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7 Ways to Market Your Music Effectively
The world is a magical place filled to the brim with musical talent and fantastic artists creating amazing songs. Sadly, 99% of these artists are never seen and these songs never heard. This is not a show of quality or ability but far more a failing on the side of the artists marketing.
We here at Bbop have come up with 7 key ways to market your music effectively so that you can increase your exposure to the public and get your music heard. So let’s get started:
1. Social Media
We live in an electronic age. The internet is everywhere; pretty much gone are the days of flogging CDs from your backpack (not completely but this tradition has nearly died out). The first and most important move is to set up accounts on the following platforms:
Soundcloud allows you to showcase your songs on your profile. Links from Soundcloud can be shared on multiple platforms, thus giving an easy to use and broad reach to many listeners.
Facebook is a flourishing community for musicians with hundreds of groups and societies in different cities and countries. This is a great site to befriend other artists and network with venues.
Twitter is current, fast and a great place to get your music heard. Through retweeting other artists, gain friends and in turn your music shall be shared.
Bbop allows you to create one effective profile including audio, video, photos, links and a bio. You can also find other musicians, enter discussion groups and trade instruments.
2. Radio (BBC Introducing)
Radio is to this day one of the most sought after places to have your music heard. However, where in the past it was a brutal dog-eat-dog world to get on the radio, now all throughout the UK we have had the introduction of the ‘BBC Introducing’ scheme. This has brought us the likes of George Ezra whilst hugely aiding the career of Florence and the Machine, Two Door Cinema Club as well as The 1975, among many others!
Also aim for local and student radio stations. These stations typically have far more choice on what to play, whereas the larger stations have a playlist which cannot be hugely altered. A few plays is far better than no plays, so start small and if the people like it they will ask for more.
3. Play live
This is a very often neglected side of the music industry. In a very electronic world people can often turn a blind eye and feel that playing live is no longer needed once a recording has been put up online. In fact, this could not be further from the truth. It is imperative to go out and play, network, meet other musicians, meet venue owners and improve your live show. What a let-down that would be to release a hit song only to go and play it and serve the dog’s breakfast live on stage.
Play, improve, network and succeed.
4. Networking with other musicians
As previously mentioned, networking with other artists is key. Having musical friends will have you invited to play with them, shared on their social network outlets and may get you introduced to the correct people. Show business is as much who you know as it is talent so make sure to know as many people as you possibly can!
5. Your Own Website
Nothing screams professional as much as a clean, tidy and personalised website detailing upcoming songs, shows, news and merchandise. This is a valuable tool and comes at minimum cost using a website such as wix.com to construct the site and hostgator.com to buy a domain name for minimum price (Other companies are available; these are just suggestions).
This may take a small amount of know-how to get up and working, but all information that you need can be found using Google. If you are not willing to learn basic programming or web design, then enlist the help of a designer. They will come at a cost but may very well be worth it in the long run!
6. Be nice and approachable to everybody
Think of every time you have met somebody and thought “I don’t want to work with him”. Think about their behaviours: arrogance, rudeness and unapproachability. You want to be everything that they weren’t. You should make it your goal to be everybody’s friend, invited to play at all parties and always welcome back to play at every pub.
Be a nice person who takes an interest in the other acts and they will take an interest in you.
7. Only put out high quality music
Imagine your online presence being an audition. Yes, we have all uploaded a song that we wrote when we were 14 just to see if we would get famous, but at the moment that you have a perfectly recorded song, make sure to get rid of all less than high-quality tracks. If a scout is to listen through your music and hear the bad track your opportunity may have come to an end this time around!
This also goes for YouTube, if you have an account with you playing badly as a teenager, make sure to delete or remove all of the bad footage which may damage your image as a professional musician.
We hope here at Bbop that you will take these 7 ways to market your music effectively and use them to help enhance your career as a professional musician or to break into the scene. Best of luck! If you have any suggestions or comments then please do not hesitate to leave them in the comments section!
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