Music Marketing advice

[Ewoof]

Hey guys, 

I'm currently making a music video and an ep and hoping to release it this fall.  I would like to know your experience with marketing a song or an album. What advice would you give starting out? Hope to hear from you guys.

 

Ewoof 

[Glenn Stanton]

3 hours ago, Lord Tim said:

our fans were 72 - 80 year old women in central Asia!

hey! don't be knockin' those rockin' old folks!  ? 

[telecode 101]

I dont need to market my music. I have decided I am going to just make art music that no one wants to listen to. that way i dont need to worry about this marketing stuff. ?

[Tim Smith]

30 minutes ago, telecode 101 said:

I dont need to market my music. I have decided I am going to just make art music that no one wants to listen to. that way i dont need to worry about this marketing stuff. ?

Same here. Unless something unforeseen develops. I put out one CD and online album with CD baby. It was distributed across all platforms. As Lord Tim says, it was completely buried under mounds of other music the very first day it came out. No one was looking for it. No one knows anything about my music, so it came down to genre. IOW only those looking for that type of music bumped into it and only if they were somehow lucky in their searches and happened to stumble across it which was highly unlikely.

My expectations going into it were not high. I did it as more of an experiment. I should have known the outcome already. I notified everyone I knew to that the music was out there. Social media is mainly about others putting out what they want you to see and hear. Not the other way around.

This isn't a pity party for me. I'm perfectly content to make my own music and put some of it out to listen basically for free. Unlike Lord Tim my goals are totally different. I don't need to sell music for income. Sure it would be nice if I could.

In order to be very successful a person first needs good music. Not just good music, over the top good music. Then they need backing of promo people that constantly put it out there. Sometimes an Ace helps. A card that makes something about you different than anyone else or uniquely attractive. Hopefully you already have it and it's a natural thing like my tendency toward some celtic feel music. I didn't put that dog on for marketing, it's just something a little different about what I do. This attracts some listeners and turns off others. Otherwise your music just sits on the same shelf all of the other more common stuff does. Sensationalism works on YouTube. Using an  attention grabbing title or picture up front. Once you get them in the door you have to hold them because I unwatch YouTubers who put lots of icing on their promo and there is no content to their videos.

Frankly in this day and age a person might just do better busking in a public place with a cup for tips. Or an act that does wedding etc. 

For larger acts you have to account for all of the gear set up, concert promotions if playing live. Get to the gig play well and so forth. Larger corporate promoted acts handle all of that while smaller acts are on their own. All of those expenses come out of any profits. Name recognition helps.

It's just a lot to have to manage and organize and most musicians are not organized people. Even if solely online much is really involved in even making a few dollars here and there.

[Julia286]

The way you can market and promote your music is to use social media and creating a platform for your music. This will help you engage and interact with your audience while also showing them who you are as an artists. Another way you can promote music is by using music submission platforms such as One Submit where they send your music to Spotify playlists, TikTok influencers, Youtube Channels, Record labels, blogs, and more in oprder to get your music heard by real listeners. Here is the link to One Submit: https://www.one-submit.com/ 

[telecode 101]

On 7/19/2022 at 6:31 AM, Julia286 said:

The way you can market and promote your music is to use social media and creating a platform for your music. This will help you engage and interact with your audience while also showing them who you are as an artists. Another way you can promote music is by using music submission platforms such as One Submit where they send your music to Spotify playlists, TikTok influencers, Youtube Channels, Record labels, blogs, and more in oprder to get your music heard by real listeners. Here is the link to One Submit: https://www.one-submit.com/ 

I try to stay on top of this stuff. Its all an exercise in futility as you are basically running up a cliff. Basically, the amount of new music being released every day increases exponentially and there really is no cloud based service that can keep up with that. If you can't find you target market or "audience" in your direct geographic area where you share a community and are able to directly interact with them, you are a needle in a haystack on the internet. This is sort of where true talent shines through and a person who is able to pickup an instrument and showcase their musical talent to an audience can shine through. The rest of it is a bit like a lottery with really bad odds at  maybe being able to one day make minimum wage slightly above poverty level income from making music. Its best to just consider it a hobby and treat it as a personal artistic release. The reality is, you are basically doing what old ladies do who like to paint flowers in their back wards. They will never become Picasso or Dali.. they will just be grandma who paints really cool little paintings.