There continues to be a gap between traditional merchandising methods and the new digital age. You used to be able to entice your audience to buy your nice looking CDs and records during and after the gig but with mp3s it’s not that easy. If you haven’t got the money to print up a large batch of CDs (which people are buying a lot less of anyway!) then you have to rely on telling people to go buy your music from itunes or go to your website. Bearing in mind that many gig purchases are impulse (and that many of your audience may not remember their own name by the morning let alone your web address) it helps to have a better way. Dropcards.com look to have nailed a great way to bridge the divide. You upload your digital media to their website along with your artwork and they print you little credit card sized cards with a URL and unique PIN on the back that allows the cardholder to download your media.

Being able to physically hand over MP3s opens up all sorts of possibilities ranging from selling them from your merch table the same way that you’d usually sell CDs to being able to give away promotional copies to fans at shows. The cost per card looks like it starts at about $0.50 and drops to around $0.30 if your ordering over 2500 (ex delivery from the US). While that’s not free it’s certainly a lot cheaper than printing up the equivalent number of CDs. There is certainly still a huge market for well designed, well packaged physical products but this a great way of placing an MP3 actually in someones hand.