It is the dream of many to make money doing what they love and if what you love is being a musician, there is an extremely large market for you online. You can actually make money online as musician, but if you believe it will all come from streaming services such as YouTube, Apple Music, and Spotify, you will be sorely displeased. These avenues should mainly be utilized as a way to promote your music, but will not be real revenue streams. Generally speaking, you will gain $3 or $4 for every 10000 streams with these sites. Your real money comes from active fans. 100 active fans can actually generate you more revenue than 10,000 followers, so it is not always about how many viewers you have, but how actively they are pursuing your music. Look at how, when, and where your audience is consuming your music or content and take it directly to them.
How Big is Your Audience, Exactly?
When you are looking to make money as a singer, rapper, band, or any other type of musician, you want to go directly to your audience, but you have to find out who that is. If you are among the few musicians that have a secure following of active listeners, at least 300,000, you should invest heavily in advertising.
However, it is more likely, unless you have already established yourself as a money making artist, you have a more narrow focused audience. That is certainly not a bad thing, but you will have to focus more on attracting a smaller, but highly engaged group of listeners. Patreon is among the more profitable measures to employ. This platform is free to start, but once you begin earning money, it will require 5% of income generated from the site and general fees for processing payments through them.
How is Your Content?
Content is what gives your listeners something to look forward to. You are not likely to release new music on a daily or even a weekly basis, so solely relying on released music is not a very profitable option. The key is to know what content to purchase and release on a regular basis. Your listeners want your music, but they will also want to know that you are a credible resource for other content as well. Make your content available and the more exclusive your content is to your music base, the more money you will make from your viewership and ultimately, you will sell more products from your online store and other online resources. You can actually charge for exclusive content and users will certainly pay if there are no other free avenues to access the content.
How Engaged Are Your Users?
There are many different approaches to making money online through your music talents, but it all comes down to how engaged your users actually are. Take a good, hard look at who is online viewing your materials and how actively involved in your music and content your viewers are. If you have a very active viewership, with plenty of people actively looking at your content and consuming everything you put out, you could possibly, make money through a monthly subscription to your site. However, if your users are only somewhat active and you are still growing your market, you may want to offer an option to purchase or rent exclusive content individually. Users can buy what they want without being tied down to a subscription. For those just starting out without a huge following of active users, advertising remains as your most air tight option.
What Does Your Marketing Strategy Look Like?
When you promote your music online or anywhere else for that matter, you need to approach it as a true business and in business there are marketing strategies that work and those that do not. Marketing your music effectively will allow you to stand out in the crowd and make it as a musician selling music online. Tuneer.net is among the best ways to help fashion a marketing strategy that works for you based on the type of music you produce and the audience you intend on reaching.
This amazing music marketing software covers all the bases including, branding, finding an audience, advertising on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, PR services, organic Spotify promotions, and much more. Initially, getting your music out into the ears of your audience can be one of the hardest things to do, even with our current digital age. However, with advertising promotion software, such as Tuneer.net, the doors open faster and allow your music to receive more downloads and you, as an artist, to receive maximum attention.
Do You Have a Presence on Multiple Social Media Platforms?
Social media has become among the best ways to make money as a music artist, but simply having just one social media platform is not enough. Not all of your users are on one, singular platform and neither should your music. Essentially, if you market your music correctly, you can dominate virtually all social media platforms, but for this to work you might need a little additional help.
Ifluenz and AspireIQ are just two examples of avenues you can exploit to receive sponsorship deals to help you take over social media and finally begin making a profit from your efforts. All these sites require, initially, is that you have some form of following or influence already in existence on multiple social media platforms. Generally, most of these sites require that you have at lease 5,000 followers to qualify as an influencer. There are some with more specific requirements, but if you have already utilized all of your social media avenues and have a following, it does not hurt to apply for one of these sponsorship deal opportunities.
Final Thoughts
The music industry has always been finicky. However, one thing that it has always rewarded is persistence. Artists throughout the years that have remained persistent and understand that overnight success is unlikely, tend to have better overall success. You will not find success initially and even after months of trying, you may not see too much profit, but what is important is that you allow your music and your marketing strategy to evolve along the way. Everything does not stay the same and changing with the times is essential for your success in making money online as a musician. You can do it, but with the right help and persistence, you can do it and be a successful musician online just as you are already in your heart.
