Don’t Make This Mistake
It’s truly amazing how many times I’ve run across a recommendation for a musician in a blog and when I’ve visited that musicians web site, there was no music to be found.

There were pictures and journals and newsletter signup boxes and just about everything BUT the actual music. Now, I don’t know if this was an oversight or they just thought everyone knew what their music sounded like, but whatever the reason....it was a poor decision.

Ways To Add Music
When you set up your website, the FIRST thing you should do is put your music on there. There are several ways you can do this:

1. Upload MP3 files


2. Encode to Windows Media, Real Player, or Quicktime format


3. Create a flash player on your site

MP3 Format
Posting MP3 files is very easy and you can be sure that 100% of your visitors will be able to play your songs. However, the downside to uploading MP3 files is that, unless you want to give your music away for free, you should only post brief clips of your songs in MP3 format since they can easily be downloaded by your site visitors.

Window Media, Real Player and Quicktime
Windows Media, Real Player and Quicktime formats may protect your songs, but in order to reach the widest possible audience, you’ll have to encode each song in each format.

Flash
While any of these solutions is better than none at all, the Flash solution stands head and shoulders above the rest. Why? Because it’s easier for your visitors. That’s the goal isn’t it? To make it as easy as possible to listen to and buy your music?

Flash is installed on over 97% of computers, so you can pretty much guarantee that anyone who is net saavy enough to be searching for music on the web, will be able to listen. Now, setting up a Flash player on your site doesn’t have to be expensive or difficult. You don’t even need to own Flash or hire a Flash developer to set one up for you. Wimpy Player is a great Flash program that you can plug right in to your existing web site. Once it’s installed, you can add songs at anytime just by uploading them to the specified folder.

I hope you’ve found today’s post to be informative. Please comment with any questions you might have.

Next, we’ll discuss newsletters, what they can do for you and how to set one up.
-Kat

Technorati Tags: Music Marketing

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