Whether you’re a solo artist, part of a band, music producer, you’re probably looking for some of the best ways to get your music in front of more listeners. With a comprehensive music marketing strategy, you can pinpoint where to distribute your music to reach the widest audience, what platforms to use for promotion, how to build a network, and more. Throughout this article, we’re going to cover the top 15 music marketing tactics to steal in order to get your music in front of as many eyes as you can.
What is Music Marketing?
Music marketing is the act of promoting music and related products or materials. These materials might include albums, band merch, live shows or a full-fledged tour, music streaming, etc. Music marketing encompasses a number of promotional tactics and strategies to help reach a wide range of listeners to grow a platform and fan base.
Top 15 Music Marketing Strategies to Steal
Ready to start promoting your music offerings? We’ve got 15 music marketing strategies and tactics to help you start building your audience.
1. Create a Website
Treat your music artistry as a business. And what does every business need? A website or home base of some sort. Your website can house key information, like:
- Page about you
- Links to your music
- Links to your social media platforms
- Tour dates and locations
- Merch shop
- Booking information
- Contact information
Plus, you own your website. While social media platforms might come and go, you’ll pay for and host your own website. You can create blog posts, landing pages, product pages, and more that you can share on your social media—but your website is the most important channel.
2. Build a Social Media Presence
After you’ve created your website, it’s time to build up a social media presence. This is going to be the easiest (and most affordable, especially when you’re starting out) way to grow an audience.
Not every social media platform is beneficial to musicians, but you’ll at least want to utilize these five:
- TikTok
- YouTube
Get creative with your content and post consistently to grow your following.
Rapper Connor Price has grown his TikTok to 5.6 million followers with his content. All of it features his songs within creative skits that engage his audience and spread his music online.
Here’s an example of the type of content he creates that’s helped him amass his massive following:
@connorprice__ DROP by Connor Price and Zensery is out now ??
You’ll want to adjust your content for each platform, but come up with a social media strategy so you can start interacting with and engaging your audience.
3. Create an Electronic Press Kit
The next step is to create an electronic press kit (or EPK). A press kit or media kit is sent out to journalists and media outlets to help spread the word about your music, band, collaborations, etc.
An EPK should include information like:
- Your bio
- Logo
- Promotional photos
- Your music
- Music videos
- Previous press mentions
- Social media links
- Contact information
Make a page on your website to host your EPK so that interested media outlets can find it if they want to cover you. But you should also pitch your music or band to various outlets in an effort to expand the reach. And if you have your EPK hosted on your website, it’s easy enough to share the link rather than a folder or PDF.
4. Distribute Your Music
If you’re trying to spread the word about your music, you need to distribute it across a variety of platforms for easy consumption. As a musician, it’s simple to upload your music to multiple platforms.
Some of the top music streaming and sharing platforms include:
- Spotify
- Apple Music
- Amazon Music
- Pandora
- iHeartRadio
- SoundCloud
- Bandcamp
- YouTube
- Last.fm
- TikTok
Try to distribute your music across as many outlets as you can to reach the widest audience possible. Each time you release a new single, EP, or album, create a process to make it available on all streaming and sharing platforms.
5. Build a Network
Building a network is always an essential skill for growing an audience. Find like-minded musicians and others in your industry on social media. Follow them and interact with their content.
Eventually, if you build relationships with others in your industry, you might find opportunities for cross-promotions, make friends with other artists, and discover contacts who can help you create a studio album, get a record deal, schedule live shows, and more.
6. Schedule Live Shows
Speaking of scheduling live shows, this is a fantastic way to spread the word about your music. Once you have an entire set of original songs, start looking at local venues to see if you can schedule a live show.
Places that you may be able to get a booking include:
- Local bars and breweries
- Local live music venues
- Local music festivals
- Weddings and private events
- Gigmit
- Sonicbids
- Gigstarter
- Bands for Hire
- Indie On The Move
- Last Minute Musicians
7. Start an Email Newsletter
Another great way to promote your music is through an email newsletter. Hosting a newsletter signup on your website is a great way to give dedicated fans access to more information about your music.
You can use your newsletter to share new music, tour dates, live shows, and other fun info relating to your music, band, etc. Sign up for a free or low-cost email marketing software to create and send out a weekly or monthly newsletter to your subscribers.
8. Create Merchandise and Other Products
Creating and selling merch is a great idea for a band or solo artist. Not only is this another way to bring in revenue, fans wearing your merch can help spread the word about your music.
There are a number of merch stores you can use to sell your items, as well as a number of types of merchandise to create. Items include:
- T-shirts
- Water bottles
- Hats
- Stickers
- Pins
- Patches
- Hoodies
- Bandanas
- Vinyl
- Posters
- Blankets
- Socks
- Keychains
However, the opportunities really are endless. Anything that you can sell, you can sell with your logo or album cover on.
9. Get on Spotify Playlists
If you’ve used Spotify before, you’ve seen the various playlists that are curated by the streaming platform itself. Playlists range from “Beach Mix” and “Party Hits” to “bummer summer” and “Deep Focus.”
Artists who are lucky enough to get featured on these playlists can get a ton of exposure. However, it’s not always luck. In fact, you can pitch your music to Spotify playlists in an effort to get your songs placed on one of the more relevant music lists.
Watch this video to learn how to pitch your song for Spotify playlists:
SoundCloud also offers services to help new artists get featured on playlists from big streaming companies.
10. Create and Share Covers on YouTube
While you’re working to create your own original music and gain a following for your own songs, creating and sharing cover versions can be a great way to share your music style and gain early popularity.
Create a YouTube channel where you share videos of yourself singing or recording these cover songs. This is a great way to gain an early following and start introducing followers to your original songs.
11. Hold Contests and Giveaways
Another fun way to promote your music is through contests and giveaways. You can host these on your social media, on your website, via your email newsletter, or some other public forum.
However, using social media as the main medium for your contest or giveaway can be a great way to engage your followers, reach a wider audience, and get the algorithms to recognize your content and push additional posts out to users.
With a contest or giveaway, you’ll want the prize to be somehow related to your music. It could be an album, free tickets to a show, merch, or even a big basket including all of the above.
You want the entry into your contest or giveaway to be easy. Have people like a post, follow you, and/or tag a friend as a point of entry. Then you can use a random generator to help select a winner at the end. This is a great way to help get your existing fans to spread the word about your music to some of their friends and families.
12. Collaborate With Other Artists
We mentioned building a network earlier. One of the reasons this can be so valuable is because it could potentially lead to collaborations with other artists—an amazing way to reach an even wider audience.
If you’re able to meet and interact with other artists—especially those who create and record a similar type of music to you—see if you can remix one of your existing songs or create a new one together that you can release and promote to both of your audiences.
Collaborations like this can be mutually beneficial as it helps both parties reach even larger audiences. Try to find collaborations with other artists, bands, producers, or anyone else in the industry that is willing to or interested in working with you.
13. Release Music More Often
You should have an entire process that follows a release—whether it’s a song, EP, or album. This should include uploading to music streaming sites, creating a music video, promoting on social media, etc.
This release schedule can help build momentum and excitement around your music. However, if you’re releasing a full album or only releasing music every year or two, you’re leaving a lot of lull time between the hype.
But releasing music more often can be a great way to keep the excitement going and increase conversations around your music, effectively increasing the buzz and reach your songs get.
So instead of a full album, consistently release singles. Create music videos or small social media videos and posts to promote each single. This is a great way to increase buzz and promote your music to your listeners.
14. Invest in Your Music
Don’t skimp if you really want to make it as an artist. Pay for the social media ads. Pay for marketing. Pay for quality gear. Pay to produce a music video. And so much more. Whatever income you generate from your music, set aside a significant part to go back into it and help improve your odds of success.
15. Work With Influencers
Influencer marketing is an amazing strategy for a number of industries—and music is included. Venues, music producers, and other vendors in the industry might be interested in working with music influencers to help promote their arenas.
However, bands and artists can also benefit from influencers. For example, if you have a new, catchy song coming out, reach out to influencers to see if they’re interested in featuring your song in a video.
Songs can easily go viral due to challenges, dances, or trends, helping to exponentially increase the number of people who discover your music.
Get Started With Music Marketing
Start marketing your music or music-related business today. Take advantage of these music marketing strategies to reach a wider audience and build up your fan base—or outsource to a marketing agency if it’s within the budget.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a music marketer do?
A music marketer works with artists, bands, musicians, and other companies in the music industry to promote their offerings and help build their audience. Music marketers implement various music marketing strategies to generate results for the musicians they partner with.
How can you get into music marketing?
People trained in marketing or learning about marketing can easily move into music marketing by getting an internship or position with a musician or music-related company. Look out for internships with record companies or other related openings on their website or on job sites like Indeed and LinkedIn.
How can you promote your music for free?
Social media is the best place to market your music for free. Easily promote your songs, share sound clips, create music videos, and more to share on your social media channels.
How can you make your music go viral?
Consider working with influencers. If you’re able to get an influencer or a few influencers to feature your song in a video (with some sort of dance, challenge, or trend) and it catches on, your music can easily go viral.
What should you do after releasing a song?
After releasing a song, start promoting it. Create a music video, share behind-the-scenes footage, release remix collaborations, share it on social media, and more.
