Holiday season is fast approaching and it’s time to start planning for a successful one. The holidays are often the most profitable season for small businesses. Consequently, even musically-inclined entrepreneurs can also drastically boost their income during the holiday season. In addition to your holiday music marketing strategy, one way to increase your seasonal revenue is to create seasonal merch items. This article will cover 8 merch items that are perfect for musicians to design and add to their online store.
Did you know you can make countless merch items without ever having to order a single piece of inventory? Yes! Print-on-demand is a thing and it will be your best resource for getting tons of products in your store without the hassle. With Printful, you can design items for your store and sync them so that when someone places an order, Printful will create it and ship it to them. It is a totally hands-off experience that saves you time, money, and space. Try Printful here.
The Ugly Christmas Sweater
A Christmas sweater is a hot-button item during the holiday season. Did you know, there is an entire observance day dedicated to the Ugly Christmas Sweater? This year National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day in the US is Dec 17, 2022. On this day, people are allowed to sport their fashionably hideous sweaters at work. Parties are dedicated to the phenomenon and people love to be festive and wear these endearing sweaters when they are out and about. As a musician, put your artistic ingenuity to work and craft an amazingly ugly Christmas sweater that you know your audience would love.
A Holiday Mug
Egg nog, hot cider, or a hot tidy anyone? Well, we’re pretty sure your audience will be drinking a warm beverage or two during the season too. Offer them a neat mug for themselves or as a gifting option in your store. Mugs are quick and easy to design. Plus, they are the perfect addition to gift sets like hot cocoa mix and marshmallows.
Hot or Cold Drink Tumblers
Tumblers are the perfect companion for those on the go. Whether you are going to work or spending a day outside, having a tumbler to keep your beverage hot or cold is a must. As a small business, offering gift ideas to your audience, the all-over print tumbler has the potential to be one of your best-sellers. Make it holiday-themed or simply put your brand on it. Either way, a drink tumbler is a practical item that is sure to please.
Christmas Ornaments
For those who decorate Christmas trees in their homes, there’s always room for more ornaments. People choose Christmas ornaments not just for the decor, but for sentimental value as well. If you have particularly supportive fans, then offering a custom Christmas ornament may be right for you. Spend a few moments designing an ornament with your unique brand, and offer it as a unique seasonal merch item.
Throw Blanket
Getting cozy by a fire with a soft, plush blanket is a part of everyone’s idea of fun around the holiday season. Throw blankets are great for people of all ages, even little kids! Plus, they make for perfect gifts. These all-over print throw blankets offered by Printful give you the freedom to design a blanket with your creations over the entire product.
Face Masks
Unfortunately, COVID is still an issue. This is an issue that we may very well be dealing with for a long time. The current CDC guidelines recommend wearing face masks after a 5-day quarantine if you have been diagnosed or exposed to COVID to minimize exposure to anyone else. While face masks are not the most stylish accessories we can think of, it is one of the most practical for the times. If we must wear them for safety reasons, we might as well give them some style. Hey, you might even find a reason to create matching ugly Christmas sweaters and face masks.
Phone Case
Speaking of practicality, a phone case offers your phone stability and protection against nasty falls that can shatter the screen or worse. Phone cases are becoming more and more necessary as phones seem to be more and more fragile. This presents another opportunity to showcase style and brand loyalty and yet another opportunity to take advantage of the holiday frenzy. Why not create a few phone case designs for your store?
Spiral Notebook
As musicians, we are natural writers. We write songs, poetry, stories, and more. It’s not a far fetch to consider that our audience might have a taste for writing as well. Notebooks are a great way to collect thoughts, write down ideas, jot down to-do lists, and more. For those who do fancy writing, wouldn’t it be nice to offer a uniquely designed spiral notebook just for them? You could create a fun design that honors your artistic themes along with a signature at the bottom to make it extra special.
The products outlined in this article are offered as print-on-demand items with Printful. It doesn’t take long to select a product, create a simple design and add it to your store. In fact, I recently added an ugly Christmas sweater to my store and the process was fast and simple. Printful also offers realistic mock-ups in various scenes that make your product selections even more relatable. Take a look at all the products Printful has to offer here.
Questions about Printful
How much does it cost to partner with Printful?
There are no upfront costs when working with Printful. However, when someone places an order for a Printful product, Printful takes a portion of that sale.
Are the products they offer durable and long-lasting?
I have personally used several Printful products and I can confidently say that they are quality products for the most part. Printful uses quality materials for their products and if they do get negative reviews, they usually either take them out of their stock or replace them with something of higher quality. A great thing about Printful’s website is that they post reviews with real pictures from customers on their site. A quick review of feedback left on product pages can provide some insight into whether it’s the right product for you and your audience.
How does product syncing work? Will it work with my website?
Product syncing makes it easy to facilitate order fulfillment and shipping without you having to do anything. When products are properly synced with your Printful account, a customer can place an order on your site and Printful will handle gathering and packaging the items and shipping them off to your customers. Printful offers integrations with tons of online store platforms and website hosting providers to make it easy for you to sync products in your store. For example, my music website is hosted by Squarespace and most of the merch items I offer are synced with Printful. Ordering is super easy and hands-off. Take a look at my store as an example.
Adding seasonal merch items to your store can increase your income exponentially during the holiday season. It is especially helpful to take the time to carefully curate items that you know your audience will love. With so many options available, how can you pick? Think about the items that resonate with you and why. Most likely your audience will like them too.
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We’ve been making band-themed Christmas ornaments for the last 3 years, but we LOVE it! We make them from scratch–with a trip to our local hobby shop for supplies–and that’s when Santa’s Workshop begins work! We send some out to our “favorite” fans and sell the rest. It’s been a staple for so long now that we can’t imagine NOT doing it. 😬
Thanks for some other really awesome customized merch holiday ideas! 😀🙌🏾
I love the idea of hand-crafting ornaments. That makes it extra special. I wish I had time to do that myself. That’s a fantastic idea!