7 top marketing strategies for musicians

In the current digital age, a musician often takes on many roles, including creating a marketing strategy for music. With the sheer volume of new music being released regularly, determining whether your music will connect with an audience or not may depend on how it’s marketed.

If you’re marketing your current music independently, or you’re planning to release new songs soon, the strategies outlined here will help you get started.

1. Build a social media presence

Social media platforms and trends evolve constantly. But there is generally a place for musicians to market their music to fans, and make new fans, through channels they enjoy. The trick to using social media as an effective avenue to market your music independently is to focus on the social media sites where you enjoy engaging, and create a strategy to make the most of your efforts there.

Choose a few platforms that you enjoy using, and create content that works with your music, your message, and your personality in a format that’s suitable for each platform.

Post or upload your content sparingly, stretching it out so you’re promoting your music without being too self-promotional. Then be sure to engage authentically with commenters or viewers, to both engage and build your fanbase.

Be honest with yourself about what you can accomplish by marketing your music on social media. Are you business-savvy with a budget? Facebook ads may help you out. Or if you’re more low-key and enjoy creating off-the-cuff videos as a way to connect, TikTok may be your better choice. You don’t have to try everything all at once; test the waters with different platforms, and see what levels of engagement you can maintain.

2. Use your artist website and EPK

Social media platforms act as a starting point to catching a fan’s attention, and your artist website is the place you’ll want to drive traffic, to draw them in and build a meaningful base of supporters. With your own music website you can create connections through deeper dives into your music, your photos, and more.

If you plan to sell music online as part of your marketing initiatives, your website is the best place to send your supporters. You can collect email addresses here, ensuring that you’ll be able to stay in touch with your fans for the long term.

You can also use your website to market your music with an EPK. Create a press kit and add your musician bio, press links, social and streaming sites, music reviews and more,  so professionals and fans alike can easily spread the word about your music.

3. Send your music to blogs, playlist curators, and press outlets

If you’re promoting new music, getting your tracks out in advance will help build momentum and reach as many listeners as possible.

Part of your music marketing efforts can include pitching your music to press, plus editorial and third-party playlist curators, to get some coverage. Using a service like Groover to send your songs to blogs, radio, playlist generators, and labels can save time and ensure that your music gets heard.

You can also design an EPK for your music specifically to promote new singles, and use that to reach out to radio curators or online music reviewers.

Keep in mind that once your music has received press coverage or been placed on a playlist, you can continue to re-use that coverage to build more momentum for your music. Any mention of your music from outside sources can be helpful for your marketing efforts –  in addition to reaching more listeners, it can help boost your band website’s SEO.

4. Drive interest and engagement with landing pages

Even if you don’t have experience using landing pages, they can be a powerful tool to market your music online. To use them effectively, determine the goal of your music marketing campaign and then create a landing page with the sole focus of supporting that campaign.

Some common landing page goals include promoting a new video, a new Spotify release, or an album pre-sale. You could also add a landing page to create a Smart Link for your music release, with options for your fans to find your songs on different platforms. The success of your landing pages might rely on having a music marketing budget, and the ability to consistently measure results and adjust marketing angles, so be sure to create a flexible plan if you go this route.

You can also use a giveaway to market your music, building interest in exclusive items and sending traffic to your landing pages for fans to enter the contest. This exclusive gifting engages your fans, and can also help you collect their email addresses.

5. Use live shows to full potential

Live shows have great potential for exposing your music to a wider audience. Consider  each show individually, and determine the potential it has to help you market your music.

Each performance has the potential to create a unique and compelling memory. Use that to your advantage to develop your fanbase.

You can also tap into the opportunities provided in a live show to market beyond that moment. That could mean hiring a videographer or photographer to make sure you have extra content to use in all other areas of your music marketing.

Live shows are also one of the best places to sell band merch, giving your fans a chance to meet and engage with you. Fans will often take home either music to keep the listening experience going, or a memento which they can wear and share.

6. Network with other artists and influencers

To ensure that you’ve got a fanbase that will remain interested in your music, take your fan engagement further by networking with like-minded musicians. Chances are there are plenty of artists who’d be interested in doing cross-promotion to build their fanbase as well.

Besides getting more fans for your music, building a strong artist community will help you feel supported with new releases and upcoming shows.

To make the most of this marketing strategy, first decide what your goal is: Building 25 true new fans? Kicking off a tour to support a new album in 6 months? Settle on that focus, and then decide who you might approach and where you might network to achieve these goals.

You can market your music at conferences, or reach out to influencers to get their audience interested in your music. Just remember that building relationships for the long-term is a good goal here.

7. Invest in PR and airplay

If you’re an artist who has a music marketing budget to invest, consider hiring a radio tracker or publicist to help you get your music heard. The amount of money you’ll spend will depend on the scale and scope of your intended campaign.

Keep in mind that meaningful results may not happen until thousands of dollars are spent, and there’s no guarantee that your music will be reviewed or picked up by radio stations – so plan accordingly and spend wisely.

If you’re not able to pay for a radio campaign, you can put some extra time and effort into reaching out to stations to get your song on the radio. You can also invest more energy into promoting your music online using a DIY approach.

PR (public relations) is another rewarding – but likely pricey – option to market your music. Consider hiring a publicist or agency if you can afford it and want to learn how it works. You can also invest your own time and efforts into doing this promotion yourself, especially if you’re just starting out as an artist. See How to get publicity to promote your music for some tips with that option.

There are countless ways to market your own music. Whether you’re just getting started, or looking for inspiration to get your newest music out there with a further reach, we hope these marketing strategies will help you!