Track marketing: A simple (however complete) guide

There’s a great deal greater to advertising your tune than just selling it for your fans.

every band, solo artist, songwriter, producer, document label, venue, and promoter ought to have a firm hold close of the four playstation —product, fee, merchandising, and location (distribution)—if they want their song to be triumphant.

on this manual, we’ll show you the way to use advertising to reach your track goals in seven steps. 

however first, let’s deal with the fundamentals.

For this, let’s adapt the AMA definition of advertising and marketing. Track advertising and marketing is the act and procedure of making, sharing, handing over, and changing music services that have value to clients, enthusiasts, or companions.

So allow’s break down this definition.

1. developing – advertising is about growing tune products (that you’re doing already).
2. communicating and sharing – advertising and marketing is telling people about your music. “The great thing about doing some thing you love is sharing it with a person who loves it too.” – Eric Prydz
3. turning in – advertising and marketing is about handing over music to fans and customers.
4. exchanging tune offerings – Your track offers fanatics fee; in exchange, they provide you with fee by eating or buying your track.

accordingly to Spotify, of the 8 million people who’ve uploaded music to its platform, 5.4 million have posted fewer than 10 songs. This facts suggests that they will be new to track, drawing near song as a aspect assignment, or now not leveraging streaming.

round one hundred sixty five,000 artists have launched at the least 10 songs, and 199,000 have had a gig or stay live performance.

of those 165,000 to 199,000 artists, 25% earn greater than $10,000 from Spotify streaming and $forty,000 or extra in general revenue.

published on Spotify	Musician repute	variety	percent
at the least one song	New to track	eight million	–
Fewer than 10 songs	Hobbyist, aspect task	five.Four million	67.Five%
10 or extra songs	Aspiring, not leveraging streaming or track career	165,000	2%
incomes over $10K from Spotify	Earners drawing streaming and live performance earnings	41,250	1%

at the same time as this is how Spotify identifies musicians, you can pick out your self as a:

1. Band.
2. Solo artist.
3. Songwriter/composer.
4. file producer.
5. tune venue.
6. mixture of the above.

regardless of in which you’re to your track career, writer Steven Pressfield sums up the artist’s way:

there may be no worse feeling for a author or any artist than to look their e-book, their movie, their comedy, their song exit there and die. Or worse, exit into the sector and nobody even is aware of they exist. I’ve experienced it more than as soon as and it’s heartbreaking.

comply with these seven steps to nail your track advertising.

Step 1. Create or decide your product

All marketing starts offevolved with a product, even though it’s simply one song.

In conventional marketing, you appearance out at the marketplace, see how massive it is, what it needs, and the way your product is one of a kind.

but you could’t think about your product within the same way as a Tesla automobile or cornflakes.

The product comes from inside for the artist or musician. You need to pay attention for your internal voice and parent out what you need to bring into the global.

products

right here are a few examples to help you recognize what I imply via a “product.”

A tune or album

You create a song; a single release is a product.

you have three or 4 demos sitting in Ableton; that’s an EP in the making. 

The album you launched closing year to vital acclaim is a product—so is the proposed remix album you are thinking about.

A gig, DJ set, or excursion

A one-off gig or DJ set is a product. Extend the ones gigs into a sequence, and you’ve got a tour, which is some other product.

Licensing

while Carly Paradis changed into commissioned to create the soundtrack for “The growing” tv collection, she created a product.

Caleb Murphy licensed a song to the television collection “Chicago hearth,” and over 76% of his music profits got here from sync licensing.

Get a synchronization license that permits someone to apply your songs in advertisements, movies, games, or even YouTube films.

An unique sync license lets one birthday party use your music, whilst a non-exceptional sync license shall we an infinite variety of humans use your track.

merchandise

one-of-a-kind forms of merchandise, including garb, vinyl, and CDs, are merchandise.

visit maximum live shows, and you’ll see T-shirts, hats, and other artist merchandising.

You don’t want a massive fanbase like New Order or Depeche Mode to promote products. Spanish musician Henry Saiz sells a small series of products on Bandcamp.

record production

The production of a music or album is a product, whether you are paid a flat price or negotiate a percent of ongoing royalties.

Streaming

song on streaming structures, inclusive of Apple tune, Amazon tune, and Spotify, is taken into consideration a product.

consultation musician

A session musician is a person who performs track for a band, orchestra, etc., and is simplest had to play a particular track or performance; a session is a product.

Artists like Clare Uchima excursion with artists like Harry patterns, pet shop Boys, Kate Tempest, and others as session musicians even as having their own track and vending.

prison stuff

make sure you cope with your merchandise’ copyrights, logos, and registrations. Talk to a legal professional, report label representative, and different musicians.

here are some precious resources and links:

After developing or selecting your product, circulate on to the next step.

Step 2. Decide your pricing/income streams

Pricing is what people pays in your product, and it must be linked to the actual and perceived price of the product you provide.

for instance, early birds pay a decrease rate at this concert in Seattle.

you may differentiate product price by way of using tiered pricing, including trendy, top class, and VIP tickets.

In maximum instances, musicians paintings with 1/3 events, and every body shares sales.

The 15/85 rule for concert events and gigs

a terrific rule of thumb for artists and concert tickets is the 15/85 rule.

which means 15% of the gig earnings is for you; 85% is spent on retailers, the venue, promoting, tour, accommodation, and different musicians.

if you are an unknown or new band, many venues will work on a revenue proportion with you. You sell and sell tickets for your gig, and they get a reduce and all the bar and beverages revenue.

Streaming pricing

Spotify determines the price in step with play or stream.

right here’s the predicted revenue for a band with 600,000 streams of its songs.

but don’t forget, there are greater streaming structures than Spotify. You may use this calculator to training session your streaming income.

you can earn greater in case you launch the edited model of a single or album without spending a dime on Spotify:

Then sell the prolonged versions on every other platform which includes Beatport:

production

manufacturers’ fees can range appreciably, but those examples illustrate some commonplace eventualities:

• Studio – $six hundred in step with day
• blending – $three hundred in keeping with track
• getting to know – $70 in step with track
• production – $350 according to music (plus royalties)

vending

consistent with Spotify, the maximum popular styles of products throughout all song genres are:

1. Vinyl
2. Shirts
3. CDs
4. different
5. Hats
6. Outerwear
7. accessories

Artists and labels can use Merchbar to sell extra products without delay or via channels like Spotify, Instagram, YouTube, and their own websites.

Merchbar manages the products, orders, bills, deliveries, and returns. However you may sell merch on Spotify as nicely:

as a substitute, add your products to Bandcamp.

session musician

according to the ​U.S. Bureau of hard work records​, consultation musicians kind of earn those amounts:

• Median annual earnings: $fifty eight,552 ($28.15/hour)
• top 10% annual revenue: $152,547 ($73.34/hour)
• bottom 10% annual income: $21,632 ($10.Forty/hour)

by now, you have to recognise which merchandise you could create and which charges and income streams they’re really worth.

Now it’s time to set a goal.

Step 3. Set a purpose

if you have a clean purpose, you may structure your marketing efforts to attain that aim correctly.

in case you’ve published one tune on Spotify and only have some hundred listeners or fans, your intention can be to get 10,000 streams of your music.

That’s an plausible aim.

Or don’t forget the 1,000 genuine enthusiasts method: as an example, you have 1,000 lovers. Every fan spends $50 a 12 months to your products. That equates to $50,000 sales according to annum.

however permit’s say the intention is a mini tour of 8 gigs.

So eight gigs x 500 tickets sold per gig x $20 in step with ticket = $eighty,000.

And 15% of that is $12,000. That’s quality for a solo artist or DJ, however keep in mind that revenue is shared among band participants.

if you’re one of the hundreds of thousands who’ve introduced fewer than 10 songs to Spotify, you may have other dreams, such as:

• Securing one excursion as a consultation musician with a band.
• earning one fee for a soundtrack or video recreation.
• reserving four other musicians into your production studio according to month.

You need to have multiple dreams in relation to releasing and streaming your music because it will finally grow your popularity and fan base ultimately. However don’t forget to have another product with a extra instant sales stream.

What now?

Step 4. Select the places to distribute your product

there are numerous places to distribute your tune or product in order that it could be performed, heard, seen, and/or purchased.

here’s an overview of key locations to distribute each product type and links to applicable assets and courses.

Product	Key places to distribute product
unmarried or album	– Spotify – Apple track – YouTube – SoundCloud – Bandcamp – Tunecore, CDBaby, or EmuBands to distribute song to one hundred/150 different places
Gigs or concert events	– bandsintown.Com – Google search (Bandsintown widget) – songkick.Com – ticketmaster.Com – livenation.Com – fb occasions – Spotify gig listing – Your internet site
products	– Amazon for artists – Spotify – Merchbar – Bandcamp – Your website
Licensing	– CD infant song licensing provider – YouTube content material id – license to YouTube – tune licensing organizations – musicbed.Com – musicvine.Com – audiojungle.Internet – freesound.Org – pond5.Com – soundsnap.Com – mixkit.Com – storyblocks.Com – personal networking with music supervisors – Networking with filmmakers – Networking with online game corporations – Use a tune licensing agent
manufacturing/consultation musician	– non-public networking – Google seek effects – music manufacturing marketplaces which include SoundBetter and AirGigs – booking structures which include Encore and GigSalad

some of those places provide the capability to flow your music, listing your gigs, and promote your merchandise, e.G., Spotify.

next, you need to sell your products to reach your goals.

Step five. Create promotional campaigns

promoting is the methods used to inform humans approximately your product and encourage them to observe it and take motion.

Your promotional campaign includes pre-launch bulletins, the launch, and put up-launch activities.

here’s how Vivrant launched its compilation album.

• March 2 – Announce album; save and preview music #1 the use of fan links
• March 4 – launch music #1 on Spotify and hyperlink to all streams
• March 7 – Spotify playlist look
• March nine – Announce track #2; preview on SoundCloud with associate and hyperlink to all streams
• March 11 – launch track #2 and hyperlink to all streams
• March 17 – Announce tune #three; preview on SoundCloud with accomplice and hyperlink to all streams
• March 18 – launch tune #3 and hyperlink to all streams
• March 24 – Announce song #four; preview on SoundCloud with partner and link to all streams
• March 24 – Spotify playlist look
• March 25 – launch track #4 and link to all streams
• March 25 – track #4 appears on an Apple song playlist
• March 31 – Announce tune #five; preview on SoundCloud with accomplice and hyperlink to all streams
• April 1 – launch tune #five and link to all streams
• April 18 – Mixmag.Com interview approximately the album
• April 20 – SoundCloud blend functions album songs
• April 25 – Spotify playlist appearance

making plans for this event would have started months earlier than the primary date stated above, and a few larger venues plan events a yr in advance.

Songkick affords the equipment for artists, managers, venues, and reserving marketers to listing and promote their live activities and notify fans to sell pre-income.

you may use equipment like ToneDen to permit fanatics to pre-keep or pre-upload songs to their streaming structures so as to pay attention to or purchase them on the discharge date.

internet site

Your website should be the focus of your promotional efforts.

First, you’ll want a brand, coloration scheme, fonts, and images.

Your excellent wager is on low-attempt and coffee-cost website builders like Bandzoogle, Wix, or GeneratePress (customize the “Solo” template).

The website should have the subsequent sections:

1. Your track (or equipment)
2. previous and drawing close gigs or activities
3. Press kit and photos
4. movies
5. Biography
6. touch form or “subscribe” button

when you’re completed with the internet site, you should ensure that it’s nicely optimized for each customers and search engines like google. To try this, upload the internet site to Ahrefs Webmaster equipment, in order to examine and display everything for you for unfastened.

search site visitors

relying at the kind of musician and product you sell, you may want to develop content material past those essentials.

as an example, a mixing engineer or manufacturer may also need to speak their experience or understanding via writing articles or courses to assist relaxed a solo artist or band as a consumer.

And there’s quite a variety of content that may be covered. For example, this website has pages about domestic studio setup, DIY vocal booth, a way to master a tune, a way to make an album, and so forth.

Its 1,000+ pages power almost eighty,000 month-to-month visits from Google:

King Tuts, a famend song venue in Glasgow, generates nearly 10% of its search site visitors from its artist profile pages.

So whilst fanatics look for a band, King Tuts indicates up close to the top of Google’s search effects, promoting the venue, band, and price tag income.

e mail advertising

Your website and social channels ought to have a touch or subscription form to seize the e-mail address of fans (or ability customers) who can acquire advance notifications and news from you.

electronic mail structures, which include Mailchimp and ConvertKit, permit musicians to create a unfastened-of-fee mailing listing of 2,000 and 1,000 people, respectively.

right here’s an electronic mail from Liam Gallagher to pre-order tickets and an album months in advance of the discharge.

the first aspect you spot on Ushuaia’s website is a subscription form: “enroll in our newsletter to receive the maximum updated records on the DJs of the season.”

further, you may add links on your subscription form from your social media profiles using gear which include Linktree or ToneDen clever hyperlinks.

Social media

in case you haven’t carried out so already, installation the subsequent social media bills:

• fb
• Instagram
• Twitter
• SoundCloud
• Bandcamp
• YouTube
• TikTok
• Spotify

Of route, bear in mind your listeners. TikTok will possibly be a waste of time if you have a predominantly older audience.

You or your crew can use Canva’s templates to layout pictures and movies and then post them to your social media channels.

Press kit

An electronic press package is a collection of records approximately you or your band, such as your emblem, pix, touch info, social media links, and every other applicable content material.

A press kit is brilliant for track journalists who use it when writing articles or doing features about you.

the perfect region to save a press package is on your website.

Spotify for artists

Spotify is constructed for artists, and you could use it to sell your songs, gigs, or products.

1. add song to Spotify
2. Pitch to playlist editors
3. add or manipulate your profile
4. add your gigs and events
5. add promo cards
6. upload merchandise to Spotify

Wikipedia

look for any artist or band and, in most cases, the pinnacle end result is a Wikipedia web page.

Getting a Wikipedia web page is hard for most companies, but it ought to be simpler for artists who already have a few coverage and records.

endorsed analyzing: how to Create a Wikipedia page (Step by Step)

Pitch to reporters

An crucial part of advertising is to pitch products or stories to applicable newshounds for you to function such content in their guides or websites.

for instance, right here’s a new musician featured in DJ magazine who played a live set from an deserted concrete plant in Sweden.

This event was “pitched” to promote his new EP.

So how do you discover reporters?

1. Discover journalists

Use Ahrefs’ content Explorer to discover journalists in your style of track, e.G., rock.

enter this seek query:

“opportunity rock” OR “alt rock” OR “indie rock” OR “stoner rock” OR “psych rock” OR “surf rock” OR “submit rock”

You’ll then see a listing of capacity reporters to touch beneath the “Authors” tab.

Or you could locate newshounds who write approximately new song. I appeared up the subsequent query:

“song of the day” OR “track of the week” OR “new music roundup” OR “tune roundup” OR “new track Friday”

once more, when you click on the “Authors” tab, you can view newshounds or bloggers who write approximately new song, their Twitter addresses, and what number of followers they have.

In this case, i found Georgia Murphy had written 293 articles on her website about new songs and musicians. She shares them with her forty three,171 Twitter fans.

2. Clear out and export listing

filter your touch list through the use of the filters available after which export it.

three. Find electronic mail addresses

Use an e-mail appearance-up service, which include Hunter, to become aware of the addresses of the journalists you found.

4. Pitch your concept

here’s how to pitch your idea to a song journalist.

1. Your concept doesn’t need to be as complex as a DJ set in a Swedish warehouse, however it does need to stand out.
2. You have to consist of links to your press package with material about your “pitch.”
3. Then do one e mail observe-up if you don’t get a reaction or supply your concept to folks that do reply.

Getting featured by way of newshounds isn’t that clean, but the above must provide you with an idea of the technique.

Playlists

Pitching playlists is some other way to promote your tune.

Use a carrier like Repost by using SoundCloud to promote playlists to editors at Apple track and other platforms like Tidal, Deezer, Beatport, and Amazon song.

Or observe those steps to pitch a Spotify playlist:

promote your songs with mixes

sell your product properly earlier of the discharge date by means of presenting the brand new track in a mix.

as an instance, this SoundCloud blend includes new songs from Molo’s imminent EP and become posted on SoundCloud much less than forty eight hours in the past (as of whilst this newsletter changed into written). Considering that then, there have been 1,481 performs and forty five reposts.

Pitch for placements

Caleb Murphy outlines the steps to pitch your songs for film and television placements to licensing agents.

1. register or log in at crucialmusic.Com
2. submit a music (and instrumental version) you’ve got achieved, produced, engineered, mixed, and mastered
3. provide track info
4. Repeat

reserving systems and marketplaces

unique reserving structures and marketplaces, which include SaladGig, Upwork, SoundBetter, and The Bash, are in which you could locate tasks.

After registering, follow these steps:

1. Profile: write a bio describing how you’re different from others and may clear up their troubles
2. reply to inquiries quickly
3. comply with up through electronic mail, call, or text
4. upload a unfastened gift or a guide together with your quote
5. Use anchor pricing to advocate better- and decrease-fee options

Spotify Marquee

Spotify Marquee is a paid provider that will help you sell your tune to the right target audience, increasing listeners and playlist provides.

sell your concert events and gigs

To sell your events, concert events, and gigs on fb and Instagram, observe those steps the use of ToneDen:

• events are pulled out of your ticketing platform.
• An target market travelling particular song occasion pages is created.
• people interested in an occasion are targeted with an advert for that precise occasion.

Step 6. Measure and evaluate

permit’s say your goal turned into to promote out tickets to 8 venues. However you simplest secured four venues, and they’re 50% complete.

maximum on line systems will offer you with target market statistics, e.G., fans, streams, ticket income, orders, and so on., that you can assessment.

review the preceding steps. Then discuss what did and didn’t paintings together with your team or colleagues.

Step 7. Repeat

So permit’s say you published your first track on Spotify, accompanied the above steps, then measured the results.

Now repeat the stairs along with your subsequent product, which can be extending the first music into a complete album.

otherwise you released an album and determined the subsequent product is a nationwide tour.

advertising is a non-stop loop of going over product, price, purpose, distribution, and promotion.

Use our track marketing campaign template

I’ve created this simple music advertising template with examples you may use as a manual. You may make your very own reproduction here. 

Product	charge	aim	place	promote
unmarried or album launch	$zero – $13.Ninety nine	Get posted	– Spotify – SoundCloud – Apple song – Bandcamp – Or use a distribution carrier like groover.Co	– Spotify – Social media – e-mail listing – Playlist – Mixes – advertising and marketing
stay excursion	$20 price ticket sales proportion	Get eight venues booked	– Venue #1 – Venue #2 – Venue #3 – Venue #4 – Venue #5 – Venue #6 – Venue #7 – Venue #8 – and so forth	– Create gig pix and films – Announce dates – email listing – upload venue hyperlinks to the website – work with the venue’s promotion body of workers – Social media – advertising and marketing
products	$25 in line with object	500 devices	– Your website – Your events – Amazon for artists – Spotify – Merchbar – Bandcamp – Google seek engine	– e mail subscriber – Promo code – Use FOMO – Upsell – advertising and marketing – table at live occasions
Licensing	License 4 songs	$10,000 in keeping with annum	– Licensing – CD baby tune licensing service – YouTube content identification – song licensing organizations, which includes song bed, track Vine, and many others – personal networking with music supervisors – Networking with filmmakers – Networking with online game companies – Use a song licensing agent	– submit music on SoundBetter – add music to different licensing websites – submithub.Com – crucialmusic.Com
document production	See fee manual	Produce one band’s album	– private networking – Your internet site – Social media – industry events – various marketplaces and reserving systems	– post your personal productions and sounds – Collaborate with other artists and sell – publish content material often to the website and social media structures – excursion (as a guide act) – search, find, and bid on booking platforms and marketplaces

final thoughts

tune advertising is a lot like some other advertising: start together with your product, determine the pricing, set a purpose, and use the recommended distribution channels and promotional techniques to sell your product.

observe those steps, and you’ll be well on your way to developing achievement on your music.

were given questions? Ping me on Twitter.