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Increasing Funds During an Economic Crisis
By Jeff McLaughlin, MMGI

The life of a Christian music artist … writing songs, recording, pitching to radio, singing at churches and venues and selling merchandise so you can use those funds to record new songs, pitch to more radio stations, travel to new churches and venues, and sell more merchandise. But, what do you do when you are in the midst of an economic crisis and the funds are not as readily available as they once were? It’s expensive to record. It’s expensive to put gas in the vehicle. 

There is going to be a follow-up article on various ways to increase incoming funds, but in this article, I am going to talk about a very important concept called diversification. What is diversification? To diversify is simply to increase the variety of the products and services that you offer.

Merchandise Diversification

Let’s talk about your merchandise table. Most every artist thinks about selling CD’s, autograph photos, and t-shirts. One great way to increase your funds is to increase the variety of product you sell. Following is a list of additional items that you should most definitely consider.
• Autographed posters: It only costs a few cents more to print posters than it does small glossy photos and you can justify selling a poster for $5. For the best place I have seen for posters, t-shirts, and other related items, go to http://www.stickersandmore.com. The most important element to sales is the quality of your graphic design. I’ve used http://www.shawnweston.com for some of my graphic design needs and have been very pleased with his work.
• $5 grab bags for boys and girls: Young children may not necessarily be interested in your CD’s, t-shirts, and posters, but they love surprise grab bags that have items such as glow sticks, bracelets, necklaces, small toys, balloons, bouncy balls, and novelty items. Check out http://www.orientaltrading.com for inexpensive items you can purchase for these grab bags. If you keep an element of surprise by putting the items in paper bags, it makes it more interesting for the children. Be sure to mark each bag “surprise grab bag for boys” or “surprise grab bag for girls”.
• Jewelry: I know of some Christian artists who go to festivals and fairs in their area searching for jewelry that is unique, tasteful, and inexpensive that goes along with their theme or music. Because of their particular niche market and audience, t-shirts may not sell well at their concerts. However, the jewelry does. The key is to try different merchandise until you find something that sells well for you and then keep it in stock. If you find that jewelry does not sell, but t-shirts do, then drop the jewelry and print more t-shirts with various logos, colors, and styles.
• Here’s a tip: Keep everything in $5 increments. That gives an opportunity for your table personnel to up-sell. When someone purchases a $15 CD and they hand you a $20 bill to pay for it, this makes it much easier to offer them a $5 poster, grab bag for the child, or a piece of jewelry.
• Here’s another great tip. Put together special package deals and announce it at the end of your concert. Offer a CD, poster, and t-shirt for $20 or $25. Be sure to mention how much they will save by purchasing the special package deal. If you have more than one CD, you can also offer quantity pricing. Maybe you have an old CD that doesn’t sell any more, but you still have several hundred sitting in your garage. Offer to give it away for free with the purchase of your brand new CD.

Keep this in mind; I know of several artists and bands whose income is higher from merchandise than from honorariums and offerings. This is because they put a lot of work in proper display of their merchandise table (which is a whole other topic in itself), pricing considerations, and diversification. Merchandise diversification should never be avoided.

 
Service Diversification

Even if you are a full time Christian music artist, there will be times during the year that you are home during the week. Why not offer lessons in the area that you are most gifted to those who are seeking instruction? You can offer vocal coaching, guitar lessons, piano lessons, stage performance coaching, artist development, or song writing help.

Are you only contacting churches and coffee houses to sing? There are so many other opportunities to sing for corporate events, functions, Christmas parties, festivals, youth events, weddings, malls, family reunions, organization meetings, etc. If there are people, there are chances to sing and sell your music.

Well, I hope this article has been beneficial. In part II of this article, I will discuss “thinking out-of-the-box”. I will share other ways of raising funds that you most likely have never thought of. You don’t want to miss it!

http://McLaughlinMusicGroup.com

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