6 Ways To Give Away Free Music Properly

Laszlo | Jan 25, 2010 | 1 comment

I’m pretty sure that some of you are rather confused by the title of this article (please excuse me if I’m wrong). “What? ‘Give away free music PROPERLY’? There’s a WRONG way to give away free music?”
My answer to that: Yup, there IS a wrong way to give away free music. Actually, there’s 2 ways: The way that leaves you empty handed and the way that gives away TOO MUCH free music. Usually, they go together.

Sure, you put your blood, sweat, tears and who knows what else into your music. Yet, the fact remains: your music is a product. Do not allow love for your creation, whether it is a single, a mixtape or an album, to keep you back from reaping what you deserve to reap. I’m pretty sure we’ve all experienced it before; You come past an unsigned band or artist with some killer music. Naturally, you ask one of two questions: “You’re hot! How much for a CD?” or “Wow, why aren’t you signed yet?” Their answer: “Uhh… I don’t really do it for the money. I just do it for the love of music.”
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against making music for the love of it. It’s a beautiful thing to love doing what you’re capable of with your God given talents and skills. However, should we really allow our love for what we do to stop us from doing it for more things than just love? Such as money, to name one? Face it, there’s no beauty in having to work a boring 9 to 5 job that scratches the blood from beneath your nails just to keep by and being forced to push music back and confine it to merely your ‘free time’. You love music. Why not make money from what you love doing? Yes, your music may be invaluable to you, but in the market out there, your music is just another product. And products have prices.

Okay Laszlo… And so?
My advice: Give some songs away for free. By all means. However, make sure that you DO get something in return for everything you give away. Whether it’s promotion, recognition, contacts, more sales of your other material, etc. Below you’ll find a couple of ideas for giving away some free music (please note: I said SOME), while still getting something in return:

Idea 1: Add your website address to the song title.
When posting a song anywhere on the internet as free download, why not put your website in brackets behind the song name? This way, people download the song for free, become interested in your music, are able to find your website right away, can easily look up more information on you, and are able to PURCHASE more songs from your website.

Idea 2: Use social networks to get them into your zone.
Put your songs up for streaming on as many websites as you can, but only allow listeners to DOWNLOAD the free songs from your official website. Then link to your official website from each of the websites that listeners can stream your song from, for example: MySpace, FaceBook, etc. This way, you can be assured that any listeners that want a free download of your song, will definitely enter ‘your zone’. And once they’re in your zone, the ball is on YOUR half of the field. You can toss them to the “Free Stuff” section for more free downloads, you can toss them to the “Gigs” section to show them when you’re performing near to them, you can toss them to the “Store” section to help you rake in some cash, etc. etc. You catch my drift?

Idea 3: Trade a free song for an e-mail address.
Why not have a small form on your website, MySpace page or FaceBook page where they can fill in their name, home town and e-mail address in return for that free download? Please note though, don’t do the obvious thing and tell them “Please fill in the info below in return for your free song!”; this often makes people feel skeptical as they wonder why you’d need their information. Will you bombard them with spam? Terrorize their inbox? Somehow send them life threatening viruses? Rather, tell them “Hey there! Your free song is waiting for you! Just tell us where to send it:”. This right away tells them WHY you need their e-mail address – to be able to send the song to them – resulting in them being less skeptical, and equips you with the information you need to send them regular updates on your music and achievements and have them coming back to your website time after time. To make it even easier, there’s tons of e-mail marketing softwares around that allow you to configure auto-responders in no time! This way, your fans automatically get their free song download sent to them as soon as they’ve filled out your form. For those of you that are serious enough about your music to be willing to spend a few bucks, GetResponse is a brilliant option. It’s what most businesses (including mine!) use to do their marketing and it has a ton of features that are guaranteed to make GetResponse incredibly useful for you. It’s not called ‘Get RESPONSE’ for nothing! For those of you that would rather go the not-so-costly (or in other words, free) route, there’s also a less sophisticated but still useful e-mail marketing software at emailmarketingprofessional.com .

Idea 4: Make them hand over their friends.
Why not take idea 3 a bit further and include a short ‘refer your friends’ form for your fans to fill out after entering their own e-mail address? This way you don’t only get one e-mail address to add to your mailing list, but 3-5 (or however much you’d like) of your fan’s friends’ e-mail addresses as well! One website that works incredibly well for this is refer-a-buddy.com – currently they have a special going where you can try out their service free of charge for 14 days and after that, if you choose to continue using their amazing services, costs are only $19.95 per YEAR! Yes, I know that sounds hyped up, with the ‘year’ in capital and the exclamation mark and all, but I promise you, I’m not an affiliate of theirs and I’m not getting any percentage of your money. Their service is just really good.

Idea 5: Give away a ‘secret surprise’ with your merchandise.
I see it all the time: artists giving away a free promotional mixtape or single whenever someone purchases one of their ‘highly fashionable shirts’. But why not try something different? Instead of telling your fans that they’ll receive a free mixtape or single with their purchase, tell them that ‘this item includes a secret surprise – be sure to check out your packaging carefully once it arrives!’. This will not only tell your fans that they can expect a free extra; it also tickles their curiosity by not telling them exactly what it is. Furthermore, the ‘secret surprise’ doesn’t even have to be an object like a CD. It could just be a piece of carton folded in half with fancy printing on it that includes a link to the ‘hidden section’ of your website – where they can get their free song download, see exclusive pics, watch an exclusive ‘thank you’ video (great way to make your fans feel a personal connection with you), etc. This way, your production costs don’t go up too much since you don’t have to get CDs printed and burned (I’m a cheap skate, I know), and you practically force fans to go back to your website straight after their package arrives, which gives you a great opportunity to promote yourself more and make the poor fan fall even more hopelessly in love with you. It’s true what they say; curiosity killed the cat. Or in this case, fan.

Idea 6: Run a competition.
Have you ever found yourself comparing price after price and worrying about how to afford a designer for your next album cover or a director for your next video? Well, don’t underestimate your fans! Usually, you’d be quite surprised to find out about the vast majority of skills and talents that your fans possess! When you need something done for which you don’t have the appropriate skill or talent, try organizing a competition. You need a new album cover? Give fans all the information you’d like on the cover and run a competition in which the best fan-designed album cover gets used on your next project and the fan gets a prize! Need a new video? Same thing! Allow fans to download the song (which will already result in some extra promotion by itself) and run a competition in which the best fan-directed video gets used and the fan gets a prize. There’s no telling what you’ll have your pick of at the end of the day – brilliant cd covers, top-class animated videos, etc. Further more, the prize could be anything – exclusive songs, a free copy of your album, a day out with you (that could be fun!), etc.
If you’d like to take it a step further, you could even post all the videos you received on your YouTube channel and tell your fans that the videos with the most views after 2-4 weeks will win. This could result in your fans promoting their videos on your YouTube channel and you getting hundreds upon thousands of new channel and video views!

And there you have it; six easy to implement ideas to help you give away some (once again, SOME) of your music for free without leaving you empty handed.

Do you have any more ideas? Are there any manners that you’ve successfully used in the past to get something in return for your free downloads? Please share your views and ideas in the comment section below! Oh, and ‘Thanks! These are AMAZING ideas! I friggin’ love you!’ comments are also welcomed.

Signing off,
Laszlo (Your personal T.A.M.P.O.N. expert)

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