10 ESSENTIAL

POINTS

TO PROMOTE

YOUR MUSIC

You may prefer the lone wolf approach to promoting your music, but surrounding yourself with a great team of like-minded people can be very beneficial. If you have a team of well-connected people who are passionate about your music working on your behalf, it stands to reason that your chances of success will increase.

If you can assemble a team of friends to help you for free or in exchange for a share of potential revenue, great! But, at some point, you will need to enlist the services of professionals like KimeraMusical.com to help give you an edge in the competitive music marketplace. Whether it's a PR person, radio host or promoter/contractor, there's nothing wrong with accepting help.

It's also a good idea to get a great manager. Again, make sure he/she is passionate about your music and believes in you as an artist. A manager who will go the extra mile for you is worth their weight in gold.

02 KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE AND FOCUS ON YOUR NICHE

Where and to whom you market your music can make all the difference. There are thriving music subcultures in every corner of the world, some huge and vast, others small and dedicated. Finding, knowing and exploiting your musical niche is the key to your promotional campaign.

It may seem obvious (and it should be), but if you're a metal band, play metal venues, join a metal community and gain metal fans. If you're a rapper, seek out rap venues, join rap communities and gain rap fans. And so on and so forth.

But niches aren't always defined by genre. If your music has a more generalized appeal, start local. People tend to want an artist from their area to succeed. Take advantage of this mentality and grow your fan base close to home before expanding nationally or even globally.

03 GETTING PRESS AND BLOG COVERAGE

The music media is a powerful force in music promotion.

If your music is featured in music publications, whether in trade magazines or in specialized blogs and webzines, those appearances can help build buzz and give you the credentials you need to take your music career up a notch.

The major ones, have given countless artists exposure. But smaller blogs can be surprisingly influential. Look for blogs that publish topics and artists like you and find out how to get in touch with them.

Coverage from a music press outlet, no matter how small, can go a long way in helping your music reach a wider audience.

But trying to find coverage is difficult and getting trendsetters interested in your music is a daunting task. But it's worth it for the huge amount of traffic they can generate.

Hiring a PR professional to handle your campaign is often the best way to get great coverage. But this is not always affordable or possible for a new artist on a limited budget.

Do-it-yourself PR is an option for artists who are on a tight budget. But it's important to approach bloggers and journalists the right way. First, you need to create an electronic press release. It should contain all the essential information about you and your music. The following resources offer tips for musicians who want to take care of PR.

04 CREATE A WEBSITE AND MAILING LIST

Your band's website is the home of your music on the Internet. It's the one place where you completely control your fans' interaction with your content.

Creating a sleek, professional website as the foundation of your Internet presence is vital, but perhaps even more important is creating a large, dedicated mailing list.

Your website should obviously include links to your music, biographies, images and tour dates, but be sure to include a mailing list sign-up form as well. Email marketing offers direct access to the inboxes of the people most likely to be interested in your music.

If a fan gives you their email address, it means they want to hear from you, and a direct message to their inbox about your latest release or upcoming tour is much more likely to reach them than a social media post, which may be restricted by the limited reach of a platform.

05 DEVELOP AN ENGAGING SOCIAL PRESENCE

The promotional power of social media is no secret. It is essential to develop and maintain a consistent, interesting and engaging presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even less obvious platforms like Snapchat. Also, try to keep your profile names consistent for easy online searchability.

There is an insurmountable amount of advice out there on how to manage your social channels, and things are constantly changing on all platforms.

Sharing music online has never been easier. You may be closer than you think to being ready to publish your songs.

Good music promotion means controlling your message everywhere fans come in contact with your music.

It's not enough to just have music or content available on a platform, you have to own your space there and make it work for you.

DON'T GET CARRIED AWAY WITH METRICS

It's tempting to focus too much on measuring the success of your tracks or posts by a single number.

But the fact is, social media stats tell a complicated story that can go unnoticed when you only look at "likes."

06 SHARE MORE THAN JUST MUSIC

You can't fill an attractive social media feed only with your own releases.

Nowadays, music promotion is about much more than music. Yes, someone might listen to one of your songs and like what you do, but if you don't keep offering them more content and keep them entertained in some way, there's a good chance they'll forget you.

That's videos, images, interviews, articles, playlists, sample packs, studio tours, live shows and anything else that can help build the story around your sound. Even an occasional meme or witty tweet can help build your story and followers.

Having an active presence on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and anywhere else is incredibly helpful in connecting with your fan base. Remember that, as an artist, you have a voice that people listen to.

Approach your promotion with the question "what does this say about my music?" to help guide your efforts. The answer will help you decide what to say yes to and what to pass on.

Start with your sound and your vision as a launching pad to look outside of your music for other content to share to keep your followers engaged.

Promotion is your voice in the music landscape doing more than just singing a song. So share your music well.

07 INCLUDE YOUR MUSIC IN PLAYLISTS

You can't afford to ignore the important factor that streaming and playlists are.Playlists on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and other platforms reach hundreds of millions of listeners worldwide and rack up billions of streams, and while they're not exactly media they're still key platforms for promotion.

Getting your song into a popular playlist can help you rack up thousands of streams. That's not only great notoriety, but also royalty income in your pocket.

While getting your music on playlists is a big help for notoriety and credibility, getting featured on algorithmic playlists like Discover Weekly can make a big difference in the number of streams. So it's worth pursuing all possibilities.

You can't submit directly to the big branded playlists, but there are tons of user-generated lists that can help you move up the ladder and get noticed by other curators.

Identify the playlists you should be aiming for and get in touch with the users who organize them.

08 MUSIC VIDEOS

An exciting, interesting and original music video has the potential to go viral on the Internet, even if the track isn't a hit.

Don't be afraid to think outside the box when creating a video for your latest release. Think about the videos of artists like OK GO and Childish Gambino, who have succeeded because of their Internet traction. They've had something unique and intriguing, whether it's a deeper underlying message or a quirky theme.

You may want to develop a standard music video or visuals based on a live performance, which is perfectly fine. But investing time and effort into your videos has the potential to reap great rewards.

09 ENTER THE REAL WORLD: OFTEN PLAYING LIVE AND MAKING AN IMPACT

Events, live music and personal networking are absolutely essential for effective music promotion.

It's easy to get carried away with promoting your music online. But if you forget about real life, you'll miss out on important ways to build your audience.

Performing is one of those golden activities that every musician should do. Not only can it be a great way to get your brand out there, but it can also pay off in many ways and help you establish a solid relationship with your core audience.

Obviously, this is much more difficult in the Covid-19 era, but concerts and touring offer an invaluable way to connect with fans. If you get booked at nearby venues and play amazing sets for local music fans, you'll quickly develop a solid base of new fans. But remember that you have to make them remember you, so be memorable.

Once you've built up a local fan base, you can hit the road and conquer new music scenes city by city or even country by country. If this sounds too easy and oversimplified, that's because it is. Touring and playing gigs night after night is hard work, but if you have an amazing live show, the rewards will speak for themselves.

10 MAKING GOOD MUSIC: FIRST YOU NEED GREAT SONGS

It goes without saying, but the first and most important thing is to make good music. You can follow all this advice to the letter, but if your song, your EP or your album is not well written, not of good instrumental quality and not professionally produced, you will fall at the first hurdle.

You can fall into the trap of thinking that promotion is all it takes to get a track to the top. But if the music you promote has nothing to offer listeners, you won't get anywhere. You have to "wow" people with your music to attract them.

Do everything you can to make your music as appealing as possible before you start promotion. That means taking the time to produce great tracks, perfect your mix and master your music to create your final product.

Don't put all the work on your back, as musicians we are inclined to be blinded by our art, to think that our work is a perfect and untouchable work, being able to do crazy things that many times can ruin our songs, that's why it is very important that someone outside of you, who understands your music, style, the musical concept you are trying to find, the purpose of your work, your sound, etc..., enhances your virtues, corrects your defects, and achieves the perfect sound and atmosphere for your music.

There are countless professionals and studios that can do this for you, and from KimeraMusical.com we are the only ones that offer this at a price you can really afford (Pay-What-You-Want). We offer you a totally personalized treatment through your own personal assistant who will guide you step by step through the whole production process with us.

When you've finished tracks you're proud of, you'll have the confidence to set goals and promote yourself enthusiastically on the Internet.

Making the best music possible is a commitment to your fans and listeners.