5 Reasons Music Producers Need A Website
Have you ever had trouble getting shows, plays, or building a real fan base?
This might be because you don’t have a website.
A large portion of artists thinks there's no need for one. I believe this is a very limited way of thinking.
I'm going to show you how having a website can lead to more fans, profits and opportunities!
(Im not going into detail about how to make your site, but if you're curious we used Wordpress with a theme called X-theme to create this site and we use Woocomerce as our shopping cart.)
1. Gives legitimacy & Professionalism to your project
This one is huge. Being professional in this industry is incredible important.
Does this mean writing "proper" emails and acting like a corporate business person...
NOT AT ALL.
Before we dive in, there's a psychology concept we must know.
People's opinions of you is based on the sum of all information they have on you.
Okay... so what does this mean?
Let's say an artist has an amazing image and following on Instagram and a pretty good sized Facebook following. Instantly someones going to think pretty highly about this artist.
But then you go to his SoundCloud and see that he only has 75 followers and barley has any plays, then what do you think of his project?
This same concept applies to having a sexy website to represent your brand. Everyone from A&R's to your fans will instantly have a higher opinion of you and your project when visiting your page.
We spent months building our website, Cymatics.fm. And let me tell you, it was worth it!
Even being a website that is less than a month old we have been contacted by a huge number and companies and artist that want to work with us because our website screams one thing, WE ARE SERIOUS ABOUT WHAT WE DO!
People should feel the same way about your project when visiting your site.
2. Professional Email Domain
This is the easiest way to gain credibility.
Okay let's say you receive 2 emails. I want you to decide which one you would take more seriously.
From: johnforsyth@gmail.com
or
From: john@forsythrecords.com
This is a no brainer. Your brain instantly assumes the second email is more legitimate because not anyone can just create one.
They have to have to at least have a website or be associated with one.
Not only does this give you more credibility, it also sparks interest to visit your site!
3. Get more for your downloads
Any artist who gives away their songs on Soundcloud without getting anything in return is leaving huge opportunity on the table!
I’m not saying you have to charge $1.99 per song like Beatport does...
But why not charge an email, like or follow?
The age of relying on your fan to come back to you whenever they want to hear music is over. They are bombarded with hundreds of songs, videos, ads and phone calls every day.
It’s very hard to cut through all that noise.
That’s why you have to have many ways to remind them that your project exists!
Collecting emails, likes and follows are going to be essential for staying connected with your fans.
Emails vs Social
If you want to talk about under the most underutilized strategy for music promotion, let's talk about collecting your fans emails.
Let me begin by explaining why you need to be collecting your fan's emails and then i'll show you how you can do it on your own site.
The problem is on most social platforms is even if your fans are following you, you are competing with millions of pieces of content that they see every day in their newsfeed. Not to mention platforms like Facebook are only showing your content to a tiny portion of your actual audience.
A study done by adweek.com reported that Facebook page post was only reaching 2.6% of a page's total fanbase on average per post.
This doesn't mean that social media is not effective, it just means you have to do more when you release a song.
The beauty of emails is that it's in your control. When you're releasing a new song you can personally send out an email to all your fans and make sure they see it. (no one has 100% open rates but you get the point)
Trade Emails for Downloads
How do you get people to want to give you their email?
EASY.
Instead of offering free downloads through Soundcloud, make people put in their email to receive the download on your site. When you build your website, you can download free plugins like Mailchimp, and create a page where they have to put in their email to get free downloads.
We do it all the time... just look around at the email opt-ins :)
(Notice how we don't just ask for your email, we always offer something in return. You can do the same with your song downloads)
So the next time you have a new release you can send out emails to spread the word about your song.
By the way, it's not "Should I send emails or use social", its both. The best song release strategy tries to utilize every possible resource to it's max to get the desired result.
Likes & Follows for Downloads
The other thing you can trade for downloads is social media likes and follows.
Even though I mentioned organic reach is down on platforms like Facebook, it's still vital to grow your following on all the socials to get that extra exposure.
You still can get a good number of people to engage with you, but more importantly, likes and follows gives you more social proof and credibility.
There's a ton of different plugin's to use, we use Social Locker to do this.
Having more followers and likes across your socials will help you look more credible and even will help out in the future when your trying to get shows.
Who would you rather hire, the artist with 20,000 likes, or the artist with 700 likes...
4. Gives you a place to blog!
Managing a blog can be time consuming, but it also can bring in tons of traffic. Our blog at here at Cymatics.fm has brought us over 30,000 page views in less than a months time.
Offering a blog as a music producer is a great way to keep your fans coming back for more than just your music.
Ryan Hemsworth built Secret Songs, a music blog, that has almost 50k followers on Soundcloud. Every song on that Soundcloud gets over 100k plays.
He posted one of his own tracks the other day, and it got over 155k plays!
You can blog about different albums you love, or maybe you can talk about techniques you used in the studio.
The topic doesn't really matter, what matters is you can offer more reasons for your fans to come back and interact with your brand.
5. Place to make money!
I truly believe that artist should find more than one stream of revenue. Your website is the perfect place to do that.
It's pretty common to see producers sell things like merchandise or graphic art. With the rise of pirating and abundance of music, producers need to find other way to generate cash flow.
The best part about having your own website is you get to sell whatever you want on it. Which means you get to cut out the middle man and are way more in control of the way you make money.
Heck, look at us. We sell sound banks to help support our music passion.
How?
If your using Wordpress to build your site, simply download the Woocomerce. Then attach a Paypal account to your Woocomerce plug-in. Then your set to sell anything on your site.
There are other shopping carts available like Shopify or Big Commerce.
I highly suggest using Woocomerce!
Shopify and Big Commerce come in a close second, both being very user friendly to set up. But I've had the most success with Woo Commerce.
Conclusion
I understand that if your music project is just for fun, this blog might not have been for you, but if you're serious about growing your project, building a website is a must!
If you already have a website or are currently working on one feel free to link it in the comments. I'll personally check them out and tell you what I think!
P.S. If you want to learn how to get 500k plays through blogs & YouTube, CLICK HERE!