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You are reading a 1-page sales guide on how to use your MySpace website
to generate music sales. Learn how to use Secure Songs to bridge the gap between
letting people listen to your music for free and having them purchase your CD.
MySpace can hurt your music sales if you give too much away so read on!
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MySpace Music Sales
Welcome to Blog Your Music's musician resource on selling and marketing music on MySpace. In this resource, we take musicians through
the steps for converting MySpace traffic into customers. Most importantly you will understand how you can leverage MySpace into a cost-effective
distribution channel. Here are the sections to help guide you:
Where are the Sales?
Time to Sell your Music
The Right Technology
The MySpace System
The Future for Downloads
Leading People to a Sale
Are you a musician with a great MySpace page? It's fun isn't it? Have you seen an increase in music sales? Yes? Good. Is it a spike or more
like a bump? Well, do you want to turn that bump into a JUMP in music sales!? If so, you've come to the right place!
Where are the Sales?
MySpace... Cool.
You've got your 4 best songs uploaded, you're getting 500 plays per day, you've got almost 3,000 friends and nearly 20,000
profile views.
Things are good, right?
Yeah... well, except... you thought youd be selling more CDs. So why aren't you?
MySpace provides a tremendous service to musicians and music fans. The exposure you are getting is very positive, however, there are a few
obstacles that make it tough for you to convert your exposure on MySpace into music sales.- People can play your music for free. Nothing
is pushing them to buy it!
- It takes a lot of clicks to buy a CD. You lose potential customers with every click.
- People
are buying downloads $0.99 at a time. They wont spend $12 on your CD.
One reason why MySpace is so popular is because thats where musicians are giving away their music! Musicians have always wondered if giving away
music results in more music sales. MySpace has answered that question for you: NO!
Think about it. MySpace visitors can play your 4 best
songs for free... all-day long... full-length. You want them to voluntarily stop listening to your free music in order to buy a $12 CD?!?
We hate to break it to you but it isn't going to happen!
It takes too much work to navigate to your online CD store. Plus, people
don't feel like paying and waiting for something that they are already getting now for free!
Time to Sell your Music
Its time to start thinking like a business person... the business is your music! Blog Your Music enables musicians to sell music downloads
directly from your MySpace page and other networking website pages such as blogs, message boards, Friendster, Yahoo! Groups and even your own website!
Blog Your Music songs can be shared through a simple hyperlink and we provide you with the HTML code to paste into your MySpace page
along with instructions for getting people to purchase your music.
With a single click someone can play one of your songs and buy it - your
MySpace page is now an online music store! You will find a lot more of your friends are willing to spend a buck or two on your music downloads than
$12 on your CD.
This all sounds pretty good, huh?
Well, you can sign-up now or email us with any questions. Either way, please continue reading
to understand the technology and system behind getting MySpace to increase your music sales!
The Right Technology
We encode your music and convert it into a protected file format that can be played on any PC. We host these files for you and give you the HTML
code that will allow people to listen to and buy those files directly from your MySpace pages.
We call these Weed files and here's what they can do:
- People can listen to Weed files 3 times for free before they are prompted to purchase the song. Weed files are full-length and high-quality.
- People are rewarded for file-sharing! After someone buys a Weed file they can earn up to 35% of the sale if he or she shares it with a friend who
then buys it. The cool thing is that the artist makes 50% every time.
- Its free to open a Weed account and you can fund it
with PayPal. Every new account receives $5 of free music!
- Songs can be shared through hyperlinks because the security and the store itself are in
the song.
The points above highlight the main features of Weed files but there is a lot more
to these files. For now continue reading in order to understand how simple changes to your MySpace page can boost your music sales!
The MySpace System
You need to create an incentive for people to buy your music and you need to lead them to buy your music. Our simple system does that. The first
step is to upload 30 - 60 second song samples to your MySpace player. Follow these instructions in order to create MP3 music clips for free:
- Download WavePad 1.2 from Download.com - it's
free and easy to use.
- Open your full-length MP3 in WavePad
- Click and drag over the sample section you want (30 - 60 seconds recommended)
- Choose "edit" then "save select region as" to save just the section you want
- Select and cut the beginning and end of the song
leaving just the clip
- Click and drag over the first 2 seconds and choose "Effects" then "Fade In"
- Click and drag over the
last 2 seconds and choose "Effects" then "Fade Out"
- Hit save then upload those files to MySpace and remove the full-length ones
Next you need to direct people further down your MySpace page to your Weed files
if they want to listen to the whole song. The only way to listen to the full song is through your Weed files! After 3 free plays the person
has to make a decision to either buy your song or continue listening to the sample clip. At that point, $0.99 doesn't seem like too bad. After
puchasing 1 or 2 digital files a person is much more likely to purchase your whole CD rather than another download. Therefore, make sure a link to
your CD store's shopping cart is close to your Weed file links!
It is
easier to move people from listening to free music clips to spending $0.99 rather than listening to free, full-length songs to spending $12.99. You are
leading them to buy your music because they want to keep listening to your song but can no longer do so for free. You lead them to buy the
song by requiring them to make decisions along the way.
The Future for Downloads
The Internet has shortened people's attention span which
means you lose potential customers with every click it takes to buy your music. Most people will not leave MySpace in order to go to an artist's website
let alone navigate through to find out how to buy a CD. There are a number of other trends that are changing the way people purchase music:- MP3
players drop in price and increase memory size almost weekly.
- Computers have more hard drive space than most people can fill
- High-speed
internet access is affordable and takes seconds to download files
- Wireless networks are everywhere and give people constant Internet access
Digital download sales topped $1 billion in 2005 and are expected to grow
significantly over the next few years. The bottom line is that you have to provide music downloads to this generation of music buyers! Until Weed files
came along there really wasn't a good way to give people free listens and sell a digital download with a simple click of your mouse. Prepare yourself
today with the tools you'll need for the future. Sign-up today for Blog Your Music!
Leading People to a Sale
People will choose to buy a $0.99 song rather than listen to a free 45-second music clip. Not many people will buy a $12.99 CD instead of listening
to a few full-length songs. Plus, downloads are instant gratification and can be transported easier than a CD. People will
buy your CD but typically once they have purchased a song or two - music downloads lead people to a CD sale.
Hmmm... you are probably still thinking about the arguments above. you're not sure you agree with everything but, then again, you're not sure why
your music sales arent doing better and you're ready to try something different.
Well, thats the attitude you should have at this point. The Weed technology is solid but needs the right system to overcome the hurdles above. The system
for selling your music as digital downloads on MySpace is simple:- Get a MySpace.com musician page
- Upload music clips 30-60 seconds
long
- Paste the HTML code we give you in your About section
- Sit back and rake in cash!
The key to this system working is
to only provide song samples through your MySpace player and to direct people to your Weed files in the About section. The song clip makes people
want to hear more at which point you tell them how they can listen to a high-quality, full-length version of your song. We give you some simple
HTML code that lists your song files, gives simple instructions for playing them, and links to a support page. We customize this code so
that people can find more of your Weed files and where to buy your CD. We handle the encoding, hosting, bandwidth, support, sales, accounting,
etc. You just keep telling your fans where to play, buy & share your music!
Check out two of our artist's MySpace pages:
myspace.com/MelodyMann
myspace.com/LosTexasWranglers
Contact us by email
info@BlogYourMusic.com if you have questions. If you are ready then proceed to our
sign-up page or information page.
Please check out our
other musician tutorials Search Engine Optimization, Building an Affordable
Music Website and Conducting Effective Email Campaigns.
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