Music Promo Blog: How to Sell CDs from your Website and Still Keep Your Fans Happy

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How to Sell CDs from your Website and Still Keep Your Fans Happy

There are a number of great ways to sell CDs online. If you're looking for a great business and don't want to fulfill orders yourself, CDBaby is the best service out there for independent music. They are, by far, my favorite independent music website. But if you're want to maximize your profits, then keep CD sales it in-house and sign up with Paypal.

Paypal offers a great service to small businesses. Customers don't have to be members of Paypal to order from you. You can get a Premiere/Business account for free, and your fees are as low as 1.9% + 30 cents per order. That's pretty dang good! Best of all, you can personalize every order!

Mind you, it's not easy to for the average band to learn how to maintain orders, which again is one of the big advantages of CDBaby over Paypal. You have keep careful records, respond to orders, and of course, take orders to the post office. It's a bit of a hassle.

Below are four quick tips that do wonders for keeping fans happy:

Email a reponse when you receive the order. This lets your fans know there's someone behind the order and who to contact with probs. And when they see an email from the band, they'll be much more forgiving if there are any potential problems.

Email customers AFTER you mail the order. We tour a lot and admittedly, I sometimes get lazy (like this week). So I like to tell our fans before they order that it takes 1-2 weeks for orders to arrive. But when a week or so goes by, fans will start to worry whether you got their order. You can alleviate their worries by sending a quick email as soon as the order is completed.

Double check every order before it goes out. We have multiple CDs and a couple times I've screwed up orders. It really sucks and is costly. Don't let it happen to you.

Email a follow-up in a week or two. This is a great way to show off your awesome customer service. When you email them, offer a free bonus, like an MP3 to add an extra level of excitement in your fan's mind. This will fuel their passion for your music and will ignite a lot of great word-of-mouth promotion.

Those are the essentials for selling CDs from your website. But if you want to really feed the fire for your music, scribble a quick thank you note to your fan. Then add it to the order. It takes only 10 seconds and will win you a diehard fan for life!

--posted by Marc Gunn at Thursday, August 26, 2004
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