ANNOUNCEMENT! Matt Bacon & I are doing a Q&A event at Selva in Bushwick, Brooklyn on 3/25. The last one was a packed house and a blast of different musicians getting to know each other and this one promises to be even better. We even have complimentary Bacon Cannon sandwiches from Williamsburg’s best sandwich shop, Mission Sandwhich Social.

The following newsletter contains sponsored content but I also promise it contains a bunch of strategy and I only do sponsored content if I feel it can help artists - JC.

Merch Strategy for Musicians

One of the things musicians so often forget is that fans are well, your fans. And they want things from you like shorts, hoodies, posters, tote bags, and phone cases with your logo so they can look cool to their friends and to strangers who may know who you are. But so many of you still act like you need to pay money upfront to sell cool merch when in reality you can use Printify, a print-on-demand aka POD platform that you can use to sell your fans merch. So even when you're starting your music project from day one, you can get the people who like what you do to fund your music and become walking advertisements for your music by wearing what you make around town.

Why Printify Makes Sense for Musicians

So let's lock in and I'll show you how you can make a really great merch store with Printify so you can get everyone who's enthused about your music to help fund it. A decade ago, you would pay so much money up front to get merch just so you could try to make each show you played profitable and so you could seem legit like all the other acts with things to sell at a show. But until all that merch sold, you'd be out of all that money you put up front and never mind if your drummer spilled his Mountain Dew Code Red on it, then you'd have to sell it for half price and you'd be out a ton of money.

But today, we no longer have to deal with that since print on demand makes it so anyone who wants your merch can order it made to order. And years ago, so many people were turned off stores like this because they cost so much money and the quality is well, what's the word? Oh yeah, trash. Yeah, absolute garbage. But Printify has such great quality merchandise. I found myself, you know, noted fashion aficionado(as you can see the drip from my YouTube videos) asking someone where they printed their merch when I've been sweating it to find out it's Printify. In fact, just a few weeks ago, I was at one of our community members' DAMAG3's show in LA and one of the damages fans had brought a poster from Printify to have her sign and the poster's quality was well, really sick.

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How to Set Up Your Printify Merch Store

Research What to Sell

But let's talk about what you can do on Printify as a musician. First off, let's figure out something to sell. One of my favorite things to do is to look around and see what your community is selling...this is perhaps the most important step. Do your community research!

Choose and Design Your Products

Choose from over 1000 top-quality products, including apparel, kitchenware, home decor, pet products, and more. The interface for designing the merch is extremely approachable for people of all skill levels

Set Your Pricing Strategy

So this is why you want to then send yourself some samples and take a look. You can then choose how much money you make from fans by choosing a markup.

Select Your Storefront Platform

Every piece of merch has various different variations you can set and then set them in your own customizable store.

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TikTok Shop Integration

But what makes Printify especially cool is it has an easy integration with the TikTok shop. We all know TikTok boosts posts with items in the shop. So if you're trying to get out of algorithmic jail and also make some extra money off your music, well wearing your Printify merch and then connecting it to the TikTok shop and selling your merch on the post is a win-win situation especially if you're wearing that merch in the video.

Win-Win to Get Out of Algorithmic Jail

The best part is once your Printify shop is set up, this takes all five minutes. Then just wear your merch in your TikTok videos, add the link to your TikToks, and enjoy getting out of algorithmic jail since 1 out of every 5 posts TikTok shows right now usually is the TikTok shop.

Much to the annoyance of many of us watching. And for those of you who want your merch on Spotify, I have great news. You can get your Printify merch on Spotify by integrating it with Shopify. Now if that's a few too many if-eyes for your brain, let me help rectify that with a graphic. Using rectify there may have really been one of the worst jokes on my channel and that's saying a lot. Anyway, we all know Shopify has some of the most powerful tools on the web for marketing your merch and Printify's integration with this is seamless and it's easy to get your merch into the best merchandise marketing backend in the business. It takes all five minutes to connect your Shopify store to Spotify so that you can have a cool shop like your favorite artist and then have it on your Spotify page.

Selling Your Merch

We of course want to link your Printify shop on your socials regularly including Instagram stories, your link-in-bio, and short-form text apps like X/ Twitter, Blue Sky, and Threads. Showing people wearing the fits that look hot in them always helps sell more merch.