3 Steps to Greater Success on AudioJungle
This is an article based on a comment from reader Chandler in one of my previous blog posts, “Exclusive Vs Non-Exclusive Finally Answered”. The question is regarding the lower sale price of sound effects on AudioJungle.
Chandler writes:
"Great post. I have a few of my tracks on sites like productiontrax, but I’ve been reluctant to put them on audiojungle because of the low prices. Do you think I should join audiojungle and risk undercutting myself or just stick with the sites I’m using now?"
Let me start by saying that I’m not an AudioJungle evangelist. In full disclosure, I am an affiliate and an audio contributor, but Envato does not compensate me for my writing and my opinions are my own. The sale price on AudioJungle may be low, but the volume of traffic is high. Plus the infrastructure of the Envato marketplace provides unique marketing opportunities to the seller that are just not available on other stock libraries. These opportunities extend beyond selecting niche material and using proper SEO -- they allow you to use social networking to take control of your public visibility and direct customers to your most profitable sales.
With a few easy steps and a little bit of elbow grease, you can use the Envato Marketplace to turn your AudioJungle profile into a marketing powerhouse. Any stock audio company that allows that level of flexibility is a place that I want to be.
Changing Your Mindset
The low market price of music and sound effects at AudioJungle is a significant concern to many stock audio authors. While the average market price for a single-use royalty free license of a sound effect ranges anywhere from $2.00 to $4.00 on other stock audio libraries, AudioJungle typically offers the same licensed effect to customers at the price of $1.00—a fraction of the cost. (Update: as of 2018, AudioJungle now allows contributors to set their own product price)
In my previous article, Exclusive Vs Non-Exclusive Finally Answered, I put AudioJungle head to head with competing stock audio companies.
Even though AudioJungle had the lowest price per unit ($1), and the lowest total commission earned per sale (33%), the results of my experiment show that the company still accounted for 43% of my total income earned. This means that AudioJungle far exceeded its competitors in sheer quantity of sales, and is thus a commanding force in the royalty-free stock audio market.
So how do we avoid feeling undercut by AudioJungle's prices compared to its competitors?
It requires a change in your mindset.
- If you view your products in terms of Cost Per Unit, you will feel undercut.
- If you view your products in terms of Total Income Earned per Unit, you start to feel a bit better.
In other words, a single sale of a $1 sound effect won’t get you very far. But if that sound effect is available to a worldwide audience (7 billion people), on a network with a significantly higher volume of web traffic than its competitors — that one sound effect has far more earning potential.
I understand that only a fraction of the world population actually shops for stock sound effects, but I hope this illustrates my opinion, and my particular point of resolution with this pricing issue.
That one sound effect can become a substantial source of income — if you have access to the right audience. You have greater access to that audience through creative use of your profile on AudioJungle.
AudioJungle is a Marketing Powerhouse
AudioJungle has a significant advantage over every other stock audio library I’ve studied. That advantage is social networking. Other stock audio libraries allow you to create a simple profile, but you still largely remain an anonymous seller, mixed in with the rest of the sellers competing in a global market. AudioJungle is different because is a true hybrid between a stock audio library and a social networking site like Facebook.
In his latest business-marketing book, Duct Tape Selling, John Jantsch states that true marketing potential occurs with your ability to establish presence and brand authority within a marketplace. With AudioJungle’s social networking and profile customization features, you can build an Internet presence and develop a recognizable brand that will attract new leads to your products (and in turn convert to new sales.) It may go without saying, but building a positive presence within the community is the key component to gaining authority and developing a successful brand. I encourage you to check out John’s line of marketing books for more information on developing a successful brand. With that aside, here are a few steps you can take now to turn your AudioJungle profile into a marketing powerhouse:
Step 1: Generate Leads
Getting your name out in the world is a critical first step in establishing an audience and increasing sales. Generating leads means producing any sort of content that directs potential buyers to your product or service. This content could be anything from a twitter blast to a traditional advertisement. I took this picture of a sign I pass every day along the streets of Kansas City to illustrate my point in step #1.
As the slogan on the sign implies, your observation of the advertisement has generated a new lead for the company. Likewise, if you are reading this post, you are statistical proof that my writing it has produced new lead generation.
Look no further than the top sellers on AudioJungle for good examples of lead generation. Most if not all of these authors are active participants in the AJ forums. They regularly produce meaningful content or provide helpful advice to other users, and in return they develop trust and authority with their readers and within the marketplace. With each new post, a link is created back to their author profile, which can lead to increased sales.
Most top sellers on AudioJungle also have open invitations for VideoHive authors to use their music, and they post hyperlinks to various VideoHive products that have accepted the invitation. This mutually beneficial relationship generates leads to both the VideoHive and AudioJungle authors, and both parties can profit from the sale.
Step 2: A Good Brand Starts With a Good Image
This is another concept I’ve borrowed from John, but it rings true. A clean and attractive profile on AudioJungle suggests a level of quality and authority within the marketplace. This betters your chances of making the sale. This is true for your main profile page as well as the detail pages for your individual products.
If you find yourself saying “But wait... that’s blasphemy. After all, as long as my music track sounds great, why should it matter what my profile looks like?”
The answer is:
Because perception is everything.
It doesn’t matter if your epic war drums track got a thumbs up from Hans Zimmer himself– in the stock audio market, your track should look and sound the part if you want to make the greatest impact on a potential buyer. Put effort into the presentation and customers will perceive your product as higher quality than the competition.
Let’s look to the top sellers again. The consistent top sellers all have very attractive profiles, and have gone to great lengths to customize the look and feel in order to build their brand. They use HTML code written into their profiles, or unique images and graphics that have been found, produced, or even purchased from other Envato marketplaces. Again, the perception of higher quality leads to increased sales.
Step 3: Cross-sell Your Way to the Top
Top selling authors on AudioJungle recognize the value of cross-selling, and heavily implement its use in the marketplace. Cross-selling a product means displaying other products that are of a similar type, or complimentary to the product currently being viewed by the potential customer. For example, if you were selling a cartoon falling sound, you would likely want to direct your customer to also buy your cartoon splat sound. By making suggestions of complimentary products to buy, you:
- Keep potential customers focused on your products rather than your competitors
- Build marketplace authority by appearing helpful to the customer.
- Have the potential to make multiple sales with a single customer rather than just one.
The ability to cross-sell via HTML coding in your Envato profile and product descriptions is the largest advantage AudioJungle has over other stock audio libraries. Learning basic coding will become an invaluable tool, and it can have a dramatic impact on your quantity of sales and earned income.
Be as simple or complex with your cross-selling as your comfort level in coding allows. The more creative and visually appealing, the better; but even a simple “You may also like…” or “This product works well with…” tag line with a hyperlink will be a vast improvement in your ability to market your products.
Here are a few great examples of cross selling from some of AudioJungles top authors. Pay attention to the different ways each author directs you to view more products.
“Moment of Inspiration” by pinkzebra
"Live My Life" by metrolightmusic
"Action Claps and Drums" by RedOctopus
Conclusion
There is no shortcut to becoming a top seller on AudioJungle. It takes time, technical know-how, and marketing strategy to keep your tracks above the competition. But if done effectively, even a $1 sound effect turn into a substantial source of income. There are many roads to success though, and this by no means the only way to build your business on AudioJungle. These steps are only my suggestions based on my own observations and experience. I am not currently a top seller, but by using these methods I have seen success and I am encouraged by the continued growth of my business.
Please leave a comment below and let me know how these strategies have helped you. Or be creative in your marketing strategy, and please share your journey with me as well.
Happy selling.