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What most music marketers agree with
Andrew Southworth
January 15, 2024
Happy new year!
Today we’re going to talk about what most music marketers agree with.
This might sound strange. But keep in mind over the past few weeks i’ve done like 10 hours of interviews with experts in the music industry on a variety of music marketing related topics for our free Music Marketing Live summit.
What I found is that there is a lot more agreement than disagreement. So in this newsletter we’re going to cover these areas where almost everyone seems to agree!
This newsletter is also available as a podcast, listen on your favorite podcast platform here.
Make Great Music
This one hopefully won’t come as too much of a shock, but everyone agrees that the music actually does matter.
While people seem to agree that a mediocre song with great marketing will out perform an amazing song with little or no marketing, the music can’t be trash. Obviously music is subjective. This just means there has to be an audience out there that thinks its at least good.
Great music makes the marketing easier.
Everyone agrees that social media is important, and not optional. If you want to be a music artist you must be at least somewhat active on social media.
However, you don’t have to conform to whatever is trendy and popular at the time. Focusing on a platform that you enjoy, that actually has your fans on it is ideal. If your audience is mostly 35-44 then TikTok very likely will not be your best platform.
Treat your social media page as your stage. Document instead of creating content.
Release Schedule
For the most part everyone agrees that releasing music every 4-8 weeks is best in most cases.
There are times when releasing every 2 weeks or every week can make sense if the artist can pull it off, but this isn’t the norm. For most artists releasing every 4-8 weeks is not only ideal, but its sustainable.
This gives you time to not only make your music, but it gives you enough time to properly promote your music.
Tell a story, build a brand
You should understand your story and your brand, and know the target audience that will consume this story and brand.
Everyone I spoke to talked about how the artist (or the team around them) must understand the audience so they can ensure the things they’re doing are in line with that.
The artist has a story, songs have stories and this can be useful in marketing. This will dictate the social media content, the ads you’re running, and sometimes even the music itself.
Ads are great, but there has to be more
You can get pretty far with ads alone, but there has to be more than just ads to grow an audience.
This is where social media content, building a brand, playing live, building an email list, livestreaming and everything else comes in.
In many cases its ideal if an artist knows how to market their music for free before getting a budget. This gives them time to learn the audience and figure out the content strategy which will make the ads so much easier. Paid marketing can amplify your reach and pull in new people at a rate much faster than organic, but if you don’t keep those people interested they won’t stick around.
If you want 10+ hours of music marketing content from over 15 experts covering different topics and approaches, consider registering for our free music marketing summit.
New Content
This is exactly how you can go from 0 to 1 million streams in 2024, with specific actions you can take and examples from my experience as a music artist.
In this episode I talk to Giovanni Bottan, the founder of Smart Noise, about how artists can grow their fanbase. We talk about ad tactics, other music marketing methods and how Smart Noise can help.
Did you know you can listen to my music industry interviews on podcast platforms? Click here to listen to the Modern Music Marketing podcast.
News
Here are some music industry news highlights from the past week.
158 million tracks had 1,000 plays or fewer on music streaming services last year. 45 million had zero plays
Congress has proposed a ‘No AI Fraud Act’ law
TikTok on path to become highest grossing app in 2024
DistroKid estimates it distributes 30-40% of all new music in the world
Whenever you’re ready, there are 4 ways I can help you:
My courses. Spotify Growth Machine teaches you how to use Facebook ads to promote your music on Spotify. YouTube Growth Machine teaches you how to grow a YouTube channel organically and how to use YouTube ads. Fan Growth Machine teaches you how to build a website, online store and grow your email list.
My ad agency. Forbid Media specializes in running Facebook conversion ads to promote your music on Spotify.
Website / Store / Funnels. MusicFunnels is the best all-in-one platform for music artists to make a website, online store, sales funnels and build their mailing list.
1-on-1 consulting. You can book 1-hour calls with myself or Alex Bochel here.
My Links:
🌍 MusicFunnels - Best website / store / funnels for music artists (get your 14-day FREE trial!)
💿 Partnered Projects - the best Spotify playlist service
🧑💻 Consultations
🎬 Get 15% off Melodist music distribution with code ANDREW15 here
Discount / Affiliate Links:
►► FeatureFM - use code ASOUTH30 for 30% off for any annual plan!
If you’d rather just purchase the e-book, or physical book or audiobook you can do so here.
I hope you enjoyed this edition of Music Marketing Monday! Please give your feedback using the poll below.
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In case you’re curious what platform i’m using to run this newsletter, it’s called beehiiv.
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