Nowadays, musicians tend to have a lot more control over the success of their careers than they used to. Long gone are the days when they had to impress a TV channel executive to air their music video. That is the reason why mainstream music TV channels like VH1 and MTV have become irrelevant in the current age of social media.
However, making money through music videos can sometimes seem challenging, especially if one is not accustomed to the tides of the trade. Fortunately, multiple creative strategies can be used to make money from music videos and thereby recoup the costs that were invested in their creation. To know more, continue reading through our insightful guide.
Direct Revenue Streams for Music Videos to Make Money
1. Advertisements
With the help of social media, monetizing your music videos is easy these days. Monetizing music videos means the addition of advertisements. Whether you are using Vevo, Instagram, TikTok, Youtube, Vimeo, or Facebook, monetizing your videos is possible. Even though this revenue might not be enough for some of the most popular artists on the planet, it is better to have a revenue stream than have none.
2. Product placements
Influencer marketing is a hot topic these days, and even music videos are utilizing the power of a product that is meaningful to an artist’s audience. With product placements, music artists collaborate with companies to use their products in their videos, thereby indirectly promoting the company and its products and helping the products reach a larger audience.
3. Sponsorships
The term ‘sponsorship’ can have different meanings for different artists. For some, sponsorship can help them bring their music video idea to fruition, while for others, it can be a way to collaborate with brands for exposure.
4. Video sales
Music artists can also proceed to sell their music videos as digital downloads on multiple platforms. Additionally, they can also sell ‘ BTS or behind-the-scenes’ footage along with other types of video-related content.
Indirect Revenue Streams for Music Videos to Make Money
1. Affiliate commissions
Affiliate programs are all about promoting products through a unique link. When an artist’s audience clicks on such a link and proceeds to buy that product or something else, the referring artist earns a small commission. Affiliate commissions work in a similar fashion to product placements, except here, artists can clearly promote the camera and audio gear that they have used in the creation of the music video. Such affiliate links allow audiences to use the same products as their beloved artists.
2. Music streaming and digital sale royalties
When audiences watch and like the music videos of their favorite artists, they tend to look up the song on their favorite streaming platforms such as YouTube Music, Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, or Qobuz. These platforms pay a certain amount of royalty to the artists. As a result, music streaming media can be indirectly used to monetize music videos of an artist. Additionally, some platforms even allow you to purchase music digitally, such as Beatport or Bandcamp. Ultimately, artists get their royalties from such music streaming platforms as well as sales from digital copies of their music.
3. Crowdfunding or donations
Donations or crowdfunding has become a major source of revenue for most artists out there, especially with platforms such as Patreon. Touted as a micro-crowdfunding platform, it allows an artist’s audience to subscribe to exclusive content in return for a monthly subscription fee. That means that the artist will continue to receive the subscription money as long as the audience continues to pay it. And as the fan base grows, so does the Patreon support.
4. Opportunities for live performances
Fans of music artists not only like seeing music videos on their screens but also want to see their favorite artists live as well. When starting, the gigs may be small and may attract only the hardcore set of fans, but over time, as the artists’ popularity grows and new audiences get added to the fanbase, artists get to play on bigger stages. More music video views mean the ability to book more gigs.
Conclusion
Even though there are multiple opportunities to create revenue streams out of music videos, you will be unable to tap its maximum potential if you are not strategic in your overall approach. So, when you are launching a new music video, take your time to create a proper plan using our suggestions, as mentioned earlier and then proceed to execute it correctly.
