10 Steps to Providing A better online Beat Buying Experience

1. Have beats arranged or searchable by BPM range of the track.

2. Have beats arranged or searchable by dominate instruments sound of the tracks such as guitar, brass, flute. Etc.

3. Have beats arranged or searchable by genre & sub-genre of tracks.

4. Have beats arranged or searchable by using names of industry artists who may be featured on similar styled tracks.

5. Have beats arranged or searchable by original composition versus sample clearance needed beats.

6. Include on your site the exact terms of each type of beat sale or lease you offer with easy to understand wording along with a downloadable contract/agreement for an artist to have reviewed by legal counsel if desired. Provide free downloadable mp3 versions of beats tagged with voice drops containing your contact info, slogan, name etc.. This will allow a potential artist to take a beat with them and write lyrics to it while still needing to purchase the untagged version when ready to record. The tagged version should be tagged start to finish and can be a promotional tool if it becomes viral sending more potential clients to your site and may even bring industry persons to you if the tagged version reaches them. * Always make sure tagged contact info on beats is up to date** pan the tag in a random pattern so it may not be cancelled out, Do not pan voice tag dead center as it can be removed with studio tricks(phase cancellation) and could result in beat theft. Random panning of the tag will prevent removal.

7. Include an e-mail address that will be given to the beat buyer with the beat that is a permanent address that will remain active even if your site and paid e-mail address goes down for any reason. A yahoo or similar free account with unlimited storage is great for this type of back up contact address.

8. Include a written sample of exactly how you wish the beat buyer to list your beat production credits on their cd's or promotional material. List a mailing address where any promo copies compact discs containing songs with your beats should be mailed to and who the package should be addressed to if different from the listed beat seller's name.

9.Offer a sign up opt in form on your site for beat buyers to subscribe to in order to be updated when any updates are made to your beats catalog for sale or when any changes in terms of use may happen or be pending.

10. Offer a way for potential beat buyers to request custom made beats along with associated prices.

Allow way for artists Potential customers to submit constructive critic of beats in order to adapt to THEIR demand.

Excellent stuff. Just to add and enquire on a few points:
1) I find that most MCs are clueless to bars, let alone tempo. Don't you think tempo is widely valid and understood by beat makers rather than MCs?

4) Searching for beats based on their similar style for artists is a great extra method of help to carry out a sale.
However, where does that leave people like myself who don’t sound like any artist out there?

10 ) How much should we charge for custom beats? Isn’t this a shady area seeing as how the artist might not like the result? Which ends up in time being wasted. I suggest a down payment be paid for the process and extra for when the customer is happy in purchasing the beat.

MPC4k wrote:Excellent stuff. Just to add and enquire on a few points:
1) I find that most MCs are clueless to bars, let alone tempo. Don't you think tempo is widely valid and understood by beat makers rather than MCs?

4) Searching for beats based on their similar style for artists is a great extra method of help to carry out a sale.
However, where does that leave people like myself who don’t sound like any artist out there?

10 ) How much should we charge for custom beats? Isn’t this a shady area seeing as how the artist might not like the result? Which ends up in time being wasted. I suggest a down payment be paid for the process and extra for when the customer is happy in purchasing the beat.

hmm il'l try to answer your questions for ya here

of your "wretched of the earth" beat is pretty wild man with the deejayin in there


1. yeah many are but for the ones that get bpm is another quick way for them to search

Commercial beats will sell better online than what may be your own fav, but is a product for the target consumer.
2. The online mp3 beat market is up mostly of rappers/singers looking to emulate popular artists already out there
this is a supply and demand business and by understanding what the buyers want you will fill the need.
like you will find that it won't usually be your own fav beats that sell online and it will instead be your more commercial stuff, but if you are able to separate your own artistic beats for you, from the ones for your online beat biz you will make some money off them for more gear etc to do your own thing.

Like I make all kinds of beats but only market to sell online the ones that are more on the radio sound of things.
My underground hip hop stuff I do for fun but don't waste my time trying to sell 90's beats to the new gen
just separate your passion from business and reserve time for both

3 for the custom stuff come up with a number that you feel is worth your time BUT, don't offer the custom beat as exclusiive unless really big number, If you do a custom non exclusive beat, it is no problem really because you will be adding a beat to your online catalog that already sold onnce and proven itself to be a seller. Most likely the person is gonna request a beat similiar to beat from " insert artist's song's beat here" Gives you a direction to go in. let them offer you a fee and decide on it based on if the beat they are requesting is the type that you think will sell more times and make you more money in the long run.

Oh & whenever possible when using the sites like rocbattle and mybeatshop to sell beats on, try to not sell them thru the site but get the customers to buy direct from you/your paypal so get ya money right away instead of those sites holding it for two months.

what sucks about this kind of sale(above) is you get no money from it for atleast 2 months if I had done like below would have got instantly, and that's a tank of gas today,(each sale) not two months later.


if they as for a certain kind of beat, throw em a sample but have them come direct to YOU to purchase(like in pic of p.m.) that's what you want,, them to come to you direct.

^ good stuff, thanks for clearing that up.

Yeah I was also thinking of supplying a link in those kind of sites so the customer contacts you straight, so you not only get your payments soon as, but also don't have to pay like 20% commission to the websites hosting your beats.

However, where does that leave ranking and whatnot, seeing as how you aren't selling through the websites? would your lack of sale on the beat-hosting sites impact future sales in any way?

Lampdog wrote:PM stands for personal/private message, even though I know you mean well
and it's a good example, don't place pm's (no matter the context) into the public space.

Thanks for understanding.

10-4

MPC4k wrote:^ good stuff, thanks for clearing that up.

Yeah I was also thinking of supplying a link in those kind of sites so the customer contacts you straight, so you not only get your payments soon as, but also don't have to pay like 20% commission to the websites hosting your beats.

However, where does that leave ranking and whatnot, seeing as how you aren't selling through the websites? would your lack of sale on the beat-hosting sites impact future sales in any way?

The people who are already the top sellers on those sites did not have their own site at the time they started so put all the marketing into those sites and got to the top.
eber
The top sellers on the sites pretty much stay the same since they are on the front page therefore are the first ones the buyers check, then make sales from.

paid advertising would get a new person on the fron t page as does new beat uploads (for a day or so)

but much better of directing any of the beat buying traffic to your own site whenever possible.