Whenever people start a band, a theatre company, or a podcast, one demand is inevitable: “When do we get t-shirts?” Podcast merchandise is a great way to advertise and build excitement about your show. But, if you don’t do it right, you can end up with boxes of merch in a closet or basement, collecting dust. Don’t worry. We’ll discuss tactics to keep your podcast merchandise campaign simple and effective.

Know Your Brand and Your Audience

Before you start silkscreening t-shirts by hand, pinpoint why you want to make and sell podcast merchandise. Some reasons could be promotion, engagement, or expanding on a particular aspect of your podcast’s topic.

Other important considerations:

What’s your podcast’s niche? What makes it unique?

Who’s your ideal listener? Who is your podcast for?

How do you feel about your podcast art?

What’s exciting, memorable, or provocative about your podcast that you can highlight?

Knowing this helps you decide what to make, how to design it, and how to distribute it. You wouldn’t try to sell cat treats to dogs, and you certainly wouldn’t sell them in fifty-pound bags. 

How Will You Distribute Your Podcast Merchandise?

Some podcasters give away small promotional items. Others sell merchandise through a web-based storefront, or use a print-on-demand service. Whichever you choose, they have their own set of considerations. Plus, you need to know how to get your merchandise safely in your audience’s hands.

Giving Away Podcast Merch

If you’re giving away podcast merchandise, it should be inexpensive and easy to distribute. Pick small items with a low price point. Stickers and bar mats/coasters are popular, collectable, and function as advertising. This is another reason to make sure your art is good enough to share. Pencils or pens, too, can transmit your podcast’s name, brand colors, and logo.

But people don’t value free swag as highly as paid items. My mother volunteers at her church thrift shop, and it’s loaded with all kinds of promotional tchotchkes handed out for free at business conventions. She even found a Madoff Investment Securities tote bag.

When you choose podcast merchandise, balance how much it’s useful, meaningful, and promotional. It doesn’t have to be a billboard if it’s useful and meaningful because it’s a conversation starter. If it is a billboard, it doesn’t have to be as useful or meaningful because it promotes your podcast. But this podcast merch can end up at a charity shop.

People value helpful, attractive, and pleasantly tactile merchandise. Some examples of good merchandise are enamel pins (people really do collect them), flash drives, water bottles, travel mugs, and, yes, T-shirts.  If your podcast niche is specific enough, branded items (such as spatulas for a cooking podcast) could be worth your while.

Is Your Podcast Merch Deliverable?

How do you plan to get the merchandise in the hands of your loyal audience? You can:  

ship it yourself, 

sell it directly to the audience, face to face, or

use a print-on-demand company.

Stocking and shipping items yourself gives you the most control, but it’s also extra work. Unless the merchandise is the primary focus of your business, you’re better off spending that time and effort on your podcast episodes.

Selling it directly to a fan is great because you can couple it with a conversation. The item gets tied in with the memory of meeting you, so the object becomes more meaningful. But, in that case, you have to be where your podcast’s fans can find you. 

If you’re renting booth space at a convention or hosting a live podcast episode, then a podcast merchandise table is ideal. But you have to include at least some of the cost of booth rental in the price of your merchandise. Again, this takes time, effort, and money. But it’s a good step toward building community. People will remember the conversation they have with you when they buy.

A print-on-demand company is the easiest option, though you have less control. You also don’t have as much responsibility. You link your podcast website and your show notes to your storefront on the print-on-demand site. The buyer picks out the item, color, and size they want, and the print-on-demand company prints it and handles the shipping. They also handle returns, exchanges, or any mistakes. 

Size Matters

When selling podcast merchandise in person, the smaller and lighter it is, the better. Either you’ll have to ship it, or the buyer has to carry it around with them. Anything bigger than someone’s hand or heavier than a pound, people are more likely to order online. Keep this in mind if you’re selling something like glass drinkware or ceramic mugs.

Again, this is where print-on-demand companies are helpful. You don’t want to take an hour of your podcasting workflow to go to the post office and pay $20 shipping to send a $10 mug.

Pick a distributor with inclusive sizing if your heart is set on t-shirts. If your t-shirts run small, medium, and large, you’re telling anyone who wears an extra-large or an extra small that they don’t fit in your audience.

Podcast Merchandise Storefronts and E-Commerce Services

You work hard on your podcast. Making a podcast merch store with a variety of quality items is work, too. Subcontracting it out to the pros can be pricey, but not always. There are many options, but let’s narrow it down by looking at an example of print-on-demand, crowdfunding, and e-commerce for podcasters.

Print-On-Demand: Teepublic

Print-on-demand companies offering merch for digital content creators have many similarities, so let’s focus on one instead of many. Personally, I’m a big fan of Teepublic’s program for artists, because they:

pay creators monthly via PayPal,

have a wide variety of sizes, styles, and colors

sell more than just t-shirts: they have mugs, tote bags, stickers and more

use a design process that’s simple to learn and follow

frequently have sales that you can promote to your following (without cutting into the amount you make from each sale)

Check out our own Teepublic ‘T-Shirts for Podcasters’ store.

Designing podcast merchandise for TeePublic is as easy as making your podcast cover art. Their uploader takes you step-by-step through fitting your art onto their merchandise.

Once published, your podcast merch is available with a discount for a day: alert your fans. The only element I don’t like about TeePublic is that I can never quite get my art to fit on a coffee mug in a way that makes me happy. Your mileage may vary.

Crowdfunding Platforms with Storefronts

Some crowdfunding platforms like Ko-Fi, Buy Me a Coffee, and Sponsus have e-commerce storefronts as part of their services. In most cases, you’re responsible for shipping. Again, you set prices: your crowdfunding platform provides display space and processes payments. This frees you to offer unique podcast merchandise and raises the bar for a conversation about your podcast topic.

For example, Long Cat Media’s podcast merchandise shop adds more interest to their stories while showcasing their many skills and talents.

Does your podcast sell signed, original, hand-printed linocut art? Not many do, but Long Cat’s critically acclaimed show Ghosted does. Long Cat Media sells downloadable audio, access to private workshops, art, and even hand-made microphones made from vintage telephones. Their podcast merchandise shop is eye candy that attracts the audience to their crowdfunding site. Curiosity may make you check out the telephone mics, but if they’re out of your budget, you can send them a latte’s worth of support while you’re there.

The beauty of shipping products yourself is in personalization. When I bought myself something from Long Cat Media’s store, they enclosed a handwritten note that warmed my heart.

Podswag: E-Commerce for Podcasters

Podswag supports the podcast networks for Sirius XM and Earwolf, so you’re likely to see a lot of celebrity podcasts in their catalog. These podcasts give PodSwag the purchasing power to customize items outside the usual merch realms. You can find Croc charms (no, I’m not joking), jewellery, housewares, and the usual t-shirts and mugs. You can even put your podcast on a vinyl LP.

Repurpose Your Content

Repurposing your content typically means taking an episode and creating a blog post, video, or social media graphics around it. But repurposing can apply to podcast merch, too.

Printable materials, like books or posters, are easy to print and deliver and don’t weigh much. If your podcast has great art, work with the artist to create variations on that theme. Some podcasts expand into graphic novels, limited-run art prints, or cookbooks.

Memorable quotes from your show can be included on any podcast merchandise. Sure, putting the title of your show on merchandise makes a great billboard, but a trenchant quote invites a conversation. 

Can You Make a Profit with Your Podcast Merchandise?

Unless your podcast is an advertisement for an existing merchandise business, don’t expect to make a big profit on your podcast merch. The goal here should be advertising your show, getting your audience excited, and staying connected. There are many ways to monetize your podcast, but selling merch is more about visibility and engagement than topping up that retirement fund.

Podcast Merchandise, In A Nutshell

Essentially, here’s all you need:

terrific art,

memorable content,

a solid and specific niche,

a clear sense of your ideal listener

a reliable storefront and delivery method.

See? Making and selling podcast merchandise is easy. It’s good podcast merchandise that’s more challenging.

Need More Help With Promotion & Growth?

We’ve loads more tips and strategies to help you build your audience in our 30 Days of Audience Growth course inside Podcraft Academy. You’ll get access to all our other courses, from equipment and editing to voice training and monetization. Plus, we run regular live Q&A sessions where you can get tailored podcasting advice, and solutions to your podcasting problems!

Originally posted on August 27, 2024 @ 2:24 am