Direct-to-Fan Distribution Options Grow for the Indie Musican
I recently discussed in detail how the record industry business model failed, and one of the main reasons was the growth of digital distribution options that artists have to sell and distribute their music and content.
Even though the internet has opened the doors wide open, up until recently it still has been difficult for the non-tech-savvy musicians to sell their music directly to the fan – that is, without a middle man.
Unless your paid for a developer to have your website set up to configure the sales process and had a back-end area for fans to download purchase tracks, you had to rely on channels like iTunes to take care of the distribution process.
Of course, while iTunes is absolutely necessary to have your music available on because of their convenience and large user base, the profits you receive from them are split and gathering sales data (and getting your check) takes time. If you think about it, selling a digital file shouldn’t be that hard to do.
Luckily, services have popped up that offer the artist the ability to sell tracks directly from their websites and social networking pages with ease. Nimbit jumped on the scene a few months back, and recently ReverbNation announced a partnership with Audiolife to offer a similar service.
The Reverb Store is a customizable, re-brandable, ‘official store’ that empowers the Artist to create unlimited virtual t-shirts, CDs, Downloads, and Ringtones with no out-of-pocket expense, and to sell those goods on homepages, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs directly to their fans. In addition, Artists can order customized items for sale at their shows, at wholesale or bulk prices.
But the Reverb Store is more than just an e-commerce tool. Its integrated into the very DNA of the ReverbNation marketing and promotion platform so that Artists have the tools to drive potential customers to the stores.
Direct-to-Fan represents an important piece of the revenue puzzle, and ReverbNation and Audiolife have created the most powerful solution to date for Artists/Labels big and small.
Now, fans have a plethora of options to purchase music directly from the artist, and setting this system up is becoming easier to implement.
What does this mean for the artist? It means that musicians can now focus their marketing efforts on getting people to their website and taking advantage of those visitors by offering the album right there and then. One less hoop for the fan to jump through should see and increase in download sales, and because there’s no middleman, and increase in profits as well.
