In today’s world, talent is a dime a dozen. With a quick YouTube search, you can find millions of talented artists from around the world instantly. Not only is talent becoming more and more abundant, but artists are saturating popular media platforms like Spotify, SoundCloud and YouTube. Therefore, it’s easy for your music to get lost in a sea of other artists and fall onto deaf ears. As you know, you can have the greatest song in the world, but if no one knows about it—it’s useless.
So the real question is, how do you rise above the noise and get your music heard in a market that will only get more crowded over time?
The answer, is effective music promotion and music marketing.
In this article, we’ll look at both DIY music marketing and music promotion through music PR agencies.
DIY Music Promotion
Everybody has to start somewhere.
If you’re just starting out and you have no budget for music promotion, you’ll be forced to go down the DIY route for a little while.
Don’t be discouraged though—DIY music marketing can be very effective. In fact, many artists start out on their own and achieve success—Jay Z, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix and Coolio to name a few.
DIY music promotion is cheap and gives you experience in the industry. It will thicken your skin too!
Here are some tips to get started:
Perform as much as humanly possible. Live gigs are your Holy Grail for music promotion. They give you the opportunity to showcase your work and interact with fans in a way that no media platform can replicate. This is an opportunity for you to interact with the audience directly after the show and gather feedback. Collect their emails and start an email list. Go to open mics and offer support and tips to other musicians. The idea is to communicate face-to-face with as many fans as possible so you develop a loyal following. After playing a ton of live gigs, you’ll have an idea of what your target audience is like which will make music marketing online A LOT easier.
Network. Go to events near you that have potential fans, other musicians and high rollers in the industry. The key is to go to these events with something of value to add. Can you help another musician finish a song? Can you do free work for a music PR agency in exchange for their clout? Building a network is the foundation for your success as an artist and the best time to start is yesterday!
Social Media. Music marketing online is crucial. Social media entails Instagram/Twitter/Facebook as well as Spotify ads, Spotify campaigns, Spotify playlisting, etc. Artists are making fortunes online because they get their branding right for their target audience.
Collaborate with other artists. All of you Eminem and Kanye West fans are nodding your head in agreement right now. They got where they are because of the help of other artists. If you want to take your music promotion to the next level, why not write a song with another artist and tap into their audience?
Music Promotion with Music PR Agencies
Music promotion and music marketing online gets a heck of a lot easier with a team of trained professionals. Of course, not every artist can afford a good music publicist, publicity agency or hip hop PR firm. But, if you have the means to do so, here are some of the major benefits of working with music PR agencies:
Immediate connections to media platforms. In the DIY music promotion world, the best pieces of media you can push out are limited to social media (Facebook post, SoundCloud track, Instagram stories, etc.). But with music PR agencies, you now have access to TV, radio, blogs, interviews, podcasts…you name it. Furthermore, music PR agencies’ phones are constantly ringing from media companies looking for stories and artists to cover. Needless to say, utilizing a publicity agency’s clout is invaluable.
Access to branding experts. As stated before, your image is often more impactful than your talent when it comes to blowing up in the music industry. Good music PR agencies help craft your image in a non-biased way. They can advise on the what, where, when and how of content marketing. They can even advise on who you should be publically associating with since everything matters in the branding game.
Online music marketing. Other than social media, this can include blog/content marketing, Spotify playlisting, Spotify campaigns, entertainment marketing and news marketing. If you’re in the right hands there will always be constant activity toward building your career as a musician.
Frees up time. Having music PR agencies take care of the ‘business’ aspect of the music industry gives you free time to focus on what you do best—create more music. Not only will you have more time, but you will have peace of mind knowing you’re on the right track. This peace of mind will free up your creativity to make better music—which could pay for the cost of your music publicist and then some. After all, time is money!
It’s clear that music PR agencies will help you reach the next level. But it’s important to pick the right partner.
Here are some questions you can ask music PR agencies before hiring them to help with your music promotion:
Are your clients similar to me? Who are your current clients and do you have a list of past clients?
What is your speciality? (hip hop public relations, rock n’ roll artists, country singers, etc.)
How often do you send reports so I can track the metrics of your work?
All in all, music PR agencies can be a blessing. However, your success ultimately comes down to you. If you have the drive and the right team behind you, you have a shot to make it all the way to the top!
If you want to give yourself the best chance at fulfilling your true potential in the music industry, WMR Media is a leading music and hip hop PR firm that can take your career to the next level and help you achieve all of the things listed above. Check out WMR Media right now for publicity, digital marketing and Spotify Ad Campaigns