People who want to sell music online should take their cues from traditional digital marketing. In particular, the “freebie” model is a great option for getting more buyers for your music. It lures people on to your email list with a free offer and then convinces them to become long-term buyers. It’s a very common way to sell many different types of products but surprisingly few musicians are taking advantage of this option so far.

Internet Marketing with Freebie Model

The traditional freebie model for marketing nearly anything on the Internet looks like this:

• Select an item that you can offer to people for free. This is generally a low-profit item that customers would take an interest in but that you won’t lose money on by giving it away for free.
• Create a unique landing page on your site that advertises what this product is all about. The web page will also have a form that the customer needs to fill out to opt into your email marketing list in order to receive their freebie.
• Advertise the freebie around the web. There are, of course, numerous ways to do that including the use of social media and advertising on other people’s related websites.
• Send the freebie to the customer. Once the customers start signing up for the freebies, make sure that you send them promptly. You don’t want to decrease your credibility by failing your customer at this point.
• Start an email marketing campaign. The customer is now on your email marketing list. Send them all of your email newsletters. Send them deals to buy additional products from you (since you already know they like a deal!). A good email marketing campaign will convince them to turn into paying customers.

Applying the Freebie Model to Marketing Online Music

This same model of Internet marketing can be used to sell music online. The freebie that you offer should be a music download that can be easily sent to the customer via an email link. After they have accepted the freebie, encourage them to buy additional music downloads, music ringtones, your CD or any other merchandise that you may have available.

Understand What Goes Into Internet Marketing

The freebie model is just one approach to Internet marketing and it’s not the only one that can be applied to selling music online. This model, as well as many others, requires that you understand several aspects of online marketing in addition to the model itself. You need to understand how to successfully attract people to your website. You need to know how to use social media. You need to be able to prepare and distribute a great email marketing campaign. The model itself is just the beginning; make sure that you study the skills to make the model useful.

Special Considerations for Music Marketing

Marketing music requires additional considerations that may not have been an issue for marketing other items. Hopefully if you’re trying to sell music online you’ve already thought about some of these things. They include:

• Make your music accessible online. It is very important that you make your music available for download online. Otherwise it will be too expensive to offer the freebies to your potential customers. You can do this yourself or use a third party but either way make sure it gets done.
• Videos can be a great way to bring customers to your freebie page. This is true of all Internet marketing, of course, but is especially true in the music industry since music videos can greatly enhance the audio that you’re selling.
• Don’t give away too much music for free. Many musicians make the mistake of making their music available for free on their websites any via video. Unless you have a lot of other merchandise to sell this cuts into your profits. Make clips available online but use your full songs for freebies and sales.

Your Thoughts

Is traditional online marketing working for you as a music seller? What other suggestions would you give someone trying to promote their music business for online, email, and social media marketing strategies?

This is a guest post by Vern Marker, a freelance writer who enjoys finding the right ringtone download for his iPhone easily.