10 TIPS FOR PROMOTING YOUR

MUSIC ON A BUDGET

ARTIST MARKETING

It never stops.

Frequently, I read a conversation online or receive an email from someone that essentially says:

“You need a lot of money to get your music heard.”

Not only are artists saying this, but label executives and managers are also claiming that you need money to really promote your music properly.

But is it true? Not necessarily.

Yes—money does help. Major labels can push releases into the ears of millions of people. They can do this because they have capital. But there’s another side to it:

You don’t need a lot of money to get your music heard… in fact, with the right strategies and tactic, you might not need much at all.

Warning: this is not for everyone.

Getting your music heard on a budget is possible. But here’s the thing:

1. Getting your music heard means you need to actually produce good music. If you’re new to production, come back to this PDF later. Master the fundamentals first and then focus on your craft.

2. Getting your music heard takes EFFORT. Real effort and time. If you’re looking for a shortcut… a silver bullet approach… then you’ll be disappointed.

3. Getting your music heard means you’ll need to learn new skills, strategies, and tactics. You’re not just an artist, you’re a marketer too.

A LETTER FROM EDMPROD

You tracking with me?

This isn’t easy, but if you do the work, you’ll see results. Especially if you use the right tactics and strategies.

In this eBook, I’ll share 10 tips you can use to promote your music on a budget.

— Sam Matla, Founder, EDMProd

INTRODUCTION: WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

One of the most common mistakes I see artists make is this:

They release a song. It does well. Maybe they’ve put a lot of effort into promoting it. Maybe it gets a taste of that viral goodness…

But a month later? Nothing. The life cycle of the song has ended (click the screenshot below to learn more about the life cycle of music).

And guess what? The artist hasn’t finished anything else. There’s no follow-up release. Everyone loses interest, including people who could have become fans if they hadn’t got tired of waiting for the next release.

Understand?

You need to release music consistently.

Aim for one release per month if you can. Not only will this increase the total amount of plays you get over all your tracks, it will also help you grow your audience and gain super fans.

TIP 1:

DEVELOP CREATIVE CONSISTENCY

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Here’s what writer Jeff Goins says about this principle:

TIP 1:

DEVELOP CREATIVE CONSISTENCY

"I was so frustrated from trying to make it as a writer and quitting every time it got hard...So I made a life-changing decision. I would write every day and publish it on my blog for two years straight...

And it worked.

After my first year of blogging, I had written over 400 articles (one each day for my blog and another 50-60 guest posts for other websites). For the first six months of doing this, my blog had only 70 readers. After a year, however, I had over 10,000."

TAKE ACTION How often are you currently finishing and releasing music? If you’re not able to finish a song every month or so, then you may have a workflow or productivity issue. Here are 3 resources to check out:

[Resource] FREE Song Finishing Checklist. This will help you finish all those projects of yours that are 80-90% finished (you know, the ones you’re scared of opening again because they haunt you).

[Article] 7 Actionable Strategies to Grow Your Musical Output. It’s not a long article. Just read it then apply the strategies.

[Book] Turning Pro. Steven Pressfield writes being an artist in a way that pierces the reader’s soul. This book will help you think seriously about your craft. It will inspire you to not rely on being inspired, but rather to do the work even when it’s tough.

Once you’ve checked out these resources, commit yourself to a schedule.

Set a goal to finish and release one track every two weeks, or one track every month. Just make it consistent. Stick to it.

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I’d finish a song after hours of focused work. It’s not easy finishing a song.

So I was just happy to finish it, and I wanted everyone to hear the result of my hard work (you know exactly what I’m talking about).

I’d mash together cheap artwork for the song (or just find a photo), give it a name, then upload it to Soundcloud. Then, of course, I enacted my song promotion strategy, which consisted of posting on Facebook once and messaging a bunch of high school friends.

It didn’t work.

Here’s the thing: when you want your release to do well, you need to be patient.

You need to wait before releasing and ask yourself: “What can I do to increase the chance of this song being heard by as many people as possible?

Instead of carelessly uploading your songs and hoping for the best, create a plan.

For example:

• Week 1: 3 weeks before release—finalize the master, get artwork designed, reach out to blogs and YouTube channels.

• Week 2: Follow up with blogs/YouTube channels, plan out social media campaign, finalize release details.

• Week 3: Start posting teasers and pre-release content on social media. • Week 4 (release): Update graphics across social media, send out release to

promotional outlets and blogs, start ad campaign.

TIP 2:

HAVE A PLAN FOR YOUR RELEASE

TAKE ACTION Design your own song release plan. Start with just the basics so you don’t feel overwhelmed.

[Resource] We’ve added two bonus plans (song release plan and social media release checklist) to the zipped folder this PDF was located in. Check ‘em out!

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Bonus Tip: Schedule out time to work on your song promotion the same way you’d schedule out time to work on music. It is important, and if it’s not in your calendar, you won’t do it.

If you don’t have a network yet, read this article…

How to Build Your Network as an Artist

…because you can’t thrive in this industry without one.

Face it: when it comes to getting your music heard, what’s more effective?

Cold emailing 20 blogs, labels, YouTube channels and socia media influencers who don’t even know you…

Or asking friends for a favor?

It’s the latter. Every time.

So start forming relationships with people who can help promote your music…

• Mutual friends who have a large following on their personal or artist Facebook page

• Owners of blogs and YouTube promotional channels • Owners or A&Rs at labels • Other people who have big networks

Note: it’s much easier to ask someone for a favour if you’ve already added value to their lives. I explain how to do this in the article linked above.

TIP 3:

BUILD AND LEVERAGE YOUR NETWORK

TAKE ACTION 1. Figure out who in your current network could help you

promote your music. Do something for them first. Add value. Otherwise they’ll feel like they’re being taken advantage of.

2. Grow your network. Strengthen it. Connect with more people.

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Again, if you want help in doing this, we’ve published a comprehensive 4,000 word article with specific tactics and strategies on how to build your network as an artist. Read it here.

If you want really good graphic design work, it’s best to hire a designer.

But this book is about promoting your music on a budget, and good designers aren’t cheap. So unless you’re a designer yourself or you have a friend who wants to help you out for free, read on.

Option one: fiverr.com

If you happen to have blessed ears at the expense of eyes that don’t work well—in other words, you can’t design something to save yourself—then this is your best bet.

You’re not going to get unique, original, super-fancy designs. But you’ll get something good enough, for the price of a couple of coffees.

Option two: design it yourself

If you have a decent eye for what looks good and what doesn’t, but you’re not familiar with professional graphic design software, then use a tool like Canva or Snappa.

Canva is user-friendly, free/cheap, and comes with a bunch of templates. You can create social media posts, logos, cover photos, ad graphics… anything you like.

Snappa is less popular and less intuitive (in my opinion), and costs $15/month. But it has some nice advertising templates. I use both.

Video tools

What about teaser videos? Lyric videos?

Again, you can hire freelancers for this, but they aren’t going to be cheap.

Two other options:

• Promo. Good for marketing videos. Not super cheap ($49 for one video) • Renderforest. Great for reusable templates—lyrics videos, visualizers, etc.

TIP 4:

CREATE YOUR OWN ARTWORK & VIDEOS

TAKE ACTION Either find someone to design artwork for your upcoming release (or latest release), or design it yourself using one of the tools mentioned above.

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In addition to building your network, you should have a database of contact details for blogs, playlist owners, artists, and other people who can help promote your music.

Set up a spreadsheet that looks something like this…

How to find details:

• Look on the blogs and YouTube channels for contact details. They’re normally there.

• Ask people in your network for details and email addresses. • Use Google. • Look for other promo lists (people sometimes give them out—whether that’s a

wise thing to do or not is up for debate, but they’re out there).

Using the promo list:

Your promo list is not a spam list.

In other words, when you release a track, don’t just blindly send it to everyone on the list with a generic promotional email. It will seem impersonal.

Instead, use it as a bank of contacts. When you do release a song, ask yourself who would best benefit from promoting it? What blogs would like it most? What YouTube channels would upload it? What playlists would it work well on?

TIP 5:

BUILD A PROMO LIST

TAKE ACTION Start building your promo list. Create a spreadsheet and add contact details for 5 blogs, 5 YouTube channels, 5 playlist owners and 5 other influencers.

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Team up with a blog or YouTube channel and organize an exclusive release.

Essentially, this means releasing your song only on a blog first, and having them break the news.

There are downsides to doing this:

1. If your song does well, and you’ve released exclusively on the blog, people won’t be able to listen to it elsewhere.

2. If it’s not a popular blog, there’s little benefit in offering an exclusive premiere.

3. It works WAY better when you’re already established and people know your name.

One approach—which isn’t technically an “exclusive premiere”—is to let them break the news, but not let it be exclusive, so that on the release date it’s available everywhere, but the blog breaks the news first.

In this case, the blog generates the buzz instead of just you. This allows them to get the most link clicks, views, ad revenue, and so on.

How to do it:

1. Find the right blogs. You don't want to be pitching your release to unsuitable oulets. It's embarassing. Do your research first and make sure they're a good fit.

2. Write your pitch. A sentence or two about the song, and then a private Soundcloud link (don't attach the file, make sure it's streamable). Ask if the blog is interested in an exclusive premiere. Add links to your socials/website.

3. Send your pitch to 5-10 blogs. Don't bounce on the first "yes." Wait for a few days to see if you get any better offers. Then take your pick (most of the time you'll be rejected, just keep this in mind).

4. Organize the date/time, then share with your fans once the post is live.

TIP 6:

ORGANIZE AN EXCLUSIVE RELEASE

TAKE ACTION You don’t need to do an exclusive release, but think about how you’d go about doing it if you were to do one. It will help you decide whether or not it’s a viable option for you and your song.

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Not free at all, but you can get cheap clicks if you play the game right.

Run Facebook and Instagram advertisements to drive engagement towards your social media pages and your music.

Play around with targeting, ad copy, ad creative, and see what happens.

Try targeting your music to FB or IG users who follow similar artists to you.

Try targeting just producers.

Try targeting people in your hometown who are more likely to come to a show.

There’s a ton of potential, you just need a bit of money to make it effective.

Buffer has an epic post on how to crush Facebook ads. Read it here.

TIP 7:

FACEBOOK/INSTAGRAM ADS

TAKE ACTION Read the Buffer article, then set up a campaign to promote your upcoming (or latest) release.

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This is an obvious approach, but it needs to be included in this book.

Releasing on a label is still a cost-effective approach to getting your music heard, as long as:

• The label knows how to brand and promote releases • The label has a decent promo list • The label doesn’t charge you to release your music

One of the biggest benefits to releasing on a label is that you can tap into its resources. Resources that you don’t have.

Chances are, they have a bigger network than you do. They can get your song into the hands of more DJs. They can put more money behind your song that you either don’t have or aren’t willing to spend.

Another benefit to releasing on labels is that you gain credibility.

People, especially other artists, will tend to take you more seriously if you have a few label releases under your belt.

Want advice for how to release on a label? Check out this post from Budi Voogt.

TIP 8:

RELEASE ON A LABEL

TAKE ACTION Read through the linked article, and the bonus PDF label release plan (in the zipped folder) and think about whether a label release is right for you. Add suitable labels to your networking sheet and start forming a relationship with them.

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If you have a piece of content, you can turn it into multiple pieces of content with little extra work.

At EDMProd, for instance, we do the following each time we release a new podcast episode.

1. We take the highlights/key points from the podcast episodes and turn them into a blog post. The content is already there, we just changed the medium.

2. We take the best quotes from the episode and turn them into social graphics. Again, the content already existed, we just repurposed it.

If we had the resources (time), we could also create fancy typography videos of the best snippets from each episode, then post them to Facebook.

You can do this as an artist. Let’s say you have a music video and song. You could:

1. Cut the music video into 2-3 teaser snippets that you publish on your social media before the song release.

2. Post a few lines from the lyrics (if you have them) as a nice graphic on social media.

3. Share stems/samples from the project file (they’re already created, so it doesn’t take much work to just upload them for the producers in your audience.

TIP 9:

RECYCLE CONTENT TO INCREASE ENGAGEMENT

TAKE ACTION Take a song (and ideally a music video if you have one) and apply this tactic to it. Split it up into different pieces and types of content, and then post them.

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Entrepreneur Noah Kagan talks about this strategy in his Content

Multiplying Video

WATCH VIDEO

Email is still one of the best ways to directly connect with your fans.

So if you haven’t already started - build an email list. Today.

Once you have an email list, you can start promoting your song before it’s released.

Perhaps you give the people on your email list a sneak preview, or even early access. Or you just tease it.

On launch day, you can send them an email asking them to promote it in exchange for a bonus offer (maybe a 15-min call with you).

It does take work to build your email list. You need to be strategic. But I recommend it. Especially because 90% of artists never bother. You’ll stand out.

How to do it:

1. Sign up to a service like Mailchimp or Drip. 2. Put together a free offer. If your audience is mostly producers, consider

offering a sample pack or project file. The more value you can add up front, the better. If your audience is largely consumers, then offer something different (e.g., all your past releases in a zipped folder).

3. Create a landing page using a tool like ClickFunnels, Leadpages or Unbounce.

4. Send people to the landing page using social media and FB/Instagram ads.

Want more information on email marketing as an artist? Check out this post from Heroic Academy.

TIP 10:

BUILD AN EMAIL LIST

TAKE ACTION Follow the “how to do it” section and create your email list. Don’t hesitate. You’ll learn how to use it properly along the way.

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Look…

You can get your music heard.

If it sounds decent, you plan out your releases, and you remain consistent, you can get your music heard.

But you may be disappointed. It might not “take off” like you expect, straight away. You may have to wait longer than you think.

But don’t give up. It will come. The plays will roll in slowly, but consistently. Your successive releases will start to do better… they’ll start to be shared more. You’ll see results.

Best of luck, and enjoy the ride!

-Sam

A FINAL WORD

DON’T GIVE UP

MORE RESOURCES Want to take your game to the next level?

This PDF introduces some strategies, but doesn’t go in-depth. If you want more information, including proven frameworks and tactics, then check out the resourcese below.

• [FREE Video Series] Music Marketing Masterclass • [Book] Music Marketing for the DIY Musician • [Book] The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory • [Interview] Jorge Brea: Can you still “make it” in music? • [Interview] Building doors and mastering marketing • [Interview] Austin Kramer — Getting the Most out of Spotify