Wondering how to promote your music?
In this guide, learn proven strategies used by upcoming and established artists use to explode their fanbase and make more money.
Here is the thing;
Gone are the days when you had to rely on your distributors or the record label to push your music.
Thanks to the internet, today, you can even start a whole music career without them.
Look at what Chance The Rapper did.
Despite being an independent artist, Chance has dominated the hip hop airwaves since 2013 when he released his breakthrough mixtape Acid Rap.
He went ahead and appeared on two Billboard Top Ten Rap Songs, released Coloring Book, a mixtape that was streamed over 57 million times in its first week alone.
Question is, how did he do it?
One thing is for sure;
He didn’t have thousands of dollars to spend on marketing.
Instead, he leveraged some of the strategies you are about to learn.
7 Ways To Promote Your Music Online
#1 – Create a music website with OLITT
With the internet exploding with users always searching for something, there is a higher chance of getting discovered when you have a website.
Lucky for you, no need to spend thousands of dollars to create a website.
With a tool like OLITT, you can create a beautiful website for free.
And no, you don’t need any coding skills.
OLITT is a free website builder.
This tool comes with a ton of website templates, which means that you can easily find the one that perfectly suits your music website.
To get started, go to https://www.olitt.com/.
And click on Create A Free Website.
The next step is to pick a category.
Here, OLITT has grouped all of its website templates under categories.
And by doing so, it is now easier to find the perfect template for your site.
Since you are creating a music website, look into the Creative category.
Sort through the available templates and pick the one you like.
Click on it to start editing.
Editing is easier, thanks to a powerful drag-and-drop tool.
Also, you have access to a wide variety of blocks.
With them, you can fully customize your website.
Additionally, OLITT allows you to connect your website to a custom domain.
For example;
You can have a CalvinCarlo.music domain for cheap.
Wish to sell on your music website?
No problem!
OLITT allows you to integrate your music website with PayPal, Flutterwave, or Stripe.
This means that you can sell directly on your website.
Remember Chance the Rapper?
Well, when he released his For Coloring Book album, he rolled out a full slate of customizable merchandise on his website.
By doing so, he achieved two things;
One, it encouraged people to visit his website, garnering him more exposure.
Secondly, it allowed his existing fans to further their identification with Chance.
And lastly, it earned him free marketing in the form of merchandise worn by fans.
Go ahead and get started here for free. No credit card is required.
#2 – Build an email list
Email marketing is another way to promote your music.
This involves building a list of people who are interested in hearing from you about your music.
Think of it as a list containing the email addresses of your fans.
With such a list, you can market to them anytime you want.
For example;
Whenever you release a new song, all you have to do is blast out a short email asking them to go listen to it.
Here is something;
With an email list, you do marketing without spending a dime. Where else can you market for free?
Question is, how do you get started?
It is simple;
Give your fans something for free. And in return, they give you their email addresses.
For example;
You can offer a mixtape for free. But to access it, they must input their email address.
The next thing is where to store the email addresses.
To do that, you will need email software.
Lucky for you, there are several free options out there. But the most used ones are;
- Mailerlite – free for up to 1K contacts
- Mailchimp – free for up to 1K contacts
These tools make it easy to manage your list, send campaigns, and access analytics on how your campaigns are doing.
#3 – Conduct Social Media Lives
If you do not have social media accounts, you are missing out.
Create accounts on all the platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok). One thing that is exploding right now on social media is video content.
Why do you think Facebook is transforming its platform into a video platform?
In fact, according to Cisco, by 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic (that is 15 times higher than it was in 2017).
All the social media companies acknowledge this trend, which explains why they are incorporating Live function on their platforms.
Social media lives work really well because you get to interact with your fans in real-time.
To get started, you need to schedule the whole thing by letting your fans know that you are planning to stream live.
For example;
You can plan a Live Q&A session or a giveaway.
Here is the thing;
Since platforms like Facebook are trying to push video content, they have rigged their algorithms to favor such content more.
Why?
This is their strategy of encouraging people like you to use this feature.
So, go ahead and leverage this strategy to promote your music, build a loyal fanbase, and land more deals.
#4 – Have A YouTube channel
YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world, with over 2 billion monthly users.
It’s also the world’s second-most used social platform, which means that it comes in right behind Facebook.
If you do not have a YouTube for your music, you are missing out.
There are a ton of success stories of how YouTube has transformed the lives of both ordinary people and musicians like you.
Take Justin Bieber for example, he wouldn’t be here if not for a YouTube video of his singing contest footage.
So, go ahead and create a channel and keep uploading content.
Secondly, make it a habit to engage with your fans. Do not ignore comments, at least, not yet.
Additionally, consider commenting on other channels to introduce your channel to new audiences.
This isn’t a call to be a spamming bot. People can smell a fake comment from miles away.
Instead, be genuine and offer value.
Above all, consistency and engaging content is the secret to growing a thriving YouTube channel.
#5- Be featured in music blogs
It is easy to ignore blogs when looking for ways to promote your music. But the truth is, this is the best place to start your journey.
Don’t forget these blogs attract thousands of loyal followers, and being featured by them boosts your music to an already engaged audience.
Where should you start?
We recommend you start locally.
Sort through local blogs and pick the ones with your target audience. Reach out to them for a feature.
It can be about your next venue or just a general interview can go a long way to giving you that much-needed boost.
Once you have a mention, it is always nice to give back by sharing the link to your own social media accounts.
Also, extent a word of ‘thank you’ to the website owners.
#6 – Upload your music to streaming sites
Take advantage of streaming services to promote your music. Such websites like Spotify attract millions of streams per month, giving you exposure and revenue.
Most people use such platforms to listen to their favorite artists and discover new music.
Thus, having your own music there increases the chances of growing fast.
Getting on playlists is one of the best things that can happen to your music career.
These playlists get millions of engaged users, who listen and share music everywhere.
The bottom line, strive to produce the best and quality music.
Additionally, you get paid every time someone streams your music, earning you money and exposure, who doesn’t want that?
#7 – Produce Music Videos
There is a higher chance you know Childish Gambino and OK GO.
Despite being newcomers into the music industry, their videos captured the minds of music lovers to date.
Why?
Because their music videos had something unique and intriguing.
Whether there was an actual underlying message or just conspiracy, it worked.
What can you learn from them?
First, make interesting music videos. No one is going to sit and watch mediocre music when there are other better options.
Secondly, go for quality video.
Lucky for you, you don’t need any fancy equipment to shot and produce quality music videos. There are a ton of videos shot using a smartphone and are really popular.
Better part?
Your music video has the potential to go viral even if the music itself was a flop.
Final thoughts on how to promote music online
There is no doubt these strategies will work, the only worry is, how good is your music?
The reason being, people do not listen twice to whack music.
So, before you start marketing, make sure you have the best music.