Music Glue : The Band is the Brand

Music Glue is a free to use online marketing and retail service that provides artists and record labels with all the tools required to release digital music globally in a way that engages internet savvy fans that currently expect to get their music for free.

That's what it says on their website. I tried it out in order to understand what it was all about and whether it makes sense for musicians to just give away their songs.

I signed up for free and opted for the Standard Music Glue Package www.musicglue.com/margauxmusic

With this package, you get :

- Unlimited free bandwidth

- Create free products only, allowing you to build extensive fan databases

- Quick and simple to use


You can also opt for the Professional Package :

- Sell your music via P2P

- 65% share of NET revenue

- Manage multiple artists from 1 account

- £20 minimum payment threshold (you need to make at least £20 before we pay you)

- Quarterly payments


Let's stay focussed on the Standard option for now :

Well, you're not just giving away your songs (MP3 or WAV), you actually attract new fans with a valid email. Emails are made of people and therefore potential new consumers !

Fans are required to have a verified email in order to download your tracks. On top of that, you get their names, location, date and time.

So how do you make money from it ? You don't - straight away anyway. What you do though is build a database and gauge whether people actually like your music or not. This should provide some valuable indications as to where you should concentrate your marketing campaign and how.

I believe that people will not download your music because it is FREE but because they like what you do.

To give you an example, Marillion have put their whole new album up on Music Glue for free and guess what I didn't download it because it is not my cup of tea.

Music Glue offers a very good way of promoting additional products you are selling as well : concert tickets or derivative products. You just need to upgrade your Standard Pack to Professional for free and start using the features 'free and/or paid downloads' and/or 'name your price' !

One feature I would very much like to see on Music Glue is a newsletter facility for musicians and labels. Collecting emails is great but it would be very helpful and convenient if we could send updates to our fans via our Music Glue interface.

Overall, Music Glue offers the flexibility to musicians and labels to adapt and chose their own commercial and marketing model according to their very own music business reality.

I recommend using Music Glue.

December 2008

Review Raver : Margaux

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