How to promote and sell a mix tape online: budget, finances

For many recording artists, the dreams of having a hit mixtape will remain just that, just a dream. Why? Because most artists unfortunately don’t understand how to promote a mixtape online and sell it. Learning how to sell a mixtape is a matter of learning marketing and sales strategies, as well as having a well-developed plan. Many rappers try to find free ways to promote music online, however, to have a successful launch, you will need some start-up capital to invest in your project. Let’s take a look at some of the factors you’ll need to consider in your budget before you start promoting mixtapes.

How to make a mixtape cd

Assuming you are going to release a totally original mixtape AND have prepared a written action plan, the following should be considered when financing your project:

Beat Leases and/or Exclusive Beat Pricing
Registration costs
graphic design fees
CD duplication/replication costs
Music videos
Miscellaneous advertising costs

Beat leases, exclusive beats

If you don’t create your own beats, you will need to allocate an amount of money to purchase beat leases or exclusive rights to beats. Whether you buy beats online or offline is totally up to you.

Let’s use these numbers as an example:

You purchase 10-beat leases online at $50 per lease with a distribution limit of 2,500 units.

Cost: $500

You buy 3 exclusive rhythms on sale for $250 per instrumental with unlimited distribution rights.

Cost: $750

Recording

Your recording costs will vary depending on the recording engineer you choose, as well as the location of the studio. If you are a do it yourself musician and are able to record your own voice then you will save big here. Otherwise, consider the following realistic numbers:

Recording rate: $50/hour with a minimum reservation of 2 hours.

Let’s say it takes you and the engineer 3 hours to record and mix 1 song.

For a 13 song mixtape your costs would be 39 hours x $50/hour

Cost: $1950

audio mastering

Let’s say you use Discmakers’ audio mastering services for your mixtape. Your cost for 13 songs would be $599.

Total recording cost: $2549

Graphic design

Continuing with our hypothetical scenario, we will assume that to get a professionally prepared cover and back cover to promote the mixtape online. It will cost $200.

Duplication/CD Replication

For our purposes, we will be using Discmakers’ CD duplication services, purchasing 500 copies of the entire mixtape for promotion. The total cost here will be approximately $480. These CDs will be used to sell at shows and other performance venues.

Music video

To help promote mixtapes online, we will create 1 promotional music video to drive YouTube traffic to music.

Cost: $500

miscellaneous advertising

You’ll want to keep your miscellaneous advertising costs to a minimum. For our purposes, we will conservatively devote $1,200 to our various advertising efforts consisting of:

1 Flash Rotator Banner in Datpiff
1 YouTube Promoted Video
1 Google AdWords campaign
1 Facebook ad campaign

Total Investment Estimate = $6179

How to finance your mixtape

So we’ve estimated that you’ll need to spend a little over $6,000 on your mixtape. The goal of this project is to sell the mixtape at performances, shows, and distribute the music through digital outlets for profit. Here are some ideas that can help you finance, promote, and sell your mixtape online.

Ask family, friends

Even if your pride tells you otherwise, ask your family and friends to help fund your efforts to promote the mixtape. Even if they only contributed $5, you’re $5 closer to your goal.

fundraising

Crowdfunding has become an increasingly popular way of obtaining monetary resources. Also known as crowdfunding, equity crowdfunding, or hyperfunding, it describes the collective cooperation, care, and trust of people who network and pool their resources, usually over the Internet, to support efforts started by other people or organizations. .

Crowdfunding websites: Kickstarter, Crowd Tilt, AngelList, Crowd Funder, We Funder, Indie Go Go, Micro Ventures

loans

Personal loans, bank loans, and small business loans can all be considered financing options for your mixtape. Make sure you clearly understand the terms of your loan agreement and that you are committed to repaying your loan in full with interest as required. If your mixtape project is not for profit, you may want to consider looking for a grant.

Resources: Small Business Administration, Grants

Presale

You can pre-sell your mixtape before its actual release. This often works well if an additional offer is included with the pre-order (ie merchandise, exclusive downloads, signed copies of the project, etc.).

sell singles

You can sell individual tracks as you record them, using the money from the first ones to pay for future recordings and/or other mixtape expenses.

Resources: Tunecore, Cdbaby

Sponsorships/Endorsements

If you generated enough buzz before the release of your mixtape, you may be able to get sponsors to pay for some of your mixtape expenses. Acquiring sponsorships will require deep relationship and networking, but if you can pull it off, it will be a big plus for you.

final thought
Promoting and selling a mixtape is similar to developing a new product for a company. It takes calculated effort and adequate funding to promote your mixtape to the masses. Hopefully, this post has provided you with helpful tips for promoting your mixtape online.

Good luck!