5 Awesome Bandcamp Features You Need To Know About

Bandcamp is an online record store and music community where passionate music fans discover, connect with, and directly support the artists they love. 

Below are the top five features that Bandcamp offers that make them stand out from the crowd. 

If you are a musician who wants to make a sustainable living from their music, Bandcamp offers a platform to make that dream a reality. 

Let’s dive in…

#1 Bandcamp Daily 

Bandcamp Daily is equivalent to Spotify’s Editorial Playlists.

It is the space on the platform that sees and hears hand-picked releases that the good folk at Bandcamp love and want to promote.

Bandcamp Daily aims to highlight music that would otherwise be left in the shadows. 

Any genre is considered, and the potential reach of Bandcamp Daily makes it well worth your time to submit your music.

If you are going to submit a new release for Bandcamp daily, Bandcamp-like releases to be submitted a few months before their release date. 

Give as much detail as you can on the release, and when describing the music, include an interesting or exciting angle for your release. 

You want to hook the reader in by making it personal and engaging!

#2 Organic Exposure on Bandcamp

Organic exposure is when fans find your music through Bandcamp’s search features alone without you having to pay for ads (like you can on Spotify, Facebook or Instagram). 

It’s free to optimise your Bandcamp page to get organic exposure; just make sure you fill out all of the fields and be as honest and detailed as possible.

In particular, it’s super important to tag your music correctly.

Tagging ensures your page appears in the search when fans are looking for new music.

Bandcamp’s search bar is a bit like a search engine. Users of the site can look for specific things they want from their music, and if your tags match up, your result will appear.

If you have tagged your music honestly and thoroughly, you have enhanced odds of music lovers discovering your page.

In addition, this detailed metadata will increase the eyes on your page and, ultimately, the money generated from your sales.

Tags to include can be your:

• Genre 
• Sub-genres, 
• The release format of your releases
• Your city 
• Your state, 
• Any special terms used to describe your music – you’d be surprised what people search for!

So if your latest album is Acoustic-pop, Americana and Roots, and you’re based in Nashville – make sure you tag your album to include all those things. Remember, the more detail, the better!

Tip: One tag that can be easily overlooked is where you’re based. Your location is vital information to include.

Why?

Searchers will often search for bands and artists in their area because they want to go out to gigs. 

So ensure you include your city or state to cover all your bases.

#3 Merch

It is a well-known fact that people love to buy items associated with things they like. And music is no different. 

For decades there have been merch stalls at gigs that significantly add to the take-home money for artists. 

We’ve all been there, went to buy an album, and came home with an album, T-shirt, mug, tea towel, underwear (just me?), keyring, vinyl…

So it 100% makes sense for you to sell your merch alongside your music, and Bandcamp provides the perfect online space to do this. 

But why choose to sell your merch on Bandcamp?

Fans love to buy physical media, so selling vinyl, cassettes, and t-shirts give music lovers what they want. 

And by offering merch on the platform, you are only a few clicks away from doubling, tripling or even 10X your initial sale price.

You can include a digital album or track with any physical item on Bandcamp so that when a fan purchases your vinyl, they get instant streaming via the app and an optional high-quality download. 

Pretty cool.

In addition, by having your music and merch on Bandcamp, you already have an audience ready and waiting to discover you. Their ‘discover’ features are second to none. 

And Bandcamp makes for the perfect platform to sell music and merch alongside one another seamlessly. 

Easy, quick and lucrative – perfect. 

Bandcamp says, “Vinyl sales are up 438% in the past five years, cassettes 232%, and t-shirts 250%. To date, fans have purchased 22.3 million merch items through Bandcamp, totalling $394 million.” 

That’s a lot of merch. I want it to be YOUR merch making YOU money. 

#4 Free To Upload Your Music

Bandcamp accounts are totally free to create!

Bandcamp only charges you when you make sales. The site’s complete pricing list can be found here.

So spending an afternoon setting up your Bandcamp profile makes sense.

It will cost you nothing but a bit of time, and if promoted correctly, you could see steady cash flow into your account from your music relatively quickly.

#5 Vinyl

Vinyl has made a massive resurgence in the past decade. So physically offering your music on vinyl is highly recommended. 

And Bandcamp is the perfect place to do it! 

In the past, it has cost a small fortune to get your music pressed on vinyl, BUT Bandcamp’s vinyl pressing service makes it risk-free and hassle-free to offer your music on the medium. 

So how does it work?

Your fans’ orders finance the pressing, and Bandcamp handles the manufacturing and fulfilment. 

So all you need to concentrate on is making awesome music!

Offering fans a vinyl copy of my albums was always a dream, but Bandcamp makes that dream possible.

Wrap up

For me, these feature’s out weight the benefits and risks of solely promoting your music on Spotify. 

So why not set up a Bandcamp profile and see where it leads? Then, with some strategic planning, your Bandcamp page helps you make money from your music regularly.