What does it take to become famous? Some people think that success depends on luck, the others know that it depends on hard work and opportunities. However, most of them don’t realize that success depends on what strategies you use to promote your music and yourself.
No matter how much you think about how to promote your music, you secretly hope that one day you’ll be discovered by some celebrity and it will be your way to the top. It happens, sometimes. Like it happened to Ed Sheeran who was busking on the streets of LA and trying to join all the open mics he could find. Then, one night he was discovered by Jamie Foxx. Now, his net worth is $110 million.
As Roosevelt said, “Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.”
Dream big, but also be armed with effective marketing strategies for your music promotion, just in case your Fairy Godmother won’t show up. Besides, if you don’t market your music, nobody will know it exists.
How to get started?
Music is your product. You are the creator, and your goal is to sell your product. First of all, you need to learn how to create a marketing plan. Here are the first steps of doing it:
Analyze the market
In your case, it’s the music industry. Identify your “competitors” and what makes you different from them. This will be your unique selling proposition.
Define your audience
These are your potential fans. Depending on the music genre, you need to characterize your target audience.
Establish your long-term and short-term goals
Are you planning to release a new album by the end of this year? Write down your goals and the steps you need to take to reach your goals – an action plan.
Determine your marketing strategies
You will find 15 effective music marketing strategies below. Check them out and pick the ones you find more effective for you.
Create a budget for your music promotion
After you determine your marketing strategies, you need to calculate the budget. How much money are you willing to pay to promote your music?
Go step by step and try to complete these key points before starting the promotion. You can’t successfully promote your music without creating a marketing plan.
15 Music Marketing Strategies
Now, as you already know how to start with your music promotion, go through the first 3 points and after completing them, move to the next step – music marketing strategies.
Below are 15 effective marketing strategies which have been successfully tested by many famous musicians and celebrities. Let’s see what we have here.
Create a Music Website
You can consider yourself a professional musician after creating your first music website. Why do you need a website? It’s your online portfolio, where you present and sell your albums, show the dates of your events, and simply tell your story.
If you think that it’s hard to build a website, then we have great news for you. Use website builders with ready-made templates designed by professionals to save you time and money.
Once your website is ready, you can share it with your audience – your potential fans.
Share Your Music on Digital Platforms
Promote your music
With the rise of digital technologies, it’s become easier to reach your target audience. Music streaming platforms are a great example. There are many platforms like Bandcamp, Apple Music, Soundcloud, Spotify, etc. where you can upload your album, share your songs and see how people react to it.
But, of course, you need to choose wisely which platform to use. First, think about your target audience which you’ve probably successfully defined in your marketing plan.
What platforms do they use? If your potential fans use Spotify, your music must be added there.
Besides, you need to consider what capabilities and features those platforms have. If you are content with the terms, go ahead and share your music.
Use Social Media for Your Music Promotion
What if I told you that your music can go viral? Imagine thousands of people sharing and leaving comments under your post on Facebook or Twitter.
But how to create a viral post or video for social media? It all depends on your creativity and luck. People love inspiring and fun content, which they also eagerly share. They especially like video content which in your case is very advantageous. Think about the content first, make a video and add your song as background music.
Using social media can help you build your community of loyal fans. Create your social profiles and engage with your audience, share unique content and interact with your fans.
Again, you need to consider which social media platforms your target audience is active on. Then, create your strategy and decide what type of content you want to share. Learn more about Facebook video marketing or making videos for Instagram. Any information can be helpful.
Within time, you’ll see how your community grows if you utilize the best social media strategies for your music promotion.
Contact With Music Influencers
Music promotion
Who is an influencer? An influencer is someone who has a huge amount of followers on different social platforms. They can be bloggers, vloggers, public figures, or YouTubers.
So, your goal here is to contact with relevant influencers and ask for collaboration. There are multiple ways to be featured in their posts. They can create videos and add your song as background music by mentioning you, or they can share your song or album.
This can be a great return on investment for you. You will get access to their audience, which is an excellent opportunity to promote your music.
Send an Email Newsletter to Your Contact List
One of the advantages of having a music website is that you can collect the contacts of your audience. So, when you have your subscribers, you can send out email newsletters and keep your audience updated.
When you have your contact list, you can connect with your contacts when you release a new song or an album, notify about your next live show or send out the details of your upcoming tour.
Promote Your Music via Paid Advertising
If you struggle with getting organic traffic, then you can use paid advertising to boost your marketing efforts. Some of the best tools for you are Google Ads, Facebook Business Manager, and YouTube Ads.
This can guarantee a short-term success, but you must be ready to invest more in paid ads. Thoroughly estimate how much you can budget on advertising.
Sign up to Live Stream Music Platforms
Go live! Nowadays, you have an opportunity to share live videos right from your garage or even bedroom. Build a highly-engaged fan base by interacting with them in real time.
There are many ways to go live. You can try Facebook live and YouTube live, or other live streaming platforms like Concert Window, Twitch.tv, YouNow, StaegIt, Musical.ly, etc.
Record Music Podcasts
How to market your music
Podcasts are another way of effectively promoting yourself online. Here you have two options: try to be featured in a podcast, or start your own.
Soundcloud is a suitable platform for hosting podcasts. Record your episodes, upload them and submit to your feed. You can also embed them in your website and promote on social.
Choose interesting topics for your audience, because if you don’t catch their attention they won’t stay with you long.
Share Your Videos on YouTube and Other Video Sharing Sites
When we think about music video sharing platforms, YouTube immediately comes to our minds. It’s considered the second largest search engine after Google. So, you definitely need to have a YouTube channel and optimize it for better results.
What kind of videos can you share on YouTube? There are many fantastic YouTube music video ideas that you can use including music covers, lyric videos, singing lessons, etc. A creative YouTube video intro will help you be remembered by your audience and fans.
Don’t forget about music visualizations, which will make your music visually attractive and engaging.
YouTube is good for sure, but don’t forget about other video sharing platforms such as Vimeo, Dailymotion, and others.
Create Your Band Merchandise
Do you need additional income to finance your recordings and shows? Band merchandise can be a great way to get it. First of all, you need to create your brand, and then think about setting up an online store.
What kind of band merch can you offer? Choose between physical and digital ones which include signed albums and posters, stickers, vinyl versions of your album, phone cases, music lessons videos, online lyric books, and many more.
Before creating your band merch, you need to have an idea of what kind of merch your fans would love to buy, research other bands to see what sells best and estimate the budget you can dedicate to it.
If you can’t decide whether you need it or not, remember that having band merch gives your fans an opportunity to support you and your music.
Reach Out to Music Bloggers
Reaching out to music bloggers will help you get buzz around your new song or album, in case you have something really worthy. Many people discover new music from different music blogs. So, you need to contact them and try to get featured in their posts.
You need to have a strategy for your outreach. First, find all the relevant music blogs and bloggers. This might take a long time, but you can get some top music blog lists and categorize them which will save you some time.
Then, you need to build relationships with them, which is the most important part. You need to prepare a stellar pitch for your music. Include some basic information about it, the genre and what makes it unique.
Impress music bloggers with your music, branding, and story.
Find Musicians to Collaborate With
This strategy has been used by musicians for a pretty long time. Among the famous ones are: “Beat It” – Michael Jackson and Eddie Van Halen, “Walk This Way” – Run-D.M.C. and Aerosmith, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” – The Beatles and Eric Clapton, and many more.
There are two options here: collaborate with equally famous bands or those which are more famous than yours. It would be easier to get in touch with equally famous ones, but the results of the second option may be way too effective for your music promotion.
Another option is to collaborate with DJ’s. They can create a Remix version of your music and share with their audience.
In any case, this is a proven strategy, which helped many musicians to stand out from the crowd. So, try to build relationships with other musicians in order to grow your fan base.
Record Music Tutorials
If you’re a professional musician, then recording music tutorials can help you become a valuable source of knowledge for the amateurs. This can be a good starting point for your career. Besides, why keep such talent hidden from the world?
You already know where to share your tutorials. One of the best options is to put them on your website. You can create a separate section and upload your videos.
Another option is to share them on YouTube.
Music Tutorials Youtube
How to create a tutorial video? Easy, simply record your video and edit it with the help of an online video editor.
But, in any case, you will need to promote your tutorials to reach your target audience.
List Your Shows and Tours on Different Platforms
These platforms help music lovers discover live concerts in their cities, or simply keep them updated on the latest events of their favorite artists. So, when you intend to have a live performance, sign up to a similar platform and share your event with your potential fans.
With the help of these online platforms, you will effectively promote your offline events.
Try Crowdfunding for Musicians
Crowdfunding seems to be a great way for musicians to raise funds for their upcoming album or project. And, the collected budget solely depends on the loyal fans and their willingness to support their favorite music band. Some of the most known crowdfunding platforms are Kickstarter and Indiegogo.
In case of crowdfunding, it’s crucial to have an active community. So, before starting a campaign, you need to make sure that your efforts won’t be in vain. You have to invest your time and even a small amount of money to promote your campaign.
If you think you need a crowdfunding campaign, then you must consider all the advantages and disadvantages before creating it.
You have all the necessary tools at your hand. It’s up to you to decide which ones to use. Try them all and see which one brings better results.
Music industry marketing strategies
The music industry is very competitive. But, if you have a dream, go and get it, don’t wait for miracles to happen.
If you are really talented and write good music, your fans will find you and will help you shine, even if it takes some time. Using the above-mentioned music marketing strategies will help you reach them and show what you have. So, what you need to do now is to think about creating a marketing plan and choosing the right marketing strategies.
Source:Renderforest