Give fans the opportunity to support you

9 Mile Roots performing at Seacrets in Ocean City, MD. Photo by Garland’s Exposures.

[This article was written by Dave Kusek, founder of the New Artist Model, an online music business school for independent musicians, performers, recording artists, producers, managers, and songwriters. He is also the founder of Berklee Online, co-author of The Future of Music book, and a member of the team who brought midi to the market.]

One of the biggest complaints in the music industry is that people just aren’t spending money on music anymore. There’re all kinds of reports about how fans aren’t buying albums, that Spotify and Pandora are paying musicians cents, and that piracy is still damaging the industry.

We can be quick to blame other people when our music isn’t bringing in enough money, but what if I told you that it’s not the fans’ fault or that it’s not Spotify’s fault?

Believe it or not, a lot of musicians put a hard limit on their income and put a cap on their own potential. The traditional model that many musicians still base their career around puts all music fans into the same category. If you’re a fan, you buy a $10 CD or download, and if you’re really serious about the music you buy a $20 shirt or a $30 ticket. On top of that, you sell most of these products during set times – like an album release or a tour – and the rest of the year is slower.

However, most artists have some superfans who love their music so much that they would buy anything they put out. They would buy a vinyl with a special, limited edition cover even if they already owned the digital copy. They would pay the extra money to see you backstage at your gigs. They would give you money every month if you had something available for them to support because they love your music. They want to go above and beyond the price cap we just talked about in order to get access to you, to support you, or to forge a deeper relationship with you.

As you can see, if you’re only giving your fans the option to buy a $10 download, you’re missing out on a lot of potential revenue. In the words of Benji Rogers, co-founder of PledgeMusic, “There are people that want to spend. If you don’t allow them to give you money, it’s not their fault.”

Tier your offerings

So how do you get around this and start realizing your full potential? The first step is tiering your offerings and creating products at different price points to address your different fans. Your more casual fans will be able to buy your albums, but you won’t be limiting your superfans who will buy your full-access, meet and greet gig passes. Sell your music, merch, and tickets, but you can also sell limited edition products, customized or signed merch, or backstage passes, private online concerts, or Skype calls. Obviously you can get as creative as you want here, but with this one simple step you’ve increased your potential revenue.

Creating and managing multiple products on your own can be a big task, especially when you don’t know exactly what your fans want. You could end up signing 100 CDs and only sell 20, so it helps to use a platform like PledgeMusic to optimize the process. With PledgeMusic, you’re essentially setting up a pre-sale campaign. You create a lot of different tiered products and experiences and see which ones fans love before you put the time and effort into creating them.

Develop a constant revenue stream

The next step is to try to break out of that traditional revenue cycle of peaks and valleys and start developing income streams that bring in money while you sleep. The easiest option is to give your fans the option to provide donations for your regular free content like music videos, covers, and originals that you release daily, weekly, or monthly. This is usually a completely untapped revenue stream for musicians, but you can monetize it, and many of your superfans will be willing to support this kind of content.

It’s not very widely used, but you can actually collect donations from your fans right on YouTube when you release original music or even cover videos. The new YouTube card feature allows you to pop donation buttons right in your videos. If you want this strategy to work, make sure you actually tell your fans that they can donate. Because it’s a fairly new feature, not many people are even aware of it. Unfortunately, YouTube’s fan funding option only currently accepts Google Wallet payments, so it can be a little limiting.

Another option is to set up a Patreon campaign. With Patreon, your fans set up a recurring pledge and pay a certain amount every time you release a new piece of content. On top of that, you can actually reward fans for their pledges with cool perks like being able to see your videos a few days early or getting their name in your video. This really combines in the tiering strategy as well and is an incredible platform for indie musicians.

As you can see, there are plenty of ways to make more money from your music and you can turn this into a career. In the New Artist Model online music business programs you’ll learn how to turn your music into a successful business – a business where you are in control! You’ll create an actionable and personalized plan that will help you achieve a career in music, and you’ll be able to do it all with the resources you have available right now.

If you’d like more strategies like these, you can download this ebook for free. It will take you through some of the best strategies for indie musicians to help you grow your fanbase and your career.

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Source: Musician Resources