Anyone at all involved with music production and marketing will know that things have changed forever in the last few years, and continue to do so at what can be an alarming pace. People interested in selling their music face an uncertain market that seems to be still looking for the best method of dissemination considering problems like internet file sharing and illegal downloads.
What has become clear is that giving away music for free has to be at least part of a strategy for distributing music. Major artists frequently release free singles or even whole EPs to be downloaded by the masses. A few have even tried releasing their main albums for free or voluntary donations, with varying success. Sites have sprung up that offer free use music downloads or other similar campaigns, and there are sure to be more ideas coming into action every day.
What should be thought about is how to take advantage of the standards that have emerged and use them to your benefit. Trying to get people to be completely moral with regards to purchasing your music may be swimming against the current. Also, consider that the more free your music is, the more it will be promoted and exchanged automatically by people who like it. This is the most powerful form of promotion, because it costs you nothing in terms of time or money.
Since giving away music for free has such benefits, the question should be how to profit from doing so. This may seem like a strange proposition, but consider that many entire industries run by giving their service away for free, like television shows for example. They profit from the ads, not the viewers actually paying anything.
Advertisements are not the only way this can occur though, and someone interested in making some money from their art should start thinking about other ways. Donation based methods can work for some people, and they have the advantage of being easy to set up. One of the problems with this is that we have a culture who mostly just recognizes compulsory payments, and does not find virtue in donations to service providers.
Another method is to use the free dissemination of music to bring you other opportunities. Film composers may be interested in this method. For example, if you release your music for free and someone hears it who may be a filmmaker, your profit would occur down the line if they then ask you to score a film.
The bottom line is that things have changed and new methods of monetizing music have to be thought of. This will require some creativity and testing, but overall the internet has given selling power to more people than ever before, it just needs to be harnessed effectively.
March 5th, 2011. Music Marketing.
