The New Music Marketing Model

A year ago, I wrote a passionate article on the merits of charging $15 when you sell your compact disc s. Some of my reasonings included: It’s tough for independent artists and you’ve a good music, so don’t short- differ yourself; you could always discount the compact disc  for special reasons (2-for-1 special); and, the “high” sales prices additionally includes your various costs. I made several addendums, but that’s the gist of it.

But now, if you head over to http://mp3.com/thebards and check out the Brobdingnagian Bards page at MP3.com, you’ll notice something kinda hypocritical…none of our CDs are priced at $15! What gives??

Well first let me say, yes, I do still believe in a $15.00 sales price for many artists. Certainly, it works perfect for folk artists, and singer/songwriter types. But my reason isn’t hypocrisy it is a dramatic change in our marketing plan.

You see, when all of us started out, I knew that the only “real” income available to indie artists comes from CD  sales and merchandising since royalties from ASCAP and BMI are a joke. So our plan has been to record every six(6) months or less and put out new material. By then end of final summer the indie process has been leaving us drained, and all of us were thinking all of us overextended. Then along comes MP3.com.

One of the things I have been raving about for the past few months is that MP3.com provides a new marketing model by provide ing “royalties” for listens to your music. And if you’re getting paid from individuals listening to your music. Then it needs to be conveniently available right?

Well, we’ve followed the footsteps of a lot of of the top MP3.com musicians and have about 40-50 tracks available on our website and more are coming every week. In doing so, we make a solid $20 a day from our website.

Now with each listen, the tunes are tracked on MP3.com on their music charts. You sell a CD, the tunes on that CD  will rocket up the charts. So you want the CDs to sell, because higher charting equals higher payback. Thus, our low price on MP3.com.

Now think for a second. If you’ve 40 tunes on your website like the Hillbilly Hellcats, you are the majority like ly going to make your 15 unique listens because your tunes are located all over the charts. There are plenty of tunes to select from. Thus the new marketing model no longer relies on compact disc  sales of $15.00, but listens. When you realize that you open yourself up to a whole slew of, in my opinion, easy marketing tactics that will make you more money from listens than selling compact discs from your website.

I understand this all seems simplistic, but the vast reality is the majority musicians on MP3.com are still running their band with an older marketing model that doesn’t yield the highest payback. So think about that for a bit, and next week, I’ve a guest writer who will give you an exhilarating promotional idea that could send your listens over the top. Then the week following that, I’m going to betray my secret that has my song “Tolkien” at #35 on all MP3.com…

Stay tuned. Same bard time. Same bard channel!