IOTM Blog
Posted: Jan 7, 2019
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Cassie Phillips as featured on The Music Entrepreneur HQ.
"No matter how talented you are, or how much effort you put into your music, getting exposure for your art can be a challenge...To effectively promote your music, you will need to develop your marketing skills. Marketing will allow you to raise awareness for your brand and be better connected to your target market."
Posted: Dec 10, 2018
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Joshua Bloomberg, singer-songwriter for The One 800s out of Los Angeles.
"A lot of you must be wondering, Why the hell is Josh trying to get me to call a 1-800 number?...for the curious, I thought I’d explain why I’ve chosen this archaic method of communication to promote my new album – and why one week later it’s already a success."
Posted: Nov 26, 2018
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Alper Tuzcu, a Berklee College of Music and Denison University alumni, a Boston based guitarist, songwriter and producer, and regular contributor to the Adva Mobile Blog.
"A high stream-count on the first day of your song release can be an indicator of success for your newest song or album on various streaming platforms like Spotify or Apple Music. Why is this important? Because in order to get placed in large playlists with thousands or millions of followers, you have to boost your first-day stream totals AND also be getting fans to save your song to their queue or library."
Posted: Apr 23, 2018
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Jordan Gates, of Megaphone Agency.
"A huge component of being successful in the music industry has to do with how you market yourself...Creating a powerful brand will help you achieve [lifelong fans]. Your band is the music making machine that will enable your career, and your brand is the face of your music that people will learn to know and love."
Posted: Apr 2, 2018
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Anitra Jay of TheCraftyMusician.com.
"Writing strong email content to engage your fans is not an easy task...The first most important thing about a good email is its subject line. The majority of your fans will use the subject line to decide whether or not to read your content. So if you want to get your fans to open your email newsletter, you have to write appealing headlines."
View Full ArticlePosted: Mar 26, 2018
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Lucie Watson of Platoon.
"If you’re working in the music industry as an artist, manager, label, distributor or any other field you’ve probably had or heard a conversation about the power of Spotify playlists. Some questions I frequently get asked are “how can I get on Spotify’s playlists?” or “how can I get on New Music Friday?” or “when can I start to see playlist additions?”. What I’d love to tell artists and managers is that it’s easy...but more often than not the response I give is this: there’s no way I can guarantee placement on a playlist ahead of a release."
View Full ArticlePosted: Jan 29, 2018
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Scott Aumann, originally featured on The Legit Musician blog.
"Find out what your fans want by asking them. I learned this little tip by following online guru Michael Hyatt. He does a reader survey every year, and he learns how to run his business from the results. Don’t be afraid to ask your fans what they want. Most of the time, they will be excited to share this info with you. It will make them feel more connected to you as well."
Posted: Jan 22, 2018
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Cassie Steele, content editor for GuitarFella.com.
"The internet has opened up a world of opportunity for musicians, enabling you to release music to a wide audience without the gatekeepers of record labels or a distribution company. However, you need to know what you’re doing. Releasing music online without a marketing plan and expecting it to sell is like dropping your CD in Times Square and expecting a record producer to pick it up..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Jul 24, 2017
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Allison Stafford, lead singer and acoustic rhythm guitarist for the Southern Country band No Deceit.
"We all know as musicians that the Merch Sales and Tips can be the saving grace of a show! You may not make a lot of money from the venue that you’re playing, or anything for that matter, but sometimes, you can make more in a tip jar or in merch sales than you would from the venue anyway! How do you get people directed toward your mech and tip bucket?"
View Full ArticlePosted: Feb 21, 2017
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post by Garrison Snell of Crosshair.
"Placement on playlists is the digital equivalent of radio placement, except that playlists aren't limited by geographical location AND they can be used to work your song into bigger playlists...Influencer marketing (placing stuff with influential digital celebs) is still the most organic form of promotion and word of mouth..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Jan 17, 2017
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Nicholas Rubright of Dozmia.
This is the last part of "50 Ways to Promote Your Music and Grow Your Fanbase".
View Full ArticlePosted: Jan 9, 2017
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Nicholas Rubright of Dozmia.
This is a continuation of last week's post "50 Ways to Promote Your Music and Grow Your Fanbase - Part 1".
View Full ArticlePosted: Jan 3, 2017
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Nicholas Rubright of Dozmia.
"Succeeding in the music industry is hard work. You're competing with literally millions of people crawling their way to the top. However, most of these people don't know how to effectively market themselves or their music...Instead, set yourself apart from the crowd by learning all you can about different music marketing tactics, and treating your music career as a business. Here's a list of 50 music marketing strategies to get you started..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Dec 5, 2016
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Wade Sutton of Rocket to the Stars.
"What I am going to talk about in this article is rooted so deeply in common sense yet so few bands actually do it. Your live show will ALWAYS be your most powerful tool when it comes to marketing your music, your merchandise, your music brand, and getting people to sign up for your e-mail or text lists..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Nov 14, 2016
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Joshua Powell, singer-songwriter, DIY musician, and frontman for Joshua Powell and the Great Train Robbery, as featured in his blog Fearsome Folk.
"When Tom (Myspace) and the gang fell behind in the social race, Facebook successfully jockeyed for the top social spot, but was slow to adapt to the segment of music marketing that their predecessor had cornered so adroitly. It never felt as personal. Third party plugin apps confused us. And even though Myspace was on its last legs back in ’09, it feels like Facebook still hasn’t caught up. Certain bands are more active on Twitter or Instagram, or else funnel the bulk of their resources into apps, email campaigns, or good old-fashioned websites. Bands’ pages can be tough to find, navigate, or engage. But for all its problems, we’re stuck with the ‘book' for the foreseeable future—for better or worse." View Full Article
Posted: Aug 1, 2016
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Corey Koehler, an indie singer-songwriter from Minnesota, as featured in his blog MusicGoat.com.
"It is not a bad place to network with other musicians. They have a few decent tools. And its nice to have some links back to my website and other social media properties. If you are just starting out and testing the waters, you could do a lot worse. But if you want to get serious about marketing online, building your fan base, and growing your music career, you should be thinking beyond ReverbNation. Especially when it comes to your email marketing." View Full Article
Posted: May 16, 2016
Category: Marketing
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**Guest Post by Paul Loeb, founder and CEO of No Ego Records and DropTrack. Originally featured on The DIY Musician.
"It’s hard to believe it’s been over 12 years since the launch of Facebook. Love it or hate it, social media is here to stay. That’s good news for marketers, musicians, and entrepreneurs. You have this incredible platform to reach every one of those followers you painstakingly cultivated. Or do you?"
View Full ArticlePosted: Dec 7, 2015
Category: Marketing
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**Guest Post written by Alan VanToai, Co-Founder of www.CrewFire.com (turn your existing fans into your Facebook and Twitter ambassadors).
When you think visionary brands, who comes to mind? Probably Apple, Red Bull, or Nike… right? Well, how about we add one more to the mix: The Grateful Dead...Long before social media or digital marketing ever came into play, they employed viral marketing, social networking, and word-of-mouth marketing...50 years later, the game has changed – but the principles are the same. And word-of-mouth remains one of the most powerful marketing strategies out there.
View Full ArticlePosted: Nov 2, 2015
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Matt Bacon, Senior Campaign Manager at Independent Music Promotions.
You look out on the crowd after a high powered set opening up for one of your favorite bands – and then instead of playing another song off your latest release you instead pull off a killer cover of Just Like Heaven...People love artists who pay tribute to their influences.
View Full ArticlePosted: Nov 4, 2014
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Brandon Seymour, musician, SEO analyst, web designer, and social media marketer.
"I know - I'm not the first genius to point out that the music industry is dead. I'm also not the first person to point out that artists have been complaining about this for a very long time. I just can't help but wonder if maybe - just maybe - the music industry needed to die..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Oct 27, 2014
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post originally featured in the DIY Musician Blog.
"Pandora launches free analytics tools for artists..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Jan 13, 2014
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Brandon Swift, musician and creator of Yovigo.com.
Music marketers and artists who have come after The Grateful Dead have been trying to emulate this marketing model since the group's success with it. The model casts a wide net of influence for any artist or group hoping to make a serious mark in the music industry. Here are some reasons giving away your music works so well and has the power to help those who are willing to make a considerable profit.
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