10 Music Marketing Ideas That You Can Action Today.
(I promise they don't suck AND no they weren't written on ChatGPT)
In today’s saturated music landscape, even the best songs can go unheard. In fact, PinkPantheress spoke about this in her recent interview with Zane Lowe - there are a lot of incredible songs out there, and the difference between obscurity and recognition often comes down to how well artists brand and market themselves.
To put it simply - marketing for emerging artists is really just a bunch of good ideas, wrapped around a concept and key moments, that are then well executed, with the goal of engaging more fans.
This guide offers 10 practical ways for emerging artists to take marketing into their own hands, to try connect them with real fans - without waiting for a label to do it for them.
1. Find a way to explain your why.
A recent piece of advice I heard was that audiences online (Instagram, TikTok) are constantly being promoted to, or sold something, so if you’re trying to build new fans or keep existing fans, then “hey guys here’s my pre-save link” isn’t enough to keep them engaged. Having fans understand your deeper purpose/mission will likely draw them in on a deeper emotional level.
So make sure you explain your why. This could be in a short video, or 3-part doc series, or a letter to your fans, that explains to your audience what this is.
Why do you do what you do? Why should they join you on this journey?
2. Highlight your craft in short form video content.
Maybe it’s songwriting, guitar playing, production, your voice, choreography, or it could be something quite niche and nerdy. Jacob Collier started building his fan base this way with multi-tracking his voice, and more recently we have Maddie Ashman building a fanbase with her microtonal guitar content.
Different people will become fans of your artistry for different reasons, so it’s worth tailoring content toward different types of audiences (more on this below). Showing off your craft will appeal to audiences who are also creative, or are particularly interested in something that you are knowledgable in and do very well.
3. Build your brand.
There’s a lot of incredible music right now that will never get the audience it deserves. Even five years ago, good music was enough to cut through. Now, with a hundred thousand tracks per day being added to Spotify, you need the whole package. This includes how you brand yourself - how you present yourself to the world. (This really is almost as important as the music.)
When I signed Holly Humberstone’s first EP in 2020, she did this incredibly well from the beginning. She wore the dark, cool, grunge girl aesthetic and this was seen across all of her visuals - artwork, videos, design (logos, font), branding, clothing and make-up. And five years on she’s still doing this consistently.
If you don’t have a brand yet - start with a mood board. Sketch out how you can have brand cohesion across everything that you put into the world, just like Holly did. This would be things like cover art, merch, tour posters, EPK’s, etc. Then ensure that every piece of content or marketing collateral that you put out into the world has this brand cohesion to it.
Another idea if you’re making lots of face-to-video IG/TikTok content is to have something that is consistent across all videos. This could be a hairstyle, a background, a hat, make-up - the choice is yours. Think about Chappel Roan - the first time you saw her was the beginning of seeing her everywhere. That undeniable hair and make-up is a part of her brand that she didn’t always have - this has helped propel her into the pop star she is today.
4. Start a mailing list ASAP.
Direct-to-fan marketing is how you reach and engage your fans directly, most often through platforms like Instagram, TikTok and Email Marketing. Being able to connect 1:1 with your fans is incredibly important as this can foster personal connections with your audience and you can sell them things directly, e.g. Merch or tickets to your shows.
Marketing via email newsletters has become increasingly important, with social media posts only reaching an average of 13% of your followers. Being able to send an email that hits your fan’s inbox is currently the most efficient way to reach your audience. Here you can have some fun: pre-release campaigns, early previews of video content, early-access tickets, etc.
You can start to practise your sales funnel - from initial fan sign-up, to converting these fans into paying fans, with different offers and messaging.
5. Set yourself up on Bandcamp.
Bandcamp is a platform where artists can sell their music and merch directly to fans. Just like in the 1980’s we thought vinyl might disappear due to the emergence of CD’s and digital music, we also thought Bandcamp might not survive the streaming era. However, Bandcamp is alive and kicking and growing, now reporting an active user base of 100 million users per year, which is increasing every year as fans are looking to support their favourite artists by purchasing their music directly.
As an example, if I listen to one of my favourite 10-track albums 10 times, that’s 100 streams. This equates to approximately $0.30-0.50 in streaming. If I purchase this album from Bandcamp for $10, that’s the equivalent of approx 3,500 album streams.
Set yourself up on Bandcamp to make sure you’re discoverable there and you can also pitch to be promoted via the Bandcamp editorial team, ensuring there’s a 9-week lead time before your music is released to do so (remember they’re often dealing with physical CD’s and vinyl releases as well, hence the lead time).
6. Profile your audience - then target them differently.
What do you know about your online audience and how can you segment them? You’ll get basic stats from apps like Chartmetric, Instagram and Spotify that show different age groups and genders, but if you spend some time exploring your followers and looking at their profiles you can probably start to determine what other characteristics these people have.
Maybe some have very similar hobbies, or some live in certain locations. Once you’ve drilled down a bit further, you can build audience segments, then think about how you can target these different audiences with different types of content.
E.g. Alternative/folk artist Gigi Wilde may have jazz music fans who follow her from her jazz background; some people may follow her for her hilarious TikTok’s; some may be visual artists who are interested in her brand aesthetic that she’s carefully built; others probably just love her music. Drilling down even deeper by location and age could make this even more useful.
Understanding these audiences with as much detail as possible gives the artist a greater ability to produce content catered to different fans.
7. Find audiences outdoors.
I mentioned earlier that our followers online are only seeing 13% of our content on IG/TikTok. So with that in mind let’s bring back outdoor advertising. We’re talking new release posters, gig flyers, billboards, pamphlets, tour posters, QR codes - placed or stuck up in relevant places where your fans might be. The number of times I’ve seen one of my favourite artists playing a show near me because I saw a poster outdoors tells me that this is again an important way to advertise, to cut through the noise of social media.
You don’t need to pay a professional company to do this - just be stealth about it! Use this as an opportunity to create social media content showing your guerrilla marketing in action.
8. Build a community around your music.
Community building is an incredibly important way to drive up fan engagement and to make fans feel like they’re super fans, with exclusive access to news, drops and announcements from the artist. There are so many channels that are great for this - Instagram Broadcast channel, Discord, WhatsApp, to name a few. This allows fans to get exclusive access to who you are where you can speak directly to them, engage with them giving snippets of BTS, new music, video content, what you’re up to, etc.
As the artist becomes more established, this community aspect can be huge, with exclusive shows, merch etc given to these super fans.
9. Use SubmitHub to build initial streams - then focus on your Spotify popularity score.
Look, people get dark on third-party playlist providers and for the most part I do too. I’ve tried companies that are complete scams, where I pay $100 for a playlist campaign and a song ends up in bot playlists having a negative impression on a song. Those companies are scams.
SubmitHub is one of the only genuine third-party playlist companies because you’re working with genuine playlist curators who are vetted by the platform and who are only accepting your music if it’s a good fit for the playlist. You pay a small fee to be considered in the first place, then the curator will either accept your pitch or give you detailed feedback as to why not, which can be helpful for future pitching.
Once initial streams are building you can check your Spotify Popularity Score of your song via SubmitHub. This is a score that Spotify use to help them figure out which tracks should be in editorial playlists. As this score climbs past 20/100 and 30/100, you’ll start seeing more algorithmic placements and eventually editorial ones.
10. Write a business plan.
I’m sorry, I know this isn’t your classic marketing idea - but it’s incredibly important nonetheless. Artists should be thinking about their career as a business - they are the CEO driving the ship and their goal is to wrap a team around them (in the same way that entrepreneurs do) to realise their vision and grow their business.
A great framework to use is from the book Traction, written by Gino Wickman. He helps you figure out your “why” first, then shows you how to write a short but punchy plan, setting goals for 12 months and then 5-20 years, then focuses on the next 90 days.
Having a plan like this is incredibly compelling as an asset to send to anyone that you’re pitching to, or courting to join your team. They can see you’re thinking big, thinking ahead, with a clear vision and planning for success.
11. Gather your friends, come up with 20 more ideas.
Lastly, keep this going. Grab a bunch of friends together, let them know about the concept for your next release or project, understand who you are targeting, around what moments (releases, live shows, etc) then collectively come up with at least 20 ideas to push this music out to those audiences in captivating and fun ways, ensuring every idea has a purpose and clear end goal.
At goodtwin we specialise in branding, strategy and marketing. We’re working with artists at every step of their career - brand new, established, viral, or artists with stagnant audiences - you name it. So if you’re ready to get to the next level of your career, we’d love to help.