Offering Free Beats, is it Good or Bad?
Undoubtedly, offering free beats will bring good traffic to your website. However, to what extent should you be offering them? What exactly should you be offering? It’s arguable if this is a good or a bad idea. Some consider it as a good push, some believe it is a fatal mistake.
Supporters:
On one hand, other people believe that it is fine to offer your beats online for free while taking into consideration some aspects and restrictions. Thus, they support the idea that this way shows immediate benefits for the producers, especially when it comes to traffic and website visitors.
Non-Supporters:
On the other hand, people who are against offering beats online for free believe this is absurd.
To illustrate, if someone came to you asking for a free beat for not-for-profit use, then there is no such thing. They believe that there is nothing called a not-for-profit use as it isn’t believable that they won’t financially benefit from it in any way.
Plus, take this as an example of the way they see the process, if a restaurant wants to give away free food samples, they won’t be contacting the farm asking them for free chicken for a “not-for-profit” use; it will never work. The same thing is applied in the beat-selling industry as it’s also considered business! They think giving free beats devalues your work.
Alternatives:
If you don’t wish to have your beats distributed to the public for free, then consider these alternatives.
First, a 50-50 partnership is a good alternative. For example, you can give the artists the beats and create an album together, yet they won’t be for free as when the project is done, you both will split it 50-50. Thus, it makes sense because the composer of the song is entitled to half of the song and the writer is entitled to the other half of it.
Second, you can both agree to exchange and trade. For instance, it can be agreed to exchange your beats with the rapper and you have some of their verses, or you can trade photo shoots with photographers, or you’re capable of trading beats with graphic designers or even trade your beats with some food! Just make sure to get something out of it.
Third, consider releasing instrumental music and try to create a demand for yourself or just try to set up a project together with the help of some people you gave your free beat to. Next, release and sell your new music!
Tips When Offering Free Beats Online
However, if you are still interested in offering some of your beats online for free, then try to follow as many of these tips as possible.
- Make sure to include audio tags on all of your free beats.
- Do not fall into the mistake of giving away WAV or tracked-out files for free.
- Do not give too many free beats away; that’s because selling your beats is a business and it is your right to get some money off your products and services.
- Make sure to add the terms and conditions on the website on which you sell your beats regarding what can customers do with the free beats and what is restricted.
- Try to emphasize that people who get free beats do not actually get the rights to the beats and that they still have limitations regarding their use.
- It will do you no harm to get something in return for your free beats, even if it is as simple as requiring the visitors to submit their email addresses so that you can use them in the future to market your new products and services.