Want to Promote Your Music? Content is the Way!

While it can take days, weeks and even months to record, mix and master your self-penned songs, your work actually isn’t done when it’s finally ready for release. After all, you still need to make sure that people can find and listen to your music. Digital marketing expert Jamie is here to tell you how content marketing can help you achieve your goals.

Your Music Deserves an Audience

Artists put a lot of time, money and effort into their music, and big record labels like to spend a lot on marketing campaigns to then properly market that music, which is apparently something that artists struggle to take care of themselves. In this article, you’ll find a number of tips that can help you promote your music – the music that you’ve worked so hard on – through strategic content marketing.

What Even is Content Marketing?

Want to Promote Your Music? Content is the Way!

Content marketing is nothing more than promoting your music and getting the word out through content, which can be anything from social media posts to a blog, podcast or a YouTube video. The goal is to inspire, motivate or simply entertain a target audience, but content marketing is more than merely advertising. You always want to ask yourself: what do people get out of my content? You also want to set a certain goal, like:

Gain more listeners
Increase your social media following
Increase your gig bookings
Boost your merch sales

As an artist, there’s a good chance that you have a story that you want to tell. The trick is to use content to tell it the right way. What you do isn’t necessarily important. What’s important is why you’re doing what you do. Always start with the why before you figure out who your target audience is. The people you’re trying to reach can be young or old; they can be from a specific part of the world; and they can have specific interests — all of which matters when determining your tone of voice, including whether you should use slang or not.

A Bit of Theory: the AIDA Model

In marketing, the AIDA model is used to describe four stages (Attention ➔ Interest ➔ Desire ➔ Action) that your target audience can go through. It’s a bit like a funnel, and can be applied not only to content marketing, but to marketing as a whole. In fact, I’m even using it for this article. Let me elaborate.

How Does It Work in This Article?

Attention: By mentioning something that frustrates a lot of musicians in the intro, I try to grab their attention. Many new artists work really hard on their music without it paying off. (Been there, done that).
Interest: I try to make clear that this article might hold the solution for your frustration, by saying that you can take care of it yourself.
Desire: I then try to tap into your desires (e.g. gain more listeners, build a bigger fanbase or sell more merch).
Action: At the end of the article, I’ve included a call-to-action. This is me asking you how you’re planning to put what you’ve learned to use. We can learn a lot from each other. Ever heard of the Rule of Seven by the way? It’s a marketing principle that says you need to encounter the same person or product seven times before you’re ready to take action or make a decision.

So It’s Manipulation Then?

This is something I hear often, so let me assure you: content marketing absolutely isn’t a form of manipulation. The AIDA model simply gives you better insights into the needs, desires and frustrations of potential fans. In turn, you can use that information to better cater for your target audience and spur them on. I’d feel great if, after you finish reading this article, you feel super-motivated to get to work.

Using a Personalised Strategy

There are two ways to use social media to push content: free publication and paid promotion (ad campaign). Both come with their own set of pros and cons. If your budget is stretched thin, then free promotion is a solid option. Got some money to spend? Then you can speed things up by essentially paying for more views and better data. Before you do anything though, you need to set a measurable goal. Once you know what you want to achieve with your content, it’s time to sit at the drawing board and brainstorm some content concepts. Here are some ideas:

Show people what you do on an average day (a day in the life)
Give people a behind the scenes look at one of your recording sessions
Share tips or tricks that are of interest to (potential) followers
Post a blooper reel of a music video shoot
Unleash your inner comedian and create funny content

Make sure that you have an idea of how often, when and what you’re going to be uploading. In other words, answer the following questions:

How frequently do you want to upload content?
When do you upload your content?
What are you going to upload?
What kind of content works well?
What can you learn from your last social media post?

Collaborating With Other Creatives

Know someone who wants to grow as an illustrator? Then a good way to do a collab can be to stick your music under a sped-up video of them drawing an illustration. This way, you both get exposure. Collabs with other artists can work really well too: you’re introduced to their fanbase and they’re introduced to yours. Or you might opt to join someone’s podcast and promote your music there. You can then even use funny snippets from the podcast to post on social media.

Get Started Right Now

Don’t wait for ‘the right time’ — just get to it. And remember that consistency is more important than perfection when it comes to uploading content. If you need more info to help you on your way, have a look at Burstimo’s YouTube channel. I can definitely recommend his marketing tips.

I’m curious as to what kind of content you’re going to come up with so please let me know in the comments! Got any tips for fellow musicians that are looking to grow their brand? Feel free to share those too.