Whether you’re still at the beginning of your music career or you’ve been around for quite some time, you will certainly find these music marketing tips useful. Here are some of the most important music marketing tips from the music industry pros:
Follow up/follow through
The skill I’d most recommend is the art of following up/following through on the opportunities that present themselves. As musicians/songwriters, it’s up to us to make things happen and following up on song submissions and potential gigs will immediately separate you from the crowd.
–Cliff Goldmacher, owner of recording studios
Develop your copywriting skills
This will probably sound weird to most musicians but I think understanding copywriting is probably the single most valuable skill any marketer can have. Copywriting is essentially the art of using words to get people to take a desired action.
–John Oszajca, runs MusicMarketingManifesto.com
Change your mindset
Recognizing that the band or the music is a business is the first step. Once a musician realizes that the band is a business, the musicians should also realize they are now an entrepreneur.
– Chris “Seth” Jackson, runs howtorunaband.com.
Be consistent
It will take a while, but once you get yourself into the routine of tweeting, status-posting, and promoting yourself, you’ll feel weird when you’re not doing it. Consistency is the #1 quality that every artist needs to cultivate.
–Joy Ike, runs Grassrootsy.com
Look for shortcuts
The best way to do get many hits to your website is work out who already has the ear of your target fans and then partner with them to get in-front of that audience.
– Chris Rockett, runs promoteyourmusic.net
Becoming a tag tease. “I can’t stand it when musicians get on Twitter and send me stupid or irrelevant @mentions to gain my attention. They want me to notice them, but they go about it all wrong. It does more damage than good!
—Madalyn Sklar, head of GoGirls Music
Before marketing, get the music right first.
Don’t focus too much on branding/marketing too early. Get the music right first. Then worry about pitching yourself.
– Zack Greenberg, Forbes.com columnist
Have a fresh approach
To stand out, you must take a fresh approach and do something different from what everyone else is doing. But you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. In fact, I suggest that you still borrow successful marketing techniques — only you borrow them from non-music fields. Good ideas are everywhere. Sometimes, the best ones are not in the obvious places.
artists must have enough drive and ample web traffic before even considering any sort of distribution deal.
Don’t jump at every opportunity
You don’t have to say yes to everything. In fact, sometimes, saying no to something can be more beneficial to your career than saying yes.
– Glenn Goldman, IRIS Distribution
Do the next best thing – every day.
“Every day, ask yourself what is the next best thing the team can do to drive your business forward. The answer tells you where you should be concentrating your efforts and where your focus should be. That question can be applied to the organization overall but also to each team member, and especially yourself.
– Mike McCready, CEO, Music Xray
Know how to pivot and readjust your business.
“Don’t overplan. Things don’t always come together exactly as anticipated, and the most successful entrepreneurs are those who know how to pivot and readjust their business as things develop.”
– Allen Bargrede, Executive Director Rethink Music at Berklee College of Music
Always be in networking mode
Be prepared to meet people who might be able to help you everywhere you go. You never know who you are going to meet or who they might know.
– Vinny Ribas, dottedmusic.com
No Gherming
Gherming is the Nashville term for seeing someone influential and throwing your CD or song demo in their face. There is a time and a place when politely asking if someone would be willing to listen to your music is appropriate.
– Vinny Ribas, dottedmusic.com
Collect “currency”
Email addresses, mobile numbers and zip codes are the new
currency of the music industry. Email is one the most effective direct marketing
channels to fans. Make sure you are collecting fan data wherever you are both online
and offline.
– Greenbuzzagency.com
Understand your networking sites
It can’t hurt to have a profile on as many sites as possible, but if you don’t sign in or know how to use the networks, or understand how to integrate all the sites together, then the profile will not automatically generate any exposure for you other than the top tier of popular artists who sell millions of records per month.
Believing that Marketing= social media websites
Social media websites are a tool. They are ONE piece of the online music marketing puzzle. Music industry companies (record labels, artist managers, booking agents, etc.) are far more interested in the popularity of YOUR website, not how many friends you have at MySpace, YouTube, Facebook or any other website that you do not own and control. Want to impress the industry with your band’s promotion? Build your website traffic.
– Tom Hess, Recording artist and a former member of the band Rhapsody of Fire
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