The Power Of Selling Direct

Posted February 5th, 2009 by nimbit staff

It’s true—our economy has seen better days. Though its taken a hit on a lot of Americans’ jobs, luckily, as a musician you may be exempt from that. It’s a known fact that even during serious economic hardship that there are a few things that people will always find money for—one of which is entertainment. Still, making a living just selling music is neither simple nor easy. The good news is today it is actually more feasible than ever, providing you can arm yourself with some knowledge that makes the difference between just hawking some songs and actually generating a sustainable income.

How and where your music is sold and distributed is a major component that determines your earning potential as a musician. Know the facts about how the mechanics really work, and you’ll start to make the right decisions. Electing to go the route of a labels deal or distributing via iTunes are not always the best deals. Through this arrangement, the artist generally only receives about a ten percent cut for the music they sell, depending on the deal (wired.com). What’s critical to understand is that just being on iTunes does nothing to help you sell more music, or promote your talent to the market; there are many other artists with bigger budgets behind them that will get the limited front page exposure you seek. More importantly, you are left in the dark about who is buying your music, and why—a key piece of marketing data that retailers are not willing to share, keeping you from profiting through re-marketing to those customers. Turns out, this is the key to your success and the reason why a different approach is in order.

There’s a clearly superior alternative: marketing and selling your music direct to your fans. What’s the advantage of this approach? For starters, you receive the lion’s share of the profit per song sold (can be a much as 80% or more,) and set your own prices. Lower prices means even frugal customers are more likely to buy. With direct selling, you have the option of lowering the cost of your product to increase sales or even bundling additional products together, and will likely still see more money at the end of the day because of it. Cheaper songs and better value means people are more likely to invest in your music, even as an artist who may be under the major market radar.

What else can this approach do for you? By selling direct you can collect critical marketing information about who is buying your music. If you pay attention to who is buying your music and what they like about it, you can give ‘em more of it. Let’s face it-- the reason larger corporations don’t want to do this is because it gives you more individual selling power and control over your product. This, of course, is what you want and need: the ability to play strategic offense in your music sales. To make a living off your music, you have to take on an active role in promoting your own product, just like any other smart businessman.

Selling direct also offers clear benefits to your customers. It gives them the opportunity to buy a good product directly from its source, making the entire purchasing process simple and effective. If a fan feels satisfied that they got what they wanted for a good price, and that the website was effective and simple to use, then they are likely to repeat the process. The best part of them having a good buying experience is that they are more connected to you, the artist, the source. Fans feel like you appreciate them, that they are contributing to your success, when they buy your music from you. Selling direct is about patronage-- this allows you to re-market your music and receive the repeat business of your fans.

Imagine the response you would get if you rewarded people who bought from you in the past with an exclusive, free track from your latest album before it’s released. Chances are, when the full album comes out, they will purchase it. Even better, they will tell their friends.

Ok, this is all great but where do you get the time and resources to properly set up and manage a complete direct sales program such as we just described? Good news here as well. There are a few online companies that provide tools and services that can help you do this, from online commerce to fulfillment and marketing tools that are designed to help you sell and market direct. With platforms like Nimbit, Topspin, Reverbnation and others, you can market and sell from many different channels that you control; you can publish storefronts on whatever website you want to sell from—your myspace, facebook, official website, and the like. These companise take a very artist-friendly approach that is distinctly different from that of traditional music companies, who are focused on accumulating corporate profits. The fact that a company will let you sell direct, and reap the benefits, (sharing in revenue when you succeed,) demonstrates in and of itself that their interest is aligned with yours. This means more people can access your music, and you have the opportunity to promote yourself and get involved with how your music is sold. Too often, when artists take a passive role, these terms are dictated for them and they end up waiting around for a few royalties instead of building a business doing what they love.

By knowing your audience and gearing your efforts towards making them not only a fan but a repeat customer, you will maximize earnings and build sustainable income that is entirely under your control. Don’t let money-hungry corporations take advantage of you. Direct selling will let you take back your power as an artist, and put music sales revenue back where it belongs: in your pocket. The revenue you will gain using this approach will allow you to more quickly invest profit back into your career, and expand your reach. Your growth potential as an artist is exponential when you have power over your own profitability.