Anyone with enough experience in the music business knows that a fantastic song doesn’t always translate into the most streams or air plays. Just like any other product, music marketing is a crucial aspect to consider if you want your music to be successful. Despite this,  some musicians avoid or are ignorant of this aspect of the music business. This has to change. 

Are you an artist, artist manager, music entrepreneur, music enthusiast or just interested in learning about how to make a song get the attention it deserves in this digitally driven world? Read on to get valuable tips about digital music marketing. 

What Is Digital Music Marketing? 

Music marketing involves the ability to tell a story about your product (the music) and communicate in such a way that your audience remembers the product, resulting in higher listenership of the music.  It is the totality of what your fans remember you for: your logo, songs, style, persona, and so on.

Digital music marketing, on the other hand,  refers to every effort you put into marketing your music online. It contemplates the use of social media apps and technologies, digital marketing strategies, content marketing strategies, consumer behaviour strategies, website optimisation, target audience segmentation, online audience insights, digital advertising, and so on.

There are many ways to market music but this piece is focused on digital music marketing — how to fail at it, especially for an artist in the early stages of their career (aka upcoming artist). The point of this reverse approach is to deter you from bad digital music marketing strategies that will not only get your music anywhere, but also end up wasting your efforts, time and resources. After this, we will then consider how to win at it! 

10 Ways to Fail at Digital Music Marketing

• Failing to recognize your level as an artist

Unless you have an angel investor, a wealthy record label behind you or a huge amount of money stashed up somewhere, you cannot market your music like an established artist if you are at the early stages of your musical career (aka upcoming artist). 

• Working without a team/Unskilled team

During a music marketing and distribution live class at the Music Business Academy, one of the faculty guests made a profound observation about an artist team and the role they play in music marketing. She said that music distribution and marketing are areas in which an artist team shines. You can’t do it alone, and you can’t afford to work with a team that doesn’t know what to do to take your music to the next level. This includes your artist team having to think like advertisers to activate fans to stream your music on the DSPs.

• Being hasty to market your music

Someone explained this as “thinking of sales too early, too often“. In a situation like this, you have done little to no groundwork in building a community/fan base that is ready to buy your music as soon as it is released. Or you haven’t given yourself time to create a concrete music marketing plan but you want to release your music and get millions of streams. How? As an artist, if you invest time in producing your sound recording, you need to also devote time to your distribution and marketing strategy.

• Assuming you know your target audience 

This specifically refers to a lack of use or misuse of data analytics. It does not only disregard quantitative data (numbers) but also qualitative data (interactions, mentions, demography, comments). Social media is equipped with music marketing tools/features that can help to know your target audience better. Use these tools! As an artist, you have to be observant to understand how people are listening to your music so that you can translate that data into effective streaming and distribution strategies. If not, you will fail at digital music marketing. 

• Leaving your music marketing to your music distribution partners

Don’t leave all the work to your music distribution partners to market your song. Yes, they have a job to ensure your music reaches your audience but no one knows your audience more than you do (presumably). How prepared are you for your song release? Do you have your metadata in check? Have you cleared your music of possible copyright infringements? 

Besides, your engagement with them is a partnership in most cases, not a work-for-hire. Even at that, it’s your music and no one can/should care about it more than you do. So get on your grind and promote your song aggressively. 

Looking for a great music distribution company to work with, try The Orchard.  

• Spreading yourself thin across social media platforms 

Unless you have a team effectively handling all your social media channels, you will regret it. It is better to pick one that works for your kind of music and establish yourself there than to try to grow across all social media platforms at the same time. This is because each platform is poised differently and requires different strategies to grow followerships, and most importantly a fan base.

• Not getting your assets ready for music marketing

Do you have an Electronic Press Kit (EPK)? Promotional photos? Videos to post? Single/Album Cover Art? Gifs? Memes? Captions? Are they ready before the release?

• Lack of authenticity/Improper Branding

Pretending to be someone you are not will always backfire. If you are introverted and portray yourself as an extroverted person, it will show. Not everyone can “become someone else” like Beyonce, and you don’t have to because it can become mentally stressful especially when you don’t have a large and competent team to pull it off. Be authentic to the idea you are creating if you are marketing an alter ego.

• Choosing just any DSP to stream your music

Understand the various Digital Service Providers (DSPs) such as Boomplay and Spotify and what they provide to determine which one best fits your vision for your music and your present level as an artist. If the majority of your fans are in West Africa, why overlook the DSPs in that region in favor of another? 

• Measuring your reach with the wrong platform

Don’t expect to find your fans on DSPs. Streaming numbers do not often translate to a strong fan base. You just don’t want fans who listen to your songs when they drop but those will take it upon themselves to share it with others on social media, jump on a challenge with you, buy your live event tickets, and so on. If you have such fans, they will find you on DSPs.

10 Ways to Win at Digital Music Marketing 

Some of these are general music marketing strategies, while some are specific to digital music marketing. Here goes:

• Make music, market it

Your song will not market itself. Digital music marketing is an effective strategy to market your music. It’s that simple. 

• Keep developing yourself as an artist

Don’t get stuck on subscribers, followerships and likes; Make incredible music. The truth is if your music is “wack”, it may not go far. Of course, “wack music” is subjective but the point of this is that you should develop your music to the point that anyone who listens to it will know that you indeed have something to offer. This is how you find individuals or labels who are willing to heavily invest in your career. At that point, you can begin to dream big. 

• Begin at your level and allocate your resources to what is most important

When you don’t have a successful release or product in the market, it may be too soon to invest money in heavy advertising. You might want to start organically. Start at your level, and use your resources for what matters most. No big artist got “there” overnight.

They made use of DIY options on DSPs pending having more resources to explore premium options. They created campaigns within their limit. They used the resources they had for the time being. Start somewhere. 

• Build a Community

“Who Is Your Guy?” as the popular song goes. Are those who are invested in your music? Go out and meet them. Be intentional about building a fan base. Network. Source for invitations to popular podcasts and TV shows. Get yourself in the room where decisions that will affect you are being made. Establish emotional connectivity with your fans. Figure out what works for you and them regarding maintaining contact. 

• Work on your brand story

Branding is more than just the obvious (logo, colour, great photos); It’s also about the intangibles (personality, humour, fashion sense). If you are obsessed with perfection, you may miss out on the peculiarities/oddities that your followers appreciate about you.

• Plan!

Get the right story to market your music. Are you the product or is your music the product? When you identify that, tell the right story. Furthermore, you also want to have a call to action on your socials. Don’t just hype the music, tell your fans/community what to do with it e.g. stream, share, make a video, etc. 

• Be your authentic self (whatever that means to you) and make it work for you

Who are you at the moment? What are your core values, interests, and hobbies? Which aspects of yourself do you want to show the world? Are you daring, lighthearted, mysterious, or laid back? Take note and solidify these expressions with your logos, images, messaging, etc. 

• Get your branding right

You cannot be a hip-hop artist and the culture you promote on social media does not correlate. You can’t call yourself “African babe” and you are always rocking Western fashion and hairdo. It will not gel with your target audience. To get your branding right, refer to No. 7. 

• Build a Catalogue

It makes you attractive to labels, music publishing companies, etc who can spend the big bucks to get your music to reach millions of listeners and would-be fans. A catalogue makes you attractive and stamps your seriousness as an artist. Having a singular track might not cut it. What else have you got to offer? 

• Seize opportunities beyond the obvious

Instead of being fixated on building a strong digital presence, seize the opportunities in front of you that can yield big returns which you can transform into an online following. If you get an invitation to meet 100 people at a live event, share your social media handle with them, if not all, a quarter will follow you. If being online is the opportunity before you, take it and build a community on platforms like YouTube.

Finally, keep growing, keep learning, and don’t stop improving yourself in digital music marketing. 

 

Written by Omobolanle Abiola

Have you read “Building Relationships: 5 Ways To Success in the Music Industry!“