Callie Crofts of Die Shiny

TRAININGS COMPLETED:

• The Buddy System
• Selling Tickets for Live Shows
• The $1-A-Day Traffic Plan
• Build The Perfect Artist Website
• How To Get New Fans Daily (Fan Finder)
• Ones & Zeros 101
• Make Merch That Fans Want
• Email Marketing for Musicians
• FREE + S&H Funnel Strategy

Please give us a brief overview of your merchandise strategy and offerings over the last 12 months:
I do NOT mess around when it comes to merch! I have adopted the mindset that merch sales are the #1 way for this band to make money that can then be used to drive our business. Thus, I put in massive time and effort making one-of-a-kind, fun and collectable items.

I've designed all of our logos and artwork for both apparel and media, and have spent countless hours coming up with tie-dye patterns that make each apparel piece unique. We have a large variety of colors and options. From the very first one, we've never played a show without multiple people commenting that our merch table looks like a beautifully displayed retail store. Other bands are always especially impressed by our merchandising efforts as they throw a couple hats and stickers in a pile on a bare table next to our elaborate display 😆.

We have sold around $4k in merch this year, with a handful of customers purchasing up to 4 times, which I think is amazing for the fairly small following that we have. I've set up my shopify beautifully and don't cut corners on product photos and putting our personality into product descriptions.

Stores and Links:
- Shopify
- Website
- Instagram Merch Gallery

Please describe your best selling merchandise and your most unique/creative merchandise:
- We offer multiple apparel items in a "White Iris Dye" color that exactly matches the look of the stage costumes that our band has worn for every show in the past two years.

- Our first ever apparel item that is NOT one-of-a-kind was just introduced, and it benefits a cause that means a lot to me. As the front-person I plan to wear this bold statement shirt at every upcoming show and promo video for the foreseeable future to drive the statement home and encourage people to notice and talk about the cause.

- We're currently offering a vinyl/shirt bundle specific to one of our most popular songs. It's a lyric tee (in one-of-a-kind dye pattern of course) paired with a limited edition 7" colored vinyl. The song featured in the lyric tee is on side A, and side B has a completely secret song that will never be released anywhere else. The only way to hear the secret B-side is rarely at a live show or on said vinyl which is hand-numbered and signed.

Describe your fulfillment process for merchandise orders:
I do my best to always fulfill merch orders within 3 business days. My process includes:
- Custom-printed packaging with our logo
- Hand-written message of thanks
- Signing any media purchased
- Free sticker included
- Carefully folded apparel
- Sendle for label printing
- USPS delivery

I think customers should get giddy when they see the package, and feel like they are opening something special and thoughtful.

Please describe your best strategic merch offer to your fans over the last 12 months:
Anyone who has seen our band play live since our very first show knows that we have a stage uniform. All of our members wear all-white clothing that is tie-dyed a specific color. We change up the actual outfits sometimes, but they have always been the same color scheme. It’s been a fun routine that has got a lot of attention from our fans.

Our most recent song release was an activist song with a lot of purpose, so I decided to redo all of our branding imagery with new band photos, a new logo, and even a new look for myself as the front-person. I came up with the phrase “Involuntarily Complicit” to label my feelings of frustration for being a part of the war machine as a privileged person in a colonialist world. I decided to put that phrase in bold white letters on a black shirt with our new logo on the back, and give 25% of sales from that new design to Palestinian families trying to escape genocide.

We headlined our last show for the year shortly after the new song release with all of the accompanying new branding. As a way of making the show different and special while promoting the new shirt, I decided to usher in a new “darker” era for the band by wearing the new shirt on stage and having the whole band wear black to match the new vibe. We sold more of those shirts than any of our other ones that night, and I’ve just started promoting them on socials.

I’ve decided to mark this period of time as transition to a darker stage look that will fit the dark times we live in as well as the darker sound of our upcoming EP. The white stage look is now retired, and I plan to wear the “Involuntarily Complicit” shirt in every planned promo vid, interview and show in the foreseeable future in effort to display uncompromising solidarity and attract a community of people with whom this message resonates.

My plan is to share screenshots of donations from the sales of the shirt from time to time, tagging and thanking customers when possible. I want to create a powerful little movement around this item instead of just hanging it in a shop window and forgetting about it. Here is a clip of opening the show with the new look and shirt on stage. We have a lot of repeat show-going fans, and I think it felt powerful to them expecting the usual show and being greeted with something new.

Lastly, please tell us why you think you should be a finalist for the Merch Maniac Award:
I am such a passionate and driven artist. I have been stubbornly working to make music my living for well over a decade. I have sacrificed every other possible path I could have taken because I truly believe in my songs. I can honestly say I don't personally know another musician with more damn FITFON than myself haha. I do every bit of marketing, accounting, graphic design, video editing, and every other business management aspect of this band by myself. Not because I enjoy these things, but because I must make this successful somehow.

I am an introvert who has been pretty quiet in the indiePro community, but this company is a lifeline and a godsend for me.

My goal for the coming year is to connect our new website and mailing list to our shopify store and get our e-commerce machine properly running. Sadly, I had just accomplished that this time last year after having LOADS of trouble with my tech stack … and I decided to start over from scratch when y’all offered the new CRM (Thank you!!!) I did have some beginner automations and F+SH offers running at the time. It really took the wind out of my sails to have to start over.

I am feeling excessively motivated and can’t wait to have it all set up again soon. Being a part of the IndieAward Success Circle would be such a massive deal to me. My partner and drummer is an audio engineer, so between the two of us, we have every skill needed to make this project successful. We have song production down to an art, and every song is a catchy, memorable, expensive-sounding hit (there’s my brag, and I’m not kidding!) All we lack is a consistently and substantial budget. A little help and guidance from the best pros in the biz would launch us to the moon.