Music Merch - Everything You Need To Know

 

If you haven’t noticed the amount of Taylor Swift bracelets, The Weeknd hoodies, and BTS’s literally everything (yes, everything - from shirts to mugs to stickers to diaries) that each fandom adores and wears, you must be living under a rock.

 

 

Merch is everything! Merch is the perfect combination of business and music branding and you should be hosting your merch line as well. But because every other artist is doing it, should you do it too? We’ll answer these questions of yours:

 

• What is merch?
• Why is it important?
• What can be your merch?
• When should you start a merch line?
• Is merch for every music artist?

 

Back to Basics

 

Merchandise is basically a line of business, let’s say, that adds to your music brand and paves the way for another source of income. Think of products that you could get customized when you are gifting it to someone - a pillow cover that has a unique print of something your spouse said, stickers that you doodled, and so on. As a musician, you would be making and selling products that exclusively represent you, your music, and your brand. Maybe vinyl records with your latest single’s covert art, or jerseys with the print of your album name, or the tagline that you own. This is merchandising - as simple as that. 

 

 

For musicians, traditionally, merchandising was limited to objects like vinyl records, handbags, and clothing. But with the advent of digital marketing and third-party manufacturing (we’ll get to this a little later), the range of items that you can sell has become vast - stationary, clothing line, accessories like handbags or tote bags, as well as physical copies of your music like CDs, and so on. 

 

Pssst…come here: The more creative you are - the better you will stand out. Our research found that the musician Guster had made Granola and Mustard and renamed it ‘Gustard.’ If it is still out on the market, I’d buy it just to have a good laugh! 

 

Let’s head to the next bit.

 

Is Merch Important?

 

As a musician, making your way through the music industry is not easy. The regularity and consistency of work or projects aren’t guaranteed. With merchandising, you as a musician, get a chance to make an extra income. Financial gain is a very important factor when considering opening a merch line for yourself.

 

Merchandising for musicians becomes hugely crucial in building your brand identity and brand recall. Merch helps visualize your brand image to your ardent followers. In today’s words, you make your followers want to go, ‘Oh that’s so Lana Del Rey,’ but for your own music brand. The idea is to launch your line that best represents and adds to your music brand to better curate your online as well as offline presence. 

 

Pssst…come here: The messaging you do while you open your merchandise will have a long-term impact on your music career so brainstorm about the concepts you’d like to indulge in that will either help build your brand or add another extension to it that doesn’t completely take away from the music brand identity itself, but simply complements it better. 

 

What makes up a merchandise store?

 

Conventionally, a clothing line is said to produce the most returns. Perhaps, you could host a merch line of hoodies that are going to be available irrespective of the albums or tracks you are releasing - something much more permanent. The other products could be more album-specific that you could launch a week before your big release - a great music marketing idea right here!

 

Pssst…come here: ‘The Limited Edition’ deals work perfectly when you are releasing a particular single and you’d release a merch product, especially for that - let’s say tote bags with the single’s cover art. But for album releases or EPs, we recommend adding onto the merchandise that already exists. Also a very crucial point - your budget will determine what goes in your store. 

 

What would your fans like to buy?

 

Suppose you invest a lot, in opening a vinyl merch and only a few of your followers buy. Doesn’t sound ideal, yeah?

 

The idea is pretty simple - demand-supply. A part of merchandising as musicians is making something that your fans and followers wish to buy from you. For that, you need to take a survey or a poll - best to use social media for that. Ask your fans. Give them what they wish but make it your own - if they’d love to own caps from you - try to be as creative as possible with presenting your music and yourself as an artist while designing the caps. 

 

Engage qualified designers to make sure your merch is appealing. Poetry, posters, and original artwork are just a few of the unusual alternatives. For instance, the well-known American artist Cardi B offers Gang Earrings for sale. When you have a slightly higher budget, consider the prospects of scaling up or making it customizable. This allows you to be versatile in offering various products at different rates and caters to a wide range of followers. You can choose whether customized or expandable goods are tangible or electronic.

 

 

We mentioned the conventional choice - clothing line. This is an example of expandable physical merch - something that could be easily manufactured. Phone covers and stickers are also such items. Scalable digital merchandise enables you to generate significant profits with little financial outlay. The income that you generate in this line of products will all be entirely profitable because you will skip the manufacturing and delivery processes. We mentioned poetry as well (you probably thought we were kidding); a professionally designed eBook containing your album's lyrics, together with any bonus lyrics or unpublished poetry, serves as a fantastic illustration of this type of merchandise.

 

Customized merch is that line of merchandise that your fans can personalize that shall make it unique for them. They can add their names to the design, change the position of your music brand logo, or request your special ‘touch’ to it - a great thank you message, your signature, and so on. Customized goods require a more extended period of time to make than expandable ones. It has the benefit of being able to sell for more money because it is unique and can't be a ‘general model.’ For instance, posters with your autograph or a handwritten music sheet for one of the songs you wrote. There are personalized electronic merchandise that you can launch as well.

 

An excellent example would be personalized ringtones, voice messages, or videos that include the fan's name. It works best if you have plenty of leisure time and a limited budget. You may charge considerably more for it, just like with specially made tangible products.

 

Pssst…come here: Having your own website, thus becomes very important because that will turn into a space for your merchandise as an online or e-commerce store. With streaming apps and social media, you could sell your merch literally everywhere. Consider selling your merch on Spotify as it has partnered with an e-commerce company called Shopify. 

 

Now about the production: There are many third-party agencies that will print and make merch as and when an order is placed - it is the most sustainable way to host merchandise because nothing really will go to waste from your manufacturing costs because you essentially won’t pay to make wholesale products (or inventory) that may or may not sell. Some examples of these companies are Hello Merch and Printful. Merchbar is another company that allows fans to take a piece of their beloved musicians through shirts, CD covers, and so on. 

 

 

The Right Time

 

We are not going to promise you that your merch will make a profit if you launch a line with less than 1000 listeners. We’ll advise you to be pragmatic. An ideal time to launch a merch line is when you have a dedicated fan following that would attend your shows - and around that stage in your music career where your shows sell out fairly well, and potential listeners say, ‘He’s the guy with that song..’ - this is when you have a good fan base you can lean back on and you’re also in that zone where your music is rapidly reaching people effectively. 

 

Pssst…come here: A lovely social media following is a great sign to start launching your merchandise. 

 

Is it for you?

 

Today, there is not a single (and famous) musician who doesn’t own their own merch line. Yup, we checked. There are artists who haven’t signed with any clothing or brand label, yes, but they have their own merch line. So what does that tell you?

 

At the right stage of your music career, your merchandise will always have a long-term positive impact on your music brand and image. 

We say, go for it!

We at GreaseRelease, have a bunch of curators on our network who are looking for new & exciting music to push on their massive playlists. If you make music and want to reach a wider audience, check out our submission platform and get a chance to reach millions of listeners! Submit your tracks now!