Should you give away free beats?

Whether you are starting out or been a music game for a while the question of giving out free beats is always going to pop up. Now there are a few things to take into account before you decide. I will run over some of the pros and the cons.

The pros of giving away free beats:

1. The first and best reason is to gain exposure.

If you are new or old at this there will be someone out there that has never heard of you. Giving out free beats is a great way of having your music heard by new ears and potential customers.

2. Allowing artists to test out the song before buying.

Yes most artist don't have a huge budget so they take 10-20 beats to the studio and see what they can achieve. Once they find a beat that works they will come back to buy a lease.

3. Some of your beats might not be popular on sales.

But if you give them out for free you can still make some income from the plays it gets as long as you have it registered.

4. A reason to send an email blast.

Sending an email that is just about buy my beats will come across being spammy, there is no value for the reader. But if you send them some free sounds and a message like: hey just made these new beats, I am giving them to you as i think you will suit them well. Make sure to send me what you have done with them and if its magic we can look at getting them leased to get them viral. Something like that, you will eventually find a recipe that works.

5. Create a database.

Get customers to leave a email or way of contacting them to receive the download. This is a great way to get a list of potential customers.

The cons of giving away free beats:

1. If they get them for free then why would they pay?

This is very true and to be honest these are the customers you don't want. Anyone serious about their music will always pay for a lease.

2. If they get free beats they will download and come off your site.

Having customers listen to your beats on your site keeps them on your site and gives them the chance to discover new sounds of yours. If they download a beat then they might never return to your .com

Our verdict on giving away free beats:

We think if you are new to this then 100% you need to gain exposure, the more the better. Giving away freebies has always been a great way to achieve this.

Once you are established and you have solid customer base then you can afford to try new things but at the start just focus on getting sales and your name out there.

How do I protect myself?

There are a few ways to protect yourself and increase conversions from free beats, firstly make sure the free beats have multiple tags throughout, no one serious will release a song with YOURNAMETAG every 30 seconds.

I would also recommend getting your songs registered so that you get royalties from the plays you get on youtube, spotify...

Follow up, make customers leave an email to receive the beat. Then follow up a week later asking what they thought to the beats, get feedback maybe even a sale, get that customers to give you recommendations. You could end up landing a custom beat sale.

Now above are a few reasons why you should or should not give away free beats. It is really going to be down to you. Buy give it a try and see what works best.

And to prove the benefit, I am going to link you do some free drum kits, but guess what you will need to give me your email to get the download.

See how it works? Might not get a sale now but maybe you will give me some feedback and even buy another drum kit at a later date.