MUSIC MARKETING
APPROACH | BIGGEST MISTAKES | SETTING GOALS | PLATFORMS | TESTING
BUCKLEL UP!
This might be the best marketing guide for artists you'll ever come across and touch on psychology in brand building/advertising, social media strategy, and paid media strategy.
After collaborating with 1000s of artists on music video projects, I've come to recognize that many of them inadvertently get sucked into inefficient and often questionable marketing services.
This page aims to provide valuable insights and guidance. If you'd like my help along the way you can contact me here.
DISCLAIMER
Before we dive too deep, it's important to remember that even the best marketing strategies can only work when they sit on a sturdy operational foundation. When I talk about an operational foundation, I'm referring to a business that generates revenue or an artist who consistently performs shows or has clear direct paths of monetization – essentially, anything that consistently captures attention or generates income and not the idea of something that could.
The underlying principle is to possess something tangible and genuinely valuable that you can market, rather than just an idea of something that could be marketed. In one case good marketing always works, and in the other case, it rarely does.
I understand that everyone starts somewhere, and the strategies I'll outline below are undoubtedly the least risky and most effective methods available. However, it's essential to set expectations and recognize that while growing brand awareness is possible and necessary in the beginning, if you currently don't have any significant paths to monetization, the likelihood of any marketing efforts covering the marketing costs diminishes significantly.
RISK MANAGEMENT AS A NEW ARTIST
NEW ARTISTS
If you are here, I'm excited for you. This part of the journey is a lot of fun. So it's important to not let the excitement lead to any financially risky situations..
Unfortunately, no one will be able to sweep you off your feet and take you to the promised land and everyone will sell it to you. At this stage of the process, you have to keep 2 things in mind. Only small risks. And focus on the product/music.
BIG RISKS | You're not quite ready & Most are scams
SMALL RISKS | These are the good ones. Most just require a time investment.
The idea is to take small risks until you start to see progress. If you're playing at events, they lead to new ones. When you post videos of your music online they seem to get some good traction/feedback, and shares.
If not keep refining the product/music/method of distribution until you do start to get traction. Until then I wouldn't recommend any major investments.. no amount of any investment or fancy marketing will be able to help until this step is complete.
BAD RISKS
GOOD RISKS
- Paying for Radio Distro
- Paying for Spotify Playlisting
- Paying for a Music Video
- Paying for mention on a wesbite
- Paying for TV Interview
- Hiring out any markting service
- Building expensive website
These risks aren't all inherently negative, but for a new artist, it's likely not the opportune moment to pursue them.
- Playing at a local venu
- Recording music at home
- Posting your music as reels on social media
- Collab posts with peers
- Writing more music
- Developing style
These are all good risks and hopefully lead to oppurnities over time with the main risk being time.
* these lists are only relevant to new artists, the more you progress many of these things switch.
For example, the risk or opportunity cost for a mainstream artist to take the time to play at a local restaurant would be too high and be put on the bad risk list. While making a music video would be in the small/good risk category.
MARKETING AS A NEW ARTIST
Building a true audience
1000 TRUE FANS THEORY
The concept of the "1,000 True Fans" theory is all about the idea that finding success in your craft often boils down to having a dedicated following of just 1,000 genuine fans or loyal customers.
Instead of viewing it as 1000 new followers, think of it as building 1,000 real connections or friends. These are the people who truly know you, trust your work, and resonate with your music – essentially, individuals you've built equity in by providing value, entertainment, good music etc over time..
So whether you're selling a collectible vinyl record, launching a new album, or promoting merchandise, you can count on these 1,000 supporters to have your back if you have earned them.
What's appealing about the number 1,000 is that it feels like an achievable and realistic goal. However, it's important to recognize that only a select few artists and businesses manage to reach this milestone, partly because it's overlooked.
So, the question is: What are the steps you need to take at this stage to get closer to achieving this goal?
BUILDING YOUR 1000 TRUE FANS
AS A NEW ARTIST ON SOCIAL MEDIA
The way to achieve this goal if broken down into its most simple form.. We need people to hear you and see you by posting on social media. That's about it. Nothing more nothing less. There are ways to get fancy later on that i'll mention below in the paid media section, but for now fancy isn't your friend. The first step is learning how to do the basics really well so when you get to the fancy stuff you'll be able to make it work.
The top personal brands will produce 1000 pieces of content a month across all the social media platforms. Not to set an expectation that you do so, but more to drive home the point of how important this is at all levels.
So to build your brand and 1000 true fans as an artist, making consistent posts on social that highlight your product (music), and you (brand), in a way that builds more true fans is essential. If you understand the role each plays, you'll be able to build a more valuable brand and achieve a higher level of success.
THE TWO TYPES OF POSTS
TO BUILD YOUR FIRST 1000 TRUE FANS
ADVERTISING POSTS
(CONTENT GEARED TO PRODUCT / MUSIC)
The goal of this type of content is to bring in new eyes/ears to grow general brand awareness and fans.
It is important that these posts make it fairly obvious to cold traffic who you are and what you do.
If you are a singer-songwriter that plays the guitar this could be a 20-second video of you playing and singing in your house, home studio, or park nearby.
GREAT EXAMLPES
VIDEOS BELOW BY @LOUYAH
KEY POINTS
- In the first 3 seconds, we can see and hear the artist. It's very clear for cold traffic to get an idea of if they would like to hear/see more or not
- Text on the screen (people naturally will take the time to read this) giving a little bump to your audience retention rate.
- Video is simple and great quality
BRANDING POSTS
(CONTENT GEARED TO YOU / PERSONALTIY)
The purpose of these types of posts is to build equity in the new and existing fans converting them to true fans.
Posts that let people know more about you and what you're about. This could be simply sharing and interesting opinion to finding new and creative ways to create content around your music. These kind of posts let people peer more into who you are.
While this might only be 10% of your foundation of content, it's worth a whole lot more when growing your 1000 true fans.
GREAT EXAMLPES
VIDEOS BELOW BY @LOUYAH
KEY POINTS
- These videos do a good job of building a closer connection with your audience
- The concepts are easy to understand and are engaging/interesting to watch
- These type of posts can be great for bringing in organic traffic, but think of this more as an initiative to make the fans you already have stronger vs doing something outrageous to get a lot of new traffic.
THE VIRAL MISTAKE
One of the biggest mistakes I see artists make is wasting time trying to go viral with the wrong types of content. Far too often I'll see an artist that will post clip after clip that has nothing to do with their music, oftentimes reposts of other content, for the sole purpose of trying to get views. This approach does not provide social networks with valuable insights about you, consequently hindering their ability to effectively promote your content to the right audience.
THE THEE MAIN PLATFORMS
TO BUILD YOUR FIRST 1000 TRUE FANS
With limited time and resources, especially in the beginning, there are three main social media platforms to create content for a regular basis to build your 1000 true fans.
This does require posting at a regular cadence. The biggest objection/holdback I hear has to do with the page not looking a certain way or worried about audience fatigue. The best thing to do in that case is to make a new account. Maybe its called "@artistnameextra" which will be like your playground to post and learn.
TIKTOK
YOUTUBE
APPROACH FOR LEVEL 2 ARTISTS
If you are here, I'm even more excited for you, and you're probably ready to get into some new marketing efforts. As a level 2 artist I'd expect you to be seeing the signs up success. This could be anything from success online, playing events on a regular basis, licensing music, or anything that leads to significant direct streams of income.
Simplified Music Marketing:
Maximizing Impact, Minimizing Costs
Marketing music is very similar to marketing products and should be very simple. The objective? Achieve the highest impact for the lowest cost per result. In this context, the process involves making sure people see you, hear your music, like what they hear, and, ideally, become part of your artistic ecosystem, & engaging with what you have to offer.
Tailored Marketing for Your Monetization Path
An effective marketing campaign will be custom-built from the targeting to the creative to serve a specific path of monetization. For example, if your path to monetization has been mostly from your band playing at weddings, the marketing goal would be to get more of those bookings for the lowest cost. These campaign types can work really well.
The Role of Brand-Building Initiatives
Alongside targeted marketing efforts, there's room for brand-building initiatives. While these may require some budget allocation, they typically constitute a smaller portion. The primary aim here is to cultivate a fanbase and enhance your brand's value as an artist. Although not directly tied to a specific monetization path, brand-building plays a crucial long-term role.
BEST PLATFORMS FOR PAID MEDIA
FACEBOOK ADS MANAGER
APPROACH
If you are here, I'm excited for you. This part of the journey is a lot of fun. So it's important to not let the excitement lead to any financially risky situations..
Unfortunately, no one will be able to sweep you off your feet and take you to the promised land and everyone will sell it to you. At this stage of the process, you have to keep 2 things in mind. Only small risks. And focus on the product/music.
BIG RISKS | You're not quite ready & Most are scams
SMALL RISKS | These are the good ones. Most just require a time investment.
BIG RISKS
GOOD RISKS
- Paying for Radio Distro
- Paying for Spotify Playlisting
- Paying for Music Video
- Paying for mention on a wesbite
- Paying for TV Interview
- Hiring out any markting service
These risks aren't all inherently negative, but for a new artist, it's likely not the opportune moment to pursue them.
- Playing at a local venu
- Recording music at home
- Posting your music as reels on social media
- Collab posts with peers
- Writing more music
- Developing style
These are all good risks and hopefully lead to more oppurnities over time.
MY PHILOSOPHY
Marketing music is very similar to marketing products and should be very simple. The goal is the highest impact for the lowest cost per result. Someone has to see you, hear you, like your music, and then hopefully join your ecosystem & and engage with what you have to offer.
I know there are many ways to market music from playlisting to organic social to online services that claim to do it for you. Some are time-consuming, rely on luck, some are expensive, and most are not effective or efficient. My goal is to teach you how to do it & cut out the middleman.
I focus on three platforms - Youtube, Facebook, and Instagram. And the way I structure campaigns is very simple. To see exactly how I do it, keep reading, or hire me to walk you through it on a zoom call.
MARKETING OBJECTIVES
Each ad campaign a company runs has an objective. In this case, you are the company and your objectives might be to book more gigs, sell tickets to a show, sell songwriting services, get more digital streams.. etc. Depending on how good your product/service/music is will determine the efficiency of your marketing initiatives. How much you spend will determine how much income you make.
For example, I sell music video services and my return on ad spend per month is about 444:1. Meaning for each dollar I put in I get about $444 back. This number doesn't include then any repeat business. This is much better than an average result, but it took me many years of testing to figure out.
MARKETING OBJECTIVES
THAT AREN'T PROFITABLE
A goal you might have could be general brand awareness / more digital streams / YouTube views.. and that is ok, and there is a way to get to the most amount of views per dollar spent. But keep in mind this type of campaign objective while it would bring new fans and brand awareness, in most cases won't be profitable in the short term.
Marketing objectives that have the chance of bringing in more than what the ad spend is would require a higher selling point product or service. One digital stream on Spotify might make you $0.003, whereas a DJ or wedding band could make a sale in thousands of dollars. A vocal coach might bring on a new client and make thousands over the lifetime value of that client to the vocal coach. Selling tickets to a show is another example of a good marketing objective.
MARKETING OBJECTIVES
THAT CAN BE PROFITABLE
Marketing objectives that have the chance of bringing in more than what the ad spend is would require a higher selling point product or service. One digital stream on Spotify might make you $0.003, whereas a DJ or wedding band could make a sale in thousands of dollars. A vocal coach might bring on a new client and make thousands over the lifetime value of that client to the vocal coach. Selling tickets to a show is another example of a good marketing objective.
MUSIC VIDEO MARKETING | BRAND AWARENESS
Marketing a full-length music video on YouTube is done on Google Adwords. You know the pre-roll ads you see on YouTube? Those are just YouTube videos that advertisers are paying to target you using Google AdWords. Each view they get longer than a certain amount of seconds counts as a view on the video uploaded to your channel. Any service that sells you "YouTube views" will be using this and taking a cut of your ad spend. If a marketing service is using any other method to boost YouTube views it's not legitimate and likely will be fake views.
Tips:
- The first 3 seconds of the video has to grab the viewer's attention or they will click skip
- Setup 5 target audiences to start with little to no overlapping interests.
- Spend $20 on each target audience over a day to gauge which one is converting more viewers into fans
- Cut the bottom performing 3 target audiences and add 3 new ones the next day. This is a constant game of war you can play and over time you will find your top-performing target audience
NEW ARTISTS
If you are here, I'm excited for you. This part of the journey is a lot of fun. So it's important to not let the excitement lead to any financially risky situations..
Unfortunately, no one will be able to sweep you off your feet and take you to the promised land and everyone will sell it to you. At this stage of the process, you have to keep 2 things in mind. Only small risks. And focus on the product/music.
BIG RISKS | You're not quite ready & Most are scams
SMALL RISKS | These are the good ones. Most just require a time investment.
The idea is to take small risks until you start to see progress. If you're playing at events, they lead to new ones. When you post videos of your music online they seem to get some good traction/feedback, and shares.
If not keep refining the product/music/method of distribution until you do start to get traction. Until then I wouldn't recommend any major investments.. no amount of any investment or fancy marketing will be able to help until this step is complete.
BIG RISKS
GOOD RISKS
- Paying for Radio Distro
- Paying for Spotify Playlisting
- Paying for a Music Video
- Paying for mention on a wesbite
- Paying for TV Interview
- Hiring out any markting service
- Building expensive website
These risks aren't all inherently negative, but for a new artist, it's likely not the opportune moment to pursue them.
- Playing at a local venu
- Recording music at home
- Posting your music as reels on social media
- Collab posts with peers
- Writing more music
- Developing style
These are all good risks and hopefully lead to oppurnities over time with the main risk being time.
* these lists are only relevant to new artists, the more you progress many of these things switch.
For example, the risk or opportunity cost for a mainstream artist to take the time to play at a local restaurant would be too high and be put on the big risk list. While making a music video would be in the small/good risk category.
1000 TRUE FANS THEORY
The concept of the "1,000 True Fans" theory is all about the idea that finding success in your craft often boils down to having a dedicated following of just 1,000 genuine fans or loyal customers.
Instead of viewing it as 1000 new followers, think of it as building 1,000 real connections or friends. These are the people who truly know you, trust your work, and resonate with your music – essentially, individuals you've built equity in by providing value, entertainment, good music etc over time..
So whether you're selling a collectible vinyl record, launching a new album, or promoting merchandise, you can count on these 1,000 supporters to have your back if you have earned them.
What's appealing about the number 1,000 is that it feels like an achievable and realistic goal. However, it's important to recognize that only a select few artists and businesses manage to reach this milestone, partly because it's overlooked.
So, the question is: What are the steps you need to take at this stage to get closer to achieving this goal?