206 – Selling Your Music in 2020: What’s Working & What Isn’t

Selling your music? Are you doing the right things to sell your music in 2020? Or is your strategy leaving you broke? Does it seem like nothing’s working? That’s what we’re going to be looking at in this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast. Podcast Highlights: 00:28 – You CAN sell music even in 2020 00:57 – Tip #1: Create more value 01:49 – Tip #2: Who do you know that’s selling lots of music? 02:39 – Tip #3: Make more offers 03:51 – Tip #4: Increase the number of asks you make this year 05:12 – Selling your music in 2020 05:58 – The Music Entrepreneur Code bundle Transcription: Hey, it’s David Andrew Wiebe. So, I wanted to dispel the notion upfront that you can’t sell your music even in 2020, because that’s just not the case. And I admit, this was an eye opener for me too when I talked to John Oszajca in episode 147 of the podcast a little over a year ago. But I started looking around, and sure enough, I quickly found out that there are plenty of artists selling their music, and some are even making a killing. You wouldn’t believe it. So, here are some tips to help you sell more music this year and beyond. Tip #1 – Create More Value If your sales are down, it could be that your offer just isn’t compelling enough. If your sales are down, it could be that your offer just isn’t compelling enough.Share on X Maybe you should experiment bundling up your products and offering merch items with your music. Or maybe there are other bonuses you could include your fans would love – you know your fans better than I do, and you’ve also got access to them through email and social media. So, if you don’t know, ASK. If the same old thing isn’t working, and it’s starting to grow stale, then maybe freshen up your funnel and double check to make sure it’s insane value. Because that’s what people are going to buy. Get your friends and family to look at it and get direct feedback from them. And by direct feedback, I mean go and meet them and person, log them into your website, and observe them as they look at your offer. I know that’s a little harder to do with the lockdown and everything. But think outside the box, you can still make this happen. Tip #2 – Find Someone Who’s Already Selling a Lot of Music & Ask for Their Advice Ask yourself who you know that’s already selling lots of music and find out what they’re doing. Is there someone in your social circle making a killing from their music? Set aside your pride and go and ask them what they’re doing. And don’t just go, “oh, that sounds like so much work, I would never do that” once they tell you what they’re up to – that’s just a cop out. Start modeling what they’re doing and track the results intentionally. If you can’t think of anyone in your scene that’s killing it, don’t let that be an excuse – start looking online and see who’s out there. Reach out and ask questions. If the first 10 people you email don’t reply, then ask 100 – you’re bound to get an answer or two. And If that still doesn’t work then tell them you’ll feature their answers on your blog, or podcast, or YouTube channel and link back to them. Really, you can do this. Tip #3 – Make More Offers The temptation is to promote the same offers over and over, in hopes that this will somehow lead to more sales. But if it’s not working, just stop the insanity cycle and start over! Like I said earlier, you should consider refreshing your offers too. But the other thing you might want to consider is making more offers. Stop trying to boost the same, tired offers you’ve been hawking for months and years and start creating new ones. Go back into the studio and make new music. Put together new T-shirt designs. And in some cases, you won’t even need to do that. You can even put together a compilation of your best songs and release it, you could put out some instrumental versions, do remixes or acoustic versions or whatever.