How to promote Music selling website? Need help!

I work as the music director on the radio and I have an access to one of the largest Music archive in the World with totally over 400,000 releases (albums, singles, compilations, mixes), that's totally over 3,000,000 tracks. Music of all styles and all times. Almost everything officially released for the last 70 years can be found there.

I have this Music Collection stored on hard disc drives. The whole collection is stored on 20 hard disc drives with a capacity 1Tb each. So there about 20,000Gb of music.

So about 6 month ago, in May 2008, I decided to market this Music Collection and created the website. I also splitted it to many collections sorted by genres and got the next list:

Rock: 12,702 albums
Indie Rock: 10,748 albumss
Jazz, Swing, Jazz-Funk: 13,648 albums
R&B, Rhythm and Blues: 8,502 albums
Rap, Hip-Hop: 41,074 albums
Pop, Top 40: 8,259 albums
Electronic, Freestyle, Synthpop: 35,605 albums
House, Garage, Progressive: 84, 913 albums
Trance: 31,358 albums
Techno, Acid: 30,030 albums
Dance, Club: 15,124 albums
Drum'n'bass, Jungle: 14, 338 albums
Ethnic, Latin, Chanson, JPop: 13,992 albums
Reggae, Dub, Dance Hall: 12,764 albums
Lo-Fi, Lounge, Trip-Hop: 10,004 albums
Breaks, Breakbeat, Oldschool: 9,135 albums
Avantgarde, Noise: 7,650 albums
Psychedelic, Goa Trance: 5,977 albums
Soundtrack, Anime, Game: 5,694 albums
Ambient, Darkwave, Meditative: 5,649 albums
Soul, Funk, Disco: 5,369 albums
New Age, Instrumental: 4,144 albums
Blues: 3,713 albums
IDM, Industrial: 2,021 albums
Classical, Opera, Symphony: 1,637 albums
Oldies, Retro, Revival: 822 albums

But I really do not understand nothing in online marketing, advertising and promotion. So I really gave up working on it.

The first three monthes I got NO ONE email and actually forgot about my website, but in August i've got the first email and order. Then I've got an order in October and the last order I've got just 2 days ago.

So for the last three month I made 3 sales and earned $1,000 ($300, $400 and $300) even without ANY advertising. My net profit was just about $300 though, because actually I do not sell the Music itself, I selling the service which let people to buy very big music collections at once stored on hard disc drive(s). About 60-65% of my prices based on hard disc drive(s) cost and shipping cost, the rest makes me profit. So my net profit is about 35-40% per sale.

But let's go back to subject...

The fact that I made 3 sales without even any advertising and promotion showed me that I offer real interesting and needed service and I feel I can make hell more sales if I will find the right and effective way of promotion to my target group.

I talked to my customers and they all was the people who have an advanced interest in music and they have ordered my Music Collections because it gives them possible to get a lot of very accurately sorted music sorted by genres with a guaranteed quality not lower than 192kbps, mp3 for a very reasonable price, because they pay just for hard disc drive(s), shipping and some fees for the service.

Nowadays you can find almost everything for free on torrents, or limewire, but often it's terribly sorted and the quality of files is bad. So the key of my service is that you can get everything at once - it saves time, bandwidth and makes sure you'll get an accurately sorted and quality bitrate Music Collections.

So I need help... please, tell me how can I promote my website to people who have advanced interest in music?

 

You got a lot going for you there... you could try link exchange with other music sites. I have a music and sports forum and you can add a link to your site from it at http://forums.ukevents.net . You can also add your website address on your business cards, company literature etc . Also use SEO techniques to get more traffic. If you need any further help, just PM me.

 

Have you got the rights to the music? Or is its warez?

 

It is music, not warez.

 

I checked out your website. I think I will post my link there, but you don't have too many visitors for now. So I'm not sure it will be effective so far.

Can you give me more advices regarding how can I advertise my website around the music community? Do you think that Sponsored Reviews at music blogs can be real effective?

Please advice. Thanks.

 

• Try to Optimize your site for SEO. You will get some organic search engine traffic.
• Start partcipating in discussion forums related to your niche (Music)
• Start commenting on Music related blogs
• Start building links with similar sites
• Post your links in all major directories
• Start writing articles and post them to article directories with links to your site in the resource box
• Use PPC advertisements (Adwords)

 

Thanks for advices!
I will use them!

Also I'm interested if there some real effective ways to promote my website where I can just pay the money to outsourcers?

Do you think Sponsored Reviews at music blogs can be real effective?


Look guys, if you can help me in any way then just PM me with telling me how can you help and prices for your services. I will consider any offer!

 

you might have the music, but do you have all rights to sell/distribute the music ? I would start there before thinking of getting more sales cause once you start making alot of money they can easily take it all away from you

 

I told before, that actually I do not sell the Music itself. I disribute the Music Collections on HDD and I do not charge for the Music. The price contain clean HDDs cost, shipping cost and my service fee.

Each buyer agreed that Music Collections has to used for preview purposes and private use only.

However, I'm allowed making this sort of distribution, at least in my country (Russia).

Anyway, I'm NOT asking about legal issues regarding my service, but HOW to promote it.


I'm still waiting for an offers from you guys. If you can help me in any way then feel free PM me with your offers and prices. I will consider all of your offers. Thanks.

 

Facebook/Myspace advertisement space options may help.

Alot of it is just Ad views not hits but still you may get alot of traffic if your lucky.

 

This sounds interesting. Thanks.

 

To promote a music website I would start with social networking websites. This will give you a large amount of potential customers with little work - music practically will sell itself if it is recognized by the customer. Then you can work on SEO.

 

Thanks for advice.
But how it works? how can I make promotions at social networking websites? buying ads at social networds like Facebook Ads or MySpace Ads, or just messaging?

 

That makes me laugh, serious. I can just see it now. Yes, Mr Lawyer and Judge; I don't sell drugs; I just sell the plastic bags the drugs come in and to cover the packaging costs; Selling plastic bags are legal where I live.


As for marketing, try to get on clickbank or an affiliate site like it; You will have an Army of thousands of people doing the marketing for you, just have to give them a cut each time you make a sale.

 

In the meantime, thanks to everyone who sending me PMs with offering different promotional and advertising services...

so I already did the first step... I decided to try UKMember's music targeted email campaign he offering at forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1078269

I really don't know how it will working out but it's scheduled for the 12th of November, so I will see how it's going.

please keep sending me your PMs with advertising and promotional offers. I will consider them all. Thank you.

I need your help to promote my absolutely wonderful website guys!

 

This is definitely very interesting.
Is there any other sites like Clickbank?

How can I find some real good sites where I can let people know that they can partnering with me and getting percentage from sales?

Thanks.

 

Could you please link to your website? Your service is interesting.

WIll get back to you on marketing ideas after I've visited your site.

 

I really not sure if it's ok for me posting the link here, as one of the rules of this forum says I can't posting links if I've registered less than 7 days, however I think I'm allowed to send the link in PM, so check it out man!

 

hi

your music collection seems awesome buddy

moreover regarding promotion you should try SEO techniques such as directory submissions,social bookmarking,press release,article writing and other services like these

ankur

 

I'm impressed. You have a great collection here.

My first tip would be to invest the profits from your recent sales into a new website. Using blogspot is not a good idea for a long term professional service.

As for marketing, who is your costumers? I would think that this is something DJ's and other advanced music interessted would take advantage of. So for starters you can find a few DJ forums and promote your service there. This will probably give you a couple of sales. Use these money to advertise further where your potential costumers "hang out".

This is one method I think will work for some quick sales. Good luck with your service