You know, more artists don’t give enough credit to merchandising, and I think it is a great way to receive revenue and do good promotion. While indie artists don’t usually have a big budget for merchandising (both promotional & for sale), they should find a way to add some pieces to their merchandising stand. Merchandising is not only good for revenue, but for promotion. In this episode I show you a couple things that I’m taking with me to my gig on Sunday.
Things that you should always have with you:
– CDs: This is probably the biggest investment that you’ll make (at an average of 1,5 to 2 dollars each), but it is where you’ll see the fastest revenue back. Think about how many copies you think you can sell and make the investment accordingly, don’t go overboard on the copies if you’re not sure, or you might end up with a house full of unsold CDs. Although most people are going digital to listen to their song, there are still a lot of collectors that love to have a physical copy of the CD, specially if they know you & they’ve seen you live and have the opportunity to have their CD personally signed by you. Example: My record label spent about 2,300 dollars for 1,000 copies of my first album… well, in way less than a month they have recoop the money they put on them, and then some… Also, don’t go crazy on the prices, YOU ARE NOT LADY GAGA, I wouldn’t go over 15 dollars per full album.
– Palm cards: There are great, mostly for promotion. I have several different ones: one that I can sign for anybody that would like my sign, others with my information on where & how to follow me, others with a little paragraph explaining who I am. I use these to give away if somebody signs up for my mailing list or to leave on the tables of the club just as a promotion tactic.
– Calendars: Cheap & nice, who doesn’t like to have a card size calendar in their wallet? The same as palm cards I normally give these away for people that sign up for my mailing list.
– Pins: Pins are small things that you can sell for about 3 bucks. They are normally pretty cheap to make as well, if you make them on bulk. Your followers will be more up to buy a 3 dollars pin than an expensive 20 dollars t-shirt.
Other cool ideas for merchandising, if you think you can pull it off, since they take a bigger investment, but might be worth to try…
– T-Shirts
– Pens
– Notebooks/Agendas
– Keychains
– Jewelry Box
I love Vistaprint for merchandising, just for the reason that they have great prices & they always have deals where you can try things for free, testing how they look, just by paying the S&H. Check it out and… get creative!