The Role of Merchandising In The Music Industry
Learn the ins and outs of merchandising with your music & getting the most of creativity.

Merchandise is an essential part of an artist’s career. Not only do artists sell merchandise but everybody, whether you are a youtuber, a corporation, a fabricator of products, everybody buys merchandise. And there is a good reason for this of course.

However, it doesn’t only benefit the artist themselves, it also benefits their management as they get a cut of whatever the artist is selling at the end, it also benefits manufacturers as it gives them an opportunity for work that is becoming quite scarce these days.

In this article, I hope to talk about what the merchandise is, how the process of creating and selling merch is, and how it is essential for an artist’s career, the music industry and the fans.

What is merchandising ?

To first understand how something is important, we have to understand what it is. Merchandising is a process that every industry goes through, it consists of selling a product related to someone. Now in the case of an artist or the industry that tries to take care of the artists, these products could be clothes, posters, decorations, accessories etc.

With merchandise, you can get as creative as you get!

For example, a lot of indie artists or underground rappers constantly promote their clothing line like the artist Quadeca or Crypt, they would have online stores with their merchandise. Another example could be Yeezy.

How to come up with a merch product

To come up with a merch product to sell to others, as an artist, you first need a center idea, a concept that focuses on making the fans happy. How to come up with the product also ties heavily with the role of merchandising in the music industry.

Now that you have a concept of what you want to produce, you need to put it in a solid form, this way you know which type of product you want to produce. This step leads to the biggest differences between merch, that is because you can sell a vinyl of your album to selling a hoodie, very different products that all depend on your creativity.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you need to make the consumer feel special for purchasing your merchandise. One way you could do that is include some secret songs in the vinyl version that shouldn’t normally be available, or maybe you can sign the product and give it out.

Next step I stalking to your team and contact a manufacturer to start the production. This step doesn’t rely much on creativity since all the conception work has already been finished. However, you should keep in mind that you should listen to criticism from others to improve the merch.

Once the merch is produced, you should promote it and sell it to others so you can make the profit.

Now all of these steps will be important to the next part of this article, which is the role of merchandise in the music industry.

How does merchandise affect the music industry

Now that you have a product and that you are selling it, you can see for yourself what it’s role is. Now if you haven’t sold merch yet or don’t want to, don’t worry, I’ll explain.

One of the roles of merchandise is that it makes the consumer feel special. Like I explained before, you should aim to make the consumer feel special as your center idea for a reason. If your fan feels special for buying your merchandise, he will feel closer to you and have more of a connection that other fans that haven’t bought merchandise have. Making these fans feel more connected to you will make them loyal, making them purchase more merchandise, making them support you more and more.

Another role that merchandising serves to the music industry is the money. Merchandise is one of the biggest if not the biggest source of income for the music industry. Since merchandise usually sells for a much higher price than the music itself, it makes a huge amount of money.

A good example we can take of this is the youtuber MrBeast. Although he is not an artist yet, he serves as the perfect example. MrBeast spends millions on his videos every month non-stop making little money from the AdSense on his videos. On an interview, he once said that the main source of income for his videos is his merchandise as he makes most of the profit by selling his merchandise to the masses.

Another good example could be Prime hydration, made by the artist KSI and his friend Logan Paul, prime sold 250 million in one year. A big reason prime was selling this quickly was that fans were feeling special for buying the drink.

Another good example is how Yeezy became the face of Adidas making it billions because fans thought they were getting closer to Kanye by buying it.

Why should you sell merch, as an artist

As an artist, selling your merchandise could be a huge career boost for you, it could also make your career if you do it the right way. You should sell merchandise first and foremost for the money. You can use the money to invest in your music or in yourself or to invest in the production of the merch, making more merchandise to sell.

You should also do it for the fans as they will become a more solid fan base giving you longevity in your career as it is harder to be an indie artist that you expect. And finally, you should do it to promote yourself to a bigger audience, you can always sell your merch to stores where they will promote it for you so this can serve as a career boost for you or the actual startup of the career. One of the places you can sell your merch in is record stores, which has been mentioned in previous articles.

Conclusion

To conclude this article, merchandising is an essential part of the music industry. It makes the fan feel special, it makes money for the industry and the artist, and it promotes the artist taking them to the next level in terms of fame.

To make a merch product you need to come up with a center idea or a concept, know which type of product to sell, contact a manufacturer, begin production and promotion, and start selling.

Finally, you should sell merchandise as an artist because it could be a career starter or a huge boost, it will make you have a more loyal fan base, and it will give you money to invest in your music career.

You can sell Vinyl copies of your music, shirts and clothes, posters, or anything that fits the theme of your music. You can also sign your stuff or include additional content so the consumer will be tempted to buy your product.

Now that you know what to do, good luck!