close
Free Distribution.
Free Store with
custom merch.
No hidden fees.
JOIN NOW
Not today
How to market your music as an independent artist – An easy guide
August 22, 2023 •
7 min read
The music industry has changed a lot in the past decades. Now, independent artists are able to record and publish their songs without signing with a company. But even though it's way easier to distribute songs now, a lot of them ask how to market music as an independent artist. The challenge is doing their music promotion by themselves.
Marketing your songs alone takes a lot of effort. But with the right strategies, you'll be able to reach a larger public. And especially for indie artists, listeners are really important to start profiting with your work and invest more in your career. In this article, you'll find more about how independent artists can market their songs and attract attention to their productions.
Develop your artists branding
What do you want to transmit with your music and who would like to hear it? These are the questions you should answer to start thinking about your artist branding. Think about your songs as products you want to sell. The customer — your listener — takes in consideration the quality of the product. But not only that, the brand behind the product also matters. For that reason, having well-established branding is really important when talking about music promotion.
Your branding needs to be in harmony with your productions and your career goals. The key to start developing your artist branding is to know the message of your songs and the public that likes to listen to it. That way, you can create something that will not only transmit your essence, but also attract the right type of audience that you need. Base your decisions on what you want to be known for and create an artist branding that represents you and your music.
Along with that, a creative logo and visual identity can differentiate you from all other artists in the market. So make sure that your design is not only aesthetically pleasing, but also a good way to identify you among the others. Even when talking about music, the visual aspect still matters.
Developing a persona can also help a lot in this process. A persona is how you want to be perceived by your fans and audience. The same questions you answered before can help you here, as well. Your persona must be something interesting and relatable to the people you're trying to gather as your public. But always keep your authenticity! Together, your artist branding and artistic persona define how the public sees you.
Streaming is the way
In the digital era, having your songs on all main streaming platforms is crucial. In the first quarter of 2023, Spotify alone had 515 million active users. As the number shows, there is a huge public there that you can attract if you use the right strategies. In addition to that, these apps allow you to start profiting with your songs. For these reasons, your productions need to be on a large number of streaming platforms. This will enable you to gather interested listeners in all these different apps.
As we've said before, nowadays it's easier to get your songs available online without a record deal. Magroove can help you with that. We offer to distribute singles, EPs and albums to over 40 streaming services, online stores and social media platforms. All of this for free, which is ideal for indie artists. You'll only have to pay 5 dollars a year per release after you profit. And if you don't reach this value in a year, there's no need to worry: we won't charge you nor take your music down.
With Magroove, you can make sure that users in more than 40 different streaming services will have access to what you have to offer. This is the first step to start promoting your songs and gathering more supporters. In these services, the number of monthly listeners is really important. Because of that, you need to learn how to promote your songs and get people to follow and listen to your work there as well.
How to market your music through playlists
Playlists are a great way to start promoting your songs inside of the streaming platforms. Spotify, as an example, offers three different types of playlists, and each one asks for different strategies. The editorial playlist — which is curated by Spotify's team — can help you reach a high number of users that can become recurrent listeners. All editorial playlists have a major theme, which could be a music genre, mood or event. Because of that, if your song is pitched and placed in the right one, you can get to the listeners that have the profile you are looking for.
In order to make into this type of playlists, you need to send an excellent pitch before your release. Your pitch must follow the same rules as an elevator pitch: they're brief and objective. You must show, in a concise way, that your song should be chosen to be in that playlist. List your inspirations — especially the ones that match the concept of the playlist. You can also put relevant achievements there, like awards and nominations. But don’t forget to send all the information at least one week before the release. This way, you'll be eligible to be picked by the curators.
Other types of playlists
Learning about Spotify's algorithm can also enhance your number of listeners. Besides the editorial playlists, there are ones made by the app's algorithm, called personalized playlists. The main purpose of them is to show the users other tracks and artists they may like. For that reason, you need to show that your music is appreciated by encouraging your listeners to interact with it. The more they listen, like and save your songs on their library, the more the algorithm will understand that your content is relevant and has enough quality to be recommended to users with a similar taste.
On the other hand, user playlists can
be a great tool to market your music as an independent artist. They're playlists made by regular users of the platforms. Normally, users that talk about music in social media and have a large following, have a lot of followers on Spotify as well. You can reach out to these influencers and present your songs to them. Don’t forget to search for profiles that have playlists that suit your music. That way, the chances of the listeners to be interested and become regular listeners is higher.
Be present online
Along with the streaming platforms, social media presence is also mandatory for musicians. The rise of apps that use audio and videos together is great opportunities for newcomer artists. TikTok and Instagram — especially reels — have become a common tool for indie artists. Singers like Lil Nas X and Olivia Rodrigo reached high numbers after going viral on those apps. You can do dance challenges, live streams or show a little bit about the process of producing a song in order to catch more views and listeners.
Social networks are also great for pre-release campaigns. You can share a snippet of your release and post more about the song in order to build the hype. That way, you'll already have an audience waiting for your song to be out. A good and interactive profile can even help in other strategies of music promotion. Through social media, you can ask your listeners to interact more and pre-save your music on Spotify and enhance your chances of getting into the personalized playlists, for example.
These types of media enable you to grow closer to your supporters and get to know them more, so use this in your favor. Answer questions about your work and take cover requests from your followers. The more your social media profiles grow, the more you can take potential listeners to where your work is.
Media appearances
For this strategy, have your elevator pitch ready! Media and press appearances can help you boost your reach a lot. Because of that, you need to have a good and quick pitch ready for when you have the opportunity to use it. Your elevator pitch needs to show why you're worth the time and effort.
Send your work to websites that talk about artists like you. Explain why they should give you a space there. Remember to keep thinking about your target public. Search for media that are read and watched by people that might like what you produce. You can also try to pitch your songs to music stations — and your supporters can help too! If you have already done some media appearances, clip the most relevant ones and add to your pitch.
As presented here, it's totally possible to market your music as an independent artist. But you do need to put a lot of effort into it. There are a lot of possibilities, and creating a music promotion plan can help and guide you through the process.
Set the goals you want to achieve with the promotion strategies you’ve learned and compare them to what you already got. Make sure to monitor the results of the tactics you put into action. By doing that, you'll be able to see the ones that work better with you. If you keep doing that, you can improve the strategies and make them even more efficient.
