Marketing and promoting your music online is the way to go nowadays. The internet offers more opportunity than ever for musicians. When I was coming up as an early musician, it was all footwork. There was no Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc etc.
With social networking and the growth of the digital age, even major label artists are taking the route that shows the digital landscape, with some even releasing their new albums exclusively in digital download format. Why release physical CDs? A digital file costs nothing.
I was having a conversation with a friend who happens to own a large recording label that sells units and he shared that digital music sales have now reached 70% of all music sales. I've been saying it forever, but physical products are clunky. You need to have room to store a physical product. Digital products are the future and augmented reality is going to change that in ways you never thought possible.
Manufacturers will be feeling the heat from this evolutionary shift, but artists will excel and get their music out more effectively.
Music Marketing
So, where am I heading with this? I talking about the importance of dedicating everthing into your online presence. Stop what you're doing currently. Unless of course you don't have music already. But if you have the music, stop creating more. Time to get online and start pushing that music.
Getting in magazines and other print media just doesn't have the same effect that it used to, and imo is a waste of time when compared to the time it takes to market yourself digitally.. Most magazines worth anything have moved their publications online, and aren't the powerhouses they used to be.
If you haven't used the internet for promoting and marketing your music, you need to do so immediately. It's essential to stay connected with your fans through as many channels as possible. Don’t wait for them to come to you, you need to get your music in front of them.
Marketing Methods
Engaging with Social Media Establishing yourself and your brand across social media sites is the first thing any musician should be doing. Having a Facebook page is good but, it's not enough nowadays. Not only is it not enough, but even leveraging only the top social networks is not enough.
You should be active on at least 20 social networks and blogging profiles. THe most impactful thing you can do is physically interacting with others on these profiles.
Official Website and Blog Having an official website for your band or as an artist is also mandatory. Some of you don't want to hear to that, but it is what it is.
Ensure that it is professionally designed and consistent with your brand image. Don't make this more difficult than it has to be. Find a Wordpress theme you like and roll with it.
Keep it updated with a news page, press page, and music page, including the latest news, press clips, and music.
Home page should embed events, social links, and other web properties. The home page of your main website is a good place to showcase yourself so make sure you show your videos and photos, embed your music, and anything else you can do to expose your brand to the masses.
Online Press Kit and Publicity Do an EPK, also know as a demo, a promotional tool that every artist or band should have. It allows you to quickly send your band’s information and music samples to venues, labels, agents, and fans for promotional purposes.
Link Sites I really didn't know what to refer to these as, but there are a few of them out there. Linktree is propably the most used. It's an easy way to create a hub for your social links and music. It's easy to design and have it match your brand and is just an all around easy way to send someone your bio with a single link.
Digital Mailing List Email, email, email. Once you build an email list it's probably the easiest way to get your music out to the public. Everytime you produce a new song you send it out to your list and get plays and views you wouldn't have gotten previously. Think of ways to capture more emails. Try doing give aways or something along those lines to get more submissions ;)
Advertising on Genre-Specific Portals Banner advertising can be impactful but I'm a big fan of YouYube, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook when it comes to advertising artists. Video advertising is just the way to go here. If SOundcloud ever gets their act together and opens up advertising to the public, that'll be a good place to advertise as well.
Search Engine Marketing Knowing some SEO can go along way. Spend a wekk reading SEO blogs and watching YouTube videos on the basics of SEO. I promise you'll be 10x better off doing this first than anything on this list mentioned before. SEO will help you optimize all of your profile for increased visibility in search engines.
Digital Distribution Of course no one needs to tell you that you should be distributing your music digitally. There are many sites that do this, but honestly Spotify is taking over when it comes to the distribution game. It's free distribution with Spotify and it doesn't get any better than free for a service most charge for.
These were just 8 tips to get you started on your marketing path and should keep you busy for quite some time if you really focus on everything mentioned in this article and really try to maximize it.
