Conversation with a Manager: Selling Beats In 2015

S

sterlingrichard

www.SterlingsMusic.com
I'm not going to waste your time here. Let's get straight to a working formula to get you some sales or at the least, speaking to potential customers every day.

Visit my management thread here

1) Up your price.

If I am an artist on the path to millions, do I want to buy your $5-$25 track?

**** no, I'm going to steal your shit and never tell a soul.

What if I check my email one day, and I get a very professional looking email from a producer, and his beat prices are at the minimum, $100+?

I'm scared this guy has his/her shit copyrighted up the wazoo. I'm contacting him to make a purchase.


Very small increase, very powerful result.


2) Using Twitter

Search "send beats to" to find artists aggresively asking for instrumentals to listen to. Some are customers, some are future customers. It's your job to be in their inbox. Whether you send one tagged mp3 is at your discretion.

Gather all the emails from a 24 hour period and individually send each artist a message.

3) Portfolio

If I'm spending money on buying beats, and you charge me more than $200/ea, having your own website would make me happy. I don't have an explanation. It just makes you look like a professional.

I don't mind Soundcloud.
I don't mind Soundclick, if you have a unique paid theme.

See MelroseZee.com (Extrodinary producer; with whom I've done business with)


Other strategies for acquiring customers/potential customers:

  • Have one page on your website where traffic can submit their email to receive one free instrumental. Create a instrumental to use and tag it once. Request members to only submit their email if they purchase instrumentals. Anticipate.
  • Use Google, Bing, and Facebook advertising to direct traffic to your portfolio. More traffic more customers. Increased conversions by linking your email page.
  • Develop a local presence - you have a friend of a friend who is an artist. If he likes your music, you're great. If he's already paying you, you're even greater.


Thanks for reading. God bless.
 
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The Twitter search tool is very underrated.

If more producers actually took time out to use it to find opportunities and to start conversations, they'd have much more success on there. It's the main reason my Twitter saw growth in the summer of 2012 - I took the time out to find conversations, and I joined in with valuable input.

These are three simple, yet excellent tips. I guarantee only 5-10% of the people who see this thread will actually take the action you've advised. Not because they think it's bad advice, but because of their lack of belief in themselves and their lack of work ethic.

Cheers,
Jordan
 
Great advice and I really appreciate the post. I just started getting into the Twitter game a few months and just did the search you recommended - potential clients galore.
 
The twitter tool is very useful I've had a lot of sales by using that exact method. What helps is talking to the customer like a human being and not pounding him with "BUY THIS BEAT RIGHT NOW, HOT SHIT FAM" Also if you send beats only upload a snippet. If you send a professional email and 2 beat snippets and the beats are good and mixed well this should make the customer want to hear more beats/ask about the beat - which means the START of "building a relationship with the customer"
 
IRO increasing prices to $100 plus, I think producers get scared of doing this because a lot of their "competition" are charging $1-25 for a beat. They think they will miss out on some business by being more expensive.

In truth, you're just focusing your efforts on a new market: the rappers and singers who want to be successful and will do anything it takes to get there.

The problem is, your beats need to be exceptionally good to operate in that market, and will often require more effort than the $1 (throwaway" priced beats, because $1 is easy to come by and I've seen many rappers go on a rampage spending $100 on cheap beats just because they sounded good and they would "use them later" but never did. If you're charging $100 then the thought process becomes less "impulse buy" and more "am I sure this is the beat for me? Let me keep looking, I'll think about it"

If your beats are seriously dope then you should definitely be charging more than $25 for them. If you're still trying to build a catalogue, there's no harm in aiming at the lower end of the market. Just know that you're looking at a totally different market.
 
This is kinda treating your customers like crap: it's the same philosophy behind designer clothes- 'if it costs more, it must be better'

Still, Chanel make a fair bit of cash. Maybe you can too...
 
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