**Guest post written by Anthony Pacheo, founder of ground-breaking marketing analytics platform PromoteKit.

 

"Every artist understands the importance of marketing, but not every artist understands where to start with their promotion efforts.

This is completely normal.

Press, radio, influencer marketing, paid ads - the list goes on and on.

+Indie on the Move Press & Radio Promotion Resources for Musicians

As a marketing consultant, I get asked the golden question on the daily: what is the best way to market your music?

The answer? There is no best way! The best way is the way that works for you.

And that is exactly what we will be discovering together in this blog post.

Here are 3 music marketing hacks you need to know before you release your next track.

Understand and Find the Right Marketing Channel for You

When you think of marketing, what comes to mind? Handing out flyers at shows, AirDrop-ing your SoundCloud to strangers in a mall? These are all valid marketing efforts that can be categorized into what I like to refer to as marketing channels.

A marketing channel can be defined as outlets/methods in which your music is marketed. To you, marketing could be posting on TikTok (organic social media posting). To me, marketing could be Instagram and YouTube Ads (paid digital ads). It's important to clearly define what type of marketing a partner at a label, management company, or band member is responsible for.

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The 3 main marketing channels are: organic, paid, and earned.

Organic marketing efforts can be your general social media posts, user generated content - anything that happens organically.

Paid marketing efforts include digital ads influencer marketing, radio campaigns - marketing efforts that have to do with an exchange of currency.

Earned marketing efforts can be editorial playlisting, press/blog coverage (not via a hired publicist), etc.

It’s important to understand these channels so you can try them for yourself, and put your efforts towards the ones that yield the highest return.

Focus on First Party Data Collection

With the rise of privacy concerns and even what appears to be a cookie-less future, more and more the average consumer is disabling tracking while they surf the web.

This means that advertising costs on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram will only continue to rise.

+How to Harness the Power of Targeted Facebook Ads to Build Your Fanbase

With that being said, as an artist you should focus your efforts on 1 to 1 fan communication, and put an emphasis on first party data collection, such as emails and phone numbers.

“Why would a fan share their number or email with me?”

Easy.

To connect with you!

Platforms like TikTok and even stories have broken the “barrier” between the stage and the fan. Fans love seeing BTS content and seeing “in the moment” type of content.

Ever see a viral video on Facebook or TikTok?

I can almost guarantee it was something shot on an iPhone, and not an expensive camera.

+How to Make A Music Video On A Tiny Budget

Fans want to connect with artists, and getting an exclusive first look at content via email or text is an amazing way to connect with them, and also provide you with a baseline when dipping into paid ads (you can import your emails/phone numbers are target fans on there if they are sharing their data, or even create lookalike audiences from your imported data).

Leverage Your Data Sources

There are many different places you can go to collect your data online. Some of your music data can be accessed directly by you and your team, while other data is collected and released by the music industry. You can pick and choose which data you want to use in your music analytics, based on your specific goals.

These data sources include social media, streaming services, music charts, radio airplay, video data, website data, and more.

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But what do you do with all that data?

Having many data sources is great, but you don’t want to scour the internet every time you’re looking for your music analytics. Music data software can help you collect all your music data in one place.

Which is exactly what PromoteKit does.

PromoteKit currently supports Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, Mailchimp, and Facebook Ad data sources to streamline your workflow, and understand your audience.

It’s important to see where your growth opportunities are, as well as see which ad creatives in your campaigns perform the best and the worst.

 

All in all, in the vast world that is music marketing, understanding the marketing channels and data sources available to you is crucial to growing online."

 

 

Related Blog Posts:

+Musician's Guide to Marketing Plans

+How To Get On Playlists: The Top Three Methods

+How to build a marketing funnel to promote your music