I just finished doing a video interview with some nice gents from Australia. One of the topics they asked me about was Music Marketing for Indie Musicians. I realized while I was answering the questions that so many of the music marketing techniques I was recommending are common sense things we often overlook unless reminded.

Your instinct – or should I say reflex  – is often to market music in a way that feels like it would appeal to you. But you aren’t the potential buyer, and may not be objective when judging the effectiveness. So the first step is to identify exactly who your most likely buyer is.

How old is he? Is he actually a she? What is his life like? What does he like to do in his spare time? Where does he do it? Who does he hang out with? What kind of radio station does he listen to? Does he go to clubs to hear live music? How does he buy music? How old or young is he or she?

Music Marketing Segmentation

That’s really just a fancy way of saying that you need to identify the types of people who will buy your music. It would be extremely rare to find any music (other than the Beatles) that has across the board appeal. Demographics and psychographics matter for all forms of marketing – even music marketing! Your audience represents a marketing segment, which you need to identify and concentrate on with a relentless passion.

Once you’ve done some serious thinking and identified your target market segment, you need to answer one central question that all consumers ask when confronted with any sort of pitch. “What’s in it for me?”

Very little else matters if you can’t answer that question, and you better answer it well!

What is in it for the potential buyer? Are you in a genre that he or she likes? How is your music a cut above? What makes your music accessible, yet unique? Are you able to describe your music in a way that quickly makes it easy for your potential customer to imagine what he or she will hear?

Yes, you need an “elevator pitch,” and a really good one at that! To simply say, “My music is awesome and you’ll love it,” isn’t enough. If you told a potential buyer, “My music is similar to Taylor Swift but with male vocals,” the buyer would instantly know what it is and decide if he or she is interested in learning more or hearing it.

Marketing Your Music is Really Just a Conversation

Once you get the right people to listen to your music, you need to keep them engaged. Invite them into your life. Help them get to know you. Post session videos on YouTube. Post videos of your shows, your road trips in the van, and whatever else you can think of that makes your listeners become fans. The more they know you, the more they will feel like they discovered you, and want to share their new discovery.

Write a blog. Keep it relevant. Talk about your songs. Tell your readers what inspired you to write each one. Ask your readers to interact with you. Which of your songs do they think are the best? The answer might surprise you and that could be valuable information that helps you sell more music

Follow up with the people who buy your music. If you capture an email address for your purchasers, send them a short thank you email. Give them a chance to opt in to your email list. Ask them politely, and let them know that you’ll respect their privacy by not sharing their info.

Don’t hammer them over the head trying to sell them more music right away. Let them get to know you a bit, then politely ask them to buy more. Asking for the sale is something many creative people have a hard time doing. People are afraid to sell because they worry that the potential buyer won’t like them any more.

Selling Your Music

If you’re selling something they’ll love, then you’re actually doing them a favor by making them aware that they can buy it! Think about it – don’t you only get disgusted by people trying to sell you what you don’t want? If somebody tries to sell you a handy 8-track recording studio for your iPhone would you hate him or her? Not likely, because it’s something that might benefit you.

Marketing Your Music with Search Engines

Search Engine Optimization or SEO has become critically important. How many times a day do you use Google? So does everybody else! It’s your job to make sure that any and all the web pages that have your music on them are visible to all the search engines. It’s also important to do everything you can to get on the first page when the search result comes back.

I don’t have enough room here to teach you everything you need to know about SEO, but it’s not as hard as you think and you really need to know who to do the basics. Taking just one weekend to read SEO Made Simple by Michael Fleischner.

But remember, all the SEO in the world won’t help you much unless you are effective in figuring out how to categorize your music in simple, common terms that consumers would naturally use in conversation and when using a search engine. “Indie Country Pop” is a pretty good example. Click the link and see where you’d be if you titled your sound, web page and your genre as Indie Country Pop.

Let’s try something more specific this time. Search Google for “Acoustic love songs for weddings.” How would you like to have your song appear on the first page for that term? Think you’d sell any music? You bet!

More Music Marketing Advice

There are plenty of people offering advice on how to market your music. Some is good, some not so good. Most songwriters and artists don’t do any music marketing other than building a MySpace page and putting their music on CDBaby and other online music retailers. If you use any of the techniques I’ve described above, you should be head and shoulders above your competition. Effective music marketing is an ongoing pursuit. If you tend your garden regularly, it will flourish.

Film and TV Music Licensing Opportunities For Independent Musicians

Running opportunities for Film and TV placements in our Music Industry Listings back in 1992 made me the laughing stock of the music business. It was unheard of for Indie artists and songwriters to get their songs placed in network TV shows or better yet, feature films put out by major Hollywood studios back then.

Nobody seemed to know much about Production Music Libraries (which are Film & TV music publishers) – what they did, how they worked, or what kind of music they needed to license to TV or Film productions. I knew because at one point in my career I managed the largest audio post-production studio on the planet, and we used tracks from the best Production Music Libraries every day.

We used them for background music on TV shows and commercials. We used library tracks under voiceovers for radio spots. We licensed music from Production Music Libraries for Industrial Videos… you know, those cheesy videos that widget manufacturers and big pharmaceutical companies put out.

The point is, it just wasn’t cool to license your music for anything but records. Indie musicians and major label artists all turned up their noses at the very thought of having their music in a TV show or movie.

Funny how all that’s changed! Now, even the Rolling Stones and the Beatles will license their music for film, TV and video game projects. Major labels are more than happy to license music from their acts for TV shows, simply to get some exposure.

And who do you think was one of the earliest pioneers of helping Indie artists, bands and composers license their music? Yes, TAXI, the company that everybody in the music business laughed at. Trust me, they are definitely not laughing any more.

As a matter of fact, hundreds of companies have tried to imitate what TAXI does, but they all lack one very critical element – human ears. TAXI filters the music companies ask us to find. We use industry experts under our roof to find the very best. While the music supervisors like using music from Independent artists and songwriters, they don’t want to search a database full of less than wonderful music.

It takes more than a website and a database full of mediocre music to get the job done well.

That’s exactly why I created TAXI, and that’s why we are still the world’s leading independent A&R company. People from the TV, Film and Music industries don’t have the time to filter. We do it for them. We give them what they ask for. We give them what they need. We give them top notch music from the very best Indie artists, songwriters and composers.

The irony in all of this was best demonstrated when I asked an A&R person from Interscope Records this question during our annual, members-only convention, the Road Rally, last year, “What do you think is the best thing the people in this audience can do to get on your radar? Where do they start getting your attention so you’ll sign them to a record deal?”

The answer he offered up? “The best thing you can do is try to get your music placed on a TV show or in a movie!”

Wow, seventeen years later and TAXI is finally cool. That A&R person was right of course. Getting your music placed in TV shows and Films is just as much about the exposure as it is about the money. And if you do it persistently, and for a period of years, you’ll be able to turn it into a full-time gig because the money can really add up over time.

More specifics about how to make money by placing your music in Films and TV shows in a future blog!