Marketing music: Why is it so important?

No matter how much time and energy you sink into recording your music, releasing it without putting any effort into marketing will ultimately end in disappointment. Here we explore the key marketing strategies that will give you the best chance of success.

Guest post from Horus Music

You’ve spent months writing, recording, mixing, and mastering your music and its finally time to put it out there into the world – great! Many artists reach this point and assume that the hard work is over and done with, sit back ready for release date to hit and their music to finally be available on all major platforms- with at least 10,000 plays in the first week, right?

Then the disappointment hits. Release day drops, your mates stick by you and have a listen to the release as they said they would, but you’ve only got 25 plays, how can this be?!

Without sufficient marketing, time and time again we see musicians releasing great music left feeling disheartened at the lack of buzz around their brand-new tracks sitting on major stores with minimal plays and interaction. Unfortunately, the current musical landscape means that without good marketing and promotion, your music won’t benefit anyone’s ears but your own. So how can we change that?

Marketing your music doesn’t need to involve huge teams of people and cost similar to your annual salary, with a solid social media presence and the right approach, we have marketing packages available for every budget to help promote your music.

Before you think about taking this step, it’s important to build a solid foundation. Below is a check list of no-cost actions you can be taking to make sure when you are at the point of taking some more specified promotion routes, you’ve given yourself the best chance possible at succeeding:

• Am I present on social media?

You don’t need to be a TikTok star or an influencer to have a good presence on social media. Setting yourself up with a Facebook and Instagram account where you can direct followers to your updates is a great place to start.

• Am I posting regular, engaging content?

As much as we think your cat is cute or your lunch is Insta worthy, it’s not the kind of content that’s particularly engaging for music fans. Posting regularly is important to keep up your activity, but if it’s not engaging your audience maybe keep it for your personal profile. Great ideas for content on your artist page could be studio snaps, short video clips, gig information or of course, updates on your latest releases.

• Have I claimed my artist profiles?

All is good and well having your music up on Spotify but claiming your artist profile gives you behind the scenes access to your account where you can regularly update your pic, bio and for Spotify, it also allows you to pitch your music to playlists. Whilst this is very different from a comprehensive playlist pitching campaign, it is an option available to artists on this platform and worth looking into if you’re on a lower budget.

CLAIM YOUR SPOTIFY ARTIST PROFILE

https://artists.spotify.com/c/team/access/artist

• Pre-Save Campaigns

A pre-save campaign is a great way of generating buzz around your music ahead of your release. As your distributor, we can provide you with the exclusive links you need to set up the campaign and give your fans access to pre-save your upcoming tracks to their music library ahead of release day. You can contact the distribution team directly for more info on setting up your pre-save campaign at alr@horusmusic.co.uk

• Is there anything else I can do?

In short, yes. There’s always something you can be doing to promote yourself as an artist. Gigging (or live streaming in the covid climate) is a great way to get yourself out there and organically grow your fanbase as it allows you to network with other creatives. This can open many doors such as collaborations with other musicians, future gigs and helps establish yourself as an artist in your local music scene. You could also consider putting together a music video to go along with any single releases, providing your audience with a visual way to consume your music. 

You’re now ready for the next step. Your social media pages are in check, you’ve got a few gigs (or live streams) under your belt and people are really excited about hearing your music. Promoting and marketing your music can help to really grow your fan base outside of your local scene, getting your music heard in front of listeners all over the globe. Those 25 plays you had on your first release day may have almost already doubled just through following some simple promotional steps, but let’s take it to the next level and really increase those stream counts and propel you forward.

How can Horus Music help you?

We’re one of the only distributors who also offer in-house marketing packages to really help our artists grow their fanbase. You can read more about the pre-release campaign services we offer here:

Global Playlist Pitching

Digital PR

Traditional UK Radio Plugging

If you are interested in any of the above, you can submit your music for consideration here and a member of the team will get back to you shortly. Please note that when receiving your music, we do look at the other areas of marketing and promotion you are doing independently of the campaign.

You can also read about some of our success stories through our comprehensive marketing packages here