7 ways to sell more music online

Selling music online offers immense potential for artists. It’s a tangible way to build social engagement and reach a larger global audience, boosting your chances to make genuine connections with fans. It also presents a real opportunity for increasing your revenue stream.

Overall, it’s a win-win situation: if you’re releasing new music, or just looking to make some money from music online while also performing live, look into selling your music directly to fans.

Whether you’re just getting started selling music, or looking to amp up your current music sales strategy, try out any or all of these seven ways to sell more music online.

1. Sell music through your website
2. Set up Landing pages
3. Use product bundles
4. Exclusive fan content
5. Offer creative options
6. Change your products regularly
7. Use streaming and download platforms

1. Sell music through your website

The best way to sell your music online is through your own website. This is especially true for independent artists. In addition to establishing strong artist branding, your own music website shows that you’re a serious musician. It gives you full creative control, allowing you to offer as much of your music as you want, at any time.

A few ways to increase music sales on your website are to set up a pre-order for an upcoming single or album, offer pay-what-you-want pricing on tracks, and to sell bonus tracks, previously unreleased music, or remixes. You could also use a limited-time-only option to encourage purchases, or offer sale pricing on older material.

Selling your music commission-free through your website means that your fans' support goes straight to you, so emphasize that angle when you're promoting your music. Direct purchases on your website also provide your fans' email addresses — a direct way to communicate with them when you have new music to sell later on.

2. Set up Landing pages

If you’re serious about selling more music online, Landing pages are a very effective way to take your marketing campaigns to the next level. For best results, set up a music Landing page with a specific target, such as an album pre-order. Make this the single focus of the page; there should be nothing else there to distract your audience.

Once your pre-order campaign is over, measure your sales conversions to see if your promotional efforts were successful. The data will tell you how many users clicked through to your landing page, where they clicked from, and whether they completed a purchase.

This will help you determine where to best focus your efforts in promotion, and whether you should develop a marketing budget the next time you set up a campaign. It can also inform you where to use that budget to help drive fans from a particular platform over another.

3. Use product bundles

Band merch is a top seller, so take advantage of that momentum by creating bundles that include your music: try pairing a merch item with a digital download of an exclusive track, or an album or single.

Bundles that include multiple albums also offer additional value for your fans. If you have physical stock that you’d like to move — CDs, vinyl or cassettes — create bundles that include these alongside a digital option. You could also bundle a PDF of sheet music or guitar tabs along with your digital track.

Consider adding some surprising options that reflect your personality, or that reference your music. For example, pair branded hot sauce with an album, or offer custom guitar picks along with a new single release, or whatever you think your fans would really enjoy — the possibilities are endless!

4. Exclusive fan content

Already have a base of loyal fans? You can increase consumption of your music by offering access to exclusive options and sales through a fan subscription model.

Fan subscriptions allow access to exclusive music, behind-the-scenes content, and other perks through monthly paid subscriptions. If you'd like ideas on what to offer your fans, check out 71 ways to reward your music fan subscribers.

Nurturing your subscribers ensures that you have a community of fans around you when you release new music online, and you can reach that wide audience with more options.

5. Offer creative options

If you’ve been working to establish a solid fanbase but aren’t offering fan subscriptions, consider other interesting options for your fans. Not sure of the demographics, or what your fans want? Getting creative is a good way to find out.

Firstly, offer lots of options through your website. Consider creative merch products that go along with your music. Take note of what gets purchased, and use this information in your marketing efforts moving forward.

In addition to merch, offer plenty of music options for your fans. These could include sheet music, sample packs, and grouped singles. Drive fans to a dedicated music page that offers different file formats, and see what they purchase most.

Another option to consider is creating and selling download codes. For example, these could be great to offer at a show where you’re playing your new single for the first time.

6. Change your products regularly

Once you see what sells well, continue with that product strategy. Sample packs might work well for your fans. Or perhaps your fans are really interested in an album you made years ago and just re-released, with merch that features the album artwork.

Be sure to create merchandise associated with your music (a T-shirt with your album cover, or a tote bag that showcases your lyrics) and rotate the products regularly. Keep seasonality in mind when you change up your products — offer a discount on a holiday album towards the end of the year, for example.

Product updates also give you easy content to promote your fans. Set up a release schedule that includes shout-outs on your social media channels and your email list. Timing is important; build hype, and then follow up regularly to maintain momentum for your music sales.

7. Use streaming and download platforms

Making your music available for streaming or download on major platforms is a good way to earn money from streaming. This opens the door to music discovery, extending your reach to a broader audience and building interest in your music from new listeners — people you can then bring into your online community.

Use a distributor like DistroKid to upload your music to popular services like Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music, and 100% of the royalties go right back to you.

Adding music videos to YouTube is good practice for broader discovery, too. Just be sure to add a link in the YouTube description that leads back to your website, where your music is available to download. Driving traffic there will help interested listeners engage further with your music.

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Selling music online to make money is no easy task: it can require a lot of repetition, and continual adjustments to marketing efforts. But once you get started, you might be surprised to see how eager your fans are to support you, especially if you’re making purchases easy for them and offering great value for their money.