If you’re an independent artist, you want to take as much advantage as possible of free digital platforms. We’re sharing some of the best music marketing strategies that actually work.
Spotify for Artists
While data might seem boring, it’ll form the backbone of your marketing strategy and give you insights into who your audience is and how they listen to your music.
Don’t Release All Your Music at Once
With more independent artists joining the industry every month, these bloggers often struggle to stay on top of it all. You want to give bloggers and journalists a heads up about your new music releases so that they can plan when to write about your music.
Develop a Marketing Grid
When you have a marketing grid, you’ll never be short of ideas for your content. You want to try and schedule content at least two weeks ahead of time, allowing you an opportunity to create the content without feeling rushed. If you’re able to get ahead of your schedule with content creation, you can schedule your content to post automatically.
Collaborate with Other Artists
You don’t have to promote each other’s music directly, but you can take photos together or host joint virtual events like Q&A sessions or Instagram lives. Creating a network of fellow creators can open doors for you and make it easier for you to tap into these other audiences and grow your following. It’s a tactic that mainstream celebrities have been using for years, with a proven track record of delivering results.
Engage with Your Fans
Whether you have 1k or 100k followers, you want to take the time to engage with as many fans as possible. When fans feel like they have a personal relationship with you, they’ll become your greatest marketing tool. If your followers are creating organic content, like sharing your music videos, it will help raise awareness of your work. You want to make sure that you engage with them in a meaningful way, whether writing a personal response back to their direct messages or taking the time to check out their profiles.
Launch Your Website
Other features you can consider adding to your website include a ‘contact us page,’ a page dedicated to your media features, and a newsletter sign-up option. Your website is the one platform that is entirely within your control. Unlike Instagram or TikTok, there isn’t the risk of it disappearing tomorrow, causing you to lose all your followers.
When your website is up and running, make sure to link it on all your social media platforms and incorporate your URL into your content to direct traffic there. You can also access analytics that gives you more insight into your audience, including their countries of origin and how they’ve come across your website.
Create Interactive Content
- On TikTok, you can create a challenge with your music, asking your followers to come up with creative videos. You can post the best videos directly onto your feed, which will make your most engaged fans even more eager to create high-quality organic content. Don’t forget to upload your music as audio clips on TikTok to allow other users to utilize your sounds on their videos.
- On Instagram, you can use the stories functions to host polls and Q+As. It’s easy to open a question box for your followers to submit questions, which you can respond to with short video clips. Instagram also allows you to host a live stream on the platform, with your followers receiving push notifications that you’ve just gone live on Instagram. You can make these interactive sessions a regular part of your marketing strategy.
- On Twitter, you can create memes or hold caption contests with your followers, even offering free prizes for the best response. You want to create interactive content that allows your followers to produce organic content in response. If you look at mainstream artists like Taylor Swift, you’ll see that her fans create the majority of content online about her music and events.
Incorporate Your Album Artwork
Your artwork should be visible across all your social media platforms, as well as your website. You want people to be able to see your artwork and instantly know it’s yours. Some of the most iconic images of artists are their album artwork.
If you’re creating marketing material for live events, don’t forget to add your artwork to that.
Tell Your Story
As part of this strategy, you can write blog posts and articles that tell your story. The more your audience hears directly from you, the stronger the bond will become between your audience and yourself.
Put Your Music on Every Platform
You can utilize other platforms like SoundCloud to preview snippets of your music before its release. You want to create as many opportunities as possible for new followers to find you. Platforms like YouTube can offer you another chance to monetize your content, as well as helping you grow your online following.
Invest in Paid Advertising
You don’t have to break the bank to start running paid digital advertising. You can utilize it to push a social media post out or promote a link to your streaming platforms.
Organize Live Stream Events
Live streams are also an opportunity to collaborate with other creatives and independent artists by inviting them to share your platform with you. Instagram allows for joint live streams between accounts, allowing you to tap into the other person’s social following.
Offer Merchandise
When you release your merchandise, encourage your fans to share their purchases on social media. Don’t forget to make a hashtag and give your fans an initiative to order as soon as your merchandise is released. You might offer a promo code or include a signed photograph in the first 100 orders.
Along with paid merchandise, you can offer free digital content like phone wallpapers and social media headers. Sometimes free content can be as successful as paid content, as it allows your audience to push the content out on your behalf. It’s free marketing, with your audience posting the content on your behalf.
Which of these marketing strategies will you be trying out? Do you have a favorite way of marketing your music? Let us know in the comments below.