Daniel Kohn has been working, touring, managing, promoting, living and blogging in the music business for over 15 years. His blog is read by thousands each week http://askkohnny.com.

Last week I was out at a bar watching a band play and I happened to notice something they did which was extremely subtle yet at the same time proved to be very successful at helping them sell more merchandise at the end of their show.

My guess is that they sold well over $500 worth of merch after their show all because of this one little strategy.

Basically what they did was right before their last song, the lead singer got on the mic and thanked everyone for coming down to watch them play. He then continued by saying –

“After our set, were going to be hanging out by the merch table so come and say hi!”

That was it. Nothing more nothing less. He wasn’t selling, pitching or promoting anything specifically that they actually had at their merchandise table, rather he was just informing everyone, in a very informal way that he’ll be hanging out over there.

Following that, the band continued to play their final song and right at the very end, once again he said into the mic –

“Thanks again for coming, were xxxx. We’ll be at the merch table so come and say hi!”

What transpired after that was nothing short of amazing. The lead singer walked off the stage, B lined for the merch table, didn’t stop for anyone and before I knew it, half the room flocked over to their merchandise stall and crowded around him and the guitarist wanting to say hi.

It was incredible.

As I stood and watched all these people go over and say hi, it occurred to me how clever and undercover that idea really was.

Let’s face it, no artist likes selling their T-shirts or latest release and if they don’t mind pitching their stuff, they are usually not very good at it anyway. But this particular band figured out how to get people to their merchandise table without even mentioning that they have merchandise! There was no mention of anything other than a warm gesture to say hi.

What happened over the next twenty minutes is that as people spoke and hung out, the natural progression was to buy something and boy, did they start buying.

As time went on, the merch table became a hangout area at the venue and as more people hung around there, other people wanted to see what the commotion was about, so there was this constant gathering around this bands merchandise and for every couple onlookers, there were a few that would pull their wallets out and buy something. Some would also ask for their album or t-shirt to be signed etc.

I guess the reason why this strategy worked so well for these guys is that they were so casual and natural about it all. They never gave the impression that they were only there to sell merchandise. Rather, they made a genuine effort to connect with their fans and audience, which at the end of the day is what fans really want, a genuine connection.

Give them that and they’ll give you their wallet!

Sounds a little sick and twisted, but it’s the truth.

Martin Atkins has a 30 year career in the music business that includes touring with the bands Public Image Limited, Killing Joke, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails and Pigface, owning an independent record label celebrating its 20th anniversary with over 350 releases, and is an instructor at Columbia College Chicago teaching The Business of Touring, Applied Marketing, and Indie Label Management. He is also the author of the book Tour:Smart.

Yesterday I was at The Baltimore Music Conference and met Keith Center from a DC based folk-core band called The Dreamscape Project ....Sometimes bands that aren't obviously, rabidly perusing POP success really fail at the merchandising side of things. These guys don’t so I wanted to blog about them and remember their great ideas......

1. Three weeks before a show they send out a handful of postcards to their fans as a reminder and as a call to arms to hand out a few (more about this in a minute.)
2. Instead of a merch booth each member of the band is equipped with a shoulder bag packed with a few of each item they have for sale and is charged with the responsibility of mingling and selling (more about this in a minute too).
3. There is no 3.

A couple of tweaks from me....

I'd try one time to send out VIP passes or a free live cd to the fans three weeks before a show. I was concerned that a handful of postcards sent to a fan is like sending them a work order, “please distribute these to people at the mall.” But, shit, it’s still GOOD!

My only other tweak (and now I have tweaked both of these great ideas) would be IN ADDITION to having the roaming band-member-merchandise-assault-squad – set up a merch booth. People like me need to know where the table with the merch is because that’s where the merch is. I might not get to wandering around to find the merchandis-ettes. I might grab someone and go, “hold on Betty! There’s no fucking merch at all - we're leaving!” Plus, not everyone wants to deal face to face with a sweaty band member.......people are shy, people are timid.

I hope that I haven't now turned this around into a 'here’s my twenty problems with The Dreamscape Project" because I really liked their out of the box, different thinking. I’m just a hole poker ain't I? Send me your ideas so that I can blog about them. Then, everyone can use them and you'll have to come up with more good ones - that’s the fuel that burns the fire and keeps us all warm.

PLR

MarteeeeeeeeeN

On the road, loading video and typing in the passenger seat

Come to a T:S event. Full schedule here

Steve Gerstman has twenty years in the music merchandising business, having worked at Winterland, Signatures and Brockum. He started Steve Gerstman Services, Inc. in 2001, which currently incudes among its clients Eric Clapton, Queen and Stray Cats. In 2007, Gerstman began Cut Merch (www.cutmerch.com ) which he calls the "First 21stCentury Merch Service."

INSIDE TIPS ON TOUR MERCH:

You have finally booked some shows – congratulations! – and now you’re looking forward to the big day.  And if you haven’t been living on Mars for the last few years, you know that selling merch is a way to make money.  After all, touring can actually cost you money, especially at the beginning, and selling merch can make the difference between costing you money and breaking even – or even making some!

1. PLANNING THE TOUR MERCH

Like other aspects of your tour, you need to think through what you will want to sell on your dates and, very importantly, how many to produce.  Regarding what items, don’t try to get too fancy or different with your tour merch.  There are many reasons why bands sell t-shirts, mostly black if they are of the rock variety.  It is because (1) that’s what their fans want and expect, and (2) they provide good profit margins.  It is important to try to figure out how many to produce, an issue I will deal with later.  Along with t-shirts, sell your CD if you have one.  If you are going out for the first time, or in a city where you are appearing for the first time, or if you otherwise are playing to new people, and you are playing in clubs that hold less than a hundred people, that’s all you really need to have.  If you want to carry more, consider a keychain or poster, or a girl’s shirt.  (Baseball caps usually are embroidered, and you won’t want to incur the set-up costs for a small run of caps.) 

2. DESIGN

If you have a CD cover design or a design on your website or MySpace page, use that, or at least tie it in.  If you have a logo on the CD, use that.  Don’t make changes in typeface or colors if you want to project an image to people that they will remember.  T-shirts are billboards for your band, and having the t-shirt reflect the same (or similar) images as your CD cover and your web presence will help people remember you and associate it with you.  I also recommend that you make your tour merch tour merch, by which I mean that people who buy merch at shows like to see (and show their friends) that they “were there.”  An itinerary back (if there are, say, six confirmed dates or more) does that.  If it’s less than six dates (say, in a month’s time), then you might not want to date the merch – because you will want to sell them over a longer period of time, and you won’t want to sell “stale” product.  Finally, keep your designs simple.  That means only print two sides (forget sleeves) and keep the colors down.  Going crazy on prints and colors on a short run of shirts raise the cost more than you can make up on the price you sell them at. 

3. PRODUCTION

You have to balance the number of items you produce with the cost per item.  The more you produce, the less each will cost, but the more you are out-of-pocket.  It is the goal of every merchandiser and band to come out of each tour with as few items as possible, especially if you’ve “dated” them with an itinerary back or other date. It probably isn’t as critical when it comes to CDs as you probably have a garage full of them.  If you do a keychain, a simple acrylic one that uses a digitally created photo is the cheapest to produce, and the result, with two sides in color, looks pretty cool.  When you are thinking about how many shirts to produce, consider the number of people you expect at each show, the number of shows, and then multiply that by the “per cap,” meaning what you project you’ll sell per attendee and divide by the price you will sell them for.  Whew!  There’s a tool on the www.cutmerch.com website for this you can use for free.  Go to the site and send a note.  It’s called the “forecast tool.”  Another resource for posters or handbills (you may want to give out handbills at the shows) promotes your website, announce tour dates or record release, whatever.  It’s www.psprint.com.  Very reasonable prices for anything printed on paper and easy to use website.  Regarding the print run for apparel, try to meet the minimums that keep per item costs reasonable.  As to what “reasonable” means, you need to shop around.  And don’t forget that your costs may or may not include set-up costs.  Don’t assume: Ask!

4. SALES