Industry Spotlight on Merchandising

Posted on 21st Mar 06 by Contributor | 0

Artist: none
Author: Josh Lennon

Having worked with quite a few bands in my time I"ve come to the
conclusion that a lot of bands completely disregard or underestimate the
importance of merchandising in particular t"shirts. Indeed sometimes it"s
when you"ve had a loss making gig due to promotion costs and so on it can
be the merchandising sales that can take the sting out of the tail and
make a gig break even or even make a profit. So with that in mind I
figured for my article this month I will talk through the subject of
merchandising.

Put simply merchandising is putting your band name" logo or likeness to
any product that you wish to sell. Although there"s very few local bands
who have their own branded lean mean grilling machine so most settle for
the likes of t"shirts" hats" pin badges or stickers. There are four main
reasons for selling merchandise which when broken down and explained show
the benefits clearly and they are simply:

As Part Of An Effective Marketing Package

First and foremost your t"shirt can be an excellent tool to help promote
your EP" single or album and to re"enforce the CD into the minds of
prospective fans. With some decent work and co"ordination you can tie in
your CD cover design into not only your t"shirt but your website and even
myspace site as well.

A good current example of this would be the UK band Bloc Party. If you
visit their myspace website the design is based around their album "Silent
Alarm"" if you visit their main website the design is also heavily based
around the CD cover for "Silent Alarm" and when you go to view their
merchandise their t"shirts all have the CD cover or album title on them.
See my point"

Making Money

Secondly" you sell your merchandise to make money "and yes it is only
secondary". Now this initially may just mean covering your costs but it
can very quickly turn to profit. If you buy on hundred t"shirts "which is
a fairly standard order" for "5 and sell it on for "10 by the time you"ve
sold 50 you"ve covered your expenses and made enough to order more if you
wish. The other 50 can then be given out as prizes as an incentive for
fans to signup to your newsletter / forum" freebies to local radio shows /
media or obviously sold to fans for profit to further help fund your
various adventures.

Building Band Name Awareness

Thirdly" merchandise can and does get you talked about. People who aren"t
even into your band will compliment a well designed t"shirts and for every
t"shirt you sell that person effectively becomes a "walking billboard" for
your band displaying your name and website or myspace address or even your
CD cover if you choose to base your design around that.

Consolidating Your Fanbase

Last but not least selling merchandise can help re"enforce your fanbase by
fostering a sense of belonging to your fans. In a sense they feel like a
supporter of a football team and are proud to show that they have
discovered this great band before the rest of the world.

For the most part bands have to sell these t"shirts off their own back "if
you pardon the pun" however" you may find that when you start to develop a
really solid and large fanbase a merchandising company may seek you out
with the intention of promoting your merchandise on your behalf which
obviously has the benefit of leaving you and your management more free
time to concentrate on other aspects of the bands such as promotion and
gigging.

However" at the core of your act"s identity is the way you choose to
represent yourself "which a lot of bands don"t give enough thought to in
my opinion" but that"s an entirely different days work". Think long and
hard about this and maybe even get an image consultant "they can be well
worth the once off fee" because it"s the most important thing in the whole
merchandising process and aside from that fact they can help you to
"package" your band better which in turn can win you some more fans.

You will need to try and choose a good graphic designer and have yourself
or your management as involved in the process as much as possible. You
should get some examples and if your looking for inspiration it"s a good
idea to check out other bands websites / magazine adverts who have similar
music and to look at how they represent themselves. It can also pay
dividends to pay attention to your gig goers clothing and what they seem
to wear "regarding colours / graphics etc" so as they will be more
inclined to buy your merchandise you will also need to give AS MUCH
information as possible to your designer to help them come up with the
best possibly suited graphics for you.

Be clear and structured in your dealings and requirements with the
designer and DON"T FORGET to ensure your website / myspace address
is on all your merchandise. Obviously your fans will need to find you as
well as potential new fans that see your "walking billboards". If you"re
the cautious type "which is never a bad thing" then a good idea is to draw
up a straightforward letter of agreement with your designer agreeing
copyright ownership" their fee and most important royalties on sales" then
again most professional designers would have a standard design contract
drawn up setting out the above clearly.

Another solution "and even better free" for the perplexed is to run a
fanbase consolidation exercise and ask if your fans would like to design
your t"shirt" so some of your fans get stuck into coming up with potential
designs for your merchandise leaving you with more of a choice between
designs without the cost of having a designer. In fact you may find that
sometimes "just sometimes mind you" someone who is not a designer could
come up with a better idea than a designer.

What Kind of Product"

Now onto the usual range of products you might wants to sell these
generally include t"shirts" baseball caps" badges" stickers" posters"
framed photos" wallpapers and screensavers.

Actually" on a quick side note I personally feel A LOT of bands overlook
wallpapers and screensavers as a low cost method of advertising. For the
approx cost "30 they can have their wallpapers / screensavers designed and
made available on their site for download on their fans computers
constantly re"enforcing the band into the mind of the fan and anyone else
who uses the computer" alas I digress" so back to the point in hand.

If possible get a choice of designs for everything you intend to do. It is
important to offer a range of merchandise whose prices correspond to all
of your fans budgets. The average spend of a gig goer is between "5 and
"15. But if you offer some very low priced merchandise items then everyone
can go home with something which in turn means both money for the band and
your name getting out there even more.

You need to consider the profile of your punters" literally " what size
are they" Some t"shirt printers will let you mix and match sizes but MOST
OF THEM will only print one order in one size" so unless you want to pay
the money to have a warehouse full of different sized t"shirts then pay
attention to this details and specify it in your order. For the most part
a medium"large will fit most of the gig"going general public so that would
be the obvious choice. Again on a quick side note if your planning on
selling merchandise other than t"shirts it would be a smart move to pay
close attention to the average age profile of your fans / people at your
gigs. Big blue foam hands may possibly sell well with younger people but
would the older people be interested in buying them"

Getting Your Merchandise Manufactured

As always prices can vary quite a lot depending on the supplier you use
and with that quality and before going any further it"s worth noting that
the most expensive doesn"t necessarily mean the best quality. You can try
asking for previous samples that your supplier has done however don"t be
surprised if the answer you get is no as most suppliers won"t provide a
sample free of charge due to the set"up costs involved in providing you a
sample. Even if they do provide a sample expect a high charge of approx
"25"30 for one t"shirt as the supplier will most definitely pass on the
set"up / sample cost to you.

The average price in Ireland for t"shirt printing is between "3 to "11
that is based on a black or white t"shirt using one colour print on either
the front or back on the t"shirt. You can also most definitely count on
suppliers charging you per colour "again prices vary wildly for this" and
they may also charge you twice for printing on front and back. What"s more
some suppliers will offer free delivery and set"up costs which can be a
great cost saving move on your behalf.

There"s another two possible avenue"s you could explore. One is to source
a plain t"shirt supplier yourself and buy direct from them and then
approach a printing company to print on them for you. This option involves
a good bit of running around but can reduce the average cost of getting
t"shirts done by about 10"15".

Your other possible option involves the complete DIY method" as nowadays
for smaller quantities of producing merchandising particularly t"shirts in
can usually be lighter on the pocket but heavier on time to purchase iron
on printing paper then print off your logo. If your giving consideration
to using this method it"s best to keep the design as simple as possible
and if you haven"t got a design what you could do is to pay a visit to
www.fontfreak.com and simply download a free font that you"d like to use
as a logo.

You"ll obviously still need to find a supplier of cheap" good"quality"
plain t"shirts "white usually works best with iron on logos". You can also
take your poster designs to a print shop and have them run off A3 sized
posters if you haven"t got a large enough one at home "for those of you in
Dublin I"d recommend MCG Digital just off Grafton Street for good quality
decent priced printing"

One final note" if you feel merchandise suppliers prices in Ireland are a
bit on the expensive side and your tempted to look across the water in the
Europe or the far"east then bear in mind that when the cost of shipping
100"500 odd items to Ireland is factored in it"s an almost certainty that
it will work out more expensive than buying from a supplier in Ireland.

Generating Sales

Even though most of your sales will more than likely be made at live
events a good rule to stick to that can help generate more sales is "just
as your merchandise refers to your website" your website should refer to
and promote your merchandise also".

If your website may not have the ability to take online payments "this can
be set"up through paypal or you could even get a professional developer to
set"up a full store section for approx "300"600 depending on who you
approach" OR the alternative free method is to place a mail order form on
your site to allow your fans to buy through that method to help generate
sales.

When your playing a gig don"t fall into the temptation to make an
"announcement" that merchandise is on sale after / during the gig for
obvious reasons. Your best bet is to get a few breadboards "or something
similar" and staple or secure your merchandise to them and turn this into
your merchandise stand in a prominent position in the venue which is
usually as close to the main entrance / exit to the venue as possible so
everyone at least has the opportunity to pass by the stand and have a
quick look at your merchandise" albums / singles etc.

Obviously it"s somewhat of a physical impossibility for band members to be
at the stand straight after a gig" so if you don"t have any management you
will need to find a hard"nosed" trustable friend to look after it for you.
It also wouldn"t be a bad idea to reward them for their efforts either so
offering them 5" per sale will definitely make it worth their while to run
the stand properly plus leave plenty left over for the band.

The whole idea of selling merchandise on your website and at gigs may seem
sleazy and god forbid even "selling out" by quite a lot of people.
However" at the end of the day a lot of the successful bands out there
recognise merchandise as an excellent revenue stream to help fund the
bands recording / touring which allows them to undertake better recordings
and longer and better promoted tours which obviously helps them grow
bigger and bigger.

Don"t forget there"s a reason why practically all of the large and touring
bands sell and quite a lot of money through merchandising and in fact
there has been cases before where an entire tour has been underwritten on
the basis of merchandising sales alone.