The one marketing mistake every artist makes

When a band or artist drops a new song or video, getting it in front of the eyes and ears of fans becomes mission critical – unfortunately, in their efforts to do so, almost every artist is sharing the wrong link.

Guest post by James Shotwell of Haulix

Every musician wants fans to hear their latest single or watch their latest video, but almost every one of them is sharing the wrong link.

Here’s a hypothetical situation we can all relate to:

With a new single now available everywhere, an artist wants to promote their new music to fans and people who have yet to discover them. They sign up for a service that pulls links from all the streaming services into a single landing page and then links to that page with their social media posts.

Here’s another hypothetical:

With a new single available everywhere, an artist chooses to push a single streaming service through every post they make. They tell everyone to stream their song on Spotify, and every post they make points people to Spotify.

Both of the promotional approaches outlined above are common practices in music today. Both are also the wrong way to promote new music.

Let’s stop and think about what happens in these scenarios.

For starters, the artist is engaging fans on platforms they do not own or control (social media) and pointing them to other services and sites that they do not own (streaming platforms).

Additionally, the artist in the first example promotes a third company they do not own (the promo links service).

While these promotional approaches may appear to streamline the process of getting people to hear your music, they do very little to support the business that matters most: Your music career.

In this Music Biz update, host James Shotwell explains why the most common music promotion methods may not be the most beneficial for artists.

Every marketing plan aims to forge a lasting bond with people who choose to engage with the promotional materials. A song stream or video view may give you a short-term boost of serotonin, but unless you’re converting consumers into fans, your campaigns are falling short of their potential.

Let’s rethink the promotional efforts described earlier:

With a new single available everywhere, an artist wants to promote their new music to fans and people who have yet to discover them. They create a landing page on their website to announce the release, and they include links to all the streaming services where the single is available. They also embed the song as a streaming track or video.

That approach is already doing more to make people who engage with the artist’s posts more aware of their craft, place online, and brand.

But we still need to go one step further:

In addition to building a page that makes it easy to find their music online, the artist includes an option to join their mailing lists. Fans who enjoy the new single can sign up to receive messages from the artist regarding the latest music and tour information and access to their new merch.

Mailing lists have been around for decades, and despite all the new ways of connecting with our audience, they remain the most effective. When someone joins your mailing list, they are telling you they want to develop their relationship with your music. They are asking to know about music, live appearances, and more. They don’t want to hopefully see something online when you choose to post. These individuals want to know everything. They want to be true fans, and those people are the ones you need to take your career to the next level.

Music Biz is brought to you by Haulix, the music industry’s leading promotional distribution platform. Start your one-month free trial today and gain instant access to the same promotional tools used by BMG, Concord, Rise Records, Pure Noise Records, and hundreds more. Visit http://haulix.com/signup for details.

James Shotwell is the Director of Customer Engagement at Haulix and host of the company’s podcast, Inside Music. He is also a public speaker known for promoting careers in the entertainment industry, as well as an entertainment journalist with over a decade of experience. His bylines include Rolling Stone, Alternative Press, Substream Magazine, Nu Sound, and Under The Gun Review, among other popular outlets.