Music & Marketing: URBANIZED!

The music licensing industry is a great way many independent artists are making money. Here are five reasons why you should focus more of your time building your music licensing business:

Reason 1: It’s getting very difficult to get a record deal

The old way of making money in the music business is dead. In the past, the big record companies controlled the distribution of music, because they were the only ones who had the money to manufacture records, promote the artist, and pay for radio play. Napster started the music business revolution by allowing peer-to-peer file sharing of music. It has lead to the demise of record companies. As you know, there are lots of signed artists who are making very little money from record sales. What many people don’t know is that many of these artists are still making lots of money because they are licensing their music to movies, tv, and video game makers. They are starting to realize that music licensing is where the bulk of their money will come from. That means you better hurry before they take over the market!

Reason 2: Level Playing Field

Licensing your music gives you the opportunity to play on a level playing field with the big labels, because you don’t have to spend money to get your music licensed. All you have to do is build strong relationships with music directors, music library owners, and publishing companies. It’s not easy, but you can develop these relationships over time. The best thing about music licensing is that many independent film makers can’t afford the prices that the major labels are looking for. That means that these independent film and video game makers will look to independent artists like you for music to license.

Reason 3: Multiple Streams of Income

If you sell 100 albums to your fans, you will probably make about $1000 if you sell the albums for $10 a piece. You made $1000, but the sale ends there. In music licensing, you can make money from the same song in many different ways. When you license the song for a movie, tv show, commercial, or video game you will make a licensing fee (most times) up front. It can be anywhere from $100 to $100,000. The best part is that’s not the only way you can make money from that license. Everytime your song is played; you will get a performance royalty from your PRO. I mean EVERYTIME it’s played. Think about what could happen if your music gets licensed in a TV show that is in syndication like the Cosby Show. You could be getting paid from one song for years!

Reason 4: International Potential

Remember, if you license a song, you get paid every time it gets played. Most shows we have here in the US are also played in other countries. You can set up accounts with PRO’s in other countries to get paid for international royalties. If you sit and think about the possibilities, you will understand how some musicians make one song, and are considered set for life.

Reason 5: Depend on You

If you want to sell music to fans, you have to depend on radio play, marketing budget, and your image. In music licensing, all you have to do is worry about the quality of your music. The music supervisors are accessible, and they are looking for music to license because that’s how they make a living.

When comparing social media traffic to other forms of traffic, such as search engine, the numbers typically are going to look rather bleak. While you’ll hopefully see a spike in number of visitors and pageviews, that will often be accompanied by higher bounce rates, lower pageviews per visitor, and a lower average time on the site. With stats like this many bloggers wonder if social media traffic is even worth the time and effort.

Despite the tendency of many social media visitors to quickly exit your site and move on to the next one, there are still some very convincing reasons why you should care about social media and why it is worth your time.

1. It’s Free
Unless you’re paying for a consultant or a link bait specialist (both can be good options), marketing your website with social media is free. It will cost you some time, but that pales in comparison to the value of the traffic that you can get in return. There are countless ways to market a website or blog. Just about all of them involve spending money (which isn’t a bad thing), and of the ones that don’t involve money, the vast majority of them are a complete waste of time. I’ve never tried any other type of free marketing that brought even 1% of the results I’ve gotten with social media at my primary blog. Most bloggers are on a tight, or non-existent, budget when it comes to marketing. If this is the case, social media is for you.

2. The Future of the Internet is Social
Social media and social networking aren’t going away any time soon. The major players and the types of social sites may change of the course of time, but this is a trend that online marketers need to adjust to. Without finding ways to build a website or blog through social media you could be left behind by your competitors.

3. Quick Results
Building a successful website takes a considerable amount of time and effort. Search engine rankings, for instance, can take years to build in a competitive niche. On the other hand, with social media you can develop content and be seen by thousands of visitors within the same day. For this reason, social media is a great option for getting a new website or blog noticed right away .

4. It Gets Easier with Time
If you’re new to blogging and social media and you feel like everyone else is getting traffic but you, understand that it takes some time and effort, but it will get easier. Once you have established a bit of a reader base and you’ve hopefully attracted some social media users to your blog, it will be much easier for you to get votes and ultimately get more exposure. The more you use social media the more you will understand about how it works and how users will respond.

5. It Doesn’t Require as Much Time as You Might Think
Personally, I use social media every day, but on a very limited basis. If you think that you have to spend all day on Digg or Stumbling pages to get some results of your own, you may be surprised. With the right approach you can get fantastic results with just a few hours per week on social media sites. To be a top Digg user you’ll need more time than that, but being a top Digg user isn’t necessary to draw social media traffic.

6. Links Can Help Your Search Engine Rankings Rise Quickly
Although visitors from social media sites may be less responsive than other types of visitors, success with social media will likely increase the number of inbound links you receive. Links will boost your search engine rankings and they’ll also drive click-through traffic your way. Both are generally high quality traffic sources. Well, in addition to sending loads of traffic directly, the links that result from social media success can get your new posts ranking very well with search engines almost immediately. It’s not uncommon for me to see a very respectable number of visitors from Google searches to a brand new post that just drew a lot of links through social media. While it will take a while to build search engine rankings as a whole, it is possible to create specific posts to rank well right away.

7. Some Visitors Will Be Targeted
The biggest knock on social media traffic is that it’s not targeted, and that is typically true. However, visitors from niche social media sites can be very highly targeted, and on top of that, a portion of visitors from general news sites will be targeted as well. For example, if you get 25,000 visitors from a post on the Digg front page, maybe only 5,000 of them will have much of an interest in your site. Still, that’s a quick 5,000 visitors that you wouldn’t have had without social media. Just because a smaller percentage of the visitors will stick doesn’t mean that they are irrelevant.

8. It Will Lead to Other Valuable Sources of Traffic
Although visitors from social media sites may be less responsive than other types of visitors, success with social media will likely increase the number of inbound links you receive. Links will boost your search engine rankings and they’ll also drive click-through traffic your way. Both are generally high quality traffic sources.