With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, musicians are starting to feel the financial pinch since their gigs are being cancelled. But being stuck at home doesn’t mean that you can’t make money from your music. We explore 11 ways that musicians can make money online.
The tips below are all easy to implement but will take some time and effort on your part. To effectively make money online, the first thing you need to develop is patience. In the beginning, you will make next to no money. After months of work, you might start to see a slow stream coming in.
Just keep at it, maybe try taking a digital marketing course, and in time, you will see progress.
1) Create a Website
If you don’t have a website for your band, you are already losing ground. While there are many revenue streams available online, your website should still be your focal point.
If you want to sell your music online, you need to represent yourself as a brand. By having a high-quality website, you will be able to better control your brand.
Not only can your website host your band member profiles, list your gear and gig dates, but it can also be a central point where you link all your social media accounts, and help you to point your audience to your other online revenue streams.
Once you have a website, a few new revenue streams will become available to you.
2) Online Store
The most obvious way to make money online is by adding an online store to your website. But what can you sell from your online store?
The first thing you might consider selling is your band’s albums, but there are many other options available to the savvy band.
If you want to sell physical objects, you should make some high-quality band gear. Just remember that your merchandise is a reflection of your band, so don’t buy cheap materials with the hopes of a larger margin.
You could also think about selling gift ideas like lighters, bottle openers, anything small that people might find a day-to-day use for.
You can also sell non-physical things from your store. You could, for example, create a members forum on your site, and have a premium area of your site locked behind a paywall. In your premium section, you could post exclusive content, or give members early access to your latest album.
You could also consider stocking the merchandise of other bands. You could then start to earn a commission on any sales your site generates.
If you have an online store, you can link anything you have for sale in blog posts on your website live the example we’ve got below. This is a great way to remind people reading your blog about the services or products that you sell.
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3) Gear Auctions or Raffles
It is not uncommon for musicians to auction gear to raise money. With how advanced technology has become, you could easily auction some of your band’s old gear online.
4) Blogging
The more traffic your website generates, the higher your earning potential. One of the most effective ways to get traffic to your website is through Content Marketing. Content Marketing encompasses a wide range of skills, but the most important of all is blogging.
If you are familiar with current digital trends, you will know that video is the most consumed medium of content. And while that is true, your blogging is still something you need to master.
The rule of Content Marketing is that 20% of your time is spent on creating content, and 80% of your time is spent on distribution. If you create a video on YouTube, you can increase the reach of that video by hosting it as a blog on your website.
Additionally, if your blog gets enough traffic, you can start to monetise your blog with adverts. If you want to see how much the traffic to a specific blog is worth in advertising revenue, check out: https://hypestat.com/
5) Offer Additional Services on Your Site
Another great reason to have a website is that you can advertise additional services.
If your band is capable of reading sheet music, you can advertise yourselves as session or cover musicians. You can also add a few galleries of high-resolution, professionally taken photos. That way any casting agents who are looking for bands to play roles in movies or adverts can find you.
Another good point to take to heart is that it can often be tricky for someone not in the music industry to know how to book a band. So make sure that your band is easily reachable via your website. The easier you make yourselves to work with, the higher the chances that people will want to work with you.
6) YouTube
In 2018, YouTube’s algorithm underwent a mini overhaul. With this update, YouTube has once again started prioritising music.
What this means is that people are more likely to be shown the music of pages they’ve subscribed to or interacted with.
As we mentioned earlier, video is currently the most consumed medium of online content. That means that if your band isn’t releasing video, you are not getting your name out there.
That doesn’t mean that you should be creating high production videos every other week. But you should be releasing content on a regular basis if you want to monetise it.
Have your band members record videos of their gear, or lessons. You could also consider filming playthroughs for each of your songs. If you go that route, you can sell the tabs for the playthrough on your online store. That way you can drive traffic to your site, generate a sale, and have people watch our video on YouTube a few times.
By now we hope you can see how your online channels can tie together, and be focused on your website.
7) Host Your Music on Streaming Sites
Once you’ve got an album or a few singles recorded, you should try to get your music listed on live streaming sites like Deezer and Spotify. Sure, at first the money won’t be great. But if you look at your entire online presence at once, every small bit adds up.
8) Patreon
There is an ever-increasing trend where musicians are giving away their music for free, or releasing their music on streaming services. As already mentioned, this has led to the decline of physical CDs.
The old school way of thinking was that this is proof that the music industry is dying. But to the new digital age band, there are opportunities beyond CD sales that the old guard hasn’t considered.
Patreon is the perfect example.
With Patreon, you can offer your audience different reward tiers based on how much they are willing to donate monthly. All that you need to do is ensure that what you’re offering worth how much you are charging.
9) Online Lessons
Once a band starts to become popular it’s not uncommon for their fans to want music lessons. If you want to offer online music lessons, there are three options available to you.
First, you can offer live, one-on-one Skype lessons. By charging a flat fee per hour, you can find students from all over the world.
The second option you have is to sell training videos. For your training videos, you can select a specific topic, like sweep picking for example, and record a 20-minute lesson. You can also offer free resource packs with the videos.
The third option is a subscription service, where people pay a set fee per month, and get x-amount of live lessons, or access to all lessons, or however, you want to structure it.
10) Fiverr
While many people locally may not yet know Fiverr, it is one of the fastest growing platforms where musicians can sell their music.
Fiverr is an online community where people and bands sell their services starting at $5.
11) Live Streaming Concerts
There is a growing trend where trade shows are becoming digital. That upside is that now people can attend industry trade shows, and not have to spend huge sums of money on travel and accommodation.
If your band is creative, you could make use of similar technology. We published a piece exploring all the benefits and options for live streaming for bands, schools. {Read the full piece by clicking here}
We’ve given you our 11 Ways to Make Money Online With your Music, but we’d love to know if we missed anything. Tell us in the comments how you’re making money online in 2020.
