How to increase your merch sales at an event

As a brand, it’s important to keep your eyes on the prize: increasing sales and building a loyal following. If you’re looking for an effective way to increase your merch sales at events, there’s no better way than by hiring an experienced team of professional merchandisers. Here are some great ways that merchandisers can help with event promotion and ensure event attendees have the best time and come out of there with your merch!

CREATE A BUZZ PRE-EVENT

The best things in life are just that—best. And one way to ensure your event is the best? Create buzz around it so that everyone wants to be a part of it. Here are seven ways you can create buzz and make people want to go:

• Use social media to create hype around your custom merch designs before the event. Post photos and videos of the product design process, including pictures of celebrity fans wearing your products.

• Share your custom merch designs on Instagram and Facebook (and other channels) with an invitation for people to sign up for exclusive sales information once you launch your site in a few days. If you don’t want to share specific details about pricing or other details yet, that’s fine! You can even create a landing page where users can opt-in just by providing their email address — this way they’ll still be able to access any updates or new products you put out after launch day arrives!

• Create an email list so that all of those who signed up will be notified when sales start going live (and hopefully also get some special discount codes).

Read More 7 Tips to Boost Event Attendance with Social Media Marketing

MERCH DROP BEFORE EVENT

Pre-event merch drops can help encourage an increase in revenue if you have an audience that is excited about the event. This type of marketing technique not only can increase your sales but it also allows for super-fans to get their hands on gear they can wear to the event.

MARKET ON THE DAY OF THE EVENT

On the day of the event, you can use social media to promote it. You could give away free items or discount codes to help get more people to come, which will increase your sales. Make sure that you have a hashtag for the event so everyone knows what the topic is and can search for it on Twitter and Instagram. If possible create custom Snapchat filters for attendees at your event and make sure they’re available for everyone attending to use!

OFFER YOUR CUSTOM MERCH AT A LOWER PRICE

You can offer your custom merch at a lower price. If you want to attract more customers and sell more of your products, then it’s a good idea to offer your custom merch at a lower price. You can do this by giving them a discount on their purchase or offering free shipping on their order.

For example:

• Discounts and promotions are great ways to entice people into purchasing something from you if they’re on the fence about it. Try offering free shipping for some of the items that you sell so people don’t have as much hassle paying for shipping costs when ordering from you online. You could also use discounts in conjunction with other offers such as “free gift wrapping” or “buy 2 get 1 free.” This way, people won’t feel like they’re missing out by buying from someone else who offers better deals than yours.*

MAKE IT RAIN! DO SOME GIVEAWAYS

Giveaways are a great way to get people to come over, and they’re also an awesome way to get them talking about you. They’re easy too! You can give away a free t-shirt, or other merchandise, or even a free ticket for the event and/or another event in the future. The key is that it has to be something valuable enough for people to want it badly enough so that they’ll go out of their way to come see you at your booth.

If it’s free t-shirts and there are limited sizes available (like we do), make sure that you have someone there giving away tickets as well as handing out shirts when people ask what size they need because once everyone gets their shirt then nobody else will want one regardless of how cool yours looks!

Read More Are Giveaways Good Marketing?

CREATE BRAND AMBASSADORS, OR BRAND ADVOCATES

• Brand ambassadors are your biggest fans. They’re the ones who will help spread the word about your brand and what you do, and they’re also the people who will be willing to go above and beyond for you.

• Reward them with free merch (or even a discount). If you have an event coming up, be sure to let anyone interested in helping out know that they’ll get some kind of reward for their assistance.

• Ask them to help promote the event on social media or other channels. Brand advocates are often very active on social media and can help get more eyes on your page by sharing posts from there as well as from their own personal accounts. This makes it easier for others to learn about what you’re doing—and if they see one person talking about how great something is, then chances are good that they’ll check it out too!

• They can become your best salespeople at events! It’s easy enough for someone with a passion for clothing companies like yours (or any type of company) to walk around telling everyone else why they should wear what’s being sold at an event like this one.”

Read More What Are Brand Ambassadors and Why Are They Important?

LIVE ACTIVATIONS

One of the most exciting attractions you can have at an event is a custom merch station. As a merch agency, we curate live activations to make sure it connects with the brand values and makes people excited about being at the event. Live activations range from live screen printing, live embroidery, to live laser engraving, finding the right activation for your event is based on the merch type and what your brand is about.

Just as important as the merch, your presentation should have a theme and be consistent with your overall brand presentation.

This means you should have the following:

• Color palette

• Branding elements such as your logo and fonts

• Brand ambassadors or representatives that know your service or product well

• Merch that fits with the specific event (ie. music event)

Consistency is good for sales, making sure that your booth or activation station is recognizable to people familiar with your brand is key. Consistency is also good for sales. Many fans will attend multiple events for an artist or at a venue and build a collection of merch to show off their attendance. Having a consistent theme helps make this kind of collection more appealing because it’s clear that all items are connected.