Music Marketing

In music marketing most artist have two main goals. The first of which is usually to sell cds online, or sell music in some way. I mean in reality all artists want to get paid to be artists. Most of us want to drop our dead end telemarketing jobs and make money by making music. That is really the dream. The other thing that we would like to do is to get a record deal. Let’s face it, it is fun to make music, but the real fun would come if we could land a big record deal.

The problem with music marketing is to get any of those things you have to be a good marketer, which most of us are not. Most musicians are just that, musicians. We aren’t business owners, web designers, marketing majors in college, etc. That is, generally speaking. I have to be frank here though, unless you can really promote your stuff somehow, you are never going to be discovered. There are so many artists out there, new ones are cropping up every single day. Even people with spectacular skills are overlooked because they are overshadowed by the sheer number of people out there trying to promote themselves or their bands.

Want an idea of how many people out there you are competing against? Think about the auditions for American Idol. Some of those people absolutely suck and they have no chance at getting a record deal, but when you are first starting out, they are your competition. What??? You exclaim, I am competing against people that sing like William Hung? You bet. The first step in music marketing has no bearing on how good you are, well sort of. Think of a different business. I could make a soft drink that tastes like piss and you could make a soft drink that tastes better than Coca Cola in 1000 taste tests, you win against Coca Cola. If I am good at marketing and distribution though my product could out sell yours. If my piss drink is in every gas station across the country and your awesome drink is only sold in your local convenience stores, I am going to out sell you. Not only that more people are going to know who I am, even though my drink tastes like piss (the William Hung drink). On the other hand, you are excellent but since nobody can find you your drink doesn’t sell.

The “kind of” comes in because if someone goes to your local convenience store and buys your drink and truly feels you are better than Coca Cola and starts talking about it, and their word goes viral, then you may outsell me. Coca Cola, however has a head start, so it might take you forever to catch up to them. Music marketing is the same way. Someone that really isn’t that good, if they have a good strategy to get noticed and be visible may get a record deal, while you being really good are still trying to just sell cds online to keep your head above water.

So what is it that you should do to be like my piss drink and be very visible? You need to master music marketing and music promotion.

Click Here To See The Official Music Marketing Manifesto

I’m going to tell you the one secret to promoting your music that you are not going to like to hear. You need to start giving it away free. I know you hate me for this, because you want to make money and quit that crappy job. Let me tell you a story though about me. I was always into internet marketing (this is why I am qualified to tell you how to market music online). I was awful at it though. I tried to teach people how to do internet marketing, but it is hard to teach people when you suck at it. I knew a lot of tricks to make money on the internet, but the fact was I didn’t want to share those tricks without a fee. I really got my breakthrough when I started giving away my best tricks for free!

Well why does this work?

There are two reasons. First of all, I didn’t just hand it the tricks out with nothing in return. I used a website to capture the email address of anybody who wanted to get the information for free. You could do the same thing. Give away a free hit single, or a free cd to anybody who joins your email club.

The second reason, which works even better in music that in information marketing is people will talk if you are worth a crap.

Here’s the plan. On your website you offer to give away a song or a CD or whatever to someone who signs up to your email list. When you are out in public, you give away your CD to anybody who will take it. The goal then becomes the next time you have a CD you email your email list, and say hey I have a new CD for sale it is $10-$20. People on the list like you, and come buy your CD. The people who listened to your cd that you gave them for free, might also have talked about your CD.

When you are giving away your CD you could even put on there, get your own free copy of this cd at www.mywebsite.com. This way people who talk about your CD may refer people to come to your site, sign up for your email list and get their own free copy.

Let me tell you something, you never know where that free cd you gave away might end up. Mary J Blige made a karaoke tape in a boot at a mall, and it got passed from her dad to his friend to a record company executive which totally changed her life. The same thing could happen for you and land you a record deal. You have to be willing to give a little. If you have a gig, give away your CD. Most good businesses started out offering free stuff before they turned it into a business. Read the history of Google. They had a ton of investors, a ton of people using their service and they had no clue how to make money from it because they were offering a free service, a search engine. They figured it out now and are one of the most lucrative businesses in history.

Give it away free that is music marketing. Once you have the following then you can sell cds online.

Learn from my mentor: