen, go to ‘Business Settings’ by clicking the gear icon on the bottom left corner.

Business Manager Home Screen

On the left side menu in Business Manager Settings, you will see ‘Pages’ and ‘Instagram Accounts’ under the ‘Accounts’ tab.

To connect your Facebook page, click on ‘Pages’ and then the blue ‘Add’ button. Select ‘Add a Page’ then type the name. You can only add a page if you’re currently an admin for that page.

Next, to connect your Instagram account, click on ‘Instagram Accounts’ then the blue ‘Add’ button. Hit ‘Connect your Instagram Account’ and you’ll be asked to log in. If you’re successfully, your Instagram account user name should be listed.

2. How to verify your domain name in Business Manager account

 
Second, you want to verify the domain name of your eCommerce website. To do this, go to the ‘Brand Safety’ tab on the left side. Click on ‘Domains’ then the blue ‘Add’ button to get started. Type in the domain name of your website and hit ‘Add’ again. You’ll be prompted with the next step.

The main action you will need to do is add a specific line of code (meta-tag) inside of your header tags for your website. This is the most “technical” part of the process, but it should be fairly easy depending on what website platform you use. If you paid someone to create and/or manage your website, they should be able to do this step for you easily. Otherwise, you can do it yourself with some direction.

If you have a Squarespace or Shopify website, see instructions below. For any other website eCommerce platform, you’ll just have to search Google or YouTube on how to add code to header tags for your respective platform.

Once you add Facebook’s meta-tag to your website, you’ll hit ‘Verify Domain’ back in Business Manager. If you did this correctly, it will show green verified text next to your domain name.

Squarespace Websites

 
For Squarespace eCommerce websites, log into the backend of your website. From the home screen, go to ‘Settings’ -> ‘Advanced’ -> ‘Code Injection’. On the top, you should see ‘Header’. Copy and paste that domain verification code in this section and save.

Where to add the meta-tag for Squarespace websites

Shopify Websites

 
For Squarespace eCommerce websites, log into the backend of your website, which should be: https://yourdomainname.myshopify.com/admin/ (replace yourdomainname with your website). From the home screen, click on ‘Online Store’ on the left hand side. It should drop down a menu so click on ‘Themes’ on top. For ‘Live Theme’, click on ‘Actions’ then ‘Edit code’.

On the next page, you should see a folder called ‘Layout’. Select the file ‘theme.liquid’. Locate the header tags as pictured above. You’ll paste the domain verification code from Business Manger between these 2 tags. Make sure you’re not pasting it between another block of code.

Once you add the code, hit the green ‘save’ button and you’re all set to verify the domain back in Business Manager.
 

Step 3: Create a new catalog and shop in Commerce Manager

 

Once you’ve added your Facebook and Instagram accounts to Business Manager and verified your domain name, the next step is to create your storefront and catalog. This done through the Commerce Manager. A catalog is essentially a database or spreadsheet of different products you want to sell through your Instagram Shop.

Once you’re in the Commerce Manager home screen, you’re going to click ‘Add Shop’. Select ‘Instagram’ and hit ‘Next’ where you’ll see the following page:

‘Business Information’: Use an email address that you use for customer service or general inquiries with the public.

‘Sales Channel’: Make sure your Instagram account is displayed.

‘Products’ Catalog: They automatically generate a catalog name for you. You can change it to something more specific like “Merch”. Facebook recommends only creating one catalog for your account.

‘Checkout Method’: There are two options. You can either have customers check out on your website or on Instagram itself.

Checking out on your website is the easiest and quickest option to set up, which is what I recommend, but it’s not the seamless experience you ideally want. Being able to check out on Instagram is very convenient for fans because you can make purchases right inside the Instagram app. However, there are requirements you have to meet in order to activate this feature. One of them being you have to be based in the U.S. There are also fees involved when checking out on Instagram. To see what you need in order to checkout on Instagram, you can refer to this page.

On the next screen, select the countries or regions you ship to.

Type in the domain name of your eCommerce website. The reason why we verified the domain first is because you can only input a domain here that was verified in your Business Manager account.

Lastly, check the box that says you agree to their Seller Agreement and click ‘Finish Setup’.

Once you create your store front and catalog, you will receive an email saying your commerce account and website will be under review. They say this process can take up to 4 weeks.

In the meantime, you can go ahead to the next step and add products to your catalog.
 

Step 4: Add products to your catalog

 
In the previous step, we created a new shop and a catalog where we can load products you intend to sell on Instagram. Now we’ll go ahead and add each individual item in the catalog.

To get started, go to your Commerce Manager page. Click ‘Add Items’ from the Overview screen and it will ask for your preferred method:

There are four general ways to add products to your catalog: Manual, Data Feed, Partner Platform and Pixel.

I’ll only touch on the main two. You can add them manually one-by-one or through a Partner Platform where you connect your eCommerce platform to your Facebook Business manager account. This allows you to automatically import and sync products to your Instagram Shop.

Please Note: You need to make sure anything you add to the catalog is already active on your website. You are only allowed to sell physical products in your Instagram Shop that are already available on your own website.

The big platforms that have this partner platform integration are Shopify and WooCommerce, but you can check this list to see if your platform is supported. Because the eCommerce website we are using is Squarespace, it does not give us the Partner Platform option so we will do manual.

Instagram recommends adding at least 4 items for better customization of your store front.

For each item, you’ll need the following:

• A photo (ideally a square one)
• A short description
• URL link to the product on your website
• Price

Once you added all the details for your products on each line, hit ‘Upload’ to finish this step.

Down the line, if you ever need to go back to add and remove products, just go to your Commerce Manager and edit your catalog.
 

Step 5: Customize the store front

 
Once you add products to your catalog, the last step is to customize your Instagram store front. This is only optional, but you should still check it out and see if you might want to make any adjustments to how your stop will look to your fans.

To get started, go to the ‘Shops’ tab in the Commerce Manager. On this screen, you’ll see the status of your shop. If you’ve been approved and your shop is published, it’ll say “active” under ‘Status’. In the meantime, you can hit ‘Edit Shop’ to customize your Instagram shop page.

On the left hand side, you can customize and organize the layout of your shop based on the different element types (Promotion Banner, Dynamic Product, Carousel, Suggested for You…”. By default, Instagram will turn on the optimize layout option for you so you won’t be able to move any of the elements. In my opinion, you really don’t need this setting on as it rearranges the products and collections uniquely to the user based on their interests and past behaviors on the app.

Click the ‘optimize layout’ switch once to disable so you can move the elements up or down by dragging the 6-dots on the left side. I also think you don’t need most of these elements either so you can hide them by clicking the eye icon on the right side. You can click on each one to see what it does.

The main step you might want to do here for your store front is ‘Add collection’ to group certain products together in your Instagram shop. It’s not necessary but it’s a good way to keep your shop looking organized.

Under the carousel element, click on the button that says ‘add collection.’ All you need to do is name the collection (maybe you have merch tied to a specific release) and select the individual products in your catalog that you want to include in this collection. When you’re done, just hit ‘confirm’.

You can always go back and tweak it how you want after you’ve been approved and your shop is live.

Since you won’t be able to publish the shop here so once you’re done, just hit ‘Save’ and ‘Exit Builder’.
 

Step 6: Wait for approval then publish your shop

 
In order for your Instagram Shop to go live, it needs to pass 3 reviews:

The review process was first triggered when you created the shop and catalog. They say it can take up to 4 weeks, but it only took a few days for me. If everything goes to plan, you should receive the following email that says you’re ready to start selling:

The final step is to publish your shop. You can either click on the link in the email where it says “publish your shop” or you can just go directly to your Commerce Manager to do it there. Publishing your shop will trigger one last review (technically the forth one), but should only take a few minutes.

Keep in mind that your Instagram shop is something that they will evaluate every month to make sure everything is in compliance to their policies. They recently added a new tab called ‘Account Health’ in Commerce Manager to see your current standing.

With all out of that out of the way, you’re ready to use Instagram Shopping!
 

Step 7: Promote your Instagram Shop and products

 

Once you’ve been approved, the ‘Shop’ button will be live on your Instagram profile and you can start tagging individual products in your newsfeed posts and stories.
 

How to Tag Products in Your Newsfeed Posts

On the last screen before you share your post, you should see an option below where you write the caption that says ‘Tag Products’. Simply tap where you want to add the tag on your photo and select the shop source that contains the products you want to tag. You can tag multiple products in a single post, but as a best practice, only tag the products that are actually in the photo.

For a single image post, you can tag up to 5 products or a total of 20 products in multiple images inside a carousel-style post.

For videos over 20 seconds, you can tag individual products or collections by pinning them to specific parts of videos.

You can also go back and edit previous posts to add product tags.
 

How to Tag Products in Your Stories

 

You can find shopping tags in the Sticker tab where you edit your Story. There are 3 sticker options that you can link: Individual products, collection and the entire shop.

How to Tag Products in Reels

 
Similarly to your standard newsfeed posts, you can tag products and collections towards the end screen after recording your Reels video.

The post How to Sell Your Merch Directly Through Instagram Shopping (Guide for Musicians) appeared first on D4 Music Marketing.

• Buy as a form of support
• Take home as a memento to remember shows
• Wear as a form of self-expression
• Show off to friends
• Have on display for others to see

Fans will still buy physical music to collect even if they don’t have a way to play CDs, cassette tapes or vinyl. In a 2023 report from Luminate, they found that 50% of consumers who have bought vinyl in the past 12 months don’t own a record player!

Selling merch is such an important aspect of your music business, not just financially as an income stream, but also a means for fans to build a stronger rapport with your brand.

This month’s blog is going to be a little different than what I usually do. I want to talk more freely about a topic that I find really interesting as someone who collects a lot of different things. Based on my own personal experiences with collecting as a hobby, I want to discuss how merch collectability can be used by musicians to engage fans, build brand loyalty and sell more merch.

There have been recent examples from artists I follow who have put out cool merch I want to share. These are items I have purchased them myself or plan to in the future. More importantly, I want to discuss the underlying mechanisms and tactics that motivate fans to buy from their favorite artists.

Although the ideas from these examples are geared more towards established artists, my hope is that this can inspire up-and-coming artists on how they think about products they may want to promote and sell as their career develops.
 

The Inspiration Behind This Topic

 
This is just some history about my collecting background and a story that led me to this topic so feel free to skip to the next section if you want to jump into the main portion of the blog.

I’ve been a collector all my life. Despite wanting to be more of a minimalist, I always find a way to fail at it. No matter how much I trim down my possessions and sell things off that I no longer want, I always end up finding something new to buy to replace it.

Examples of some things I currently collect:

• Shoes
• Jeans
• Vinyl figures
• Stickers
• Music posters
• Hot sauces (shout out to Hot Ones)
• Sports and Pokemon cards
• Books I never read

And of course, we can’t forget physical forms of music like CDs and vinyl records.

This past year, I was reunited with collecting trading cards, something I did when I was a kid. It was one of many hobbies that saw a huge spike in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Then more recently, I got into buying vinyl records for the first time, which was what really sparked the idea for writing on this topic. It made me think about the collectability in music and all the things I bought from artists this past year.

After buying my first vinyl single and a record player to play it, I started thinking about other records I wanted to buy. There was a particular Lupe Fiasco record I was looking to add to my collection. It was a 15 year anniversary re-release of his debut album Food & Liquor. It was a limited edition of 7,000 copies worldwide. The only way to buy it for retail was during Record Store Day.

Because I was very new to vinyl collecting, I had no idea what Record Store Day was until a week before, which was June 12th.

For those who don’t know, it’s an annual event where music fans around the world can buy exclusive music releases, like vinyl and CDs, only available at their local independent record stores. There are hundreds of different releases from all types of genres that you can buy. Oftentimes, these exclusive records are limited in production that make them much more collectible and sought after.

I ended up buying 6 vinyl records for my first Record Store Day and spending over $250 dollars on it that day. Unfortunately, vinyl is expensive, but I realized what the characteristics of vinyl make it very collectible. Aside from the analog sound that many say is superior to any digital format, the obvious reason is a vinyl record is generally bigger so it has cover art that is more displayable.

According to surveys conducted by Spotify, vinyl is the number selling merchandise item for artists across most genres. This is a standard option if you know your audience is into collecting vinyl.

Now, most artists reading this aren’t going to be at a level where putting out a record on Record Store Day is a realistic option. They are often artists from major labels or those who have been established for a while. Vinyl isn’t the most economically feasible option, but there are mechanisms at play here that I think can help you down the line when the time is right.
 

What can be collectible?

 
Typically, when we think about collecting anything music-related, we think about physical products like CDs, vinyl and even cassette tapes. In reality, anything can be collectible and it’s up to what artists make available for sale and what the end consumer decides to collect.

As a musician, there are products you can create, and how you choose to market it, that can influence the collectability of an item. What you choose to sell merch-wise is going to really depend on your brand and who your target audience is. This is a great opportunity to have fun and be creative to get fans engaged.

I’ll be sharing examples based on more recent merch campaigns that I’ve seen from some of my favorite artists.
 

The Driving Forces that Amplify Collectability

 
Scarcity, exclusivity, status, hype and fear of missing out (FOMO) are influences that can motivate us to buy certain products. By now, I’m sure you’ve seen “limited edition” on just about everything from clothing, shoes, toys and even certain food items. It’s such a common tactic because it’s such a powerful driver.

As a collector of many things for the past 2 decades, these are the underlying mechanisms that I’ve seen used intentionally more and more to sell more products and create hype/demand/attention.

The examples I share below all tap into these different influences. When you’re thinking about your own merch, these are the tactics you may want to use to tap into these psychological triggers.

In order for these tactics to really work, you need to have an established brand. For newer artists, knowing these concepts are great, but it’s not going to be effective if you haven’t built a brand and established yourself as a musician. This is why I put together a free branding eBook for musicians so be sure to check that out.
 

Limited Pre-Order / Countdown – Alina Baraz

A tactic I’ve seen more and more is the limited pre-order window. I’ve seen it with Logic, Atmosphere, Travis Scott and more recently Alina Baraz. Although it can take a little longer to fulfill, it works in your favor because you produce the exact amount being purchased so money isn’t tied to any leftover inventory.

To help drive a sense of urgency and tap into this feeling of missing out, a visual countdown is used in this type of campaign. This can be added in emails and placed on the purchase page on the website itself.

You can add this to your promotional emails using free services like Sendtric, MotionMail or CountdownMail. For your webpages, you can use Powr, countingdownto or My Countdown.

In Alina Baraz’s latest merch campaign, she sent out an email and made an Instagram post saying new merch was added to her shop but it will only be open for 24 hours. All items for sale were for pre-order. Once the 24 hours are up, all items show as sold out and you can no longer buy them anymore.

The post Alina Baraz made to announce the 24-hour merch period.

Aside from the clothing and vinyl, the collectible item being offered was the cool plaque display for her latest album. You could even customize it with one of her songs to have printed on the plaque.

After writing this, I actually regret not buying it when I had the chance. I ended up buying her vinyl discography so I didn’t fully miss out.

A 24-hour buying window is a bit more extreme, but usually I’ve seen other artists do it for a few days up to about a week. Especially when fans know they will not have another chance to buy, they’ll surely rush to checkout.
 

Exclusive Color Parallels or Variations

Creating multiple variations of an item, like vinyl, is a fun way to make it collectable. This is something you’ll see a lot more with different vinyl outlets like big retailers (Target, Walmart, Amazon, Barnes & Noble), vinyl memberships (Vinyl Me Please) or independent online stores (Newbury Comics). They will offer an exclusive version or variation of a record that you can only get from them.

In the world of sports cards, you’ll see the word parallel used to describe variations of the same card but with different color backgrounds, borders or rarities.

Here’s an example of a regular version of a vinyl record release:

Here is the Target exclusive variation of the same release but with colored vinyl:

For musicians, a practical way of using exclusive variations is selling one version of something on your website for the general public. To keep it simple, you can offer a white t-shirt with your design on it.

At the same time, you can offer another color or variation, like a tie dye, with the same design exclusively on your Patreon. You can sell it in a secret store that is only accessible to your members, like I talk about in my eBook Patreon for Musicians.

If you don’t have Patreon, you could team up with some other storefront as a collaboration of some sort. Or, you can also do something where only your newsletter subscribers will get a link to purchase the exclusive colorway so it can build up your email list.

To help drive the demand further, let’s say you do offer an exclusive colorway through your Patreon. You can say that anyone who wears this particular shirt variation at your shows gets special perks or privileges. For example, access to a VIP area or a discount at the merch booth.

Because it’s a visible signal, fans are likely more motivated to buy it as a status symbol of being a “true” fan.

This is not something I’ve tried yet, but I would love to play around at some point since I work with musicians who do use Patreon.
 

Serial Numbered Products – MF DOOM Masks

 

The last thing I bought from an artist that was serial numbered was a Halloween mask from the late MF DOOM. The design was based on a mask that he normally would wear as part of his character as rap’s super villain. Each of the 4 designs were limited to 3,000 and a serial number imprinted on the box.

The idea of actually having a serial number imprinted on the merch or on the box helps to reinforce the exclusivity of the product. The practicality of this may be a bit more challenging to execute, depending on what it is you’re creating. With vinyl, more pressing companies are offering the ability to add either a foil stamp or handwritten numbering to the jacket at an additional cost.

In the sports card world, serial numbered cards are highly attractive and desired for collectability as a symbol of scarcity. If you can figure out a way to do it, it makes the item feel more special in the eyes of fans.

After he passed, ironically on Halloween of 2020 but wasn’t announced until late December, the value of these masks skyrocketed as fans wanted to own a piece of this limited memorabilia. Prices in the resell market on eBay went as high as $400 each. I was fortunate enough to grab one as part of the original release and paid only $30.

Me rocking one his masks for an Instagram post.

Fun Novelty Items

 
I love novelty merch items, like the mask above, because it’s a break from the merch staples – the traditional band tee, hat and hoody. I’m sure they’re a lot of great examples of cool novelty items in the past but here are a couple of recent ones I’ve come across.

Aesop Rock – Long Legged Larry

For a single he released, Aesop Rock built a whole merch collection around a song called “Long Legged Larry”. The merch and cover art was designed with his long time friend Jeremy Fish, who has worked with him in the past. The cool novelty item in this collection was a limited edition plush toy of the actual character the song is based on.

When it was first released for pre-order, it sold out quickly. By the time I learned of this item, it was already over. Luckily, he did a second run and I was able to hop in (pun intended) on the next pre-order run.

The reason why I love this is that the item is a physical representation of the music. I like to think that good merch reflects the brand of the artist or ties back to the song or album in some way.

Travis Scott Chicken McNugget Body Pillow

Here is an example of the exact opposite where the item has nothing to do with the artist or the music they make. But yet, it is still highly collectable because it is Travis Scott after all.

As part of his McDonalds collaboration, Travis Scott sold a whole collection of items through his website, including a limited edition Chicken McNugget body pillow.

Although I do eat McDonalds once in a blue moon, there’s a lot of nostalgia associated with the chicken nuggets for me from eating it as a kid in my Happy Meal. Not much else to take away from this, other than you can get away with selling almost anything as a music superstar. To be fair, his merch game is really astronomical with collaborations with the biggest brands in the world.

Like Alina Baraz, his team also implemented a limited time pre-order on the Travis Scott website for the release of his latest merch collaboration collection with Fragment and KAWS.
 

Food Products – Atmosphere Hot Sauce

Who doesn’t like a good food product branded with your favorite artist?

Lately, I’ve been noticing fast food companies doing more collaborations with musicians like McDonalds with BTS and Chipotle with Shawn Mendes. Even Oreo did a limited edition run of special Lady Gaga Oreos for her Chromatic album campaign.

Limited edition Lady Gaga Oreos to promote her album Chromatica and the special Record Store Day vinyl.

Of course, these big time collaborations are not practical for most. For independent musicians, you may have opportunities to work with local food companies to create limited edition products fans will love.

If you have the audience and brand power, it’s another fun way to change things up from your typical band tee and hat, especially if the food product ties into or relates to your song, album or brand as a whole.

For example, I recently received an order of hot sauce inspired by my favorite artists Atmosphere. It was a collaboration with HAB Sauces based out in Portland, Oregon. Only 500 bottles were made. Luckily, I saw the social media post and picked up a 4 bottle set for my collection before it sold out in hours. Because of the success of this release, HAB Sauces and Atmosphere went on to do 2 more hot sauce collaborations.

The Atmosphere x HAB Hot Sauce sold out in hours of the announcement.

The name of the sauce is “North of Hell,” which is the name of a Europe tour they did in 2014.

It just so happens I love spicy food and I have a little collection of different hot sauces. Many of them are found on the popular YouTube show Hot Ones. I admit that I collect too many things.
 

Price Shock – Nipsey Hustle’s $100 Mixtape CD

This is an older example, but I felt it was something worth mentioning for those who may have not heard about it.

In 2013, Nipsey Hussle released a free mixtape titled Crenshaw as a free digital download. He also released a limited first edition of the CD for $100. Each copy was signed and numbered. All 1,000 copies were sold within 24 hours and generated $100,000 in revenue.

This mixtape garnered a lot of attention for its pricing at the time as it was not something that was done in music. The $100 price tag got a lot of people talking about it. Whether it was good or bad, it had a positive impact overall to the campaign.

On top of that, the limited number of copies that were numbered and signed made it more special for fans to own.

The late Nipsey Hustle was actually inspired to do this from a book that I actually covered in one of my blogs about how to go viral.

An artist I work with actually implemented this similar tactic for an album he did with his long time collaborator. 1,000 vinyl were pressed and serial numbered with a foil stamp. They charged $100 each and surprisingly sold a majority of them, but there was plenty of criticism for charging that much.
 

The Dark Side of Exclusivity

 
The many tactics used in the examples above to make merch more collectible worked out well for the artists. However, there is a dark side to making merch more limited and exclusive.

One has to do with scalpers buying up a lot of the product to resell at higher prices, limiting the opportunity from true fans to buy. It can also lead to disappointment when fans aren’t able to purchase before it sells out.

Kno of the southern Hip Hop group Cunninlynguists had to deal with this recently when they released a limited run of vinyl for a 10-year album anniversary reprint. Despite releasing CDs, cassettes and 3 variations of vinyl options, all the vinyl sold out fairly quickly. Fortunately, I was able to grab one of the vinyl packages the first time even though it wasn’t my first option.

Many fans were bummed out, especially when Kno put a number of scalpers on a blast in a number of now deleted Instagram posts. They were trying to sell their copy, even before receiving it, for over 3x the costs. He spent hours doing detective work to cancel orders from those trying to resell on eBay.

In response to the situation, they decided to release 2 more colorways of the vinyl (1,300 more for sale in total) in order to give their fans another chance to buy while preserving the collectability of the ones previously sold.

To take it a step further, they made the first 12 hour window to purchase password protected for fans who have shown a history of support on Bandcamp before opening up sales to the public.

This is just one example of the hassle that comes with limiting quantities of items in high demand.

Personally, I’m a big fan of the limited time pre-order window, which I’m seeing more of, because there’s still an element of scarcity that can drive people to purchase. You just need to make sure it’s properly promoted ahead of time to give everyone a fair chance.

Even after publishing this blog, here’s another merch pre-order I came across (although not limited to a time window) from my favorites Atmosphere:

Conclusion

Merch sales are one of the top income sources for musicians. Not only does it put money in your pocket, it can also serve as a promotional tool and help build a stronger rapport with your brand.

If you have come across cool merch from your favorite artists that use some of these same tactics, please comment below and share.

If you need more help with what type of merch to make, you can check out this blog.

The post How to Sell Collectible Music Merch for Stronger Brand Loyalty appeared first on D4 Music Marketing.

It’s no surprise that one of the key components to making a living off music is selling merch. Not only is merch an income stream, it’s also a marketing / advertising tool to raise brand awareness.

At this point, you should have some designs on hand in the proper graphic file format. If you don’t have your designs yet, before sure to read this first.

You have merch designs ready to go. Now you need to find out what’s the best way to get it made, and into the hands of your fans. There are some factors to consider when getting merch made.

• How intricate is the design?
• What’s your budget?
• Where do you plan to sell it?
• Where are you keeping inventory?
• Who’s fulfilling the orders?

Garment Terminology

 
Before getting into bulk ordering or print on-demand, I think it’s important to briefly go over certain terminology that you should know when it comes to getting merch garments made.
 

Screen Printing

Chances are most of the tees you own were screen printed. Screen printing is the more popular and traditional technique of printing designs on garments because of its durability and bulk production speed. Depending on the machine used, some places can pump out a few hundred shirts an hour.

Not to get too technical, but I do want to go over how screen printing works because it’s important to understand the preparation process as it relates to its costs on your end.

To start, your design is burned with UV light onto a mesh screen that acts as a template or stencil. The mesh screen with your design is placed on the garment with ink covering the screen. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to essentially imprint the design onto the garment.

If your design contains more than one color, it will need to be separated into layers on a computer. Part of the setup process is having to create a screen for each color and figuring how to best layer them. Because of this, it can be time consuming with a lot of colors involved. Also, one color is printed at a time, so several screens are needed to produce a multi-colored design. This is why it will cost more to screen print more colors.

Depending on what equipment a print shop has, the maximum colors is usually 12, but you obviously don’t want to do more than 3 – 4. It’s very important to have the number of colors to be used in mind when designing merch.

Screen printing is best for cotton based garments. It’s harder to get detailed designs since resolution is 72 DPI, which is where digital printing comes in.
 

Direct-to-Garment / Digital Printing

Direct-to-Garment (DTG) is a print method where you directly print on a garment from the computer with a print machine. It is the newer technology when it comes to printing on garments.

One of the advantages of DTG is it allows you to print in full color without the extra cost normally associated with screen printing. This technique stands out for complex designs with a lot of colors or printing photo images. It’s better at capturing a photographic feel because it can print at a higher resolution than something like screen printing.

DTG is ideal for cotton garments or mostly cotton blends. You can still do it with polyester, but it may be a more tedious process, and results may not be optimal.

Because there’s less set up and prep involved, DTG allows you to create multiple samples and products quickly and efficiently. Depending on the machine, it can only print 10 – 20 full size designs an hour. It’s strength is in doing smaller quantities and one offs.
 

Sublimation Printing

Sublimation printing is a method for transferring high quality images to a garment without resolution loss.The way it works is you print a design on special sublimation paper and press it on the garment with a heat press. The heat causes the sublimation ink to transfer to the garment by turning from solid to a gas that embeds itself into the fabric and solidifies in its fibers.

Unlike a screen print, there’s no layer added on top of the garment. Sublimation basically infuses the design into the fabric, so the design is permanently dyed. This makes it very durable against washing, where it won’t peel or fade.

In order for sublimation ink to stick to the garment, the design needs to be pressed on polyester fabric. For best results, the garment needs to be made of at least 50% polyester. Also, it must be printed on light colored garments only.

This is a good method for printing all over design tees.
 

Embroidery

Embroidery is a technique to apply designs onto a garment through the use of a needle by stitching thread onto the fabric. For creating merch, this is typically done through the use of an embroidery machine. You typically see this on hats, beanies or sweatshirts to give the design dimension or a raised look.

Generally, you want to keep colors limited and designs simple if you want to use embroidery, as you are dealing with thread and stitches.
 

White Label / Private Label

Some places will give you the option to do white label, which is just adding your own custom inside labels to give the appearance that the garment is made under your own brand. Instead of leaving the neck tag of the blank t-shirt company your design was printed on, they will apply your label so the shirts don’t show the t-shirt company of the blanks.

This could be done with a woven sewn on label, or it could be printed on.

It’s not really necessary, but it helps to give your merch a more professional touch.
 

Bulk Ordering or Print On-Demand?

 
When it comes to ordering merch, there are two general approaches. They have their advantages and disadvantages, so it really depends on a number of different factors listed earlier.

Although this can apply to all types of merch, the main focus in this blog will be on clothing, especially for tees and hoodies. I’ll go over the two approaches to help you decide which is best for you if you’re a musician starting out.
 

Bulk Ordering with Screen Printing

Traditionally, you would order tees with your design in bulk from a screen print shop. You would then sell and manage the sales yourself, either at live shows or taking online orders. Here are the highlights of going this route.

• Longer Lasting Prints: In general, the type of ink used in screen printing lasts longer than digital printing. Generally, screen prints tend to hold up way better after multiple washes.
• Higher Upfront Costs / More Risk: Because you need to invest money upfront to get merch made, it carries more risk. These costs include setup fees and extra screens when dealing with multiple colors and layers. If you can’t sell all your merch, you end up eating the costs. You really have to do a good job of ordering the right sizes and quantities to match demand.
• Color Limits: Usually you want to stick to about 1 – 3 colors with screen printing because it gets pricier when you use a lot of colors. There’s more set up and work involved using multiple screens. Unlike digital printing or sublimation, there’s a limit of about 12 colors.
• Manage Your Own Inventory: Ordering bulk with screen printing means you have to store and manage your own inventory.
• Best for Bulk: Screen printing is ideal for volume, not just quality, and for lower cost per item. As discussed earlier, there can be a lot of setup fees involved so it’s best to do bulk to minimize those costs.
• Higher Minimums: In order to make screen printing worthwhile, there’s a minimum you are required to order. It can be as low as $50 to get price breaks. This is because there’s more work and set up involved with screen printing, especially if your design has a lot of colors. Designs with multiple colors involve a screen for each color, which costs more.
• Higher Profit Margins: Even though you’re paying more money up front, it ends up costing less to make each item when ordering in bulk. This means you take home more profit compared to using a drop shipper.

Drop Shipping with Print on Demand

Drop shipping is when you outsource the making and fulfillment of merch to another manufacturer, retailer or wholesaler. Orders you receive, typically through some online store front, are sent directly to the drop shipper so they can take care of the rest. You don’t carry any of the stock or have to manage any inventory.

This approach is often known as print on-demand or made to order due to the use of direct-to-garment (DTG) technology, which is basically the ability to use a computer to print the designs directly on the garment with minimal prep work and set up compared to screen printing. It’s also known as digital printing.

The drop shipping model is the more modern option as an all inclusive, print on-demand service that not only makes the merch, but also handles fulfillment and shipping.

The process is simple. You set up an online shop that sells your mech on your website. A fan buys a tee and the drop shipper gets the order. They make it and ship it to the fan, but the fan has no idea the merch is being created and fulfilled by another company. The drop shipper charges you a wholesale price that includes the cost of the item. You profit off the difference based on what you decide to charge. If the drop shipper charges you $15 to make and ship your branded tee to a fan and you charge $25 on your website, you make $10 for every shirt you sell.

Here are the highlights of using drop shipping:

• No Color Limits: Unlike screen printing, there’s no color limit. DTG allows you to print full color designs without any additional costs.
• No Upfront Costs / No Risk: You don’t need to invest any money upfront when using a DTG / print on-demand service. It’s free to set up and you’re only charged when orders are placed. Requires no money upfront so there’s no risk.
• More Convenient: Once you set up products with your design and add it to your store front, the only thing you need to do is market and drive sales. Everything after an order is placed is handled by the drop shipper.
• Less Profit Per Item: The cost or fees of the service are included in the price to make each tee, which means you would technically make less profit by selling each tee. However, it saves you a lot of time and work because you don’t need to fulfill the order yourself.
• No Minimum Order: Unlike screen printing, there’s no minimum you need to meet to place an order. Making one shirt costs the same as making ten. This makes it easy and cheap to make prototypes and samples to test designs.
• No Inventory: Since you don’t hold inventory, there’s no storage or stock concerns.
• More Merch Options and Variety: Drop shippers offer a wide range of different products you can make on-demand. This ranges from different garments, mugs, backpacks, posters, etc. Since you don’t need to buy bulk and commit to one item, it’s easier to sell different branded products.
• Not Good for Bulk Orders: The downside of DTG is that it’s not good at doing bulk. No matter how many you order, it’s the same cost per garment. No price breaks. It’s ideal for doing one offs or smaller orders.

Which approach is best?

 
It depends. In my opinion, you generally want to go with screen prints over direct-to-garment (digital printing) whenever possible. Although you do need to pay more upfront, you’re able to make more money in the long term.

Here’s a side-by-side look at screen printing versus digital printing:

To me, the biggest reason is because screen printing is much better in terms of print quality compared to DTG. When it comes to washability, DTG doesn’t hold up as well after multiple washes, especially if they’re not pre-treated or cured correctly. Sublimation is great for quality as well, but its use depends on the design and look you’re going for.

When your merch is a reflection of your brand, the last thing you want is the print on your shirt to crack or peel after a couple washes.

Ultimately it depends on your own situation, your design and the colors it contains. If you have an intricate design with a lot of colors or a photo design, chances are screen printing will not be feasible. Depending where you are in your career, it may make sense to start with DTG drop shipper. It’s also a good opportunity to test out designs before committing more money to ordering bulk.
 

Weigh Your Options and Shop Around

 
Before jumping right in, you want to do some research and find the right place for you. Shop around to get prices and figure out what’s the best option for your situation.

For drop shipping or DTG options, check out the 3 most popular services:

• Printful (Affiliate Link Disclosure)
• TeeSpring
• SpreadShirt

 
Please Note: The small commission I would receive if you conduct a sale using the affiliate link above plays absolutely no role in my recommendation for Printful or any other affiliate services. Read my statement on affiliate links for full disclosure.

Here are some suggestions for screen printing:

• Try checking around locally first, to see prices. Ask what’s the minimum order. Find out where the price breaks for high quantities. Number of colors for screen prints. Offer payment plans. Design costs.
• Ask other artists, business owners or brands where they get their merch made. Chances are they’ve had more experience and can recommend good places.
• Some places may do a warehouse option where you can order bulk screen printing to make it cheaper per unit. They can store the inventory and fulfill orders for you at a cost.
• Find out how much you would profit for each tee sold for each place. Calculate the total cost per tee. Be sure to factor in other costs and fees like shipping, taxes, screen charges, etc.

Other Tips

 
Keep It Simple – Start simple with one or two designs. You don’t want to offer many choices just yet.

Factor All Costs – To ensure that you’re going to be profitable, know all the costs involved to factor into price. Make sure to keep track of inventory, as well as how much you spent and sold.

Colors Matter – Be sure to think about colors before creating a design, especially for screen printing. You don’t want to end up with a design that costs too much to make or too complicated.

Quality First – Don’t compromise quality for lower prices. Get the highest quality you can. The quality of your merch is a reflection of your brand. You don’t want to disappoint anyone who buys merch that doesn’t last.

Order Smaller Batches – Although it may not be cheaper, it may be a better idea to order in smaller batches to test the waters first. You don’t want to sink too much money into merch and risk not selling it all.

Consider DIY (Do It Yourself) – Chances are you’re not going to have thousands of dollars laying around to invest in a sublimation or digital printing machine. However, you may be able to find a reasonably priced DIY screen printing kit to do some basic designs or find a creative way to add your branding to a blank item.

Something one of the artists I work with, AstraLogik, has done is get inexpensive blanks from overseas and adding their branding to it. It could be a patch you iron on, or something you sew on to give it some sort of branded touch.

In their case, they burned their logo on to a wood chip and sewed it on to colorful handbags and backpacks. The bags they got from the Philippines fit their branding aesthetic and it sold well for them.

This the end of part 2.

In the next blog in this series, I will dive into tips on how to sell more merch at shows.

D4’s Merch For Musicians Blog Series

– Part 1: What Merch Should Independent Artists Make That Fans Will Actually Buy
– Part 2: Bulk Ordering Or Print On-Demand? What’s The Best Way For Musicians To Order Merch
– Part 3: How Musicians Can Maximize Merch Sales At In Person Shows
– Part 4: How Musicians Can Maximize Merch Sales Online (Coming Soon)

The post Bulk Ordering or Print On-Demand? What’s the Best Way for Musicians to Order Merch appeared first on D4 Music Marketing.

In our music streaming world, it has become much harder for independent artists to sustain a career in the music industry. Selling CDs was a large income stream that has basically vanished. To put into context how important it was, consider how much you make from music streaming.

Based on the latest numbers, to make the profit of selling one $15 CD, you would have to get roughly 3,200 streams on Spotify or 2,000 streams on Apple Music. For emerging artists, it’s a challenge just to get 1,000 streams.

It’s safe to say now that selling merch is basically a necessity now to make it as an artist on top of doing shows and tours.

Often times, the problem with merch is you need money to make money. Since the money to fund merch will most likely come out of your own pocket, you can’t afford to make items that people won’t buy.

Before you go and print a bunch of shirts with your face on it, it’s important to take a step back to evaluate your brand, what you represent and what characteristics define you as an artist.

I want to shed light on this topic, not as someone who has designed tons of merch for musicians, but as a fan who has bought a lot of merch and looks at it from a sociological perspective. I will be working on helping the artists I work with on merch so I will be incorporating any new insights as I go along.
 

Why do people buy merch?

First, we need to establish why people buy merch from artists in the first place. If you want to make stuff people will buy, you should know why they would buy them.

Support – You can look at it as a symbolic, economic and social gesture of support for the artist. We basically vote with our money so buying something is saying “Hey, I like what you do and I want more of it.”

Memento – Buying something could serve as a souvenir or memento, especially from a live show.

Expression – Merch is a medium to express/communicate to others their values and beliefs through your brand. Wearing your band tee could be to make a statement or send a signal about their identity.

Belonging – As social animals, humans have an innate need to belong and be a part of a group, community or tribe. Merch can be used by fans as a way of signaling membership or inclusion of an artist’s fan base.

Design – It could just be something that looks cool with no other deeper symbolic meaning. Some people will just buy things based on how it looks aesthetically.

Collect – There’s a lot of people out there who collect different things. When it comes to music, it’s usually CDs or vinyl. However, I like to collect band tees, music posters and even artist stickers. Making merch that is more collectable is a great way to build fan loyalty.

Gift – Merch could be bought to be used as a gift for someone.

By understanding the reasons why people buy merch, you can create items that are optimal for those needs.

Despite the fact that people don’t buy CDs as often as before, they make perfect items (along with a poster) for fans to have signed at the merch booth. Although I don’t use CDs anymore, I still bought them when I saw Lupe Fiasco at his meet and greet:

Bundling packages that offer a few items together (CD, Vinyl, Shirt, Hoodie, Hat, Stickers) for a discounted price could be great for gifts.

This was a merch bundle we sold for Eligh’s last album.

If your brand has a common theme or powerful message that resonates with your fan base, it’d be a good idea to create a tee that allows them to express that sentiment as a part of their identity. This leads to the next point.
 

The Importance of Branding

 
If you’re just starting out and haven’t made any merch yet, I think understanding your brand is foundational. Your brand should guide the merch you create.

If you’re not too sure about your brand, check out my other blogs on brand basics.

Along the same lines, you should also know who your target audience is. If you’re having trouble with that, check out this blog on identifying your niche.

The role of clothing, outside of the functional use of it, is often used as a form of communication and a tool for self-expression. This is why understanding your brand and target audience is so important to creating good merch.

If your brand revolves around political opposition and social justice like Immortal Technique or Dead Prez, you know what messages, symbols, colors and themes are going to resonate with your fans when it comes to merch.

If you tend to attract more female fans as a male artist, it’s going to affect the type of cut for the tees you make. If your music resonates more with people who live in colder climates, you may want to make things that are warmer to wear like, a hoodie or even a scarf.

Merch can also be a medium to express our personal identity, your brand, and associated symbols. More specifically, wearing a certain artist or band name can signify membership in a certain group or subculture.

We all have our in-groups or tribes we identify with. They can be as general as being a male or female to specific subcultures like religion, ethnic groups, cannabis culture or being a vegan. As an independent artist, you have to think about what groups you represent. This is because you want to attract those types of people using specific characteristics, designs or symbols in the merch.

In a more broad sense, some people like to wear more popular brands because it has more recognition, which symbolically communicates the inclusion of a certain group. Wearing a lesser-known brand could communicate a sense of individuality or being more distinguishable because it is not as recognizable.

You can also create your own group down the line. Logic has his RattPack, a term he calls his entourage and fan base. Through this expression of his brand, he has created merch around that niche.

The purpose of developing a brand, within the context of merch, is to attract those who are more likely to resonate with you as an artist by sending out the right signals. It helps your audience feel a deeper emotional connection to you. Humans are social animals that are naturally tribalistic so leveraging your brand through merch is a great way to make things that sell.

For some artists, this is not as easy to figure out. However, not all merch has to exactly be on brand all the time. There are different approaches, discussed next. However, for independent artists thinking about merch for the first time, this can be a good starting point.
 

How should you go about merch design?

 
When you develop designs for merch, there are some general approaches you can take.

Your Logo – This is probably the most common starting design artists go with. Part of being a brand is having something like your logo consistently used to develop that reputation or perception. People use their face or some physical attribute that stands out, like the eyes, eyebrows or hair.

Here’s the logo for Run the Jewels:

Artistic Variation / Remix – This is often some artistic variation of the logo. Sometimes your logo changes up a bit for each album campaign. It could be a cool redesign based on a theme, collaboration or concept.

In this case, this could be a Halloween concept. Not the best example, but usually Run the Jewels makes really cool redesigns and variations, in my opinion.

Brand / Message – As mentioned earlier, design more focused on the brand or message to attract a specific group or demographic.

This Zion I tee is a great example of communicating a brand message that resonates with a segment of independent or underground hip hop:

Here’s another example of an on-brand design from Ruby Ibarra. As a Filipino American hip hop artist who immigrated from the Philippines, her branding resonates with others like her. The bolo knife design serves as a symbol for colonial resistance and revolution based on Filipino history..

Album / Campaigns – This approach appears to be even more common now. It makes a lot of sense since it is an opportunity to create new designs that you can monetize from. Releasing a new album is an excellent time to generate merch because you can leverage the attention from the new music. Sometimes it could just be the name of the album, the picture of the album cover or designs revolving around the theme of the project.

This Logic shirt promoted both the album and an important brand theme he communicates through his music. The idea was for inclusion of “everybody” as well as not discriminating against others based on race, sex, religion, ethnicity and sexual orientation.

Russ used the album cover in his merch for his latest album:

Individual Songs – Creating merch around a hit song is a great way to leverage that attention and popularity into another income stream.
Here’s an example of a song turning into a tee. Hobo Johnson’s big break was the song Peach Scone which they created a tee and hat for:

Events / Milestone / Tour – It could be an event or milestone in your career, such as a tour run. Often, these are designs that are a limited run, so it can feel a bit more special.

Local Influence/ Sports – This expands on the artist variation mentioned earlier. I’ve seen merch promote the city an artist is from, or something local, like a sports team. This is an example of of the iconic underground hip hop logo for Hieroglyphics redesigned with the Golden State Warriors logo and color.

Common Merch Items to Consider Starting with

 
I think we’ve all been to a show at some point in our lives and should know this. There are the tried and true staples of merch, which makes sense to start with:

• Tees
• Hoodies
• Stickers
• Posters
• CDs

CDs are cheap enough. If you get a couple hundred, it should cost you about $2 each so charging $10 is a $8 profit. Especially as an independent who is fairly new, it could be good to sell as a novelty item you can sign, as opposed to something people will actually use.

An alternative is a USB drive with your music on it and some branding imprinted on it. The great thing about it is, it can be reused. You’re not limited to MP3s either, so you can even include cool photos and videos. It’s something we’ve been considering doing.

The downside is you can’t really sign it and people don’t really mess with MP3s either since streaming took over. It’s also pricier compared to things like CDs.

If your brand is along the same lines as Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa or Cypress Hill (cannabis culture), you know that brand lighters or anything related to smoking marijuana is going to be good merch to make. The main point here is, know your audience!
 

Tip: Get your fans involved

 
It should be no surprise that if you want to sell merch your fans will buy, you should ask for their feedback. You’re never going to satisfy everyone, but ask them, poll them, let them vote. It’s always a win when you can get your supporters involved, and make them feel like they have a say in your career. Not only items but the designs and even colors. You can also run a contest with your fans for designs.
 

Need help coming up with a design?

 
If you’re not able to create designs yourself and you don’t have access to a graphic designer, a service I would recommend trying is 99designs (Affiliate Link Disclosure). It’s a platform that helps find freelance designers for your project. For example, if you need a shirt design, they can help you find a designer to work with 1-on-1 or you can host a design contest.

The design contest is what makes 99designs cool because you can have over 20 designers submit their ideas and concepts for you to choose from. The person with the winning design you decide on is the only one that gets paid. If you don’t like any designs submitted, you can get 100% money-back (for non-guaranteed contests).

They are an affiliate so I do get a small commission if you try them out by clicking my link at no extra cost to you. Using my affiliate links are a great way to support this blog with services that I can vouch for and would use myself. I have an artist I work with who used them a couple of times for cover art designs. In the near future, I will be using 99designs myself for a shirt design I plan on selling on my website.
 

What Next?

 
This is the end of part 1. In the next blog of this merch series, I will dive into tips on how to order merch and things should know about the process.

D4’s Merch For Musicians Blog Series

– Part 1: What Merch Should Independent Artists Make That Fans Will Actually Buy
– Part 2: Bulk Ordering Or Print On-Demand? What’s The Best Way For Musicians To Order Merch
– Part 3: How Musicians Can Maximize Merch Sales At In Person Shows
– Part 4: How Musicians Can Maximize Merch Sales Online (Coming Soon)

The post What Merch Should Independent Artists Make That Fans Will Actually Buy appeared first on D4 Music Marketing.