Dream of Touring the World? It's Not Out of Reach!

Imagine for a moment that you're an indie rock artist and you're sleeping after a full day of marketing, performing, and let's be real, partying. While you're passed out in Lawrence, KS (it's a great college town, so it makes sense you had a gig/party there), a music-aficionado in Germany is wanting some new music to wake up to. He logs into Spotify and searches for bands similar to Queen and your group pops up because of various algorithms that associate your sound with Queen! Turns out our German friend loves the catchiness of your melodies and rich vocal harmonies (which is probably why you're associated with Queen) and begins sharing your music with his 1000's of German friends. When you wake up and login to your computer, you have a message: "10 albums sold. Location: Munich, Germany." Way cool, right?! Now you can connect with fans in Munich and begin devising a world tour. So how can you make this a reality? It starts with a digital music distributor.


What's a DMD?

Music Distributors exist for the purpose of making sure your music is sold through the biggest digital retailers. These are iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Amazon MP3, Rhapsody and MySpace. This increases your exposure because you describe your music using similar artists and upon uploading your music, retailers then log this info into their database. Suddenly, you're using an asset as a tool to connect with potential fans.
A common trait among music distributors and an extremely important one is sales tracking. This service gives you detailed reports on how much you're making and where. These statements will be a critical part of your marketing attack as they will let you know where your efforts are paying off. My advice: put more muscle into areas that are working and don't worry about areas where that aren't. (See our German example above).




Every distributor that I've researched also gives you some pretty cool marketing/promo strategies for free. This includes how to find your perfect fan, create a marketing campaign, use social media more effectively, and promote your upcoming single/album release.

Things to Think About When Choosing a DMD

The critical differences can be categorized as follows: extra perks, pricing and customer service.
Some examples of extra perks could be the creation and distribution of physical CD's as is the case with CD Baby. TuneCore will collect and deliver all your publishing royalties from around the globe. Ditto Music will set you up with your own label. Review these perks because they could ultimately tip the scales towards one distributor over another.

As far as pricing, almost all charge a setup fee for albums, singles and ringtones. Some companies give you and the band 100% of net sales after charging an upfront fee, as is the case with TuneCore. Other distributors take a percentage of your sales with a smaller upfront fee. Before choosing which service to use, definitely crunch some numbers based on past sales of your music. This will give you an idea as to which service will put more $$$ into your pocket.

Nothing can replace great customer service. You don't have hours to spend on the phone trying to fix a problem. Awesome support that will jump on any chaotic situation is a life-saver because inevitably, chaos will occur.

TC and CD Baby are the most popular music distributors. I know you need to get practicing so here's an article that will save you time: TuneCore vs. CD Baby. If you have questions, please ask in the comment section below. Good luck!

Harrison Welshimer, source