If I’m completely honest I’ve never sold music in my life but I do know how to sell products online. I’ve received training from market leaders like digitalmarketer.com and wealthy affiliate. I make a living out of promoting and selling products online and have helped people sell the weirdest things online.
Compared to the things I’ve seen, music is a pretty easy sell in the online world if you know what you’re doing.
I’ve known a lot of people that tried to sell their music online. Some tried to sell beats others entire songs or just lyrics. They all enthusiastically put their music online hoping to be noticed by people that need their services only to find out that the only one that paid genuine attention to what they were doing was themselves.
Sounds familiar?
It’s not their fault!
When the internet was young there wasn’t a lot of competition so putting your music online was enough to get exposure and sell music online. Nowadays there are so many people trying to sell their music you’re going to have to take marketing and sales more serious.
Putting your music online is one thing but finding methods to expose it to a highly targeted audience that’s willing to part with their money for your music is a different animal.
Let me make this clear…
I have zero intention to sell your music for you but I have every intention to help you with doing it yourself.
As a wise man once said:
Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime
This is why I created…
The 3 Steps To Selling Music Online
Step 1: Create a headquarters for your music.
You can’t make any money if people can’t go to a place to hear your music. This is why you need a headquarters where you can direct people to so they can listen to your message and your music.
You can create your headquarters on social platforms but if you do that you’ll always be a slave to their algorithm changes which aren’t always to your advantage.
This is why I advise making your headquarters a website. You can fully customize a website, there aren’t sudden changes that impact your business, and you use things like social media as tools to get eyes on your content.
To create a website you need two things:
1. Hosting
Hosting is the most important part of creating a headquarter for your music. A host provides you with space online where you can put all your content and function as a storage facility.
2. Domain name
Is a memorable name people can use to access the place where all your content resides. Ideally, try to get a brandable and relatable name which describes what kind of content the website visitor could expect.
Tip* Don’t spend months trying to come up with a name and waste time. Nobody knows what a “Google” is but its one of the most successful companies in the world.
Nowadays you can create quality WordPress websites within 10 minutes. Here’s an example of a WordPress website you can create on Siterubix.
Fully functional, fast and mobile-friendly made within 10 minutes.
SiteRubix gives you 2 siterubix.com domain names and unlimited hosting for free (No credit card needed)
you can use the tool right here to find out if your domain name is available.
Or you can go to siterubix.com and start building your own website right now.
Step 2: Marketing your website and getting eyes on your content.
You could have all-time great music on your website but if nobody knows about it you’ll never be successful. This is why marketing is important. There are all kinds of methods to get eyes on your content.
A few methods are:
Search engine marketing
Search engines are a huge opportunity when used right. Let’s check out how many people are on search engines like Google which potentially can buy your music.
This might not look like the most obvious way to sell music but Let’s look at how many people look for music to buy online by looking at the search history on search engines.
What you see here is a keyword tool that can find out how many times certain sentences and words are being typed into search engines. AVG is the average amount of monthly searches using a certain sentence. Almost 3000 people are looking to buy music beats on google. Can you imagine how many more people might have used variations of this sentence or are looking for songs, lyrics or anything else?
By optimizing your content to target people specifically looking for music to buy online and ranking for it your chances of making money raise infinitely. You do this through search engine optimization. It takes a while to get ranked but after getting ranked you’ll get daily visitors without ever needing to lift a finger.
Pay-Per-Click
The higher your content is ranked on search engines, the more visitors will be directed to your website. With PPC you can pay to get to the top of search engines. Compared to ranking for content, you’ll get to the top of the page immediately but you’ll have to invest money.
Social Media Marketing
Not only on search engines but also on social media there are a lot of people that could be interested in your music.
With the help of social media, you can build an audience of potential customers based on the relationship you create through the music you and things about your life that you post.
Social media sponsored content
Just like with PPC you can invest money in your social media strategy.
You can get more exposure by paying for advertisement on social media to get it in front of people outside of your normal circle on social platforms.
To make your music business successful you’re going to need to drive traffic to your website in one of these ways effectively. This is hard to do without having someone knowledgeable by your side or quality training. If you set up a website with siterubix you’ll get access to the FREE wealthy affiliate training ( No credit card needed ).
If you already have a website for your business and you just want to receive simple but effective marketing training you can sign up directly (again for free) on the wealthy affiliate website. Receive training on search engine marketing, social media marketing and get more eyes on your content.
Step 3: Surround yourself with people that can help with promoting and selling your music.
Imagine having more than 1000 of experts you can ask for advice with everything that comes with creating a high-quality website, promoting it and getting more exposure.
This is what you get when you join wealthy affiliate.
This is the platform on which I help people with promoting their website and the products on it. If you have any questions feel free to look me up anytime so I can help you.
The moment you join wealthy affiliate you’ll have expert help available 24/7 to help you with any kind of problem you might encounter when setting up your online business. They also give training in setting up your website, marketing, sales, branding they’ll cover it all in their training.
Got any questions about promoting your music online?
Promise me one thing… don’t be afraid to post your questions in the comment section of this post. I am here to help and would love nothing more than to help you create a successful campaign to promote your music with the help of online marketing. Hit me up if you need anything and I’ll be sure to get back to you within hours.
Hope to see you on the other side!
Myself and my band have recently come online to try and get some coverage…but we’ve only really got as far as Soundcloud – this article is going to be a massive help to us!
What are your views on the music promoters on websites such as Fiverr – would they be able to promote our music website properly? Are they to be trusted for such a reasonable amount?
Hey Chris
Thanks for the comment. I honestly haven’t had really good experiences with Fiverr. Most of the time I look for proven track records. I’m sure there are probably some good promoters on Fiverr but I’d rather look for people, courses or websites that already have happy customers such as wealthy affiliate. It’s been thriving for years now which really says something.
Hope this helps!
These are some great insights! I agree with you; once you have experience selling ONE product online, those skills can easily be transferred over to other products and services. Music is a very crowded space so I agree; you need a great website to stand apart from the crowd. Would you recommend going with a free or paid WordPress theme? Interested to hear your thoughts on it. Thanks!
Heey Danny.
Thanks for the comment. I think it depends on how savvy you are with promoting products and your brand. I remember not to long ago I saw a website of a hiphop producer who’s brand was kind of like “I’m making beats from my momma’s basement” and for some reason the free theme just fitted with what he was trying to show. However if you’re just starting out I would suggest going with a free theme.
Thanks for this useful guide about selling music online. My brother has a band and they are just wondering how to try to sell their music, apart from giving it away for free on YouTube.
Actually, the great thing about your article is that it could be applied to selling many things on the internet, not just the music.
Thanks again!
Heey Sandy
I think giving your music away for free on YouTube is a great way to get your name out their. I know some people that also made AMV’s so they can attach their music to something that is relevant now to get a larger audience. It could even serve as a gateway to get people to your website. In my opinion websites just give you more freedom to customize your headquarters in a way that communicates your message effectively.
Very well written article. I think indirectly you made it quite clear that if someone wants to get their music online that Wealthy Affiliate can completely help with that if they are willing to put in the time and work. Great advice that the way to go is by owning your own piece of virtual real estate like a website/blog This is a must read for anyone who wants to get anything to succeed online.
Heey Dale!
Thanks for the comment. After I’ve seen what wealthy affiliate has done for so many people I almost can’t help but mention it. I feel like it’s a heavily underated community that can help you with almost anything regarding making money online.
What a great site! I never thought of selling music online, but I’m thinking that might not be such a bad idea! Especially since I really do love music 🙂 I really appreciate the steps you took us through to help us succeed in that. I love how you suggested making a website as your headquarters for music that you sell. Thank you so much for all the great suggestions!
Heey Kaeyoes.
Thanks for the comment. People really underestimate what they can do when they have an actual headuarters that isn’t influenced by algerithms and other things. There’s a lot of opportunity when it comes to selling music online I hope you’ll take advantage of it. If you need any help let me know!
As I understand it, Wealthy Affiliate is a platform that allows you to build websites based on the popular WordPress platform, and they have a lot of information and training catered mainly for affiliate marketing.
As you suggest developing your own website to act as your “head quarters” makes a lot of sense.
If someone wanted to sell music, which of the current free WordPress Themes would you suggest they use, just to get started and to “wet their toes so to speak”? Or would you suggest that they opt directly for a paid WordPress Theme and if so, which one?
I always suggest to start with a free theme first so you have the freedom to look at more themes while your website is maturing. The way you look at things today might not be the same way you look at things in 6 months.
I like how you’ve discussed success in terms of three important steps: setting up a headquarters, getting eyes on content, and surrounding yourself with a community. While each is just as valuable, the last may be the most valuable. I can get the first two done, most likely, and do a pretty good job of it; but this is the sort of thing where, if you’re not doing a very good job–i.e., the best job possible–you’re going to be beaten. The competition will get the better of you and you won’t be successful. So I appreciate the need to be part of a community that would critique your work, worts and all, and give you positive, constructive feedback right where you need it and ensure that you can keep climbing up that hill. Thanks for the post.
Heey Kevin.
Thanks for the comment. I agree with you having a community where you can go to for help is essential. I would’ve never gotten as far as I have this quick if I didn’t have likeminded people giving me feedback and motivating me to keep going!
My brother is a musician and I always told him he should put his music online but he always said he had no idea where to start. Something that stood out to me was how you said to create a website due to the social media algorithms changing, and I had always seen social media as the main way to market your music, but you are so right, having your own website is a great way to have something more consistent and there’s a ton more perks because you can really customize it to serve your listeners better. But still using social media, social media ads they all go hand in hand. I agree that siterubix is a great way to start with building your own website. It’s been an amazing experience, especially with the wealthy affiliate support. I highly recommend people join, even if to just try it for free. Chances are they will be hooked and really see the benefits of joining premium. Thanks for these steps, as I’ll be forwarding them to my brother to implement them in promoting his own music.
The changing algerithms are one of the main reasons I created a website. I fully agree that everything goes hand in hand. I wish your brother good luck!
Great information here. It can be applied to so many things other then music as well.Step #3 is so important. Surrounding yourself with people who can help you to promote your music. I like how you can use the keyword tools like Jaaxy.
There are so many people online and so many ways to get your music out.
Hey Shy!
Thanks for the comment! I couldn’t agree more. Having a community of people around me that could give me feedback at all time was absolutely a gamechanger for me.