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 Selling
Your Music Online -
A Reality
Check
Article by David Nevue - July
2005
Back to Internet Music Promotion 101
I
am often asked how much money
a person
can really
make selling music online. I
hear both extremes, both from
artists who think they'll use
the Internet to make it rich,
and others who don't believe
anyone can make any money online
selling
music. The truth is somewhere
in between.
What
follows is a brief, edited excerpt
from the introductory chapter
of my book, How
to Promote Your Music Successfully
on the Internet.
Will
You Make Millions?
Let’s
get real for a moment. Promoting your music successfully on the Internet is hard
work. Don’t ever forget that. I’ve spent years doing this. The
Internet is not a shortcut to success -- it’s simply another tool, one that can
be very effective in the hands of someone who knows how to use it. Still, it’s
important to have realistic expectations before investing your time and money
marketing your music online. You’re going to face some very heated competition.
There literally tens of thousands of musicians out there who already
have web pages on the Internet (as of this writing there are over 98,000
artists registered with CDBaby.com alone). How can you compete with all those
musicians? They are just the tip of the iceberg, though. Once you embark upon
your promotional journey, you are, in a very real sense, competing with every
other web page out there. How can you possibly stand out in that crowd?
Pretty daunting, isn’t it?
According
to the Neilsen Netratings web site, there are over 299 million people actively
using the Internet. A Georgia Tech survey of actual buyers
provided some very interesting statistics: 70% of all buyers searched for the
item they bought, 16% searched for a topic related to what they bought,
and 4% searched for the name of another product which led them to the final
product they purchased. Adding it up, 90% of all buyers used the Internet as a
modern-day, digital Yellow Pages. So the question is, what does this tell you
about selling your music on the Net?
Quite simply, it means that creating a web page
to sell your music is not enough. That’s something I discovered
very early on. Even if you submit your site to the search engines, you’re not
likely to see a significant traffic increase. Think about it. If 90% of the
buyers out there already know what they are looking for and are searching the
Internet for that particular item, how will they find you, someone whose
music they have likely never heard of? If they are not looking for you, they
won’t find you. So, what ARE they looking for? Therein lies the key. Here’s
the slap-in-the-face reality:
In my experience, the average
musician sells between two and
five CDs a year from their web
site. Sales that low do not
justify the expense of putting
your music online. Can you do
better than five CDs a year?
Yes, you can do much, much better,
but only if you have a quality
product people care about and
market it properly. Let me be
up front with you. To succeed
on the Internet, you must prepare
yourself for the long haul and
prepare to work hard. Success
on the Internet won’t come overnight.
As
you read on, keep the following
questions in the back of your
mind. They hold the key to successful
online music promotion:
1)
What is unique about
my music?
2) What
general style of music are
my fans most interested
in?
3) What other
artists do my fans compare
my music to?
and
most importantly...
4)
Who is my target customer?
5) What kind of information
is my *target* customer
searching for on the Internet?
6)
How can I use that information
to bring that target customer
to my web site?
To
answer the question I posed
at the beginning of this article,
no, you are not likely to make
millions on the Internet doing
just music. But you can bring
in a good, steady income. In
2004, I was able to generate
an average of about $6,000 per
month in total sales just from
the Internet (that doesn’t include
gigs and CD sales at gigs).
This
income comes not only from CD
sales, but sheet music sales
(of my own music),
book sales, partnerships, advertising
revenue, and other sources.
But every single thing I do
online is related to the music
business I love.
It's
Not Just About the Money...
There is still the question of using the
Internet to advance your music career, and that’s something the Internet can
help you do also. I’ve been able to generate a lot of publicity for my music
online, and as a result not only do I sell CDs, but I often receive requests to
have my music used in independent film and media projects. I’ve negotiated
three distribution deals overseas as a result of someone finding my music
online. One company is using my music on an internationally distributed DVD
series that raises funds for various charities. Even NBC contacted me to inquire
about using my music in a made for TV film. Finally, I’m playing a lot more
gigs in a lot more places as a direct result of marketing my music online and
as you know, the more you play live, the more doors get opened up for you. You,
like me, can use the Internet to create a huge amount of exposure for your
music. The more exposure you generate, the more likely you are to gain new
fans, sell more music get more gigs and of course, make those contacts you want
to make within the music industry.
The
above a brief, edited excerpt
from the introductory chapter
How
to Promote Your Music Successfully
on the Internet.
-----
David Nevue
is the founder of The
Music Biz Academy
and Whisperings:
Solo Piano Radio. He is also a professional pianist,
recording artist, full-time Internet musician, and author of the book, "How to Promote Your Music Successfully on the Internet."
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