For as long as you can remember, music has been your life. From practicing your favorite songs when you were in high school, looking up tabs and tutorials to perfect the sound, to writing your own and sharing them with friends for the first time, there’s something special about it. Creation of music is a beautiful thing, and as you’ve gotten older, you’ve been practicing more, maybe even playing at gigs around town. But recently, you’ve thought maybe you could make more money online. Being a starving artist seems glamorous from the outside, but it’s a struggle to anyone who knows what it’s really like.
Luckily, there are some great ways to make a business out of your music online. From writing commissioned songs to teaching lessons, here are some great ways you can make money online while doing what you love.
1 Blog
Who doesn’t love to learn about the life of a rock ‘n’ roll star? Or a concert violinist, or a jazz lounge singer, or whatever it is you do as a musician. The fact is, music moves us, it’s a powerful force, so the people who make it happen are interesting to almost everyone. Especially if you’re on the road to stardom, or you’re touring, or you like to share tips with people about how to break through writer’s block when they’re stuck, someone will be interested in your story. And once you have a big following, you can make money by selling ad space or products of your own.
So once you’ve designed a beautiful logo, created a great website with a site builder like Wix.com, and started posting, you can build your following. Just don’t forget about the importance of researching your audience so that you can write about the right subjects and use the appropriate keywords. Only 30 percent of B2B marketers said their organizations were effective at content marketing in 2016, so you’ll be ahead of the competition if you do your research.
2 Teach
Another great option for an online business is teaching. Especially since you have a talent that many people want to learn, you can start making money right away. Just like with blogging, the first thing you need is a great website where you can show off your talents. Have a section where you showcase your songs (both audio and video), and another one where you have an about you section describing your education and experience. Then, you can easily Skype with students, or sell video lessons.
Another option is offering tutorials on Youtube for free. That way, you can share your love of music without charging for it, and make money from advertisements. According to Shopify, what’s most important is determining your niche, so that ads are more targeted. They explain, “For many YouTubers looking to monetize, the more niche your channel is, the better a position you’ll be in to work with brands looking to target specific audiences.” To learn more about how to target your audience, check out this guide.
Considering that YouTube has over 30 million daily active users, you can potentially make a lot of money, all by teaching aspiring musicians how to master bar chords!
3 Create musical content
Finally, you can make music for a living. Once you’ve designed a great website, and started posting your music online, you can get some customers. You can even advertise your music-writing services at your gigs, giving potential clients your business card so they can find out about what you offer. From writing personalized birthday songs to anniversary songs, you can do just about anything. You can even offer an online e-concert. According to DIY Musician, it works like this:
“I use a platform called ConcertWindow, and there are a couple others to choose from like Stageit and Gigee. There are some different tools available for use in all the platforms but something to keep in mind that I’ve found effective with Concert Window and Stageit is having the option to collect tips and give ‘rewards’ to your best tippers. It’s a wonderful incentive and a great way to really connect with your audience in a concert-type setting, without having to leave the cozy confines of your living room.”
Additionally, you can write music for bigger clients. With the popularity of podcasts and streaming services like Spotify, many brands need musicians to write music for their advertisements. Spotify had 70 million paying subscribers as of January 2018 so you can make money fast.
These are some of the best ways musicians can make money online. What other strategies do you use to make money as a musician?