How to Kickstart Your Brand’s Own Personal Merchandising Line
23-05-2023
Merchandising is a great way to increase revenue and benefit from that word-of-mouth marketing, even if your customers don’t say anything. They’ll happily walk around with your shirt on or with your logo on their tote bag, and that is a massive win – particularly since they paid you for the privilege. Merchandising, when done right, can boost revenue, reach, and reputation, especially if you operate in fan-based media, entertainment, or fashion.
Simply offering merchandise, however, is far from enough. Low-effort merchandising looks like a side thought and rarely gets the respect or recognition you’re looking for. That’s why, if you want to kickstart your own merchandising line and make it a success, then you need to follow these top tips:
Work With Quality Producers
First things first, you need to know who is going to make your custom pieces. You cannot manage that supply chain on your own because it’s quite simply too big and too cumbersome to take in-house. Instead, you’ll need to partner with a business like Anthem Branding that lets you create custom items like beanies more much more in bulk batches. Most people buying merchandising don’t expect the item itself to be revolutionary, but that being said, you do need to put extra care into the design.
Create a Special Logo and Branding Set
Slapping your logo onto the product and calling it a day is low-level, low-effort, and usually a huge waste of time and energy. People don’t want just to wear your logo; they want to wear what they feel is art. That’s why you need to create a special branding set specifically for your merchandise. Put your name around a stunning piece of artwork, for example, or use your mascot to create a series of illustrations.
You need your merchandise to stand up on its own. If it can’t do that, then you’ll only get a few sales from some die-hard fans that want to support you. Make your work art, and you have something that anyone could wear, meaning that people can actively start using your merchandise as part of their wardrobe.
Think of the best band t-shirts. Band t-shirts are a very popular genre of clothing, and you, too, can emulate that style to create your own set of merchandise.
Create Collections
Don’t be afraid to create special collections. You can change this collection up once per year, which is particularly great if a huge part of your business involves attending events. Say, for example, one of the biggest periods of the year is going to Comic-Con in London. Having a special Comic-Con line-up for that year makes your merchandise collectable.
Collections can also exist through partnerships. Once or twice a year, for example, you can partner up with a popular artist to create limited-run collections. Have that artist sign the works themselves, even. This way, you can encourage their followers to your brand. They may initially be there for the merchandising but also have the chance to become a big fan of your brand, too.