The music industry is a highly competitive one, as it makes you compete with thousands of new artists emerging every day and hoping to become the next big thing. So, succeeding in the music industry is quite a challenge for every aspiring young artist nowadays.
On the bright side, along with the competition, music marketing possibilities have multiplied as well. Simply posting a song after song to YouTube is unlikely to make you a star overnight. At least unless you miraculously go viral or get discovered by a high-end label.
Even though it does happen in some rare cases, I wouldn’t advise you to rely on miracles. Instead, I’m going to show you 11 cost-effective ways to make the most out of your music marketing efforts.
1. Start and manage a successful YouTube channel
Becoming a YouTube music star today seems easier than ever. But still, if you think that being successful on YouTube merely means getting paid for posting videos, it’s unlikely that you’ll find success.
First and foremost, you need to make sure you create quality content. Provided that you are a talented musician (or just creating a channel for one), you need to make sure your channel is SEO optimized and well-designed.
To guide you through the entire process, we’ve put together this comprehensive guide on how to start a successful YouTube channel.
Of course, there’s no use in having the best YouTube channel in the world, if no one’s subscribing and watching your videos. So, here are some actionable tips on how to get more views on YouTube.
2. Use Facebook Events to promote your upcoming gigs
With its 2.27 billion monthly active users, Facebook is one of the best places out there to promote an upcoming concert or gig. I know a bunch of people (and I’ve done it myself too) who use Facebook Events to search for stuff to do and events to attend in their area. There’s even a standalone app called Facebook Local that lets people know about nearby events and places.
Facebook itself has also recognized its own huge potential for music promotion. That’s why, as of August 2018, they’ve started allowing people to sell concert tickets directly through the platform. Once someone gets interested in your event, you can convert them right on the spot or redirect them to a 3rd-party ticketing app or service.
3. Run a contest to engage your audience
Once you’ve created a Facebook Event for your upcoming concert, you can take the social media promotion game to another level by launching a contest. For example, whoever invites the most people or whoever comes up with the most creative answer why they just adore your band gets a prize, such as free tickets or merch, a backstage pass, etc.
Contests can be a fun and engaging way to get more people to show up at your concert. Or you may even create a poll and get your fans actively involved in new song ideas, suggestions, and so on.
4. Use an online quiz to advertise your music on Facebook
Online quizzes are another great way to engage your audience (even more effective than contests). And creating a highly-personalized quiz is a breeze if you’re using the right Facebook quiz maker.
For example, you could create a quiz titled “Which [YOUR BAND’S NAME] song best describes you?” and promote it to your fans (and fans-to-be), hoping they would take the quiz and share the results. And there’s no better place to promote a quiz than Facebook.
The fact is that quizzes and Facebook go together extremely well – so well that 84% of all social media shares of quizzes are on Facebook (according to Buzzsumo).
If you decide to rely on online quizzes for your music marketing, we have prepared an ultimate guide to quizzes and marketing.
5. Use Bandcamp to promote and sell your albums
Bandcamp is an online service that enables music fans all over the world to discover amazing new music and support the creators of their favorite songs. So far, musicians worldwide have received over $338 million via this service.
What’s great about Bandcamp is the fact that it enables artists to sell their music directly to fans. Musicians can register for free. After you start selling on Bandcamp, they’ll take their revenue share on sales, which stands at 10% for merch and 15% for digital. If your sales reach $5,000 within 12 months, the revenue share drops to 10% as a bonus. All the payments are done via PayPal.
6. Reach out to genre-relevant music blogs
Sharing via your own social media channels is great for interacting with people who are already your fans. But it’s unlikely to get you many new ones. If you really want to promote your music, you need to reach out to new audiences and turn them into your fans.
What better way to do music marketing than reaching out to music blogs? There are tons of music blogs out there looking for fresh new content for their niche following. So, find one that’s relevant to your music genre and get them to share content that relates to your music.
Submit music to blogs, offer to write a guest post or an album review, give an interview – the possibilities abound. The best way to do so is to email music bloggers and kindly ask them to review your latest work.
7. Team up with a micro influencer
Today, influencer marketing is one of the most popular marketing methods. Basically, it is based on promoting and selling products and services through other people (known as influencers) who have the ability to reach and affect large groups of like-minded people.
A study by TapInfluence has shown that influencer marketing is 11x more effective than traditional marketing, in terms of ROI. But how does influencer marketing relate to music marketing?
Depending on your budget, you may not be able to afford macro influencers with millions of followers. But guess what – you don’t need to. Just find a micro influencer with focus on your particular music niche and you’ll be able to reach your exact target audience at a fraction of the cost.
Being that Instagram influencers are influencing the most these days, here’s how to find the right Instagram influencer for your needs. Get them to share your tune on their Instagram story and that could be all the promotion you’ll ever need.
8. Embrace the power of hashtags
Hashtags not only allow people to discover your music, but they also allow you to find fans talking about you online. It’s every music fan’s fantasy to have a conversation with their favorite musician so you can use the power of hashtags to interact with your fans.
Perhaps you could thank them for listening or answer some of their questions. It’s guaranteed to do wonders for your public image and is likely to help you create a base of loyal fans who’ll actually pay for your music or support it in any other way.
9. Get your new stuff out on the radio
They say video killed the radio star… but it still didn’t kill radio music marketing.
Just like vinyl, great radio is always going to be around. A lot of people listen to the radio to discover new music and hear stuff they probably wouldn’t know it existed otherwise.
So, a local indie radio station could be a perfect choice for your music promotion. Or, if you’ve booked a gig in a city that has such a radio station, try to organize a gig promotion with them. Whether you agree to make a live appearance on the radio or just to have a few of your tracks on air, either way, it’s bound to generate buzz prior to your gig.
10. Old-school music marketing still has its target audience
Even though we’re living in a predominantly digital age, there will always be old-school music lovers. Those people who appreciate all things vintage, from vinyl records, over audio cassettes, to CDs.
Such music enthusiasts will still appreciate posters, stickers, and buttons in a local record store much more than a well-designed Facebook ad. If you decide to try this approach to marketing your music, you can also ask the record store owner to play your latest music, for example.
11. A look into the future: Augmented Reality in service of music marketing
Several years ago, virtual reality (VR) created a lot of buzz in the world of marketing, with all the new possibilities it created. Today, augmented reality (AR) seems to be offering even more possibilities for creative and out-of-the-box marketing.
There are numerous examples of music stars using AR to market their material. Ariana Grande, for example, was using a Snapchat AR lens to sell merch. Magic Leap cooperated with the Icelandic band Sigur Ros to develop a music app for their AR headset. Finally, Years to Years previewed their new album as a Facebook Camera effect.
Even though it’s far from being an affordable option for artists on a budget, AR could still be the future of music marketing.
In this post, we’ve presented you with 11 effective ways to dominate music marketing. Now it’s your turn to apply what you learned and rock on!
