Hidden Money Strategies for Musicians
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This is an excerpt from my new book, The Five-Minute Music Marketer: 151 Easy Music Promotion Activities That Take 5 Minutes or Less.
When it comes to your music career, it’s not all about generating sales and making money. You do it for the joy, the creative satisfaction, and the positive impact your music has on people’s lives.
But creating revenue is also important. If you deliver value through your music, you deserve to be compensated. You have a right to prosper.
To improve your ability to generate revenue, you need to invest at least a little time into formulating ideas and plans – even if you have only a few minutes to devote to it.
In this post we’ll cover four money strategies for musicians that you can use to create more music income.
1) Craft a new sales offer
When I suggest that a musician should come up with a new sales offer, the typical response is, “Don’t I need to have a new single, album or piece of merchandise out to announce a new sales offer?”
The answer is NO!
There are many ways to generate sales. If you already have an album or two out, or T-shirts or hats available, fans should already be able to buy those at your live shows and from your website (as well as iTunes, CD Baby, Bandcamp, etc).
But you shouldn’t stop there. Throughout the year you need to make “offers” – limited-time, special sales that fans can’t get anywhere else or at any other time.
Spend a few minutes right now crafting some new sales offers. Some possibilities include:
- A discount on one or more items for a specific, limited amount of time.
- Rare bonus songs or behind-the-scenes videos that fans can get only during a special sales period.
- Grouping a number of your products (albums and merch) together into a specially priced bundle.
- Offering a live streaming concert to fans for a small fee.
- Offering a special perk (like music lessons or dinner with the band) to the highest bidder.
All you need to do now is spend five minutes generating a list of possible money-making offers. You can evaluate them later. In fact, you’ll do that in the next step.
2) Plan your upcoming sales promotions
Now that you have a healthy list of music sales offers, find a few minutes to go over the list and evaluate the ideas you wrote down. Which ones are you most enthusiastic about? Which have the most profit potential?
During this rating session, get out a calendar and plan when you will make these offers throughout the year. Which idea should you act on this month? Next month? During the spring or summer? During the holiday season?
Add these sales offers to your calendar and have a reminder system in place. You need to allow time to prepare and implement each idea. Doing this now will lead to more music sales in the months ahead!
3) Make a list of bonus material you could offer
Just because you make a new sales offer, that doesn’t mean you always have to offer a discount. In fact, one smart way to create music income is to charge the same price but offer some rare bonus material for a limited time.
What could you offer as a sales incentive bonus? Some possibilities include:
- Live versions of your studio songs
- Acoustic versions of your songs
- Early demo recordings
- Tracks that didn’t make it onto your albums
- Alternate takes or mixes of your most popular songs
- Exclusive interviews with the artist or band members
- Private video tours of your rehearsal space or tour bus
What else could you record, make or gather to use as a sales perk?
4) Brainstorm bulk sales opportunities
Most physical album sales take place one fan at a time. That’s great. But how might you sell five, ten or fifty CDs at a time? Take a few minutes to do a brain dump of all the ways you might sell multiple quantities.
An association of massage therapists in Florida once purchased 40 copies of my Soul Massage album (an electronic music project I did with my girlfriend). Even though the CD didn’t feature “massage music,” the president of the organization liked the songs and the name and gave them as gifts to her members.
Can you think of a company or organization that might give your CDs as gifts if the price was right? What about a retail store, doctor or fitness instructor? Jot down any ideas that come to mind.
To learn more about the The Five-Minute Music Marketer, visit http://bob-baker.com/buzz/five-minute-music-marketer/
-Bob
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