You might be making some great music, but if people are not aware of its existence, what’s the whole point of creating it in the first place? Creating music is just halfway to success, the rest is marketing.
To reach the celebrity stature, one needs to promote, market, and reach out to more and more people who will love their music. Remember you might have started this as a passion, but now when you want to earn a living out of it, you need to walk the extra mile. The extra mile of promotion. Here’s how:
1. Spend Time Contacting Event Organizations, TV Channels, DJs, Radio Stations, Websites, etc. that Cover Music
Before we begin, let me ask you one thing, what is the one thing common in these cited places? Ofcourse, Music! They all cover music in some way or the other and already have a huge audience or fan base to cater too.
Getting back to the point: focus your efforts on developing good relations with them. Of course, you need to do the groundwork also, building fans individually and organizing concerts in your local area. But you need to understand that just one article with your mention on these platforms can help you gain a lot more exposure in a very short span of time. Learn to market yourself and get your music out there.
2. Invest a Large Portion of Your Time Gigging
If music is your heart, then gigging must be your everyday activity. It is one of the best ways to reach audiences. For marketing and promotions purposes, my recommendation is to perform gigs at events, which also have other acts in the same music genre as yours. This would help you reach out to the fans of other musicians in the genre, and also to the general fans of no other musician but of that same music genre.
But when the motive is earning and generating revenue, instead plan your own gigs, and keep yourself at the center. Sure, you won’t have much of an audience, to begin with – but, well neither did Zayn Mallick or Beyonce!
3. Figure Out Roles for Each Team Member
Are you in a band or a solo artist? Because if you’re a solo artist, you will have to build a team upfront and for the ones in the band, determine the roles of each of the members.
Building a team is essential, irrespective of the size of your audience or act. Why? Because you aren’t a superhuman to handle everything on your own.
To market yourself as an artist in the industry, there is a list of activities that need to be done regularly, like handling social media, creating engaging content for YouTube and similar others. Here’s what you can do to not miss out on your schedules in either of the activities: define roles amidst your team. Observe and identify the strengths of each of your team members and accordingly allocate the responsibilities. For instance, if someone is good with social media in your band let them handle your music and band’s social media presence, and likewise.
If all of this feels too overwhelming and out of your budget, there are several music management tools available on the internet (both free and paid). One of them is Daystage: it is a premium music manager tool that has a credible history with several musicians.
4. Keep Your Content On Professional Website Top-Notch
The field of art is growing, so is the competition and so with every day passing by, it’s becoming more difficult to stay in the minds of your audience. Now, in this scenario, if you don’t post your music regularly to keep your audience entertained, there’s nothing that can save you from reaching the forgotten land.
Exactly why you need to plan a content marketing strategy and follow it to the T. Now, when I say content, what kind of content am I referring to? Well songs and videos of course, but also blogs and social media posts of your music, and your genre of music.
Someday you can infuse your musical journey and struggle in a blog post and upload it on your website. People love that since they relate to you on a more human level. Your website is a valuable asset to you. So make the best use of it and keep your fans happy.
5. Create A Strong Email Marketing Plan
Speaking about your website you, of course, want people to return to it for more content. But how do you assure that? I am sure none is going to have a better answer than EMAIL MARKETING! Plus, when the stats have revealed that emails talking about arts and artists have the highest open rates, it’s an icing on the cake.
Emails can help you build relationships and turn them into profitable ones. So get people to sign on your subscriber list so that you have their email addresses and start communicating!
Follow these tips and you will be successful in getting your music. However, this is not going to happen just by creating music – you need to wear various hats in the process. Bring out the marketer in you and see how the world grooves on your melodies!
