WHAT IS MUSIC MONETIZATION?
When music, video, or other digital assets earn revenue in a virtual environment (e.g from streaming, online marketplaces etc…), it is referred to as being monetized. Music monetization generally occur in a variety of ways, with the most predominant ones being ad-and subscription revenue from online streaming, sales of music resources and services (e.g audio production and mixing services), sync-licensing, and other forms of freelancing or contractual work.
Achieving a reasonable earning from music can often be a long, difficult, and tedious process. However, with the correct approach and proper use of available resources and strategies, anything is possible.
In this article, I’m going to touch upon some of the available avenues and best practices for musicians, producers, and audio engineers to maximize their earnings and revenue.
BENEFITS OF MONETIZING YOUR MUSIC.
As one may expect, there are many benefits and advantages that come as a result of higher earnings from your music. With a greater and more predictable cash flow, new possibilities for conducting and implementing paid marketing and promotional strategies become apparent, better quality equipment and software can be bought, more investment in videography can be made, and more. This in turn may result in a larger number of streams and a more engaged fanbase – and ultimately, a better revenue stream.
MUSIC MONETIZATION STRATEGIES.
When it comes to the best strategies for improving and maximizing music revenue, it depends on the current position in which you are. This article is primarily oriented towards musicians who are at the initial stage of their music career and are beginning to experience an increase in revenue from music.
It is paramount for musicians to explore several different sources of music-related income in order to branch out and make the cash flow more predictable and stable. If for instance there is a temporary decrease in streaming numbers, other revenue sources, such as the sale of music services, can act as a back-up. That being said, it is also important to not spread resources too thin and focus on too many sources at once. Instead, decide on 2-3 different areas (e.g. music streaming, selling instrumentals, providing music-related services such as mixing and mastering, etc…) and allocate time to grow and establish these.
Read More: Music Marketing Starter Guide
Â
DIGITAL MARKETPLACES: A SALES CHANNEL FOR INSTRUMENTALS.
As a music producer, selling instrumentals is a key source of revenue. Several digital marketplaces exist to facilitate the purchasing and selling of instrumentals and accompanying licenses. Some of the most well-known and popular marketplaces are BeatStars, AirBit, and TrakTrain. These platforms allow producers to list their instrumentals for sale where they can be heard and found by recording artists who are in need of beats for their songs. As opposed to self-hosting a site, platforms such as BeatStars and AirBit provide access to an already established audience of targeted and interested customers and offer tools and features designed to aid producers in building their brand, connections, and online presence.
Recommended: BeatStars Vs. AirBit.
A common strategy is to use third-party sites, such as YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter, to upload and share audio previews of instrumentals and then re-direct listeners who are interested in purchasing a commercial license to a beat-selling platform to complete the transaction. The majority of online marketplaces for instrumentals provide template licenses and customizable distribution terms, as well as reliable and secure payment gateways, which adds a layer of trust for the customer.
How do you compete with the large number of sellers present on these platforms? What are the best ways to grow an audience on social media platforms like YouTube and Instagram? These are questions that often arise when discussing beat-selling and how to go about generating a sufficient amount of sales to break-even and earn a profit. The key is to carve out a niche for your particular sound. Instead of targeting what’s trending, find a niche that receives fairly large search volumes, but are not overly-saturated. On YouTube, for instance, you can take the “type-beat” approach and focus on artists who are emerging and on the verge of becoming well-known and target related keywords. This requires research, but with tools such as TubeBuddy or VidIQ, it is a fairly efficient process. Once keywords that exhibit exponential growth potential have been identified, a channel should be built around those keywords to maximize the possibility of ranking high in the search results.
What are ways to optimize an audio-preview video on YouTube? This a process that takes time, but the following recommendations are worth taking a look at:
______
- Have a consistent and regular upload schedule. Aim to upload 1-2 instrumental preview videos per day (scheduling tools can be used to streamline and automate this process).
- Research alternative keyword structures and combinations to optimize the video heading and description. For instance, instead of having a title such as “Artist Type Beat” you can expand by having a title written in the following format “Artist + Artist Type Beat Free Download 2023”, or similar. When extending a title, more searchable words are included, however, it is important to keep these relevant.
- Add time-stamps to the video. When it comes to audio-previews, time-stamps can be used to indicate the structure of the instrumental, such as the verse and bridge.
- Engage with your audience on a regular basis. Responding to comments, messages, and other forms of interactions are critical to forming an engaged audience. Additionally, the more engaged an audience is, the better a video is generally treated by the algorithm.
- Optimize and properly structure the video description. Although not as important as the heading, the video description plays an essential role in informing YouTube what your video is about. Allocate the first section of the description to keywords associated with the video (the beginning section of a YouTube description is believed to have a greater impact on ranking than text further down).
- Create playlists with similar videos to improve the user experience on your YouTube channel.
- Offer bulk discounts or other promotional campaigns on instrumentals to improve conversion rates. Providing free downloads for non-commercial usage is also a superb way of offering value to potential customers.
Selling Music on Your Own Website
Digital marketplaces come with a suite of features and tools to help music producers and artists connect and transact. However, they also come with a list of limitations that some may find is a constraint in properly building and expressing a custom brand. For instance, a prime limitation of many current marketplaces is that it is not possible to fully customize your store-front or sales site the exact way you want to. Often times, multi-vendor sites provide pre-built templates with restricted customization opportunities, making it difficult to stand out and offer certain custom services and products.
One solution to the above mentioned problems is to build a custom site for your brand. A plethora of resources are available to accommodate custom-built sites and solutions, both for those who are new to web development, and for experienced users. The open-source CMS WordPress.org combined with an e-commerce plugin, such as Woocommerce, is a popular alternative as it allows for near limitless customization. You are able to build templates from scratch or purchase a pre-built adjustable template and incorporate everything from resource blogs, newsletters, e-commerce stores, customer sign-up/accounts functionalities, and much more. Additional benefits with a custom site is that it is possible to perform more refined search engine optimization, making it more likely to rank higher on search engines and benefit from organic web traffic.
Discover: Are Websites Losing Their Role In Music?
With all the benefits listed, what are the cons of a custom website? Generally, it is more technically demanding to set up and manage a custom website. First you would have to purchase a domain name, find a hosting provider, install WordPress (or other applications you may use), manage site security, perform manual updates, manage and store user and customer data, integrate payment gateways, and more. Secondly, when running your own website you do not have access to the established audiences prevalent on many digital marketplaces. Sites such as BeatStars and AirBit have become well-known in the music industry, and artists looking to purchase instrumentals may visit these sites directly in order to find a producer to work with. Not having access to this means that with a custom site you may have to invest more into marketing in order to find potential buyers.
DISTRIBUTING MUSIC TO DIGITAL STREAMING PLATFORMS.
Perhaps the most common way to earn from music is releasing songs and albums on digital streaming services, such as Spotify and Apple Music. When music is distributed and uploaded to these platforms and somebody listens to the song(s), a royalty is earned and paid to the rights holder. The royalty payout rate varies between platform to platform, but is usually in the range of 0.003 – 0.005$ per stream. This may seem like a very low amount, and hence has become a topic of continuous debate in the music industry. This amount is further decreased if a song with several involved parties is released as the royalty rate is divided between multiple individuals or entities.
Explore Further: What is Digital Distribution?
However, the per-stream royalty payout rate should not act as a discouragement to distributing music. Streaming platforms play a key role in growing a music brand and building a global fanbase. As your music catalogue grows, and more fans stream the songs, the revenue from royalties will subsequently increase. For instance, if an artist who records, writes, and produce their own music manages to grow their Spotify page to 25 000 monthly listeners, and each listener streams on average 10 songs per month, the estimated monthly revenue is around 750$. This is an estimated revenue generated from just one streaming platform. The actual revenue when other platforms are accounted for, can be over 1000$ with the above mentioned stats. This demonstrates that although the pay-per-stream rate is very low (and should be subjected to debate/change), it is still possible to build up a stable semi-passive revenue stream.
Promoting your music and growing on streaming platforms can be done in many different ways. First you have to ensure that you’re profile is fully set up with a about-page/biography (this is usually added through the artist management tools provided by the likes of Spotify and Apple Music), custom playlists, images, and enough songs to retain listeners. Once this is done, you can begin exploring different marketing routes, such as playlisting, collaboration, PPC marketing, cross-platform promotion, media and editorial pitching, pre-release campaigns, and more.
Â
PAID MARKETING ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND SEARCH ENGINES.
Paid advertising campaigns are becoming increasingly popular for artists as an avenue to promote and market their music. These campaigns allow you to pay for targeted ads on digital platforms like search engines, social media, streaming services, and more. With the right strategies and tactics in place, paid marketing can be an excellent way to get your music heard by the right people on a global scale.
When planning a paid marketing campaign for music promotion, it is important to have a clear goal in mind. Are you hoping to reach a larger audience? Increase your followers on social media? Boost downloads or sales of your latest single? Knowing what you’re aiming for will help you create a successful campaign that is tailored specifically towards achieving those goals.
In addition to having a specific goal in mind, make sure that you’re prepared with all the necessary materials before launching your campaign. This includes having high-quality visuals, such as photos and videos of performances or promotional art work; using relevant hashtags; and making sure that all your links lead back directly to where someone can listen to or purchase your music (e.g. Bandcamp, a streaming platform page, a link-tree, or personal website.) Having a solid foundation established prior to launching a paid marketing campaign will likely lead to better conversion and retention rates.
Once a goal has been determined, and all material is ready, the next step is to decide on a marketing budget that will be used to cover the associated costs. The per-click price will vary depending on targeted keywords and how competitive those are. That being said, regardless of the budget size, it is generally recommended to spread out the spending across several days or weeks. This is to allow for sufficient data to be collected and analysed.
With larger budgets for advertisement, it is possible to set up sophisticated A/B tests to monitor the performance of different types of campaigns. For instance, several ADs can be set up with unique creatives and separate formats, e.g. long or short-form videos, pictures, graphic designs, and more. Different sections of a song can also be used in the marketing material to determine what performs best. Although properly implementing a varied A/B testing strategy requires a larger budget (the budget has to be spread across several ADs), it is still possible to get worthwhile results with smaller budgets.
Once a campaign is up and running, it is essential to measure the performance of your paid marketing efforts. Once your campaign has been running for some time and collecting data points like impressions and clicks, use those insights to identify areas where improvements can be made. Should adjustments be applied? Are certain keywords working better than others? What type of content is performing the best? Analysing these results allows you take full advantage of all the opportunities available through paid advertising campaigns – ultimately leading more listeners straight into becoming dedicated fans.
