Marketing your music online is one of the most important parts of an artists career. You can have the best music on planet earth, but if nobody hears it, you can’t make a career from it. We decided to put together an easy guide on how to market your music online. We will break down the ins-and-outs of the music industry and how to really get your music to the masses. We have marketed music for independent artists which has led to over 1 Million digital downloads! So, enough talk, lets get into it.
1. Your Material
By this point we are sure that you have professionally recorded, mixed and mastered your material. But believe it or not, many artists haven’t. Musicians tend to believe that having good music is enough, when it isn’t. Sure your melodies and production sound good, but is it recorded properly? With the ever-expanding home studio setups, it is getting even easier to create music.
Just because you can hit record and sing doesn’t mean it is recorded properly. Before you move on to the next steps, invest in your craft and make sure that your production is up-to-par with what you hear on the radio. Also, make sure that it is properly mixed and mastered. It is not worth marketing your music if a program director at a radio station won’t spin your records due to its quality. Sound quality is key!
2. Your Image
Every band/artist that becomes successful owes it in part due to their image. They stand out from the rest, they have that “it” factor. Your image is what the audience sees before anything else, so it has to be something they want to engage in and relate to. Make sure your image says what your music is about and why you’re different from the million other musicians in your genre. Try to create a “persona” that reflects who you are as an individual and highlight that through your style of music. Your image will be key in marketing your music, in fact it is the most important part.
3. Your Online Presence
Having an online presence is extremely important before investing in your online marketing strategy. Having a professional looking website and EPK (Electronic Press Kit) is vital for potential fans to engage and learn more about you. All of your images and music should be easily streamed and downloadable. You can create an easy yet professional looking website at GoDaddy.com. It will cost a little money but it will make you and your band look like the professionals you are.
Once you have your website established, make sure to properly get it Search Engine Optimized (SEO). SEO allows users to easily find you on top search engines like Google and Bing. This makes it easy for fans to find your music just by typing in your song title or band name in search engines.
Setting up artist websites at Reverbnation, Soundcloud and DatPiff are essential for any musician. They extend your reach on the web and offer excellent marketing strategies to get your music out to the masses. These are great ways to establish an online presence. Always remember, the more you flood the internet with your content, the more you will get noticed!
4. Your Social Media Presence
Setting up proper social media websites is also key in today’s every changing world. Make sure that you have the right images and music uploaded to your social networks for streaming and downloading. If you don’t have it already, take time to set up a Facebook fan page, a Twitter and Instagram accounts. Make sure to be up to date with other social media channels such as Vine and implement your music and brand so the social media world can follow and keep in touch. This is one of the easiest and cost effective ways to market and get your music to a new audience.
5. Your Online Visuals
Creating music videos for your tracks are essential in marketing your music. Having visuals to go along with your music is a great way to help fans connect visually with you. Setting up band YouTube and Vevo accounts is extremely important. Even if you don’t currently have the budget to to make a professional music video, setting up picture slides of you and your band with your music in the background will help get you noticed.
YouTube is a very powerful form of marketing, many top industry professionals utilize these websites for promoting with great results. The coolest thing is that YouTube and Vevo will actually pay you for putting advertisements on your vids. This is a great way to make money and get noticed! Applying the same videos to your social media and artists websites will also increase the demand for your music. Try to find innovative ways to catch the listeners attention and make viral videos.
6. Your Digital Distribution
Nowadays it is really easy to distribute your music on all the major online retailers like iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster, etc. There are a ton of companies that will send your music to all these retailers at a cheap price. Our personal favorites are Mondotunes and CDBaby. Both have great rates and are well respected in the music industry. Many major labels like Sony and Universal use them to distribute their material digitally. This is an important step when it comes to marketing and getting your music next to the worlds largest digital distributors.
7. Your Advertising Campaigns
Setting up a Google Adwords account is a great way to learn how to market your music online. Google is very effiecient when it comes to putting targeted ads on websites. You can easily set up an ad campaign using keywords for your genre of music and demographics. You will have to invest some money but there is no better way to market your music on a small budget online. We have used Google Adwords with great results. It may take a little time to learn how to use it but check out the cool video below to help you learn more.
These are just some great ideas on how to market your music online. We are going to create an eBook that will go into depth on how to market your music professionally. Keep checking out our website for more great tutorials and be sure to share this page with your musician friends. Feel free to drop any questions you may have below.
Author: Rudy Vibes
Google
It is really very much needed to market our music…You had said very truely if no one can hear our music than what is the meaning of this career..Very well said..We should implement all these methods for marketing our music online…Really an great Article..!!!!!