HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR MUSIC INDEPENDENTLY IN 2019 BY JEFF AWALA

Independent artists have more opportunities than ever before to launch their own career without the backing of the majors or a big budget. While we are seeing more and more unsigned artists breaking through off their own backs, many promising new artists out their simply don’t know where to start or how to maintain a successful promotional campaign.

HOW TO PROMOTE MUSIC IN 2019

It should go without saying, but first and foremost, making great music needs to be your primary focus. You can follow all this advice to the letter, but if your track, EP or album isn’t well-written, tight instrumentally and professionally produced, you’ll fall at the first hurdle. 

Now that’s out of the way, let’s look at the best ways to promote your music independently in the modern music landscape.

PLAY LIVE OFTEN & MAKE AN IMPACT

 As an Upcoming artists often focus their promotional efforts heavily toward the digital space (which is understandable and should make up a major part of your promo campaigns). However, never underestimate the power of live performance.

Gigs and tours offer an invaluable way to connect with fans in a way you simply can’t do online. Get booked at nearby venues, play awesome sets for local music fans and you'll quickly develop a strong, new fan base. But remember, you have to make them remember you, so be memorable.

Once you’ve built up a local following, you can head out on the road, taking on new music scenes city by city or even country by country. If this sounds too easy & simplified – that’s because it is. Touring and playing gigs night after night is hard work, but if you’ve got a killer live show, the rewards will speak for themselves.

Creating a slick, professional website as a base for your online presence is vital, but perhaps even more important is building a large & dedicated mailing list.

Your website should obviously include links to your music, bios, images and tour dates, but make sure to also include a mailing list sign up form. Email marketing offers direct access to the inboxes of people most likely to engage with your music.

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

APPLY TO PLAY MUSIC FESTIVALS & EVENTS ACROSS THE WORLD.

Stay up-to-date with the latest free music opportunities from around the world and apply to play festivals and events with our opportunities map, regularly updated with new gig opportunities and music competitions.

Find opportunities for unsigned bands, solo artists and DJ's across the World and beyond. This map is frequently updated, so if you don't find something that suits you today, check back tomorrow to see what's new!

Remember, before you apply to perform at any of these music festivals and events, be sure to read the application instructions and conditions carefully for the best chance of success. Some events may only accept submissions from artists of certain styles and genres, so make sure your act fits the bill before submitting your application.

BUILD A WEBSITE

Creating a slick, professional website as a base for your online presence is vital, but perhaps even more important is building a large & dedicated mailing list.

Your website should obviously include links to your music, bios, images and tour dates, but make sure to also include a mailing list sign up form. Email marketing offers direct access to the inboxes of people most likely to engage with your music.

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

Resources

The Best Free  Website Creators

Having a dedicated band website is essential for musicians looking to promote their music, get gigs and reach new fans. Studies show that official band websites are the main driving force behind increasing fans and sales, but with a tight budget, creating a killer site isn't always easy.

Your official band website should be the centre point of all your collective activity, from music blog posts and news to new music and tour dates. It's crucial to get the official domain name for your website, as this makes it much easier for fans to find you via search engines. You can create your own website for under £10 a year on sites such as; 123Reg, GoDaddy and One.Com, but where can you get one without shelling out your hard-earned cash?

Here are 3 great sites where you can create your own interactive professional websites for free.

Make sure to check out this guest blog from the experts at Electric Kiwi on 5 features every band website should have and make sure you're getting the most out of your website!

1. MUSIC GLUE 

Music Glue is a specialist platform on which bands and musicians can quickly create a free website and store. Artists can easily customise their website and use it sell music, merchandise, tickets and experiences, direct to their fans. Music Glue is currently used by over 35,000 bands, including Goldfrapp, Black Sabbath, Kate Tempest and more.

• Free to set up your profile. No monthly fees. You're only charged commission on anything you sell.
• A range of themes and bespoke profile designs to work with.
• Integrates with all social media platforms.
• Sell merchandise, tickets, music and more.
• Embed email mailing list sign up forms on your site.
• Available for over 25 different languages and currencies. 

Check out Music Glue here

2. WEEBLY 

Weebly is one of the world's most popular website creators. The site offers the a free website building tools, as well as several tiers of paid options to get even more from your site. Here are some of the free features:

• Diverse site templates
• Simple drag & drop building capabilities
• 500mb of storage
• Search engine optimisation
• Lead capture options
• Access to a community forum
• Client support via chat and email

Check out Weebly here

EMYSPOT

Emyspot allows users to create a free website with similar features to that of Webstart but has more focus on creating e-commerce sites, which would allow you as an artist to sell your music and merchandise as well as analyse your statistics. Other features Emyspot offer are:

• Press Kits
• Photo slideshows
• Downloadable press releases; for reviews, festivals, etc.
• Integrated MP3 players
• Embed media straight from Youtube and Dailymotion
• Create multi-user management accounts which would allow more than one member of the band to edit and upload content on to the site

Check out Emyspot here

DEVELOP AN ENGAGING SOCIAL PRESENCE

The promotional power of social media is no secret. Developing and maintaining a consistent, interesting and engaging presence across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even less obvious platforms like Snapchat, is essential. Also, try and keep your profile handles consistent to make things easier for people searching for you online.

There’s an insurmountable amount of advice out there on how to manage your social channels, and things are constantly changing across every platform. Look through some of these helpful resources for more info on how to run and make the most of your social media presence.

GET PLAYLISTED

You can’t afford to ignore streaming and playlisting. Playlists across Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and other platforms reach hundreds of millions of listeners across the globe, racking up billions of streams. Getting your track into a popular playlist can help you rack up thousands of streams. That’s not only great awareness but also royalty earnings in your pocket.

While getting your music placed on curated playlists is great for awareness and credibility, being placed on algorithmic playlists like Discover Weekly can make a big difference to your stream count. So it's worth persusing all possibilities.

GET PRESS & BLOG COVERAGE

If your music featured by music publications, whether that’s mainstream mags or niche blogs and webzines, those placements can help build hype and give you the credentials to take your music career up a level.

Hiring a professional PR executive to handle your campaign is generally the best way to get great coverage. But this isn’t always affordable or possible for a new artist with a limited budget. 

Do-it-yourself PR is an option for artists without a big enough budget. But it's important to approach blogger and journalist in the right way. Firstly, you’ll need to create an electronic press release. This should contain all the essential info about you & your music. The resources below offer advice for musicians who want to take PR into their own hands.

Music Blogs That Want Your Music

Getting your music heard is hard. Getting your music heard by the right people is even harder. You hear so many blogs, journalists and other industry big names complaining about unsolicited PR emails from bands, so it’s difficult to know where to tread. This is why we have set up this blog post, containing info and links to all the influential sites and blogs who not only accept these emails but welcome them.

But before you start emailing, here’s a quick word of warning. Never under any circumstances send a group email. It may save you time, but putting all these addresses into a BCC field and firing over a group email would burn more bridges than it would build. Spend some time looking at each site individually, see what sort of music they are into and try to relate. If you are a sensitive singer songwriter crooning over an acoustic guitar, don’t contact a hip-hop blog. Find them on Twitter, look at their recent articles, and try and find common ground between them and your music.

Below is a list of blogs that are accepting submissions.

 

A&R FACTORY

A&R Factory is a popular music blog with a wide-ranging readership, including record label owners, publishers, radio stations, PR executives, managers and sync licensing firms from all over the globe. 

INDIEPULSE MUSIC MAGAZINE

IndiePulse Music Magazine is an advocate for the independent music scene, featuring news, interviews, reviews and video. IndiePulse also offers a platform for artists to be heard with its online radio station IPM Radio.

 

HIGHCLOUDS

HighClouds describes itself as the Music Junkies' Holy Bible. Originally an online radio station, the site now focusses on album and EP reviews for emerging artists of all genres.

XUNE MAG

Xune Mag accepts submissions from bands and artists of just about every genre, offering emerging, unsigned musicians the opportunity to be reviewed, interviewed and added to playlists.

INDIE SHUFFLE

Indie Music Shuffle is run by a diverse group of people excited about sharing new music. They don’t write bad reviews, so everything you read about is something they like and believe is worth checking out.

MUSIC VIDEOS

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

Don’t be afraid to think outside the box when it comes to creating a video for your latest release. Think about the kind of videos from acts like OK GO and Childish Gambino that have blown up thanks to online traction. They’ve had something unique and intriguing about them, whether that was a deeper underlying message or a quirky theme.

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

 How to Get Your Music Video on Vevo

GET STARTED, CREATE YOUR FREE ACCOUNT

SURROUND YOURSELF WITH A STRONG TEAM

You might prefer the lone-wolf approach to promoting your music, but there can be huge benefits to surrounding yourself with a great team of like-minded people. If you have a team of well-connected individuals who are passionate about your music all working in your interest, it stands to reason that your chances of success will increase.

If you can put together a team of friends who’ll help you free of charge, or for a cut of eventual earnings – great! But sometime, you’ll need to acquire the services of professionals to help give you the edge in the competitive music market. Whether that’s a PR person, a radio plugger or promoter/booker, there's nothing wrong with accepting help.

It’s also a good idea to get yourself of a great manager. Again, make sure they’re passionate about your music and believe in you as an artist. A manager who’ll go above and beyond for you is worth their weight in gold.

Tips for Successful Music Collaboration

1.SWAP GIGS

Get in touch with other bands or artists, invite them to your hometown, put them up for a few days and do a show together. They simply have to do the same for you, which will give you the chance to travel and reach new audiences.

2. RECORD A SINGLE

One of my favorite metal bands Gojira broke the American market by inviting Randy Blythe from hardcore pioneers Lamb of God to provide guest vocals on one of their tracks. This kind of collaboration can open new possibilities, and there really is no limit to what kind of artist can collaborate with you. Everybody shares, everybody wins.

3. MUSIC COLLABORATION APP

An app focused on music collaboration, Kwaver is aimed at musicians who love collaborating with others. As opposed to spamming our fellow artists with your latest release, you can now jam on someone else's track adding instant value to that connection. And with a growing network of users from all over the world there’s no saying what will be added to your melody once you put it out there.

4. FILMMAKERS

As a creative, you may know at least one working or aspiring filmmaker. Great visuals need great music to accompany it, and offer an entirely new medium to promote your music on. This applies to short films, art school projects, skate videos, YouTube clips – you name it!

5. JOINT RELEASE

Got a new single and some unreleased material? It could be perfect for making a joint release with another up and coming band. You can release a limited number and make them a kind of special edition to be purchased every time you two perform together, or release it online through a music aggregator like Ditto Music. It’s totally the indie thing to do!

6. IMPROMPTU APPEARANCE

We all have friends around the world in bands right? Travelling both short and long distances is now easier than ever, so it’s not difficult to convince your friend’s group to play one of your songs and have you sing it while you’re visiting the area.

7. PRODUCE

We all know how expensive a professional producer costs – and for good reason! That’s why I believe that emerging artists can really learn a lot by producing each other’s music. Aside from reaching both of your fan bases, it’s a wonderful learning experience and can help to bring you closer with other performers and build on existing relationships.

8. FACEBOOK IT

Why not go to your favourite local band’s gig, take a few shots and post something about it? Do all the necessary tagging on the various platforms your band uses and give a good heartfelt write up on why your band digs this band. Fans from both parties will have chance to read, which can help put yours and their music in front of new audiences.

9. COVER

Rather than covering Wonderwall for the 100th time, why not cover a song from the independent scene? It doesn’t have to be a well-polished studio release, in fact, a low-key acoustic interpretation of an indie musician’s track will probably be seen as a big honor for song’s original creators, and is likely to be shared by the writers themselves, reaching their fans directly.

10. CO-WRITE

And finally the art of co-writing. Sometimes a lot of ideas get tossed to the side and eventually forgotten, but I believe it’s important to keep track of any ideas that could really use an outside writer. Co-writing with another artist offers the opportunity to learn new writing techniques and more importantly leave no song unfinished. Well, most of them.

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE & FOCUS ON YOUR NICHE

Where and to whom you market your music can make all the difference. Thriving music subcultures exist in all corners of the world, some huge and sprawling, some small and dedicated. Finding, knowing and exploiting your musical niche is key to your promotional campaign.

It might sound obvious (and it should be) but if you’re a metal band, play metal venues, join a metal community and win metal fans. If you’re a rapper, find rap venues, join rap communities and win rap fans. And so on.

But niches aren’t always defined by genre. If your music has more widespread appeal, start locally. People generally want to see an artist from their area succeed. Take advantage of this mentality and grow your fanbase close to home to before expanding nationally or even globally.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like me to publish, please reach me through jeffawala@gmail.com or telephone: 0723410366 and facebook: jeff platnezz       jeffawalamusic.blogspot.com

Promoting your music independently may be easier than ever before, but it’s still a huge challenge to get heard. Hopefully, these tips and resources can help you on your way to success.