Music Producer Marketing: Music Marketing Tips For Aspiring Music Producers
As a music producer, you gotta understand an essential part of how the music business works. And I'm not referring to knowing all the details as if you were planning on competing with major record labels. I'm referring to understanding how marketing works just enough to be able to get new fans, build relationships and reach your target audience as efficiently as possible so that you don't waste money.
As music producers, it's easy to overlook music marketing until we already got music to release. This is ok, but it can also be a mistake. All music producers, perhaps except those signed by major labels, should make it a task for themselves to learn music marketing. Hey, it's a part of the music production business too, and the fact that other record producers don't pay attention to it should not concern you!
But, it can be tricky. If you go to Google and type "music marketing tips for music producers," you'll see articles full of generalized advice ranging from getting a paid website to learning email marketing or even creating business cards with basic business information. That won't get you anywhere. At least not in the early days. Spending time on those things would eventually prove to be one of your biggest mistakes.
Listen fam, these people are probably just trying to rank up high on search engines to get free traffic to their website. We're not like that here, though. This is a site made by music producers for music producers and we want to help you succeed! So, here's some killer advice. Give it a read and let us know your thoughts!
Music Marketing Tip #1: Who?
All marketing, not just for music, starts with the "who?" It starts with the audience! You gotta know who's already looking for your type of stuff, and work so that those people begin associating you with the type of music they like. Listen, it doesn't matter how weird something seems, there will always be a crowd that thinks it's good music and another crowd that simply isn't aware they like something yet.
So on that note, wouldn't you rather focus your music marketing efforts on that crowd who may already be looking for those sweet, catchy tracks of yours (or whatever adjective you wanna use, you get the point)?
Here's A Short Marketing Story
Once upon a time, an aspiring music producer was leaving a gig at 3 am and he was starving! He looked around and saw nothing was open. But just right before he surrendered and dropped like a beat, the sweet smell of grilled onions mixed with greasy bacon and sausages entered his nostrils quite harmoniously.
He quickly ran across the street and around the corner, following the heavenly smell, and found an average-looking hotdog cart with no apparent brand. It had nothing special at first glance. Nothing! Not even contact information on the side. Yet, people were lining up as though they were giving away them hotdogs!
Moral of the story? Find a starving crowd! That's the right audience! You'll make better use of your budget if you're using it to promote your new music to a target audience that's already hungry for your music! So how does one find one's starving crowd? That's a good question. More on that below. For now, enough of silly stories. Let's continue with more marketing tips.
Music Marketing Tip #2: Relate To Your Audience
Us music producers can stay locked up in the studio making music for days just living off energy drinks and snacks. And who cares? This is what we love so let it be! But, we tend to forget how the music industry has evolved and that we all need a brand now. Back in the day, like several decades ago, just a handful of songs were released every now and then.
I mean think about it, there were no music streaming platforms, no music libraries, no social media and no internet. You needed a professional recording studio, which likely meant you'd have to be a signed artist. It was a hassle! The good news though, was that back in the day, since there were very few tracks, essentially everything that was released became a hit. That's why our grandparents like the same songs!
But the music business has evolved completely. It's a new business. These days we upload our music online by the hundreds of thousands. So as artists we gotta have a solid marketing plan aside from some quality music production and great hooks if we want to stand out from other artists. So what's a must in any marketing plan these days? Have solid social profiles! Ok, but what does "solid" mean exactly?
It means, aside from your music, you must post aspirational content, particularly on Instagram (which syncs up smoothly with Spotify) and Tik Tok. Those should be your social media accounts with the highest engagement! Sure, you want people to like your music. But they won't just become a fan of yours just because of your music. Fans become true fans of yours because they admire you and in a not-so-weird way (hopefully) want to be like you or relate to you.
So don't just limit your posts to pictures in fancy places or clips of your music. Make sure your strategy is based on asking yourself the following two questions: "What are some great qualities I possess that people may be inclined to admire?" and "What are some undesirable qualities I currently struggle with?"
We all possess these qualities, both positive and negative. Maybe you're a very compassionate person, or very disciplined, or deep! Perhaps you struggle with motivation or have to do things you don't enjoy.
Start posting about these things on top of your other stuff! This will significantly boost engagement on your social media profiles and will help you reach more people and get your music heard. At least in the early stages of your career, try to see your fanbase as a tight group of friends. See them as a family and you will grow with them. Your genuine engagement and vulnerability will help you tons!
Music Marketing Tip #3: Drop A Few Bucks On Digital Ads
"Oh but I don't have any money, bro!" Hey, I'm not telling you to get a second mortgage and go all-in on social media ads. Listen, as a music producer, I know firsthand that producing music can get pricey and that your marketing budget may be quite tight.
Of course, the larger your budget, the more flexibility, the more marketing strategies you could implement, and the more social media channels you could dive into. But whether you have a tight budget or a very large one, the following paid advertising tip will guarantee that you set off on the right track from the very start.
This is all about doubling down on what works! Not about blowing up money trying to cast a huge net to end up with a couple of small fish. Good marketing strategies start by narrowing down your options. Which social media platforms seem more promising? What are your marketing demographics? Should you try email marketing, rack up Facebook fans, try to rank up on a search engine, or create business cards and hand them out at Mcdonald's?
Many artists get caught up in the thousands of different things available to us music producers when it comes to music marketing. But that's exactly the problem. There are way too many options! And let's be real, this isn't our area of expertise. We're record producers for God's sake! We're not sitting there thinking of how to optimize a Facebook video or how to come up with a winning email campaign. That's other people's passion!
So What Will Benefit You More As A Music Producer?
It all goes back to the "who?" Back to taking your best shot at finding that starving crowd that's already consuming the type of music you've created without blowing up your budget. If you learn how to do this, you will be able to maximize your impact and have a successful career. Regardless of how your budget is looking, this will be helpful, wouldn't you agree?
Let's walk through an example so that you get a better idea of what I'm talking about. Say you're about to release a track and you've got $1,000 to promote it on social media and music streaming platforms.
How would you go about it? Do you spend a portion promoting your Instagram and Facebook pages (or other social media platforms), another portion trying to get on some Spotify playlists, and another portion on YouTube ads?
You could. But that wouldn't be a great marketing strategy. At least not in the beginning. Your best bet would be to put your music in front of audiences that are more likely to like it. So, for example, if you like rapping about mental health struggles, maybe NF's audience would be highly welcoming of your content.
Digital Ads For Music Producers 101
Make a list of 20 big artists or other producers who are in your same genre or are close enough. Then, use a digital tool such as Facebook Insights to narrow down demographics. Once you know that these other artists' audiences range from, say, 20-40 years old, are predominantly male, live mainly in certain countries, and any other demographic you find helpful, you'll be ready to get started!
Started with what? With actually promoting your video. You'll then use YouTube ads or Instagram ads to promote your new track to these 20 audiences (narrowed down by your demographic data and knowledge of the latest trends, which you can keep up with in forums such as Mix Magazine). You'll spend 10 bucks on each of these audiences during 5-7 days. After those days, you'll know which 3-5 of these audiences are giving you the best results.
The next step? Turning off the ad spend on the rest of the audiences and spending your remaining $800 on your winners. This is how you maximize your reach. But not just any kind of reach. You could optimize things so that you're spending money on those audiences that get you views on your music or lyric video of 90 seconds or longer, which means it's very likely that they liked your track!
A Short Story About A Profitable Music Promotion Strategy
Not too long ago I helped two Latin American artists promote one of their songs on Spotify. It was more of an experiment. We wanted to see if the strategy we had in mind would actually work at a small scale to turn a profit or at least break even (you know to promote the song but at least recuperate the money).
There was no paid site. They didn't have a catchy name. And, to be honest, a larger following would have helped a lot, but they didn't have that either. Yet, by getting on the right playlists (those with music related to our audience's interests), we were able to generate almost 100,000 streams and turn in a 50%+ ROI!
We tried this out with $200 and sure, these days, especially in today's American society, a 40% ROI may not mean that much. But imagine for a moment if you had $5,000 to promote your music and were able to use that money many times over to build an audience of, say, one million people.
You may not be living the big life at that point, but guess what? If you build that audience and people like your content, next time you drop a track, you know that a million people may go listen to it just out of pure curiosity. And what about the people who like that track? Those people will listen to it over and over again! And that means more royalty money for you, my friend! You just gotta build the audience.
If you're interested in learning more details about this strategy, don't hesitate to let us know in the comments! Remember, we're here to help you succeed in your music career as a music producer, and that a real person is behind these words, not unlike in many other blogs out there you know what I mean?
The Bottom Line
As a music producer, you must invest some time and resources in making sure your music marketing efforts are helping you out as much as possible. Any new music you plan on dropping should at least have the basics of music marketing down, just as it should check all the music production boxes before you start putting some money and time behind its promotion.
Like I said above, other music producers may tell you they don't have a marketing plan, yet they get their music heard. But I wouldn't recommend letting yourself get carried away by this unless you don't care that much about your resources, that is. Always remember that, as a music producer, you're in the music business, not just in the music production business!
These days, all you really need is good music and a systematized strategy that enables you to get your money back. Sure, we all need a brand, perhaps even a website or a business card. But if you think about it, those things are hard to get. It all comes down to putting your tracks in front of the right audience with as few resources as possible so that you can make money off of music royalties and continue doing what you love!
As always, fam, if you've got any questions about music production, your music career, heck even building a music website if you're wanting to do so, feel free to drop them in the comments and we'll be sure to take care of you. Peace!