yo what's good people it's jay cactus
and in today's video i'm switching it up
for this one this one's gonna be a
little bit more of a marketing video a
lot of people have been asking me how to
sell beats online in 2021 or even just
how to grow as a producer i'll be going
through all of my gems in this one and
i'm not trying to make it one of them
videos where i say follow these steps
and you're guaranteed to sell beats
because it just doesn't work like that
it is going to be a long term plan i'll
be going through some free techniques or
low costing techniques just because i
know there's a lot of producers out
there on a budget but i'll also go
through some other stuff as well but the
first thing that i want to say is be
real with yourself and by that i mean
are your beats really ready to sell if
you've only been producing for about six
months you haven't got a lot of beats on
your store then the chances are that
they're just not ready to sell it's as
simple as that so in the beginning i
want you to focus more on improving your
craft and don't worry about selling
beats
i know it sounds counterproductive but
that's just how it goes when like no
one's going to buy a product if it's a
piece of if you want to make a
business selling beach you need to be
thinking of yourself as a business and
the beats as a product look the product
is the main thing and no one's going to
buy a piece of just because you're
sliding in the dms asking them to buy it
you could spend all the money that you
want on marketing you can push it to as
many people as you want but if the
product's not there
it's just not gonna sell and look i'm
not saying you can't post them beats i'm
not saying you can't add them to your
store whether it's beat stars or a bit
i'm just saying don't stress yourself
too much in the beginning if you're not
making sales it's going to take some
time to develop your craft so you need
to be making beats every day you need to
be watching tutorials
you need to be feeding yourself with
information whether it's podcasts books
literally anything that you can you need
to be 100 on this there's no shortcuts
no get rich quick scheme
none of that but if you think
your beats are ready and you're ready to
make that next step then what i'd say
that you need to focus on most is your
personal brand and by that i mean making
yourself known so you need to be working
with
artists you need to be building up a
portfolio posting on social media trying
different things until you find
something that works looking
professional having consistent visuals
on youtube instagram whichever social
media platforms you're using you just
need to get your face out there as much
as possible whatever it is so
stop hiding behind your logo hiding
behind your laptop i know a lot of
producers are introverts we don't really
like getting on camera and speaking to
everyone but yo i'm telling you you're
gonna have to learn it man i'm not
really the kind of guy that likes being
on camera i just knew what i had to do
to make it as a producer so i just tried
different things
and look if you go back to my early
videos you'll see that i look kind of
uncomfortable
what's good people it's jay cactus here
and today we're going to be making a uk
drill beat
even sometimes in my videos now i still
don't feel 100 comfortable but i am
getting better at it and it's something
that i'm just learning along the way so
no one starts off perfect it's just one
of them things that you have to do and
then you just improve from it as you go
and look i know a lot of people are
worried about what people think it might
be the boys it might be the people that
they work with the family
they're always conscious about what
these people are going to think of them
when they start doing things like this
getting on camera
speaking about things that they're not
usually speaking about but honestly who
gives a because those people are
not the ones that are going to be buying
beats from you and supporting you i'm
telling you right now it's always
someone that's halfway across the world
that's going to support you more than
your own boys
if i look at my youtube analytics or my
sales and beat stars it's always
somewhere in the u.s
sometimes india south africa other
places in the uk
it's anyone bought my own people so why
are we worried about what everyone
thinks that near us i know the feeling
man i didn't really want to be that
cheesy guy that was on camera talking to
everyone but you can just be yourself
you don't have to be over the top with
anything people might respect you more
for just being yourself and if i didn't
start doing this i could guarantee
that i wouldn't have made a beat sale or
a drunken sale so with me saying all
that you're probably thinking yeah but
how can i build up a personal brand so
i'm gonna break everything down for you
and before you do anything
i want you to think about your potential
customer avatar and by that i mean who
are you trying to sell to you really
need to narrow this down as well so who
is this person where are they based how
old are they
do they have a job do they do music
full-time what genre do they make what
kind of beats do they like
literally pick as many details as
possible and run with that person even
find a picture online that kind of looks
like your dream customer avatar i know
it sounds kind of weird but once you've
got that vision in your head it's
easier to speak to your audience because
everything's gonna cater towards that
person the things that you post on
social media the type of language that
you use when you're talking to people or
sending emails
or even in your post your captions
literally everything is gonna be aimed
at that customer avatar and once you've
got that locked down you want to start
with the basics of having a logo and if
you're not good at graphic design then
you'll just go to somewhere like
fiverr.com you see my text logo you can
see it on the screen in the back i paid
about 10 pound for that logo but it
looks professional i see a lot of people
trying to make a logo just because they
know how to work photoshop a little bit
but yeah i'm telling you if you've got
the money even if it's just five or ten
pounds go to fiverr.com pay someone that
specializes in that and just have
something proper that you can use so now
you've got your beats you've got the
right mindset and you've got your logo
the next thing i want you to think about
is social media and in the beginning i
think you should try everything not
everything's going to work for everyone
so for me
youtube worked but for someone else
instagram might work you just don't know
until you try it so you need to get on
all social medias be posting on
everything and once you see one thing
starting to work then you need to double
down on that and put a lot more energy
into it but i think
every producer should have a youtube
channel regardless out of all of the
social media platforms there's been a
lot that has come and gone like myspace
was popping at one point it died off
facebook pages were popping at one point
and that died off but throughout it all
youtube's been the one that's been kind
of consistent and it's probably the main
place that rappers are still going to
for beats
and a lot of people say now i don't want
to start a youtube channel because it's
too saturated on there but yo if
something's saturated it means there's a
lot of potential to sell on there as
well and the other thing is you're not
competing with
everyone on youtube there's people out
there that are posting beats once a
month
once a week they're not really
consistent with it but if you've got the
mindset you've got the beats you've got
the branding right and you're consistent
with it then you're gonna see numbers
and when it comes to youtube it's
all about finding your niche i'm still
trying to grow my beat channel but
there's a lot that i've learned from
growing my tutorial channel and a lot
that i've learned from speaking with
other successful producers but every
producer that i've spoke to who's made a
living off selling beats on youtube have
said the same thing they all said that
you need to stick to one lane so don't
be uploading boom back beats one day
drill bits the next day then electro the
next it just doesn't make sense no one's
going to know what to expect when they
come to your channel you want to be
known for the guy that does a certain
style of beats because that's how you're
going to get those customers that are
going to come to you continuously so
maybe you're the orchestral drill guy
maybe the old school boombot j
dilla kind of guy whatever it is you
just really need to find your own lane
on youtube and to do that you can use
tools such as vid iq and tubebuddy i'll
be honest though once i started using
these tools i was relying on them too
much but you have to remember that
youtube never shares its algorithm and
the algorithm changes all the time so
these tools that you can get for youtube
all of these add-ons
you can use them but i wouldn't think
about them as something that's 100
accurate and if you don't know what the
tools are they're both
seo tools which stands for search engine
optimization so they're basically tools
that are going to help you with your
tags and your keywords and your
descriptions so that when people search
on youtube your video actually shows up
and you can get free versions of both of
them so if anything i'd say download
both and test out different keywords and
see what they both say
if you think about drake type beats
everyone's typing in drake type b's
everyone's making drake type beats so
that lane's probably taken by a few
producers but if you know artists there
maybe isn't known worldwide but they're
still popping off and you can see a lot
of rapid growth of them i'd go for
someone like that because if you're
doing their type beats as they grow as
an
artist more people are going to be
searching for their name they'll be
searching for their tight beats and
you've already been doing their type b
so your channel's going to grow with
them think of it as like investing in a
stock if you invest early on and that
company
grows you're going to make a lot more
money than someone who invests later on
and catches them at the peak and then
once you find that artist you want every
single video to be that type b
or you could maybe go to like two or
three different artists as long as they
fit the same vibe i won't go into how to
use them tools too much in this video
just because i wrote a full article on
it that's on my website so i'll put a
link to that in the description just
know that the tools to help you find
keywords that are going to help you rank
when people search them keywords and you
want to find keywords that people are
searching for a lot but there's not a
lot of competition and you're with
youtube
everything comes down to consistency i'm
telling you i can't stress that enough
like whatever your schedule is whether
it's uploading one beat a week
one beat per day like one every two days
just stick to it stick to that plan make
sure you're not missing a day schedule
them out so they're uploading at the
same time every day and with consistency
again make sure you're using the same
kind of thumbnails the same titles the
same descriptions
everything needs to match you want
people to see that thumbnail when
they're searching and know straight away
like yeah that's a j
cactus b and also in the description you
obviously want a link to the beat where
people can buy it so whether that's on
beat stars air bit the platform that you
selling to be on just doesn't matter
it's about how you drive traffic to it
so don't worry too much about what
platform you need to go on i personally
like beat stars but i haven't tried
anything else so i haven't really got
anything to compare it to and then on
beat stars you can offer a free
tagged download which means that an
artist can download the beat which has
tags all the way through it so they can
write to it they can practice with it
record to it whatever but then if they
want to use it for profit use which
means some places like spotify apple
music
amazon music anywhere that they're gonna
get paid for streams
or digital purchases i'm gonna go into
this a little bit deeper for everyone
when i talk about email marketing but
for now i'm just telling you i'd
personally recommend offering a free
download in exchange for email
address you can set it so that you can
exchange a free tag to be
for follow-on beat stars but i'll
explain in a bit why email's more
important but let's talk about instagram
because
everyone's got an instagram account
right now everyone should be using it to
network with artists and producers so
i'm going to explain it the first thing
that you want to think about on
is the content that you're posting and
that goes back to your customer avatar
everything that you post on instagram
should be aimed at your customer avatar
so
is it helping this person is it helping
this rapper have you got clips of your
work that you've done with other artists
have you got
quick tips for rappers anything that
they might find useful and then as long
as the majority of your content is based
on being beneficial for these rappers
you can add in some personal stuff as
well every now and again just so people
can get to know you a little bit better
but you'll get so many messages from
people telling me that they're
struggling to sell beats or they're not
really getting responses from rappers
and then when i go to their instagram
page it's just pictures of food and
pictures of the dogs nothing that's
really telling me that they're a
producer so if i can't see it then our
rapper's gonna see it as well and then
once you've got content on your page i'm
telling you one of the best ways to sell
beats or even just work with bubba is
through instagram dms so what i want you
all to do is start following any kind of
rap pages so pages like rap clout if
you're in the uk then something like sb
tv
mixtape madness grm daily just any page
that posts clips of rappers
you can also search through hashtags you
can just type in things like uk rat trap
uk drill
anything that you think other rappers
are going to be posting on and don't go
for the big ones straight away because
the chances are they're just not going
to respond go for the ones that are up
and coming
and the ones that you like the style of
and i'd say message around 10 of them
per day but don't be spamming people
don't be sending the messages saying yo
bro check out my beat just upload this
on fire can you like this can you share
it
stop asking people for something in the
first message what i want you to do is
actually take the time to listen to the
work so listen to the most recent track
that they've put out so you could
message them something like yo bro i'm
really feeling that single that you put
out i really like the punchline that you
said about whatever it was
or i really like that hook it was real
catchy keep doing your thing
just any compliment or anything genuine
and then just leave it at that and then
if that person responds because not
everyone's going to respond to you it's
just how it is people are busy people
have got to do so don't take it
personally if people don't respond but
if you're messaging 10 people per day
chances are some of them are going to
respond and you haven't asked for
anything in that first message it's just
a genuine conversation so most likely
some are going to message back and say
thanks bro i appreciate that something
along those lines and then at that point
you can let them know you're a producer
you can say something like yo bro i'm
really feeling your style i've got some
beats that i think you'll kill is a
cooler percentage i'm over and then i'm
telling you if you keep it as simple and
as genuine as that you've got a higher
chance of them listening to your beats
and jumping on projects with you so when
they message back they'll probably give
you an email address and then you want
to send
mp3s in the email i don't even send them
fully tagged versions anymore i just
keep one tag at the beginning you just
want to make it easier for them because
if they get the email they're in a
studio session they pull up the beat the
vibe into it and your tags playing all
the way through it's just going to put
them off and if you're worried about
people stealing your beats in the
beginning then bro it's just one of them
things that could happen but at least
you've got an artist on your b and any
rapper that takes themselves seriously
wouldn't even do that so i think you'd
be surprised but yo if you haven't
really built up a portfolio i'd even
recommend giving these beats out for
free
i speak about this so much i'm all for
giving free beats if it means you're
going to build up your portfolio if
you're a new producer and you haven't
worked with any artist if you're
messaging these rappers and they come to
your page and they see that you haven't
really worked with anyone you haven't
got any projects out there you haven't
got any leverage you're not really
making them want to work with you
sometimes just having good beats isn't
enough on the flip side if you've given
a lot of free beats out
a lot of rappers have come on your beats
now when rappers come to your page
they're going to see all these projects
that you've worked on
all these credits that you've got
they're going to take you seriously
they're going to be like yo this guy's
actually done some bits so i want to
work with him too and i'm not saying you
need to give
everything away for free i just think
that sometimes it can be more valuable
to actually have artists on your beats
rather than having no one on them just
because you're trying to sell them to
everyone i spoke to ghosty about this on
a podcast and he put it in a good way he
was saying it's a bit like
work experience if you think when you're
young you want work experience to build
up a cv
so that you can go and get these other
jobs it's the same as a producer
your cv is your portfolio with artists
so in the beginning maybe some work
experience is giving out some free beats
and then once you've got enough people
on your beats you can then go for other
writers and start selling them you can
even let them know in the email though
when you send the beats over you can say
something like yo bro it's good to chat
to you on instagram here's the beats
that i think fit your vibe because i
really like your style i'm going to give
you the first one for free and then if
you're with it we can talk about
the others and whilst i'm speaking about
emails i want to go a bit further into
it because
email marketing has been key for me so
when you're collecting all these emails
through people downloading free tagged
versions of your beats through youtube
and beat stars and then collecting
emails through instagram messages
you've got that data which is never
gonna disappear and that's data which
you straight up own so all these
platforms that you're using like
youtube and facebook you don't own all
of that data you can't control them
followers so if tomorrow instagram
started dying out and you spent all that
time building up all these followers how
are you going to move them to the next
platform and you can't even reach other
than people so when you make a post on
instagram you could have a thousand
followers but you're only reaching about
10
of them if that but if you're collecting
the email addresses and information then
you've constantly got that and you can
reach out to all of them whenever you
want so you're in full control of it
and if you don't have any money to spend
on email marketing i'd recommend getting
something like
gmask so gmask is a plugin that you can
add into google chrome i think it's a
chrome extension so look i'm gonna break
down how i use email marketing right now
there's tons of different services which
offer email marketing the one that i use
is a company called mailerlite just
because it connects to my shopify and
then i use a separate service called
zapier which connects
beat stars to mailerlite that's a bit
more advanced i don't want you guys to
worry about that just yet i use shopify
because it's good for e-commerce i can
sell merch on there
i can sell drum kits and being full
control of the tags and how i separate
my audience but i wouldn't worry about
all of that if you're just selling beats
i'd recommend getting a beat stars
account and then getting an email
marketing service that connects straight
to beat stars such as mailchimp so what
i like to do is have an automatic email
system
set up so that whenever someone
downloads a free b b stars collects the
email address that's connected to my
email service and then my email service
sends out a string of five emails and
now in these emails you want to think
about providing as much value as
possible to the person that's downloaded
the beat so mine for example in the
first email it's pretty much a thank you
for getting the b
it's just the introduction about myself
and just letting them know that i'd like
to be involved in the process so if they
record to the be i want them to send it
over so i can listen to it i want to
give them some feedback i just want to
be involved and then the next three
emails are just going to be more
valuable so in my second email
it's tips on recording at home because i
know that a lot of my customers probably
record at home and then in the email
i've got a link to one of my tutorials
that just teaches people how to mix the
vocals at home using stock plugins i'm
not saying that you need to create a
tutorial or anything you can link to
someone else's tutorial even mine so if
in your email you wanted to add some
value like that then link them to my
video it's still something good that
you're doing for this person
in the next email i'm talking them about
how to grow a fanbase as a rapper and
i'll link them to an article that i
wrote on my website which tells them all
about how often they should be putting
out music and really just how to grow as
an artist so you could do something
similar you could find a blog that you
like that helps artists you can find
another youtube video just anything at
all that's going to help this person
again you just want to be adding value
value value in my fourth email i'm
offering for me to share their stuff on
social media so i'm emailing saying like
oh bro how did you get on with the beat
have you recorded anything to it i
really want to hear your new music if
you could send me something i'll share
it to my audience on instagram
and again that's just adding value it's
not really me asking for anything it's
just me trying to help this person and
then in the fifth email this is when i
can ask for something i spent the last
four emails be nice this person like
giving them as much value as possible
and then in the fifth email it can be a
sales email you can maybe tell them that
you've just uploaded a new beat for sale
which you think they'll love you could
maybe include a discount code just
saying yo bro thanks for showing love
and downloading my beat i just wanted to
hook you up with this discount code for
20
off or whichever method you want to use
and that sends automatically over a five
day period so you can set it for every
day you can set it for maybe every two
days and you only have to write these
emails once so whenever someone
downloads a free beat their information
gets added to your beat stars the email
addresses are transferred to the email
marketing service
and then the emails are pumped out but
it's something that you want to keep on
top of as well so if you're into email
marketing i'd recommend keeping in touch
with people at least every week as well
and again it's just adding value as much
value as you can for everyone that's on
my mailing list you'll know that i email
you about twice a week and i'm never
really asking for anything it's just
trying to give you guys
as much value as possible so it might be
how to make a certain type b
how to do a particular trick in fl
studio or even something like this like
how to sell beats online if i was just
emailing everyone twice a week saying
buy a drum kit people get pissed off
they'll unsubscribe and then once you
get a lot of unsubscribers then your
email is going to be registered as spam
you're going to reach less people
and it's just madness so yeah if you're
going to use email marketing to rappers
i'd recommend
emailing them maybe once a week just
with different tips it could be industry
tips recording tips whatever it is that
you can add value and then every now and
again you can try and sell them
something so maybe it's a new beat pack
maybe it's the holidays you've got a
promo running whatever it is but just
don't do that all the time all right so
the next thing that i want to talk about
is customer service
if you're trying to treat yourself as a
business you have to be professional
you've got to be on point you can't be
leaving emails for a week and not
replying you literally have to go out of
your way to help people because you
never know who's going to buy from you
further down the line if you go out of
your way to help someone then that
person is going to remember you and then
the next time they're looking for beats
they might be like yo that jay cactus
guy was cool he really helped me out i'm
gonna have a look on his beat channel
and see what he's got it's the same
as anything in real life so imagine
you're in a restaurant right and the
manager walks up to you he's real cool
he makes sure that your food's brought
out on time he even offers you a free
dessert you're gonna remember that place
a lot and you might even write a good
review for that person just because it
was so cool
you want to have that impact on your
customers as well even if they've only
ever got something for free from you in
the past because you never know when
that person could turn into a customer
all right so the next tip that i want to
give you
is collaborating you want to collab with
as many producers as possible because
you never know who they're going to send
their beats out to so i'd recommend
creating a real fire loot pack so maybe
it's your 20 hardest melodies so same
thing that you did when you were dm in
rappers keep it genuine with producers
as well message them tell them that you
really like
whatever beat that you heard you really
like the style just leave it at that and
then with the ones that respond you can
start a conversation with them let them
know that you're a producer too
and ask if it's cool if you can send
over some loops the key is just not to
expect anything from anyone not
everyone's going to reply to you not
everyone's going to like your loops not
everyone's going to work with you it's
just how it is but for the ones that
will work with you then if they're
sharing the beat as well then their
audience is going to see your name if
they're sending beats out to rappers
then it might be the beat that you've
collabed on and then you've got a joint
placement i'm telling you there's so
many benefits to collaborating i've just
landed my biggest ever placement through
collaborating with another producer so
this works
and lastly i just want to talk a little
bit about ads i get a lot of messages
from people
asking me if i've ran ads if they work
if there's a return on investment and
personally yeah
i do think that they work i do think
that they're worth it if you've got the
money to spend on them and if you know
how to work them right so let's go with
beat stars ads for example i've tried it
out a few times in the past i've put
some money behind them just to see how
they perform and in my experience bees
don't really sell directly from the ad
but you want to look at the other
numbers so you want to look at how many
players it got how many reposts it got
and how many downloads it got and try it
on a few different beats as well so
maybe put a little bit of money behind a
couple different beats and then when you
see one performing the best
so that beat had a lot more free
downloads then i'd maybe pump more money
into that one and just because no one
bought that beat
whilst the ad was running it doesn't
mean that they're never gonna buy that
beat all them free downloads that you
got through running them ads means that
these people have them beats they might
practice with them and then maybe in a
mum's time when they actually want to
release a single they'll come back and
buy the b
and if no one even buys the b at least
you've collected those emails through
them free downloads so you can continue
to target them with emails you can keep
adding value and they might buy
something further down the line so don't
think of it as a thing where if i put
this much money into an ad i'm gonna get
this much back it just doesn't work like
that
again it's a long-term thing and you
can't really monitor it that well on
beat stars just because you don't know
when they're gonna come back so i'd only
really recommend those beat stars ads
if you had the money because to me you
could look at it this way if you've got
some money sitting there and you usually
spend on like clothes or going
out eating whatever it might be
if you take that money and pump it into
some ads it's bringing more attention to
your profile
more followers more people on your
mailing list and that's just worth a lot
more i haven't personally ran facebook
ads yet but it is something that i'm
going to be getting into so i'll
definitely share more information once i
have it but it's going to be the same
thing i'm not running ads to expect
something directly in return then i'm
going to be running ads to help build
awareness of my brand so that i can add
people to my mailing list and they might
buy further down the line i don't want
to go deep into facebook ads in this
video just because i haven't really
tested it myself yet so i don't want to
give out false information but yo if
you've got the money don't invest it all
into one ad straight away the key is to
put a little bit of money into loads of
different ads and then the one that
performs the best you want to double
down on that one and that's just the
same with everything
in the beginning you want to try all
social medias you want to try youtube
instagram tick tock literally every
social media platform and then once you
find the one that's working the best
start putting more time into that one
because the same shit's not gonna work
for everyone for me when i first started
i was trying them
instagram videos where i play along to
the beat i was trying youtube beats i
was trying tik tok i was trying
tutorials and then tutorials started
working for me so then i put a lot more
energy and tutorials and i managed to
grow to
25 000 subscribers within a year so that
was crazy
so just try things and don't compare
yourself to others some people will do
the click funnels game some people will
run facebook ads some people run youtube
ads some people do tutorials literally
everyone's different so just try things
and find your own lane but yo i know
this was a little bit of a rant i just
wanted to share my gems with everyone
and hopefully someone can pick up
something from it and most of this has
been on selling beats online but as a
producer in 2021 there's so many
different ways you can make money it
doesn't have to be about selling beats
to rappers you can sell beats you can
sell sample packs
loop kits you can get sync placements
you can offer mixing and mastering
services
you can collect royalties through
working with other artists you can sell
things through
affiliate links if you built up a
youtube channel and you can even do paid
promo for people once you've built up a
youtube channel but it all comes down to
personal brand and your products so
make sure that your beats are on point
and then do everything that you can to
get your face out there so just try
different things with social media work
with as many different producers and
rappers as you can build up that
portfolio and then you're gonna have
more leverage to sell beats to other
rappers so yo i hope you liked the video
i know it was a bit of a long one so if
you've watched the full thing
i appreciate your time if you want more
videos like this where i go further into
different topics then let me know i
tried to cram everything into one video
so if you think i've missed anything let
me know
i'll be back to the usual cook up videos
on tuesday so i'll see you next time