Content creators who don’t have business sponsors yet have often struggled with keeping up with the demands of producing content and earning money at the same time. Unless they were also making rain through some other business or profession, content creators would often be hard up in paying for their bills and clearing enough cash to spend for their video creation and other production expenses.
Digital ad revenues had become like a gold rush of some sort for vloggers and content creators. And in no time, numerous content creators have become online influencers and internet celebrities. With enormous talent and creativity, they’ve succeeded in earning the trust of their niche audience, giving them credibility as they endorse well-known brands. Influencers then realize they can sell their own custom products and merchandise, making a profit from them.
Here’s a brief article on everything you need to know about influencer merchandising.
Choke On Ad Revenues
If all influencers had the same volume of advertisements that television stations and programs received, perhaps they wouldn’t think of developing their own merchandising revenues. Maybe they won’t have the time to even think about it if they were receiving a surplus of advertisement placements. But the current reality is that there’s been very limited yield from digital and online advertisements for most of the average online or digital influencers.
More so, mainstream broadcasting and television channels have also set up their own digital channels and funneled the ads they used to get in their traditional channels to their digital platforms. This effectively choked the revenue streams that could’ve gone on to the influencer channels and sites.
Search For Ways To Monetize Fame
These restrictions and limitations on the ad revenue streams of vlogs and influencer channels have spurred influencers to rethink their business models. These have forced them to look for other opportunities while being able to do what they love most - which is doing what they do in their vlog or influencer channels.
One of the revenue streams that a lot of influencers have been going into is to sell their own merchandise. Many influencers have become popular and famous online, so it’s quite easy to pitch any product. Maybe they’re not considered celebrities in the traditional sense of being on television all the time, but somehow, many of them have become really well-known and even respected in their own niche communities or markets. There are even some whose words have become a source of authority for their viewers and followers. Whatever they said was the final word for some.
This makes it logical for them to try to cash in on their fame or popularity by coming up with their own merchandise brands and products. Some have even been creative enough to come up with their own brand names or trade names and logos for their vlogs or influencer channels. Their followers have been quick to buy their products and merchandise as a way to show their support for them.
The key thing here that drives this support from their community followers and supporters is really the trust and credibility that they’ve built over time. This is an important thing to learn in marketing and retailing merchandise. It’s that most of the time, people will believe the words of people that they’ve come to trust rather than believe some catchy lines in an advertisement. The underlying thought here is that people tend to trust other people that they find credible, more than they would trust brand names.
How To Make It Work
Merchandising has always been a powerful way to express individuality. It’s something that’s intimately tied to the influencer’s personality. For their followers, they’ve been quick to scoop up the merchandise because it makes them feel that they have a real connection to someone they respect or even admire. Because of this, merchandising has become a highly lucrative business opportunity.
In fact, influencers have seen quite some success in selling merchandise which has their own logos and brand marks. Some did it as simple as creating their own logo and putting this on t-shirts and hoodies, which they then sell on their channels. This isn’t really a new thing. Even before the online selling explosion, celebrities and endorsers found it a strong source of revenue to develop their own brands and merchandise and then sell them to their own audience.
To help you start, here are some of the things you can do to make influencer marketing and merchandising work through your vlog or influencer channel.
Conclusion
With the current invasion by traditional broadcasting media of the digital space, there’s been more competition to corner a sizable pie of the digital advertising revenue. This has shrunk the revenue ads of quite a number of influencers. And as a result, they’ve been exploring other ways to generate income from their vlogs or influencer channels.
Many of them have been enticed to create and sell their own merchandise to their niche community of followers and supporters. After all, this is a growing market segment, and many have already cashed in on their online popularity by selling a wide array of merchandise products of their own brands.
Also make sure to recycle used merchandise to best of the abilities
