DIY music marketing, as any other do-it-yourself project, is achievable. Of course, it will involve an extraordinary amount of effort to get started. But even if it does, it is, too, perfectly feasible.
In our times, music marketing can either make your career or break it. Before the avalanche of the digital era, record labels were in charge of doing all the marketing for you. The reason seems obvious: in that way, you could devote all your time to your creations. In massive opposition to the early years of the music industry, labels now require that you have a considerably extensive fanbase. That is, they want to know if you have the potential to earn profits from your music. This demand is one of the reasons why DIY music marketing came into being.
The Most Basic of Basics in DIY Music Marketing
All this means that your content must be of an exceptional quality and that your promotion of it must be the same. So the one most important thing to consider is that the action of promoting your tracks will be time consuming. And we’re not exaggerating: self-promoting is a demanding activity.
First, you need to fully commit to your brand, which might be difficult if you’re a creative person who explores more than one area or genre. Then, you should build up an audience and, faithfully, interact with them. Afterwards, you’ll need to plan content strategies that nurture both your brand and your listeners. All this, of course, by having studied all at least the very basics of how businesses work. Adding to that, if you do not know where to invest your efforts—such as how to build up an audience or what platforms best fit your content—you will end up with futile attempts and, probably, a lot of frustration.
Less Frustration, More Action
Everything that’s worthy needs time and effort. For this reason, here we offer one of the most essential actions to launch your DIY music marketing project.
DIY: Build Your Core Audience
Of course we don’t mean this literally, but metaphorically. First, identify the people who might be interested in your music (for instance, in relation to your genre). Avoid random targeting at all costs, because that will transform the offering of your product into spam. What you do want is to reach a load of very targeted people in a short space of time. You can do so by figuring out where the people who listen to your genre hang out (either physically or online). Also, try to use established outlets, such as popular media platforms or radio stations. This will result, potentially, in the obtention of a better reaction. Plus, it will get this community to begin talking amongst themselves and, ideally, starting a conversation about you.
DIY Music Marketing: Conclusions
It is not easy, but you can steadily get there if you’re consistent and you mix your talent with your effort. Here in Music Production Knowledge we will offer more snippets on how to reach the music promotion goal you’re looking for.