Social Commerce: Connect With Fans Through Merch

With the decline in recorded music sales, merch has become an increasingly important part of indie artists' revenue, but it has also become a unique opportunity for musicians to authentically connect with fans while simultaneously growing your band's overall brand.

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Guest Post by Erik Wurgler of My Brothers & I

Music now moves at the speed of social media. Bands and artists are able to connect directly with fans, and the voice of the fan is amplified. Integrating commerce into this experience is a powerful way for bands to more closely connect with fans and unlock new revenue streams.

Rather than selling merchandise only at concerts, bands are now able to create, market and sell limited-edition custom apparel on an always-on basis. Fans can express themselves – whether their favorite artist is selling out stadiums, performing at an intimate coffeehouse or streaming on repeat. We can create small-batch t-shirts for specific shows — or just because.

As an indie band, we view merch as both an authentic way to connect with fans, but also a critical way to support our vocation. Here are our tips on how to turn merch into a profitable part of your band’s business and brand.

Merch Isn’t Just a Tee Shirt. It’s Your Brand.

Whether you’re an indie band or a world renowned artist, your community is everything. Without the financial backing of Bieber or Gaga, we find other creative ways to bootstrap our brand to reach the larger community. From our early days, we’ve prioritized engaging with fans wholeheartedly in person, on social media and by using custom apparel. The creation of merch really came as our “fan base” started to legitimize more and more through our touring, radio play, etc. We found the more people loved our music, the more they wanted to align themselves as part of our team. Every interaction as an authentic way for our community to feel closer to us, and wearing a My Brothers & I band tee, shows the world you love our music and lets you connect with us, wherever we both are.

Order On Demand to Reduce Overstock

Our first merch orders were exciting, but also left us with quite a few reminders of our over-exuberance, in the form of a few dozen women’s small scoop neck tees we’ll never be able to offload (they’re still sitting in our parents’ garage!). This, of course, proved to be a financial challenge, because of the high upfront cost of stocking up. After a few fraught discussions, we found Teespring, and have since transitioned to offering merch on demand with Teespring. We design styles that are meaningful to our music or community, then offer them to fans in time-limited campaigns. Like Kickstarter, once a campaign hits its minimum, we’re funded to print. All successful campaigns are profitable for us, and if a campaign isn’t successful, we don’t lose a penny. Also, since it’s ordered by fans, we don’t have to guess their sizes and predict order demand.. We just focus on creating designs our fans will love.

Find Your Merch Moments.

While on demand commerce is endlessly customizable and scalable, you’ll wear out your design chops and your fans by pushing out a new merch each week. Keep your campaigns special and curated by introducing new designs at a more conservative cadence – once a season, or tied to an album release or major show. Use merch to get fans excited about these moments in your journey together.

Turn Social Media into Social Commerce.

Our social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat – are incredibly important because we can reach people whenever THEY want to be connected to us. Our fans see the Internet as a virtual venue to connect with us. So, they’re just as motivated to purchase a commemorative concert tee at a show as they are to score one online after a weekend of jamming to us on Spotify. We use this to our advantage by posting links to our limited edition Teespring campaigns across our accounts. Social media is a huge driver of merch sales, and it’s just as exciting to see people in person or on Instagram rocking out with our tees on. We could never have this reach with traditional merch.

Ditch the Logistics.

With our first merch sales, we worried about the design, the print quality, the deadlines, the timelines and the shipping fees, not to mention the brutal upfront cost. With on demand commerce, we just focus on designing apparel our fans will love. As full time musicians, we’d rather spend our time making new music, perfecting songs or playing shows, not bagging, stamping and mailing each individual tee. We’re bringing in more income than we did last year, and I attribute much of the increase to scaling on demand commerce.

Merch doesn’t just have to be for huge artists that sell out stadiums. With new technologies and social platforms, every artist can turn it into a profitable part of their business – and a powerful way for fans to wear their affection on their sleeve.

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Erik is bassist and vocals for My Brothers & I, a band that has been called both "Northwest soul" and "indie pop." The band's debut full-length LP, Don't Dream Alone, is an eleven-track collection comprised of warm vocal harmonies, luscious grooves and undeniable melodies. It was released in September 2015 by Expunged Records. Meet the band on Twitter @MyBrothersandI, listen to their latest track, Granted or find them on their nationwide tour.