Powderfinger Promotions
Nurture the urge.
Founding members of Sublime, Bud Gaugh and Eric Wilson, have announced plans to reunite with Bradley Nowell’s son Jakob as the group’s new frontman. The decision came after a mid-December statement in which Sublime shared that its previous touring formation would come to a close with the departure of Rome Ramirez.
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If you haven’t read our post “How to Release Your Own Music”, we suggest reading that post before this one, as it explains the legal process and distribution of your music.
There are two different kinds of marketing; owned and paid medias. Your profiles are owned while any ads are usually paid. Using the target markets you’ve identified after reading “How to Release Your Own Music”, decide which social media apps will be most likely to reach your potential fans. Instagram, Tiktok, and Facebook are all great options depending on the age of your audience, and combining all three could be the best option.
For Instagram, be sure to use both ads and sponsored posts that are engaging and unique. Using images from photo shoots can draw in fans who are more attracted to visual content. With your profile, utilize your bio to the fullest by including who you are, what you do, and a link to your website or music. Create a feed that is beautiful and curated by using a planning app such as Planoly. Instagram has many tools that help create authentic engagement, so using Reels, Stories, and IGTV videos can help boost your content to more people. Once you have made a Reel or a TikTok video, you can share the video to the other platform, which is a great way to reuse content. After posting the videos, sharing them to Pinterest will also drive lots of traffic to your account.
We suggest posting at least once per day will allow your posts to be shown to more users, and using hashtags that are not incredibly popular could possibly put your post at the top of the hashtag. In your caption, including a Call to Action with most posts will tell your fans how you are hoping they can help you succeed as a musician.
With Tiktok, we suggest creating videos and posting 3 times a day. It is important to record with great natural lighting and post when the most people are on the app (at night, not during 9-5). Collaborating with other users on the platform, doing duets or asking others to write another verse to your song can help boost your videos to more users. Going live after posting a video can also greatly increase your views and the chances of going viral. For paid media, running a campaign on Playlist Push can get your songs to influencers who can use it in their videos. Influencers will create videos using your song until the campaign is complete. Another option for paid media is using TikTok ads. Create a TikTok Ads account that shows the hook of your song alongside a cool video.
Facebook is geared towards an older audience; however, the profile is still important for contact reasons and future opportunities in the industry. Facebook ad campaigns allow the user to choose the objective of the campaign such as expanding your audience, reaching your audience, and gaining traffic to your website. Facebook also allows you to set a budget for the campaign. With these ads, you can reuse content from other social media accounts. Reposting to a separate platform continues to reach people that may not have seen the post elsewhere.
Moving away from social media, creating a fan engagement campaign will allow superfans a way to engage outside of socials. A mobile marketing campaign such as a text list can make you seem much more accessible and likeable to your fans. If you create promotional materials such as stickers, shirts, and posters, doing a giveaway could be a great incentive for signing up.
A website is also an important part of your branding. In a previous post about EPKs, we suggested using a website like Wix that has templates for musicians and can be used for free. Another option is Squarespace, which allows fans to buy merch on the page. These templates are stunning and allow for many custom tweaks. A website can be an important part of sharing your music, showing your brand to potential venues, clients, or industry professionals, and can help spread your music. To get the most out of your website, learn about SEO, and how you can use it to help your website get more traffic. Start with a course such as Google Digital Garage’s Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals. Your website should also include a call to action. This call to action should be the most important thing for your fans to do, so that is the first thing that should be asked of the viewer. Don’t be afraid to ask friends and family for their honest opinion about the website. Doing a website rollout, showcasing that “something new is coming” on all social media accounts, can boost traffic to your site. Lastly, creating an email list pop-up will allow fans to stay informed.
Once your website and social media accounts are pristine, it will be time to work on your publicity and press. To create online press, reach out to local newspapers, magazines, and websites. Using your EPK and website, you can promote yourself to each media outlet. Reach out to college TV stations, as well as smaller local stations. If you have contacts at these stations, don’t be afraid to reach out and send an EPK asking for their help in promoting your music. Most importantly, fans are the best way to create a buzz surrounding your music. Every time you post, on social media, you give them something they can share about you. Ask your friends and fans to reshare your music.
Lastly, our personal favorite marketing tool is radio promotion! Powderfinger Promotions helps promote music to college radio stations.
We hope you enjoyed learning about how to market your music, and let us know if you have any questions in the comments below!
The obvious first step in any release and marketing plan is to create the music! Once you have your recordings finished and ready to go, then it will be time to implement your strategy.
After creating your music, you will need to identify your target market. Identifying the demographics and psychographics of your potential fan base will help you know where to market, what merchandise to sell, and how to promote your brand. Looking at the fans of other artists similar to you is a great place to start finding information on future fans. What age is the fan group? Where does their income come from? What are their habits and hobbies? Their values? All of these facts can help pinpoint the people who could become your biggest supporters.
Next is distribution. At least 3 months before you want to release music, you will have to sign up for a PRO such as ASCAP or BMI. These companies will allow you to collect performance royalties. We also suggest registering with SoundExchange in order to receive digital royalties. After deciding on a PRO, you will have to find the perfect distributor. The Orchard and Ditto Plus are both great options; however, both require an application. CDBaby and DistroKid are both available to everyone without any appeals. There are many other distributors, so it is important to research and find the one with the best payment and distribution plan for you.
The last necessary step before release is taking care of the legal aspects. Make sure to register your compositions and sound recordings with the US Copyright Office. Finally, create a trademark for the artist name and list goods and services (including merchandising) with the USPTO.
We hope this helps you take the initiative to release your music, and we hope to hear your music one day! Let us know in the comments if you have any questions.
We’ll teach you about every stream of revenue available to musicians!
First and foremost, make sure you have all of your music registered with a PRO. In order to receive the money you may be owed, all songs you’ve written must be registered with a PRO like BMI or ASCAP, and sound recordings must be registered with a service like SoundExchange. With these two steps taken care of, you will be able to earn royalties for your music.
Now that you’re able to earn money through royalties, the next best way to keep the cash flowing is to monetize your Youtube and social media videos. Every time your music is used in a video, whether on your channel or someone else’s, you’re entitled to any ad revenue generated. Many digital distribution companies can help ensure you get the money you deserve.
With these sources bringing in your revenue, a more fun way of making money is playing gigs. While these may be few and far between during COVID, the world is beginning to open up again and you can finally get back to performing. You can find gigs through websites like ReverbNation Gig Finder. These events do tend to be more corporate, so finding local venues through networking is just as important. If you plan on sending emails to different venues or industry professionals, an Electronic Press Kit will be extremely helpful. You can create an EPK through Canva, Adobe Spark, and Shopify’s Press Kit Builder. An EPK will definitely boost your overall professional aura. For the time being, online concerts can also be profitable. If you haven’t read our post about online concerts, head there to learn about monetizing your music live streams.
Lastly, selling merchandise through an online shop can be both fun and profitable. If you aren’t ready to deal with ordering and shipping items yourself, a site such as Redbubble allows you to upload designs, then prints and ships for you when there’s an order. For bands who are ready to take a bigger step into merchandising, an online shop builder like Shopify allows you to create an online store; however, you will be in charge of making products and shipping them.
We hope you find these tips helpful, and let us know if you use any in the comments section!
