Image via WikipediaIf you’ve been reading the cultBLOG at all, you get how much I stress the need for merchandising; but properly merchandising your band or music organization is about more than just buying a run of one-color t-shirts and schlepping them to all over the place. No. There is actually logic behind all the madness. Check out these 5 steps to success:

1. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE: This is pretty straight-forward. You have no business being in the music business if you don’t know your audience, their age, their likes/dislikes, where they like to hang out, what other kind of music they listen to, etc. The advantage that you have as a performer is that you see and interact with your audience at every performance, with every wall posting on myspace, and with every mass email you send out to advertise album sales. Knowing your audience is the very first step to doing anything in the public realm. In the case of merchandise, you’ll get a better idea of what they might like to purchase and/or wear. A mettle band is probably not going to have a colorful, flowery vector image on a green shirt… likewise an adult contemporary band will probably not be sporting the sign of the beast.
2. CHOOSE THE RIGHT PRODUCT MIX: After you know your audience and you can get a conceptual feel for what they might like, the next step is selecting an appropriate product mix. Instead of reinventing the wheel, take a lesson from the bix box retailers and from the departments stores. You’d be pretty hard pressed to find a retailer that sells only one product in one model. In the same way, you should not sell only one item. With your music, try selling full length albums, singles, vinyl or I even heard of people selling USB jump drives with their MP3 audio files loaded onto them (hint: CULT STATUS can print your band’s logo on jump drives). When it comes to other merchandise, it’s just as important to offer a relevant selection of branded clothing, accessories, 1″ buttons, stickers, etc. In addition to presenting a more professional and established image, it gives your fans the option to spend as much or as little as they want and it also gives your fans the ability to continue supporting you after they get the CD and the T-shirt. Another thing I encourage you to consider is the packaging. There are few if any bands that really go all out with packaging and extras (unless they’re backed by big labels’ big money). You can give an MP3 away for promotional purposes, but still sell it on a CD with a really unique packaging design.
3. CHOOSE THE RIGHT PRICING MIX: Along with a great selection of products is a good price selection. A screen printed T-shirt is going to be priced differently than a poster or a bumper sticker, so there’s naturally some price variance. A band that has some buttons, stickers, a T-shirt, and their new CD is probably pretty well set compared to those who don’t sell anything or those who just have a CD or a shirt. Some savvy music merchandise pushers will even go so far as to offer package deals to help the goods fly off the merch table. The often neglected side to the pricing mix, however, is to consider something to price at the high end. Never judge how much money people have and/or how much they want to spend. Standard retail industry knowledge states that people usually buy the middle option when presented with a cheap, moderate, and expensive option. This strategy not only serves your audience better, it increases your odds for higher sales at each event and online. With one item on sale, their choice is “Yes or N0″ …where as with several items, their choice becomes “which ones and how many”.
4. PICK THE PERFECT PLACE: In order to sell your merchandise, you need a place to operate as your store. The biggest key to selling the most out of your merch is by making it as available as possible. This meas that you MUST bring your merch to EVERY event. I don’t care how big or small; how local or if on tour. It’s better to leave an event having sold nothing that it is to pass up the opportunity to make an extra $50. There is also another place that is just as important as your show… the internet. I’m not completely familiar with the process, but I hear that myspace allows you to sell MP3 downloads and Merch via your page. There are a ton of free shopping cart/online store software options out there. Paypal gives you free use of their shopping cart, buy-it-now buttins, and they will integrate with 3rd party shopping carts too. They will also allow you to accept every type of payment possible. There are also several 3rd party websites that allow you to sell merchandise/CDs through them. The advantage is that it helps your name and merch pop up in search engines and give you more “places” online where your products are available. This creates a larger perceived presence (more street cred.) and a higher likelihood that you’ll be selling like mad. The down-side is that they usually make your sales less profitable. The best deal for you is to use a mixture of direct and indirect methods to sell your products.
5. INCREASE DEMAND ON YOUR OWN: Believe it or not, you have the power to increase the demand for you own products. The first and most obvious part is directly advertising your merch. This includes directing fans to the merch table at each show, as well as sending out mass emails and bulletins to your fans via myspace. That’s pretty basic marketing. If you want to take it to the next step, I’ld consider the basic law of supply and demand. On a basic supply-demand graph, changes in supply, price, or demand will all effect the other two. By intentionally limiting the supply, you force there to be more demand for your product than there is supply to meet it. Normally this would create an increase in price, but most bands don’t have the luxury of price gouging. Instead, keeping limited items in the same price range will create added speed with which things are sold. Another way of thinking about this idea is to just come up with new merch every so often. If you order 100 Screen Printed T-shirts, instead of re-ordering the same design when you run out, change the color of the shirt and change the design. This also gives your clients a feel of “I bought this shirt back before they sold out”… I call it “Exclusivity”

Whew… that was a long post!