Artists making money, how are you branding yourself?

Envato Authors Video Authors
1

I’m curious. I’ve recently uploaded some stuff to this site, and I was wondering if I would be able to pick some peoples brains a bit. I am aware that making money on this site is not as simple as dropping stuff on here and walking away.

Are you visiting other envato forums? do you pay for advertising on other sites? Is it all word-of-mouth from past clients? I know the “cream always rises to the top” but, ill be honest - there’s a lot of cream around here! I would love it if some artists making money on here would be willing to divulge some of the techniques they’ve used to market themselves!

I apologize in advance if this gets asked a lot.

Thanks,
Aaron

2

I actually haven’t began marketing my audiojungle profile at all yet but I’m still getting lots of sales! Im also curious as to how people market their audiojungle portfolio, or if its even necessary? Im assuming the best and most useful music simply get the most sales?

3

Hey Aaron,

The question does come up quite a bit, but it’s always a good question :slight_smile:

I cannot speak for everyone else of course, but I will tell you what works for me:

1.) Focus on making the best quality music you possibly can with what you have access to.

2.) Lean the customers and what they like to buy. You can sell any genre of course, but what are your strengths?.. and what is in demand? I continually ask myself these questions and as the market grows and changes, I do my best to adapt with it.

3.) Keep your profile and item pages current and up to date with links to other similar items. This is not necessarily scientific, but I believe the better your pages look graphically as well, the better value your music is perceived and the more sales you will generate…what is scientific is that it’s easier to find more of your music with a little added navigation to your items other then the standard navigation AJ provides.

4.) Connect with videohive producers if possible…even better however, write good music (or at least the “right music for their needs”) and they will find you. This cross site promotion is EXTREMELY valuable.

5.) Use your social media to promote yourself, but don’t become annoying and spam everyone to death with your material so much that it becomes ineffective. Every now and then let people get to know the person behind the music a little more and people will not only begin to like your music, but you as a person.

6.) While the community here absolutely rocks, it’s not necessary to continually post on the forums to gain exposure…in fact, I believe it doesn’t do anything else other then letting the rest of the community know you’re alive :slight_smile: Which is great at first, but after that is not necessary to sell music. It is nice to connect with other people however and learn things from each other all the time. I can tend to ruffle the occasional feather here and there, but most of the time I try to be a nice guy! People help and have helped me a lot around here so I try to do the same.

7.) I don’t go on the other forums too much and I don’t pay for any advertising anywhere. I’m not saying thats not a good idea, but I don’t do it.

8.) Focus on making the best quality music you possibly can with what you have access to.

Good luck to you my friend!

  • Tim
4

wow, thanks for the in-depth reply Tim! I am constantly pushing myself to write the best music I can - which tends to be more electronic stuff, probably due to my previous experiences with that kind of music, and I’ve decided I’m not going to try to write all ‘genres’ of music, but just focus on what I know. Though I am always pushing myself to work with new styles of music, and try incorporate what I’ve learned from that process.

I consider stock audio sort of like a series of musical puzzles, in that I’m trying to figure out what works in a style that I may not have as much experience in, and that makes it very enjoyable for me :slight_smile:

I’ve definitely checked out your page, Tim, and I have noticed the buttons and links to your best works, as well as the social media links, and I have definitely taken note! I plan on making my page nice and navigable when I have more material online!

I generally don’t plan on telling too many people about what I do here via my twitter or facebook pages, just so I can keep the music that i’m “known” for (i’m hardly famous) separate from what I do here - it’s mostly a matter of people who are into my Dubstep and bass music wouldn’t really care about what I’m doing here, so that makes worrying about spamming too much, easier!

Thanks again for the words of encouragement, I didn’t expect to get a response from one of the top sellers on this site, so I really appreciate it. As far as talking on the forums goes, I’m finding that I like the community on these forums - it’s very supportive and generally pretty positive :slight_smile:

-Aaron

5

I have gotten some ‘exposure’ recently that I’m definitely proud of!

http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/blog-412-elk-vs-elk.html

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/jam-session/2011/jun/30/deadtech-vs-livetech-kava-lounge/

Gotta love the “Elk” picture on the first link. we’re obviously not trying to take ourselves too seriously. :wink:

6

It’s going to be hard to follow Tim on this one, because over the last year he’s pretty much been the poster boy for how to get things done on AudioJungle :).

In fact, maybe I should start this with some tips on what not to do. I have not yet spent much time on self promotion (any viewers of my profile page will notice that it’s woefully slim compared to other top authors). I opened a Twitter and Facebook account but keep forgetting I have them - I think I’ve tweeted something like 5 times. I don’t own a television and don’t listen to the radio or popular music. People keep talking about Dubstep and I have no idea what that is :).

Here’s are the few things I have done over the past 1.5 years I’ve been on AJ:

I recently joined up with SoundCloud and posted a few AJ songs, and it seems to have boosted my sales a bit but that’s all completely anecdotal. That boost also coincided with the newer search stuff AJ did a couple of months ago, so I’m not sure what has had more of an effect.

I do post on the forums every now and then, and I agree with Tim that it’s not going to be the key to getting sales, but I do think it gives some decent exposure, especially to new authors.

I completely agree that collaborating with VideoHive authors is huge. I’ve had a couple authors contact me to use my background music, and have definitely seen sales of those songs go up as a result.

I guess what’s worked for me the most is that the type of music I’m composing and posting is sort of a simplified version of what I do well and like to listen to. I don’t have any artistic hangups, and will basically post anything I think will sell, but at the same time if I enjoy what I’m doing it’s going to come through in the music. Simple is really the key word - most of the buyers that I know of are using my music as ambiance in the background of voice over work, so I try to be catchy and emotive but not intrusive, if that makes sense. That’s just my style of music - if you’re making complex orchestral soundtracks the target use may be just the opposite.

Okay, that was a bit rambling - maybe there’s something useful in there somewhere. I am definitely in the infancy stages of self promotion, and am interested in what other people are finding return on investment in.

EDIT - Probably obvious, but another simple thing I try to do when on the forums or communicating with a buyer is to always be courteous and do the best I can to come off as professional in my emails/posts. We live in an age full of short hand, improper casing, and acronyms, so I figure if you take the time to write out full sentences you can really stand out. (Though for all I know I’m bugging people to death with my loquaciousness).

7

Thank you for the post jhunger! You’ve pretty much vocalized a lot of how I feel about the writing process. I try not to have any artistic hangups as well, and I think that goes very far - as long as I like what I’m doing, the quality (hopefully!) comes across. You can humanize a synth line all day long, but if you’re not feeling the work you’re doing, I think people notice the lack of care in the final product.

I’ve listened to a bit of your portfolio as well, and what i see is that you choose to focus mostly on the music you enjoy making, and you do it really well. It seems like it’s better, as stated before, to write what you like, and what you know.

Oh and for the record, Dubstep is kind of played out these days! I recommend going to boomkat.com to check out artists like Mala, Bok Bok, Girl Unit, and Joker. That seems to be a better cross section of what Dubstep is to me, but I got into it back in 2006 - it’s a much different animal these days, especially with artists like Gulp Skrillex, taking what little was left of it and pretty much destroying it. What can i say though, i’m kind of a snob when it comes to that music. Back when it was coalescing as a sound, the basic rules were “around 140 bpm and sub bass”. People were free and encouraged to experiment - these days it’s become sadly formulaic!

yeah i know… “i listened to it back in the clubs… before it was cool!”… I guess I’m getting old :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks for the advice - you make a lot of great points, and you weren’t rambling at all!

8

Hello Aaron,

I agree with Tim on the quality thing and jhunger’s comments about being professional. I am still learning and need to do some updates to my portfolio, but I think it worth mentioning a few things I try to stay focused on.

  1. Upload the best quality you are capable of at this time. And as Jon Acuff mentions in his book “Quitter” … 90% perfect and shared with the world changes lives, but 100% perfect and stuck in your head does nothing. So I need to remember that at some point I need to just “put it out there” even though I might not be 100% satisfied with it.

  2. Work hard to continue to increase your quality. I am a member of Envato’s audio tuts site and have taken classes and gotten certifications for software I use as I have been able to.

  3. Remember that words are powerful. So, if I am tempted to post something or email something negative that I am not responding in the heat of the moment and have really considered everything.

  4. Just be myself.

I hope that helps and I’ll check out your portfolio later when I’m not on an iOS device without Flash support. :wink:

John

9

I am constantly advertising my music! I do these steps…

1./ Make each track the best it can be, spend time on them.

2./ Give the track a name which gives people an idea of how it can be used, for instance I just created an upbeat track that would be perfect for use in a shop advert, so i named it “Shopping Spree”. This immediately puts that thought into a prospective buyers head and helps lead to sales.

3./ upload it to as many sites as you can - I make videos on youtube for each track, upload to soundcloud, make a video for facebook etc. I only sell the track here on audiojungle, so I include links in all descriptions and videos to my audiojungle portfolio.

4./ always be updating your profile and keeping people up to date on new things your working on but dont over do it as people will just block you.

I have recently taken out a facebook advert to promote my audiojungle portfolio which is targeted towards game developers and film makers.

hope this helps

10

Hi everyone!
Question to liambradbury:
How can i see your video?
It`s interesting, your tracks there are marked?

11
MastaBlack_fK said

Hi everyone!
Question to liambradbury:
How can i see your video?
It`s interesting, your tracks there are marked?

I just make a quick video of the track with some images relating to the music and have text at the start of the video showing a link to my audiojungle page.

None of the tracks I have on other sites are available for download or sale, I just link everything to my portfolio.

12

Thanks you for quick answer) It`s really great idea.

13

that IS a really good idea. thanks liambradbury :slight_smile:

14

I made my first sale today!! Haha! I’m so happy i broke through that barrier! AJ WORKS! thanks for all the encouragement everyone - I’m gonna keep at it!

15

Congrats!

16

I did not promote himself. ))

17

Haven’t promoted my page at all yet either and sales are going extremely well! Going to start uploading more to youtube though.

18

Put up your best work and allow your music to brand itself… I cannot imagine any other method.

19

Hi! Is there any difference between the itmer released on weekday, or weekand? Does it infuelnce the sales?

20
RollercoasterAudio said

Hi! Is there any difference between the itmer released on weekday, or weekand? Does it infuelnce the sales?

From my short experience and what I’ve read here, no, there’s not. Anyway, since the review queue might take 7 days now and 4 next week you have no control over that.