Music Marketing: Best Strategies for Promoting Musicians
The music sector is brutally competitive and incredibly difficult to break into, especially as an upcoming musician. While making good music should be your goal, without proper marketing, your music won't reach a larger audience.
Besides making excellent music audio and video, you need a solid music marketing strategy to help you and your music be known by as many people as possible.
Unlike in the past, when record labels would handle all your marketing activities, today, there is a wide range of digital marketing strategies that you can use to promote your music.
For instance, social media marketing for musicians gives you unique opportunities to reach many people without breaking the bank. You need to get your music marketing right to stand out from the rapidly growing number of musicians.
In this post, we'll look at some of the best digital marketing strategies you can use to promote musicians.
Table of Contents
Create a Music Website
A website is a crucial part of your brand as a musician. And you must have a website if you're looking to market your music online.
It's where you show your tour dates, show bookings, promote new music, sell your music albums, and connect with your audience. It's your online portfolio and a one-stop shop for everything related to your act.
Today, many website builders come with ready-made templates that you can customise to your needs, saving you time and money. Opt for a one-page website to narrow your audience's focus on your music. Your website should also be simple and intuitive, making navigation easy for visitors.
Your music website should have a merchandise store where you can sell music albums, posters, and other stuff. It should also have a news hub for announcing new releases, media appearances, and tour dates; social links to make it easier for people to follow you on social media; a built-in music player so that visitors can listen to your music; and a newsletter signup form, where visitors can sign up for a newsletter.
Once done building your music website, actively share it with your audience on digital platforms.
Share Your Music on Digital Platforms
Not all your fans use the same digital platforms. Younger fans mostly prefer using platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, while the majority of the older ones are likely to be on Twitter and Pinterest.
As such, you must market your music across a wide range of digital platforms to ensure it reaches your target audience.
These include social media sites and music streaming platforms like Amazon Music Unlimited, SoundCloud, Tidal, Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, and Deezer. If you’ve always dreamed of uploading your songs on Spotify, Deezer and iTunes, it's easier than you think.
These platforms allow you to upload albums and share your music with ease. They also make it easy for you to connect with your listeners. Prioritise your target audience's platforms when choosing where to share your music.
Some platforms might be more beneficial for you, depending on the type of music you produce. For instance, Soundcloud focuses mainly on electronic music and remixes. However, ensure you share it on as many platforms as possible for maximum exposure.
Use Social Media for Music Marketing
With nearly half of the world's population on social media, using social media to promote your music is one of the most effective ways to get your music heard by millions.
Besides helping promote your music, social media can also help boost your fan engagement and potentially make your new music go viral.
A solid social media following can make a huge difference, especially if you're an upcoming musician. You can create much social buzz even before the mainstream media notice you.
Creating a stunning and unique visual identity is one of the best ways to boost your social media presence and ensure your music stands out.
Ensure you use each social media platform correctly to achieve your desired results since they work differently. For instance, TikTok and Instagram usually focus on video content, while platforms like Reddit and Discord are known for making songs go viral.
Create short videos with your song and post them on your social media pages. Ensure the videos are sharable, so your followers can also share with their friends, furthering the reach of your music.
Consider sharing your work in various social media music groups to connect with new audiences. You can also use social media to announce upcoming tour dates and work with influencers to create viral campaigns for your music.
Collaborate With Social Media Influencers
Influencer marketing is one of the best and easiest ways to make your music viral. You can accomplish this by approaching an influencer and requesting them to use your song in their videos as background music.
They can also use your music to start a new singing, dancing, or lip-syncing challenge, making your music trend or even go viral on various social media platforms. They can also post Instagram Reels, stories, or post with your song playing and linked to the Instagram Music Library.
Ensure that you partner with relevant influencers in your niche because their followers are more likely to fall in love with your brand and music.
Instead of spending your entire budget on one significant influencer, consider spreading it out between several smaller influencers.
Today's micro-influencers are growing incredibly fast and usually have high engagement on their posts. Thus, working with them can attract thousands of views daily, marketing your music more authentically.
Use Email Marketing to Promote Your Music
Email marketing is another effective digital marketing strategy for promoting your music. Beyond promoting your music, email marketing can also boost your brand and build a vast community.
The average click and open rates for music-related emails are higher than in other industries. Your fans are more likely to open the emails you send them and click through the links you've included.
Use the newsletter signup form on your music website to collect your audience's contact details. This will allow you to stay in touch and keep them updated whenever you release a new track, about an upcoming live concert, or even send out upcoming tour dates.
Plan your email marketing campaign accordingly to get the desired results. Some great ways to do that is by incentivising your fans to sign up by giving discounts on your merchandise or free music downloads.
Send a thank-you email to your new subscribers and offer something of value to keep them subscribed.
You can also monetise your mail list by adding impactful CTAs that direct subscribers to your ticket stores or merch. Stick to a schedule that works best for you and your subscribers to avoid bombarding them with emails.
Record Music Podcasts
Podcasts are another effective music marketing strategy that you can use to promote your music and albums. You can either get featured in someone else's podcast or start podcasting to promote your music.
Besides helping promote your music, podcasting about your music can also help you acquire new fans, increase your brand awareness, and generate more revenue as an independent musician.
A great way to start your own podcast is by presenting tricks and tips about different areas of music. Depending on your strengths, your podcast topic can be performance, songwriting, or music production.
Sharing tips is a great way to keep your audiences engaged and position yourself as an authority and expert in the music sector.
One of the best streaming services for hosting your podcast episodes is SoundCloud because of its ease of use. It lets you share podcasts on your social media channels for maximum exposure. It also provides an RSS feed, which you can submit to iTunes so people can find your podcasts easily.
You can also embed your podcasts on your music website. Encourage your listeners to leave feedback, so you can know what they're interested in more. This way, you can cover topics they suggest or are interested in, keeping them hooked longer.
Livestream with Other Artists
Livestreamed performances have grown in popularity, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when musicians couldn't tour and people were stuck at home.
With most people already used to watching music performances online, organising a live performance of your new music can make it known to many people worldwide.
You can also approach other local musicians you know and organise a live-stream event together. Each participating artist should tell their fans about the live event to increase the number of people watching. This can be a perfect opportunity to introduce or promote your music to your existing and new fans.
Endnote
While there is fierce competition in the music industry, you can still make it if you have a solid marketing strategy for your music.
All you need is to produce fantastic music and be willing to spend your time developing and implementing the best music marketing strategy.
Start by developing your music website and growing your social following. Then launch ad campaigns, create unique new content, and share it on various digital platforms, so your music can reach as many people as possible.
What music marketing strategies have worked for you? Let us know below.
