Make More Money Following Our Golden Rules For Monetising Music

Aggregators – Get paid for all your streams direct via an Aggregator

The 2020’s has revolutionised administration, publishing, claims and royalties now available to unsigned and independent musicians. The ability to upload your music effortlessly after an email with your latest masters available can be done easily using music aggregators like:

Ditto Music

Distrokid

United Masters

We highly recommend using this helpful music royalty calculator to be able to plan and understand how much money should be coming back to you for your engagement with your music from online streaming platforms. Also worth noting that Napster & Tidal pay the most and Soundcloud & YouTube pay the least, so planning which platforms you want to make an impact on and the linked audiences globally is also important too.

Edit Streaming Platform profiles easily

Available from both Android and Apple app stores we recommend that all artists search and download the following apps below. Each App enables all to edit musical profiles on each streaming platform and then begin adding focuses for new releases and linked playlists for your profile. In turn these help you to learn more about who is listening and where as well as organically help you to grow bigger fanbases and sell more opportunities to this fan base, whilst also appearing signed like a major label artist:

Amazon Music for Artists

Apple Music for Artists

Deezer for Creators

Spotify for Artists

Tidal for Artists

Publishing

The ability to gain a unique music library catalogue id number or ISDRC is done quickly when uploading your music via an aggregator and now means you can then put your music forward for publishing opportunities and to identify and chase payments from use of your music globally from radio and other public playlists. Again this is done effortlessly using agents like:

Sentric

Song Trust

Ditto Publishing

United Masters

Merchandise

With the increase of drop-shipping agents available to help musicians also and other print on demand factories, shrewd thinking musicians/artists can link their Artist Profiles with drop shippers and their own websites with shops and point of sale opportunities that can then effortlessly print and post your merchandise whilst the musician still markets and promotes the links via their musical efforts. Have a good think about products to add to your online presence and profiles which in turn create more ways to spend with you as an artist for merch & souvenirs. We recommend some of the following agents for making merchandise a part of your extra income:

Teemill

Two Fifteen

Shopify

Live Shows

One of the most reliable ways to get paid historically for music still remains live shows. The likes of Ed Sheeran, Drake, Central Cee, Stormzy & Dave all have huge bookings fees easily over £100k and also earn from the live performances through royalty payments too for use of their music to the public in addition to ticket sales. Live shows are often the most overlooked area of unsigned musicians efforts in the 2020’s and we highly recommend getting out there and getting known by local music venues and their music promoters to help develop & grow your live show performances and in turn being able to command higher booking fees as your brand and followings grow.

Brand Ambassador Opportunities

One of the biggest earners for any musician currently is a brand ambassador deal. Stormzy’s $1million deal with Adidas was a landmark for many UK musicians and in todays current climate the more popular and relevant you and your music are, brands are also very keen to join the queue with your followings with significant budgets and money waiting to embed your music into their brand. Working with musicians helps bigger brands to passively market their products and services via a musicians audiences and reach. Make sure you are brand friendly and safe to invest with too as if something goes wrong the same people with the budget could be facing being fired so your ability to be professional and approachable at all times with brand staff is essential. If you can master these interpersonal skills you will be able to help marketing departments deliver brand safe adverts and marketing moves that use your music, musical brand and audiences to help further their sales and marketing opportunities and sometimes this can help you to also get more content, music videos and social media coverage which in turn can lead to bigger paying opportunities as your brand snowballs its way to the top.

Super Fans, Personal Content and Pay Per View Opportunities

Growing an audience is an undervalued skill in may respects as a musician typically, where as the wise learn who is their most dedicated fans and also build more personal relationships with them, often knowing that they will also promote and drive your brand forwards with you if they feel valued. Be open minded at all stages in growing your music and brand and stay in touch with your superfans regularly to be able to create monetised intimate and personal experiences for them that others would not typically do/offer. With the use of FaceTime, Zoom, Pay Per View platforms and many more digital payment systems musicians can now create bespoke content, personal shows, personal content and pay per view opportunities to please and service their superfans. The more you think out the box for this the more you can charge too usually!

Radio Play

Whilst streaming platforms pay well these days it is important to make sure you have registered with PRS here in the UK to ensure all the use f your music via Radio, TV, Film & adverts is all paying you too. If combined with a publishing administrator like Sentric/Song Trust you will ensure that all radio play globally is traceable and able to pay you for the use of your music to the public.

PRS For Music

Sentric

Song Trust

NFT’s

As we evolved further into the digital age, NFT’s have opened huge doors for memorabilia and more unique digital media and content to also have ownership with fans for musicians too. Use of the tokenisation to have a 1 of 1 combined with the benefits of resale percentages factored in to the original content creator make NFT’s a wonderful benefit and additional income stream again. Whether its pictures sold, unique footage from music videos, unreleased songs, rights to the music, ownership of other digital commerce or products, the rules are somewhat minimal and the sky seems to be the limit currently, so again think about how to service your loyal followings and come up with more ways for them to spend with your brand via an NFT.

Products & Services

One massively overlooked area of modern day music is the ability to shrewdly combine the use of media and linked business esales in your efforts too. In the modern music industry there is nothing to stop you developing a separate linked business or separate businesses back to your musical brand. Is it worthwhile starting an online sales business and then being able to embed it in the music and videos with full ownership throughout the process whilst sales also benefit from your music media and featuring of these items in the music video and social media posts linked too? Ultimately as a 2020’s musician you have already learned to be quite entrepreneurial and self sufficient so again we would always advise people to combine both music and business and benefit from both efforts as they help reach wider audiences quicker using combined brands to reach more people with less effort overall.

What products and services do your fans want or could you deliver today too?

For more help with your music or starting a new business why not book a 1 to 1 appointment with us now or pay for one of our pre recorded seminars that can help you even more in just a click of a button?