So, you've taken the time to hone your craft, you've built your beat catalog & now you're ready to start making money from your beats. After all, you see other producers online who seem to make a fairly decent living from their music & your beats are much better, right? The internet is a complete goldmine when it comes to finding customers for any business!
The problem is, most people just jump from one thing to the next, hoping for a big pay day. Without a system established, you're likely to run into frustration early on.
I was once in that same boat, watching & re-watching countless YouTube videos to no avail. You know the ones where they waste a good 20 minutes of your time beating around the bush, never quite explaining anything relevant to your problem, while trying to sell you an e-book at the end of it? Yea, those.
I'm here to tell you that honestly, there isn't "secret method" to selling beats online (sorry). Owning your own music production business is just like any other business. It takes a lot of hard work, dedication, planning, education, trial, error & execution to carve out a groove for yourself amid the ever-growing list of online musicians.
I've written this step by step guide to help you navigate your way onto the playing field so to speak.
Part One Will Cover:
Securing Your Domain
Securing Your Store Front
Securing Your Domain
There are many different companies out there who can offer you a domain name. You shouldn't be paying more than about $20 per year in order to keep your website accessible to the public & all of your prospective clients. Please keep in mind that although domains & website hosting are included under the same umbrella, they technically are not the same thing (kind of like mixing & ma... never mind, you get it).
Many SEO experts recommend that you incorporate your main keyword within your domain name if possible. Keep in mind that your domain name will most likely be your customers' first impression of you. Be sure to think long & hard about what you would like to name your beat business, because having to re-brand later on will be a pain.
Securing Your Storefront
There are many websites out there that you can upload your beats & showcase them for the world to listen to enjoy (& possibly even purchase!) While sites such as SoundCloud, YouTube & others are a great place to have your beats, I would not recommend focusing your attention on those sites at first & here's why:
Minimal Control:
Once you upload your beats to one of those sites you, can't customize anything but your titles & tags. You're basically at their mercy.
Lots of Competition:
On a website like YouTube, there is a ton of other people uploading their videos. Knowing this, I'm sure you can imagine how easy it could be for your music to get lost in the sauce.
Utilizing these other websites is not by any means a bad thing, it's just more ideal to use them in conjunction with your own piece of virtual property (website) instead of making their property your primary storefront.
Think of it like this, it would be GREAT for your store to be in a mall. But Don't you think it'd be better however, if your store was in a place where only YOU offer the types of products you sell? That's why having a beat player & your own place of business is vital.
How to Stand Out
Your Own Website:
There was once a time when it took a lot of know how in order to even hire a person to build a site for you. The days of that are long gone. With all of the drag & drop builders you can have a website up & running in just minutes!
I would still recommend linking with someone who's good with that type of stuff if you're not comfortable with it (or you could join IHQ). This is because those sites only offer templates to work from. This means that if you don't know how to customize it to your liking, you may end up with a website that looks just like someone else's.
This is what separates the sharks from the fish...
Points to Remember:
Get Yourself a Domain
Get Yourself a Beat Player
Build Drag & Drop Website
Thanks for Reading Part 1!