A 3rd Primer on Independent Music Sales and Niche Markets

Dec. 15, 2014 - PRLog -- This is the flow of developing a music career in which you are able to live off the sale of your music online:

1.       Create Good Music
2.       Develop a Music Vision –
3.       Develop a business strategy
4.       Create an online presence
5.       Get a good manager or good counsel
6.       Develop a Niche Strategy and execute it
a.       Find artists who has traveled a similar path and learn from them
b.       Concerts are the best way to connect with fans
c.       Use online tools to develop a relationship with fans

         In a Christian context the development of continuous advertising is the best way to ensure that your audiences continue to grow and your online sales are consistent.  When you launch your independent career, after your tour is done or your record label contract ends you will need a continued effort to maintain your audience “mindshare”.  Yes it takes lots of visibility to develop a music career and record labels do this very well.  Depending upon your Music Vision, you set the priorities of what path you will take to reach your goals.  When it comes to sales, there are some principles which will ensure that you can access repeated sales of your music.  You must ensure your audiences do not forget you and periodically share new music with them.  Be the music of their lives by staying in their lives.  This is a product based strategy for the sale of music.

         The first principle is to sell your music song by song.  Each song that you develop is a product which should be sold based upon its own merit.  Therefore each song needs a marketing plan.  You have to make some decisions about the audience for each song and how to best reach that audience.  The best way to learn which song appeals to which audience is through concert performances.  At your concerts, survey your audiences, a performance can reveal which songs appeal to various audience members.

         The second principle of niche marketing is to use the most direct methods to reach your audiences.  When considering an advertising campaign, generally you want to find a platform which already has an audience which is very similar to the audience for your song.  You purchase access to that audience and sell that audience your song.  This could be a website, a blog or a radio program.  Nonetheless, you must find a way to reach your audiences where they are, or you have to find a way to draw those audiences to you.  This where your marketing plan helps you decide what strategies you need to reach your audiences.

         You have to develop a sales pitch.  There are many different ways to draw and sell a customer.  Silicon Valley has convinced many that the best way to sell someone is to give them things for free.  This is partly true.  The best way to gain a sell is to pay for someone to have something for free, (that they would have paid for), that is of value to them.  If you give away your music you devalue it.  You will teach your audience to expect to gain access to your content for free and when you ask them to pay for it, they will hesitate.  You teach people how to treat you and how to treat your content.  You set the value of your content in every way.  It may be effective to give free samples of low quality or to reward those who have become customers.  However awarding those who have not done anything to deserve it is not an effective strategy.  Pay for someone to access something that is of value to them and before they gain access, tell them about yourself and what you are selling. They will have patience with you and listen because you have given them access to something that they value.  In our opinion, this is the most effective way to make a sell.

         Entertainment is the most commonly used property that is sponsored and offered to the public for free.  Entertainment is the best way to build an audience, because everyone desires to be entertained.  Entertainment is generally expensive, but when applied to a niche audience entertainment can be sponsored for more reasonable prices.  The final principle for this lesson is to place your advertisement in a place where there is growth.  Newness is the most attractive and powerful audience builder.  Therefore new entertainment is the most compelling audience builder of our time.  The fall season on television is the most expensive time to purchase advertising within entertainment.  It is when the new shows come out.  People wait for months to see the conclusion of the cliffhanger from last season.  Television has become very skilled at keeping their audiences.  Shama Music Services has mastered the principles of television and combined them with the power of the internet. Contact us for more details http://www.christianlibraryondemand.com/shama

         Shama Music Services was developed by the Christian Library on Demand, LLC (CLD) to help independent artists continue to expand their audiences and gain sales.  We recognize that there is a need in the market to help artists expand their audiences after record label contracts are ended.  Artists want to maintain sales after their touring is done.  In recent times entrepreneurial artists have decided to independently develop their music careers.  Every song is a product and just like any product, it needs advertising and wide distribution.  Shama music provides continuous advertising for songs through the growth of new Christian entertainment.  Independent music artists with Christian or inspirational songs can purchase access to our niche streaming video networks on mobile and smart TV apps.  We distribute the whole album of our artists around the world into many digital retail outlets so that users all over the world can easily find and purchase your songs.  Shama music services use CLD entertainment to draw a specific audience that fits the target audience for each song we carry.  We produce a sales video for each song.  Then we embed it into FREE entertainment segments targeted at the same audience as the song for sale.  We build your audiences to suit and continuously grow that audience through downloads of our free streaming video apps and access to our free entertainment segments.  Shama Music Services is next generation music sales for the digital future of music.  Submit your songs to Shama music today and finally access a continuous stream of music sales through our video streams of Christian entertainment.