You work to make music - it’s an extension of who you are, and what you do. As part of being a musician, wouldn’t it be nice to use this music to support yourself and further your career?
While you might think there’s not much money to be made in selling music anymore, putting effort into it can result not only in sales, but also in more people loyally supporting the artists they love.
To successfully sell your music online, get set up to be effective and efficient. You’ll learn as you go with each new release, and your fanbase will only get stronger over time as well.
How to sell music online through your website
1. Decide what you’re going to sell
2. Create a website to sell your music
3. Add your music to your website
4. Consider bundling options to sell your music
5. Set up your payment gateway
6. Promote your website to sell your music
First of all, to sell music online, you’ll need to build an effective, mobile-ready website. Think of making a music website as building the hub for all of the efforts you put into marketing your music and building your brand online. This is the spot where people can visit to find out more; whether they discovered you on a Spotify playlist or saw a Facebook ad, draw them to your website to make them into a fan who can actively support you as your career grows.
1. Decide what you’re going to sell
Selling music online is a long game. You want to be sure you’re setting yourself up for success. If you’re putting effort into selling music from your website, dedicate some time to deciding exactly what you want to sell.
Choose to sell music that interests you, and that you can continue to make. Behind your music sales are your fans, and you’ll want to keep things consistent to attract a base of support that has the potential to stay long term.
What to sell online with your website:
- Singles
- Full albums
- EPs
- Digital bonus tracks
- Digital music files, like sample packs
- Sheet music
You might want to work on releasing singles, promoting and selling each one to your fans. If that doesn’t seem like much of a money maker, consider allowing your fans to pay what they want. You might be surprised at the amount a fan is willing to pay in order to support the creation of more music, especially as time passes.
If you plan to release and promote an album, selling your music should definitely be an important part of your marketing strategy. Take your fans along on your creative journey with a pre-order or crowdfunding campaign.
Another option is to create and sell sample packs. Once you’ve made the sounds and added them to your website, you can sell the same tracks many times to generate recurring revenue. Or, if you’re a classical, blues, or jazz musician, selling sheet music might be a great source of recurring revenue.
Once you’ve decided what to sell, create a plan that will remind you to create new music regularly. You can (and should) check back often to see how your current music is performing—you may want to re-calibrate goals or try something new, or add more of the same targets if your efforts are paying off well.
2. Create a website to sell your music
The best place to sell your music online is your own artist website. First and foremost this is because your fans can rest assured that all of the proceeds of their purchases will go directly to you, commission-free. More money in your pocket means more freedom to produce more music.
A music website also serves as a space where you can curate content and make sure it’s available any time—it won’t get swallowed up in a newsfeed or disappear from thought in a day or two. You can keep the topics current with news updates, and collect email addresses to stay in touch with your fans.
Setting up a website should be a simple and low-stress process. To get started, think about your music and your brand. A singer-songwriter’s website might look very different from a beat producer’s website. You’ll want to create a website that matches both your sound, and your personality.
You’ll want to gather your band imagery, and add a page menu that makes your music easy to find on your website. Next you’ll add content to your pages such as a music store or album feature containing your releases.
Finally, choose a domain name for your website, and be sure your hosting is in place. From there, you can start preparing your website to sell music. For a full runthrough on making your website quickly, check out: Preparing for your music website: a checklist.
3. Add your music to your website
Many musicians get set up to sell music on their websites and then move on to other things. This is totally understandable; with the quantity of marketing and management tasks that fall to independent artists, it’s easy to get pulled in all directions.
If you do want to make money by selling music online, create a music page on your website that’s a living thing. That means creating custom artwork, adding personalized information about each album or track, and, most importantly, updating the page often.
To successfully sell your music online, treat your music page as an ongoing project. This will help to get your music heard, and support the aim of creating a revenue stream.
While setting up your music page on your website, ask yourself: Why would someone want to purchase these tracks? What is it about my music that appeals to people? How can I make this page interesting, engaging—a personalized space that shows who I am?
Use your answers to set up your page with relatable images, text, and your music. Then check the page to be sure it’s clearly laid out and easy to scan. As a musician, you likely support other artist’s projects, so look at their sites and your own page with a similar objective eye. Make sure that the time and care you put into making your music is evident on the page.
You can also sell music on your website using a dedicated music landing page, or by adding a music feature to your website’s Home page.
Artist website: Mila Knight
4. Consider bundling options to sell your music
Selling digital downloads alone may not be a big money maker for you once your music has reached its peak following the initial release. But you can also sell your music in physical copies to make more money. If you are putting out an album, think about offering CDs or vinyl to increase sales. You can include a digital copy of your music with every physical unit sold.
Band merch is also a big seller in the music world and can help you reach more fans. Once you have added music to your website, consider also adding a merch store. You can sell typical products like t-shirts and hats, but include a digital download with each item to make sure your music is reaching more ears.
You can also get creative with music bundles. Try pairing a lyric sheet with a download, a set list for your album launch show, or a track with tabs included.
Artist website: Wil Project
5. Set up your payment gateway
Once you’re happy with how you’ve set up your website to sell music, you’ll want to use a payment gateway to make sales seamless. Integrate Stripe or Paypal into your music store so that you can accept online payments, including direct credit card payments.
Integrating a payment source into your website means that all of the sales go to you directly, without a cut going to an external host.
Once you’re set up to accept payments through your music website, you can double check your music sale options. Be sure that each track is set to the correct amount. Decide which products, if any, you’d like to give away (perhaps to build your mailing list), or which you’d like to set up to allow your fans to pay what they want.
A seamless shopping experience is important, especially on mobile, so using a payment gateway that functions well is a must.
6. Promote your website to sell your music
The next step is to get the word out about your music. The music promotion world is saturated with artists trying to be heard. The way you promote your music online can turn a casual listener into a super fan, so think about what sets your music apart, and where to find your true fans.
To start, add a call-to-action on your website’s Home page. You’ll want to drive traffic to your website, and when people land there, they should know right away about your new music. A call-to-action will direct their attention to what you want them to know about first. You can also add your newest music to your homepage directly so it’s the first thing anyone sees on your website.
Make use of social media, finding where your fans are and sending them to your website (perhaps to your Smart Links page) to play and buy your music. You can make use of your website’s analytics to help you find where fans are coming from, and how they are reaching your website, to see where you should concentrate your marketing efforts.
Be sure to make use of your newsletter, sending out emails when you’ve added new music to sell on your website. You can get personal with a newsletter, knowing that if someone has signed up to receive updates they’re invested in hearing from you and seeing you succeed.
Music promotion is a broad topic, and has the potential to spread any musician really thin. So if you’ve decided to focus on selling your music to create income, set clear and measurable goals, and be sure you’re encouraging people to support you by providing clear updates and purchase options.
Artist website: Kira Morrison
Will selling your music online rake in enough money to support your career? Maybe not on its own. But it is one of many ways to make money with music online, which, overall, will help sustain your development and allow you to create more music.
Why not share this with your friends?
Build a stunning band website and store in minutes
- Promote your music on your own unique website.
- Sell music & merch directly to your fans. Keep 100%.
- Grow your fan base with built-in marketing tools.
Free 30 day trial, no credit card needed.
Comments