How to Make a Living Writing Commercial Jingles
- 1). Commission commercial jingles from businesses in your area. Just walk in the door and ask the business owner if he would be interested in a jingle for his advertising campaign. Tell him that if he likes your product, he can pay you for it. Businesses have nothing to lose and everything to gain, so someone is bound to go for it.
- 2). Write the jingle. Come up with a tune catchy enough that it gets stuck in your own head. A good commercial length to shoot for is about 60 seconds. Write the lyrics highlighting the company name and product. Brainstorm with the business owner about the content of the lyrics.
- 3). Record and produce a full version of the jingle, complete with the music and vocals. In addition to the 60-second version, make a few different mixes of varying, shorter lengths. Two extra mixes should suffice, one about 10 seconds long and another about 30 seconds. Mix one version that is strictly instrumental. The more mix-downs of the jingle you produce, the more options an advertiser has. Label the mixes accordingly and throw them on a CD or send the sound files to the business owner over the Internet.
- 4). Expand your jingle business by promoting yourself. Once you've got a few jingles under your belt, compose a resume complete with audio samples. Send out a promotional packet to businesses all over. You could mail your resume packet or, better yet, you could show up to the business in person if the business is close enough to you. Another good way to go about promoting yourself would be to contact businesses online and include links to the audio jingle samples.
- 5). Find a job as a member of the music development team of a jingle writing agency. Such an agency will likely be the go-to contractors for jingle commissions.
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