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The Médianes team

November 23, 2023

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Design merchandise

Want to extend your media brand beyond its native platform but unsure where to start or if it's the right move? This practical guide is for you.

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This practical guide will help you think through developing your own merchandise strategy. Have a question? An idea to improve this guide? Send us a message at [email protected].

What is merchandising?

Merchandising, or the sale of branded products, is a commercial practice that falls under marketing. For your media outlet, this approach will help you build loyalty with your community, while also raising your profile — by featuring your logo for example, or spreading your message. Whether it's personalized products given to your team, partners, or audience, or products you're selling, it's a strategic way to enhance your company's value.

To optimize the creation of your merchandise, you should first consider the needs, uses, and sensitivities of your audience. The ideal is to offer a useful item that also aligns with the values of the people you're targeting. Also consider Kepner's 5Bs: the right product, in the right place, at the right time, at the right price, and in the right quantity.

Case Study

The feminist journals Gaze and Censored

These two feminist publications, which champion feminist perspectives and minority struggles, chose to offer branded merchandise reflecting their editorial mission, with variations adapted to different budgets.

Gaze also offers t-shirts featuring emblematic feminist quotes as well as sticker sheets, postcards, posters, and reproductions of works by artists it collaborates with. All of this runs parallel to subscriptions, positioning these merchandise items within a broader strategy.

For its part, the magazine Censored is offering a limited selection this winter: just a knitted balaclava. At other times, the media has offered socks, scarves: items that last, produced in measured quantities to avoid excess.

Acquire branded merchandise

When?

For a key date in your media, permanently on your site to ensure steady revenue, or during an event campaign: many good opportunities present themselves.

Who is it for?

This could be as a gift for colleagues, for your team, for partners, in exchange as part of a pre-sales campaign, or for sale to your community.

Why?

To connect with your target audience, create indirect advertising that builds awareness of your brand, and add value to your media's editorial direction. Branded merchandise in your media's colors is an asset that helps bring people together and promote your work.

How?

Do it in a way that's true to you and that will resonate with your community. It's not about mindlessly churning out masses of stuff, but rather having a message to communicate by offering a well-made, fit-for-purpose object produced locally and thought through from start to finish.

What items?

These can be printed items: postcards, illustrations, posters, stickers, notebooks, or textiles: embroidered badges, fanny packs, sweaters, socks, or accessories: badges, pins, mugs, pens, keychains, or even food products like chocolate.

Coordinate the chosen object or objects with your image, but also with the campaign you are running and the themes you promote to justify creating these products. Whatever you choose, it is essential to carefully design the visual in order to make it a rich and interesting product that goes beyond simply placing a logo on it.

How to develop your merchandise?

The sooner you start, the better. Producing items takes time: market analysis, quotes, samples, marketing, manufacturing, delivery, packaging, labels, shipping… All of these tasks take considerable time that's best planned ahead for.

To get started on the right foot, create a project timeline — using an Excel spreadsheet, Google Sheet, or Notion — that accounts for all necessary elements along with your budget, deadlines, objectives, target audiences, priorities, and so on. Update it regularly as you progress.

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Discuss this with your team: it's essential to agree on this topic. Talking about it will help you find interesting ideas and share tips and suppliers. You may potentially need more than one person for this task, as it's time-consuming. You can also poll your community via social media to find out what they would like.
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Make sure that what you choose aligns with your image. It's quite inappropriate to offer products made on the other side of the world if you champion environmental causes — and generally inadvisable to order from companies that don't respect basic ethical and ecological principles, especially since merchandise has an image problem associated with waste. It's better to promote local products, made in France or Europe, and work with companies offering sustainable or artisanal materials. Keep in mind that merchandise is an advertising tool; you don't want it to backfire on you.
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To properly prepare production, you need to know what quantity is necessary. Producing too much or too little could cost you money or waste resources. If you don't have visibility into quantities — such as with a pre-sale campaign with rewards — try to make educated estimates. If you're unsure, it's better to produce too much, provided the products are timeless and reusable (avoid dated or contextual messages like "Happy New Year 2024"). You can base this on an illustration or slogan, for example.
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As for quantity, the larger your order, the lower the unit cost. It's also worth noting that some companies manufacturing derivative products won't take orders below 100 or even 1,000 units in some cases. You may need to turn to more expensive options if you have a very small quantity to produce.
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To anticipate additional costs, quickly integrate shipping into your plan. The larger the item, the higher the shipping rates will be.

Build your derivative products strategy, step by step

You can find below a practical document to implement the learning from this sheet in your own project. To do this, click the button and follow the instructions.

Access the document

To go further

A few suppliers:

  • merchery: the most original, offering a varied range of options from basic to premium, you'll find all imaginable products here. They also collaborate with brands like Rains, Patagonia and Moleskine. Good customer service, based in Brussels.
  • genicado: products made in France and affordable prices, French customer service. CSR commitment and eco-responsible.
  • atelierbox: eco-responsible and affordable products. Everything is made in France or Europe. There are also many partner brands.
  • saxoprint: printed products (calendars, posters, cards…).
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The sites mentioned above are fairly general; you can also go directly to specialized sites specific to each product. Some deal only in textiles, others only in objects. Always check online reviews — or those of people you know — about the sites you're visiting. This is a sector where you can easily encounter scams, defective products, or nonexistent customer service. All of these are things that could put you in a difficult position.

Before leaving

🛠 Done reading and completing this sheet? We need your feedback! A question or comment? Write us a message at [email protected]. Thank you for your help, the Médianes team.

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