Learning how to sell your music and create music marketing plans and strategies is not nearly as daunting as it might seem to many musicians. In this article, I’ll not only give you a simple music marketing plan and strategy, I’m also going to give you some free marketing tips and ideas you can start using today!

Marketing music—as it’s done by record labels—is typically too expensive for Independent artists. While major labels will often try regional marketing, and if it works, deploy the same techniques nationally, Indie artists don’t have the budgets to go national, and often rely on the Internet for online music marketing to give them national and international reach.

The Best Music Marketing Tip of All!

Marketing Indie music really isn’t much more than using some common sense and a little elbow grease. It’s all about audience engagement and building relationships one fan at a time. So let me start off with what might be the greatest single music-marketing tip of them all; you’ve got to give to get!

There’s a marketing law; The Rule of Reciprocity – “I’ll give you something for free, if you give me something of equal value in return.” The potential buyer feels a moral obligation to give something in return if you offer something first, and you’re not asking for too much in return.

What do you have that your buyer will value enough to give you his or her email address in return? If you give them a free song download in return for their email address, you can build a relationship and market more of your music to her over time. And to a person who has already shown an interest in your music. Does it get any better than that?

How to Create a Music Marketing Plan and Strategy

Music Marketing Tip #1: Identify your target market and go to where they are. Who is your target market? Thirty-something females? Great! I identify where they frequent or congregate online and off. That’s where you need to be to meet them and market your music to them.

Do they come to your shows? Great! Have an assistant or volunteer walk around the room giving out a CD Single in exchange for email addresses from your. Have that same person selling full albums for $10 to $15. And what about T-shirts or other swag? You can do this! You just need to find someone with a personality and the desire to help you.

And don’t forget; once you have those email addresses, don’t forget to use them! Keep your fans in the loop, but don’t bombard them with spam. Send them short, informative emails that they will find interesting.

Music Marketing Tip #2: Learn some basic sales tracking and record keeping. Not to sound cynical, but make sure you create and routinely use a simple accounting system to make sure all inventory and money balances out at the end of the night. You’ll need to keep an accurate track of those things for tax purposes as well. Use Quickbooks. There are plenty of FAQs and helpful online forums to help you become good at it in no time flat. Suck it up… you’ll need to do some basic business tasks if you want to earn an income marketing your music.

Music Marketing Tip #3: Marketing your music online. People will not buy your music if they can’t find your music. Make it easy for them to find you by learning where your buyers go online and see if you can market your music in those places. Example: If your typical buyers, or at least a significant percentage of them are mid-thirties females who tend to read a lot of romance novels, see if there are any best-selling authors who have their own site. Cut a deal to put a graphic link on their site, and for every download sold, they get a reasonable cut. To summarize: Market your music to your most likely buyers at places where they already go!

Music Marketing Tip #4: Building a website for yourself on the cheap is easier than you think. Google the terms; WordPress Music Retail Themes. Many of them are free, and none are very expensive. WordPress is easy to learn, but if it’s out of your technological reach, there are plenty of small developers that will do it for you for a few hundred bucks. Money well spent.

Use Facebook and Twitter to market your music as well, but don’t over do it! Nobody wants to hear about your trips to the grocery store or what you’re having for dinner. Engaging your fans with information that’s about the making of your music is what they want to hear about.

Tell them about a new song you’re working on. Post video clips of you in the studio. Post lyric sheets. Tell them the story behind the song. Let them meet the other musicians who played on the track. Those musicians will show their friends, who in turn will show theirs!

Let your fans know about every show you’re doing. Comment before and after your shows. Mention the names of fans that you saw in the audience or greeted at the venue. Make it personal to them and they’ll show their appreciation and loyalty by telling their friends about you.

A Music Marketing Strategy is Important But…

If you don’t have a great product—in this case, your music—no matter how many people find you because of great marketing, they are not likely to buy what you’re selling. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. In this case, if the water tastes foul, the horse will never take another sip.

And while I’m using horse metaphors, let’s talk about putting the cart before the horse! There is a common belief that record companies manufacture sales with marketing. I’m sure there may be some cases of that, but it’s my observation that the reason we sometimes believe a hit was “manufactured” is that we personally don’t like what we hear and believe that the only way it could have become a hit is through marketing or some sort of play to play.

The reality is that somebody does like the music—a lot of somebodies! Just because it doesn’t appeal to you or I doesn’t mean the song is only a hit because of great marketing. Radio stations couldn’t keep an audience if they only played bad music they were cramming down the throats of their listeners.

Back to the cart before the horse; is your music ready to be marketed? Do you know what genre it’s in? Is it a niche genre or a more commercial one? Are your songs so catchy and memorable that your listeners will want to hear them over and over again, and then tell their friends? Are your songs as good as the best on the market?

I know it’s hard to take an objective look at your own music, but it seems to be wasted time, energy and expense to market your music before it’s ready enough to capture the fans that you’re after.

What’s Your Strategy to Market Your Music?

Do you have one? Do you have a marketing plan written down? When are you going to start, and what will be your first action steps?

Before you start, make sure your music is top notch, get objective opinions, figure out what genre your music is in, who your fans are, and identify the best marketing tactics to get your music heard by those fans. Whether you’re using an online music marketing plan, or selling CDs from the trunk of your car after shows, making a plan and sticking with it will result in much better sales!

Bonus material:

Music marketing and promotion articles and FAQs:

http://www.taxi.com/music-business-faq/music-promotion/

Great video interview with Youtube sensation Tiffany Alvord:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH8mZX5FX80

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.

Promoting Your Music Online

Michael Laskow’s Music Promotion Panel Notes from 1/16/10

I was asked to join Bob Baker, Ariel Hyatt, Brian Mazzaferi and Tony VanVeen, the CEO of Discmakers and CDBaby, for a panel at this year’s NAMM show. All but Brian are good friends of mine, so it was an honor and a pleasure to join them. Brian turned out to be a great guy, and I’m sure our paths will cross again soon.

As I began to clean up my computer’s desktop moments ago, I found the panel questions and my notes/answers and thought you might benefit from reading them.

Here you go:

Question: Top 3 ways to build your fan database with real fans / prospects?

1)   Write remarkable songs that people will remember, want to hear over and over again and tell their friends about. Too many people think it’s all about marketing. Don’t bother to spend your time marketing if you’re not making great music.

2)   Give group discounts so one excited and committed fan can bring her friends.

3) Create demo focus group of fans who are emailed acoustic demos of songs to rate. It creates a bond, makes them feel VERY involved and gives you great feedback as to which of your songs are worth fully producing.

Which are the essential music social media sites, where an artist needs to have a presence today, and why?

Facebook for connecting with fans, Twitter for keeping them in the loop while on the road and giving them a sense that they’re right there with you. And CDBaby for selling downloads.

What are the top 3 things a starting artist should do to establish him/herself online (when getting started)? Give us one or two examples/secrets to build a buzz online that you’ve seen artists use successfully. (creative tips/examples, please)

1) Write remarkable songs that people will remember, want to hear over and over again and tell their friends about.

2) Stick to recording your songs that are in ONE genre and know what that genre IS!

3) Gear all of your marketing efforts at being just one thing. Don’t try to be all things to all people because you end up being nothing at all.

What are the top 3 things an artist can do to sell triple the product……online and at gigs?

Online: see answer above

Gigs: Make sure you have somebody who is NOT in the band manning the merch table

Make sure you collect email addys, and giving away a free download or something else is a great incentive.

In his excellent book, “Influence,” Dr. Robert Cialdini proves that people are much more likely to buy from you if you give them something first. They feel obligated! So give them something they’ll perceive as being valuable, then ask for the sale.

People/customers are MUCH more likely to buy when you ASK for the sale.

Offer a deal if they buy two CDs – people usually come to clubs with another person, probably a like-minded person. If you give them a great price on buying two, then they’ll be less likely to buy one and copy it. Offer CD and t-shirt bundled prices.

What are the top 3 things artists do wrong on their own website?

Most artists try to make their website look creative and artistic, but forget basic marketing principals like focusing on one or two things on the homepage and making them very prevalent. It’s all about easy navigation and asking and directing your visitors to do what you want them to do.

Many people who build or own websites focus on what they think is important, not what the consumer might think is important – ie; tell me in a short phrase what I can expect this artist to sound like… what genre, reference. another artist to make it easy for them.

Show testimonials from happy fans and customers!!!!!!!!!!

What are the top 3 things artists do wrong when marketing themselves in general?

They don’t take the time to learn anything about marketing PERIOD – read a book or five.

They often think the Internet is the answer to everything, but if they applied good foundational marketing techniques TO the Internet, they’d get a much better result.

Learn how to communicate effectively by learning how to write great marketing copy, especially headlines!

How would you recommend that artists use video online?

Capture emotion whenever possible. Emotion sells music. Fill the frame as often as you can with close ups as most people will see the video on a small, youtube or mobile size screen.

Make sure to market your CD or downloads by ending the video with a nice big URL!

3 tips to create a decent quality video on the cheap for online usage?

Go to the nearest college with a film department. Give your best song to every student you can find and include a card with it that says; “Needed, one brilliant film student to direct and shoot my music video. Please send resume, credits and a short paragraph telling me why you would do a better job than everybody else.” Put THEIR egos to work for you.

Take advantage of the bad economy and use unemployed people as extras – they’ll be happy to get some work.

If all else fails, buy a Flip HD video camera for cheap at a pawnshop and get creative. Study up on what makes a great music video before you begin production. Don’t think that you’re such a genius that you shouldn’t take advice from seasoned pros and have a plan before you begin.

What are your top 3 tips on how to use Twitter – how often and what to tweet?

1) Know your audience and give them what they want, not what you think they want.

ie. Tell them how many takes you needed to nail the vocal on a song or other insider trivia, not where you ate lunch today.

2) 2 or 3 tweets a day, unless it’s a show day… then more frequently to build excitement.

3) Ariel did a great job at the TAXI Road Rally this year of tweeting when her panel was, with some more frequent reminders about its location as it got closer.

Give us 3 tips on how to get social media followers/friends to…

…give you their contact info. -

give them something they VALUE in return.

…buy your music online. -

Write great songs and deliver amazing performances so people will WANT to buy your music PERIOD!

Make sure your potential buyers know what other people think of you. Our purchasing decisions are heavily influenced by like-minded people whose taste we respect.

Find a way to deliver a unique selling proposition so buyers know what you’re offering. “Steely Dan does hip-hop”… you know what to expect and can decide if you’re interested.

…come to your gigs.

Do something at your gigs that nobody else does that will get people talking, eg. randomly invite audience members to join you on the road for a week. Invite them to the studio to mix a song. Let them sing backgrounds or do handclaps… get your audience involved… create a bond.

What are the top 3 things you should do in your email communications to fans?

Learn which fonts and font sizes work best because they are easiest to read, which colors work best, which layout works best, and create a user interface that delivers one central message and makes it easy for the reader to take the action you want them to.

What are the top 3 things you should NOT do in those email communications?

The opposite of what I just stated above.

What are the best/most effective ways to engage with/communicate with fans in 2010? (please list them in order)

Make memorable, easy to digest music that people actually want to hear.

Be in all the right places, maintain those locations daily, and do something remarkable that gets people talking about you. But if you don’t have remarkable music to begin with, they won’t talk about you for long, if at ALL.

Are there tricks to “getting discovered” online? If so, what are they?

I don’t think they are tricks so much as a well thought out plan. The problem is that most musicians don’t research plans that have worked for others, they don’t use a plan even if they find one, and they rarely follow through past the point of initial excitement.

The people who are successful DO research, DO make plans, and DO follow through on the execution. If you’ve ever wondered why some artists build a following and others don’t, there’s your answer.

PS…. I DO many musicians who do covers and post them on video sites like YouTube. When people search the real song by the REAL artists, they discover the cover artist as well. some people have built huge subscription bases by doing that. THAT one is a “trick,” not necessarily a treat

Michael

Major Labels, Indie Labels, Pop Labels, Rap Labels, Christian Labels, and Country Labels are actively looking for new artists every day.

It’s easy to think that songwriters and artists can make it on their own with all the great self-promotional tools and opportunities on the Internet. But looking at this week’s  Billboard Top 100 Chart, I can’t find a single band or artist that has become successful on their own using the Internet as their only form of promotion. Yes, the Internet is a large piece of the music promotion puzzle, but it’s a piece, not a panacea.

Companies that sell music promotion tools and advice are cropping up everywhere you look. Can they help? Certainly some of them can, but as part of an artist’s overall marketing strategy. I have yet to see any music-marketing tool or music promotion plan that’s a magic bullet that by itself will deliver stardom on a silver platter.

Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Breaking Benjamin, Black Eyed Peas, Foo Fighters, Weezer and virtually all of the other artists I just looked at on Billboard.com have found fame and built their careers in the music business doing it the old fashioned way – writing or finding hit songs and signing with record labels.

Sure, it’s possible to have a video that goes viral on YouTube and drives sales on iTunes and other music download sites. But those events are few and far between. If you thought the odds of getting signed by a record label were slim, try and name ten acts that have had Billboard, chart-topping success based on the Internet alone.

The Sick Puppies were exposed to millions of people worldwide when their song, All the Same, was used in the massively popular Free Hugs videos. But they didn’t hit the Billboard charts until they had a veteran artist manager and Virgin Records behind them as their record label. Maybe that’s the magic formula for music promotion and marketing – simply create a video that goes viral on YouTube. That’s easy, right?

But the Sick Puppies are certainly an exception, and far from the rule. Even with millions of people listening to their song every day, exposure on Oprah, and just about every other media outlet worldwide, they still recognized that they needed a record label to take them to the next level.

How long have you been on MySpace? How about iTunes? Twitter? Facebook? How many sites do you have your music or your musical “brand” on altogether? How long have you been working the Internet music promotion thing with no substantial results? Is there a lesson to be learned?

Look again at the artists on the Billboard charts, and I think you’ll agree that there is a huge lesson staring us all in the face. Those artists are all signed to record labels. Illegal downloading may be killing the labels, but it’s been a slow death. More than ten years after Napster sprang up and illegal downloading began, Major Record Labels and top Independent Record Labels still look like a pretty smart option until somebody comes up with that magical silver bullet for artist promotion that millions of bands, artists, and songwriters have been waiting for.

Michael Laskow is the founder and CEO of TAXI, the world’s leading independent A&R company. He is also a multi-platinum engineer, record producer, and lover of great songs and talented artists.