Beats are the periodic and repeating fluctuations heard in the intensity of a sound when two sound waves of very similar frequencies interfere with one another.
Here is how to sell beats online in South Africa
Build a Catalog of High-Quality Beats
Have Professional High-Quality Beats
One of the most important steps to selling beats online is having professional quality beats.
If your beats aren’t good, no one is going to buy them.
So you want to make sure your beats are at a professional standard and that music artists want to use them.
Your beats should be…
- Properly mixed
- Tested on a variety of different speakers
- Be in the correct song structure
- Have quality sounds
If you are new to making beats, talk to music artists and see what they have to say about your beats.
If no one wants to use your beats, free or paid, then you may need to improve your beats.
Offer a Wide Selection of Beats
You should have at least 50 beats in your beat store.
Create music for different music genres, different moods, and tempos.
If you only have 10 beats online, you aren’t giving music artists a lot to choose from.
When a music artist visits your website, you don’t know what type of music they are looking for.
So you want to give music artists a wide selection of music to choose from.
You don’t want to put a lot of effort into promoting your beat store when you only have a limited selection of beats.
If you do, you are going to be disappointed when no one buys your beats. When the issue is you aren’t giving music artists a lot to choose from.
1.3 Create Popular Music
You also want to create music that you know is popular to help your chances of succeeding.https://e41e21344e8af6c15293e579b314a44c.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
If you only create music for one music genre you are limiting your audience and potential sales.
Here are the Top Music Genres on Spotify
Build a large collection of professional beats to sell online.
2. Build a Beat Selling Website
Building a website is the first step in creating a professional web presence.
A website gives you more control over the appearance, pricing, and user experience.
You don’t want to depend on beat-selling online marketplaces that promote your competitors.
You should have a website that will be the central location to be found.
This is where music artists will be able to buy beats, pay for services, and learn about you.
Sell 1 beat per month, and it pays for website hosting.
Setting up a website isn’t as hard as it used to be.
It can take more time because there is more flexibility and choices.
But you can set up a beat website in under 1 hour.
By having a website you will look more professional and the focus is on your beats.
What to Look for in a Website
The most important thing to look for when selling beats is the music player.
What to Look for In a Music Player
You need an audio player that makes it easy to search and find beats.
- Playlist Feature – It should be easy to listen to all your beats on one page.
- Easy Sorting – Sort by music genres, price, mood, and more.
- Search – Allow people to search through your beats for key terms.
- Instant Downloads – Customers want to download beats instantly.
- Easy Buying Process – Make it simple to accept credit cards and PayPal.
- Preview Download – Allow customers to download a tagged MP3 preview.
- Make an Offer – Allow visitors to make offers to negotiate beat prices.
- License Options – You want to be able to offer different license options.
- Free Beats – Free beats are great to generate more traffic to your website.
All the features above are built into the Music Maker WordPress Theme.
This template lets you build a complete website to sell beats, products, and offer services online.
This is an example of the Homepage Template with the built-in audio player.
We have a free course on how to set up a beat selling website.Launch Beat Selling Website in 2 Hours! | Music Maker Theme
Basic Steps to Create a Beat Site:
- Get Website Hosting – This is where your website is stored.
- Get Music Theme – This theme is created for selling beats online.
- Getting Started Guide – Install the theme, demo, and set up homepage.
- Upload Your First Beat – Add your first beat to your beat website.
So we highly recommend creating a beat-selling website.
You make yourself look more professional and invest in your business by doing so.
I have five websites myself because they cover various aspects of my business.
My business wouldn’t be possible without these websites.
3. Build an Email List
Building an email list can help you market your beats to potential clients.
You need to assume that once someone visits your website, they may not return.
The goal is to capture their email address to keep in touch.
This way you can message them about new music, beat sales, and other information in the future.
The Best Ways to Capture Email Addresses
- Have Multiple Email Capture Forms – Put many email capture forms on your website. Include them in the sidebar or at the end of your blog posts.
- Free Downloads – Offering free gifts will get the most email subscribers to join your email list.
- Exit Pop-Up Windows – There are pop-up windows that appear when users are about to leave your website. Pop-ups that offer free gifts in exchange for their email can convert well.
Email Marketing Software Options
- AWeber – Get 500 email subscribers for free. Spend less time marketing and more time growing your business with automated emails.
- MailChimp – Simple interface and allows you to build an email list of up to 2,000 people for free.
Start building your email list to market too.
You may be missing out on a large list of people to market to in the future if you don’t.
4. Promote Your Beats Online
To sell your beats online you need to start getting traffic to your beat selling business.
You can use all the social media websites to promote your beats.
Create Youtube Videos
Showcase your beats by creating YouTube videos. Promote your beat website in the video description.
Example Beat Video: Lo-Fi Type Beat – “Fresh Air”
This one video has over 2,000,000 views.(FREE) Lo Fi Type Beat – ” Fresh Air “
Uploading your beats to YouTube can get views and generate traffic to your website.
Take the YouTube of your beats and upload to other social media websites like:
- Snapchat
- SoundCloud – Upload the audio version.
You need to find different ways to get traffic to your website.
Your website needs visitors, otherwise, it will not generate sales.
So focus on getting website traffic.
Also, adding links to your website from these different social media sites will help your website’s search engine rankings.
5. Create Content to Attract Music Artists
You want to build an online brand and become a trusted source for information.
There is a term called “content marketing”.
This means creating content that indirectly promotes your products or services.
A good example of this is Nike. Nike creates marketing videos that promote an athletic lifestyle which promotes their products.
You need to do the same. You need to create content to capture the attention of music artists.
Content marketing is more effective than paying for ads. It helps to promote your brand, build authority, and establish trust.
Think about your favorite music producers on YouTube.
They share tips to help you create music and entertain you. So you keep going back for more.
This is what you want to do. Become a trusted source for information so people come to you for beats and music services
Create helpful content on your website and social media to start building a brand and authority.
You can use this content to promote to your email list and send it to music artists to build a connection with.
6. Contact Music Artists Directly
It’s important to take a proactive approach to your beat-selling business.
Don’t just wait for music artists to find you.
Message music artists on Twitter, SoundCloud, and Instagram to connect.
On LinkedIn, find music managers, A&Rs, and others who work with music artists and try to build relationships.
Don’t spam people begging them to check out your beats.
This will get you blocked and damage any type of relationship.
Try to be helpful. Ask…
- How can you help this person?
- What service or resource can you provide?
Develop a strategy for introducing yourself in a helpful way to build trust and a long-term relationship.
When it comes to how you message others, simply treat others how you would like to be treated.
You don’t want to be spammed or constantly sold to.
A helpful approach can lead to some promising opportunities.
7. Use Beat Selling Marketplaces
While we recommend having your own beat website, you can still utilize these other websites to promote your beats.
These websites can be helpful because they have customers looking to buy beats.
It doesn’t hurt to put some of your best beats on these websites to see if they drive sales and traffic.
8. Bonus Tip: A/B Test Your Beat Website
To succeed at selling beats online get in the habit of testing.
Test prices, images, text, colors, promotions, and more.
Simple marketing messages can help or hurt your beat sales.
So it is important to constantly test your website to see what will get the most conversions.
Amazon.com runs thousands of A/B tests to improve the user experience and get people to buy more.
Bonus tips left by producers in the comments:
- Offer Free Beats – I gave away a free beat, which led to a music artist buying 5 beats from me months later. – Kyle Smith
- Use Acapellas – I would use acapellas over my beats, which inspired people, which led them to buy my beats. – Chris
- Use Social Media – I posted beats on SoundCloud and YouTube which led to someone contacting me about purchasing a beat. – Aidan
How to Price Beats to Sell
We reviewed the top 70 beat selling websites on Google and found the following stats on pricing beats.
Non-Exclusive Lease Beats
The most popular price for non-exclusive lease beats is 380.34 South African Rand. Includes an MP3 file, and the beat tags are removed.
For premium leases, 758.60 South African Rand is the most popular price which includes a WAV file.