TikTok is a social platform dedicated to sharing short-form videos. Musicians now have an incredible opportunity to expand their audience.
How to Uplevel Your Music Promotion Strategy With These 3 Mindsets – Our Guide
With technology continuously evolving, the need for innovating in the way music is promoted persists and presents a challenge that musicians must overcome.
3 Traits That Can Help You Become a Successful Musician – What to Know
In this article, we’ll highlight three traits that we believe can help any aspiring musicians reach success.
How To Effectively Promote Your Music – What to Know
It’s frustrating to get a cold response from audiences when you reach out about your music. Your tracks did not create a ripple even if you’ve put in the effort and the sleepless nights to complete them. You’re lucky to hear from a non-mainstream reporter who will promote your music because he digs your sound so much. But as for the hundreds of people you’ve sent your songs to? Nothing.
Getting attention is not easy, especially in the crowded music industry. Aside from sounding like two or three other artists, it’s the media who will help propel your identity to interested listeners. There are ways to beat the odds of emerging from a populated pool. However, remember that there are people who will not like your sound as you go mainstream. On the flip side, there is an increase in listeners that love your music as well.
What’s the story, morning glory?
We’re not talking about the Oasis album here. Rather, you must learn how to convey your story compellingly. If you are developing a bio, treat it as a sales piece that will entice journalists to listen. You can find angles from your origins, musical influences, and song lyrics. Include information, such as the number of albums released and notable live performances as well. Connecting your songs to current events is good for maintaining your relevance.
Match your image with your sound
First impressions count. Landing your publicity photo or cover art can make a journalist listen to your music. Make sure that the image you submit represents your music accurately. You need not use illustrations reserved for rock bands if you are a rhythm and blues artist. Hiring a professional photographer with an impressive portfolio of published material can help you capture that picture-perfect shot.
Don’t know where to start? Look at similar artists and see how their photos convey their music. You can also ask musicians in your area for referrals on the best photographers within your location. Landing this hire will set the vision for your brand and produce photos that you will be proud to share.
Reach out to music blogs
Now that your story and your pictures are ready, it’s time to make a pitch to people who will promote your music. Blogs can be that avenue as long as you follow their submission guidelines. They may not even pay attention to your message if you don’t follow their rules. Follow them by heart, and you are starting in a good rhythm.
While submitting to hundreds of music blogs can be stressful because of varying guidelines, some of their requirements do overlap. Therefore, you can make a list of their guidelines and look for patterns that will make the process more efficient. You will have to bear with the small changes on the pitch for each blog. It’s a small sacrifice that can pay huge dividends.
Do not forget to include a compelling reason why they must cover you. Tell these writers what makes you different and what creating music means to you. You can dig previous write-ups of these music bloggers to find declarations that may lead them to like your sound. It’s not advisable to reach out if you can’t persuade them to pay attention.
Introduce yourself via Spotify and social media
You cannot underestimate the power of music streaming websites like Spotify in propelling your songs. Therefore, you must upload your songs and complete your profile by sharing a cover image, updated bio, and social media links. Increase the chances of getting discovered by creating an Artist’s Pick playlist containing music by artists that may sound like you. Share the link to the playlist on social media to funnel traffic to your Spotify profile.
Include a link to your Spotify profile on your newsletter and request for follows on your account. With more clicks to your page, Spotify will take note of your increasing popularity and include you on their Discover Weekly playlists. Running Facebook ads can help promote your music, but it will be worthless if you don’t target the right market.
Your hard work does not end after releasing your music. Promoting it the right way will help you ensure that your music is heard, and your hard work and talent pay off. Follow the tips mentioned above, and you’re on your way to reaching your music goals.
Struggling to do all the work yourself? That’s what we’re here for! If you need help communicating your music updates to your followers, give Promo.ly a try! We are a music promo delivery system for artists, labels, and PR agencies, helping you maximize your current mailing list. We’re a music PR service that delivers music to your mailing list, get in touch to see how we can help today.
How To Write Superior Subject Lines To Get Your Promos Opened
How many unopened emails are currently in your inbox? 200? 600? Or perhaps, you’re on a few different mailing lists – 1,653 then? And that’s after doing some Gmail housekeeping!
We receive tons of emails day by day (105 billion emails are sent daily!), and a vast majority of them are never read.
People are being inundated with truckloads of information – as never before in history. Sadly we don’t have enough time or mental bandwidth to let it all seep in.
The probability that your email will be ignored is quite high – unless you can craft a masterful subject line.
Forty-seven percent of email recipients will open an email purely because of the subject line. And on the flip side, sixty-nine percent of email recipients will report an email as spam simply because of the subject line.
In other words, think of email subject lines as the first (and possibly the last) impression you’ll make on a reader.
In lots of ways, the subject line is even more relevant than the body of your email.
After all, sending an excellent music promo is insignificant if it never gets to meet the dance.
So, while writing your new music press releases, don’t take your subject lines for granted. The ideal subject line is short, descriptive, and makes the reader want to open your promo!
Are you a music promoter looking to develop into an email subject line writing Yoda?
There are a few different styles for generating jaw-dropping subject lines when sending promotional music to your mailing lists, let’s cover them below:
The Informational
Active, well-organized people appreciate efficiency. Such readers want you to be brief and understandable with your subject lines since their time is a precious asset.
Make things easier for them by prioritizing relevant information when writing your subject lines. For example, ‘New release from Maverick Records, 4min’. This sort of subject line cuts to the chase quickly and lets the recipient know the intention of the email right away via its subject line.
The Personal
Who doesn’t love a personal touch?
Taking the personalized route when writing subject lines, will help you engage your audience right from the start and quickly help your email stand out from the rest because there’s contextual relevancy that separates it from being a mass email.
Try to include the first name of the recipient, or other personal details such as recent downloads from your record label.
The Urgent
Why are infomercials effective? Because they create a sense of importance; requiring swift action.
People habitually respond to the likelihood of missing out on something, instead of promises of gaining something.
Similar effects can be used when writing your subject lines and including tags that demonstrate a sense of urgency can help with this. For example, including ‘[URGENT]’ in the promotional email subject line, or attaching a fear of missing out such as ‘Download this before midnight…’ may draw in recipients to opening the email.
The Clever and Catchy
A memorable subject line will stand out amid the scores of dull ones around it.
Humour can be tricky, though, and you must be careful not to alienate or confuse the reader.
However, if you are familiar with your audience, a witty joke will ensure that your email is opened and shared.
The List
There’s a good reason why listicles have become so widespread: they work.
A list provides snappy, snackable content and builds curiosity.
Besides, including numbers in your email subject line causes the reader to focus, since our brains are instinctively attracted to digits.
The Short and Sweet
Because most mobile devices can only display five to six words of your subject line—and given that over forty-one percent of email campaigns today’s are opened on smartphones — brevity is critical.
The Question
Starting with a curious subject line will engage your audience immediately and generate immediate dialogue.
Try asking open-ended questions so that your reader cannot respond to them with a swift “no.”
The Scarce
We humans have an innate dread of losing out on anything. Hence, an email subject line that threatens scarcity (such as “hurry, while offer lasts”!) tends to perform well.
The How-to
A how-to email subject line gives insight into the exact benefits your audience will discover if they open and read your email.
And provided that your “how-to” is helpful to the reader, open rates will soar.
The Sneak Peek
Everybody wants to be an early adopter or a trendsetter, so why not fuel that desire?
Let’s say you have a priceless opportunity, integrating sneak peeks and an exclusive into your email subject line is an easy guaranteed to boost your open rates.
While a lot of these tips seem simple, they’re tried and tested – but most importantly, rely on experimentation. The best way to figure out which of these works best (when sending promos) for your record label is to a/b test. Create two identical promos in Promoly and then adjust the subject lines. Once complete, create an A and B group then deliver a promo to each audience. Give it a good seven days and compare which audience had a higher open rate. Once you’ve worked out a formula, keep testing and you’ll see your open rate increase!
Spotify: How It Can Take Your Music Career to the Next Level
When it comes to music, Spotify is a robust platform that you can heavily rely on. This is because it’s a digital music streaming service that provides access to millions of songs, podcasts, and videos from various artists across the globe. Though the full service requires a premium subscription, you can still access the free version.
There are indeed other music platforms available, such as Soundcloud, Youtube, or Pandora. However, Spotify has been proven to be different from all of these platforms. One good reason is because of the way it has shifted to how music is consumed. There’s no need for you to give in to digital radio stations curated by tastes. With Spotify, you decide what to listen to. Unlike other platforms, Spotify offers high quality listens, and there’s more listening traffic coming into the app.
If you are a musician wanting to move to the next level and take the spotlight, using Spotify as a medium is an excellent idea and utilize it for your overall marketing strategy. Evidently, it is a place where people are revisiting favourites, discovering new artists, and expanding their musical tastes.
Below are three ways on how Spotify can help your career and take your music to the next level:
1. Create More Exposure
If there’s one thing that Spotify can do, it is to create more exposure for your music. There’s no denying that much traffic still goes to Spotify because of its free offer. Sure, it’s a great place for comfort listens and nostalgic ones as well, but it can also be for a new discovery. Listeners can do so via “related artists” section or curated playlists. If you happen to land one, chances are it can be huge traffic for you.
2. Increase Tour and Merchandise Sales
Spotify now provides ways for musicians to engage with fans. Though you may not fully engage with fans as you would in other social media, you can still do so by providing a bio, your curated playlists, linking tour dates, data points, and merchandise sales. It has also partnered with MerchBar, which allows you to sell merchandise through Spotify. There is no set-up fee or monthly fee, only charges for a commission on transactions facilitated on MerchBar.
3. Streamline Marketing Efforts
Finally, Spotify is a great way to streamline all your marketing efforts. In this case, you need to know your potential fan’s mood and lifestyle. By doing so, you will know how to target the right audience or market. You also need to be thoughtful about where your music is in playlists. When you look at the “Related Artists” on Spotify, you know that algorithms automatically generate these artists. The good thing is that Spotify provides data regarding the location of your fans. You then can use this data whenever you plan to do Facebook or other social media marketing.
The tips given can attest to the powerful influence of Spotify on your musical advancements. It all depends on knowing your market, finding your place in Spotify, and making the most out of it. If you do it right, you’ll be amazed at how Spotify can have an overall impact on your career as a musician.
Liked this article? Find out how to get your music playlisted on Spotify.
How to Successfully Run an Influencer Marketing Campaign in the Music Industry
Influencer marketing gets a bad wrap. While some people may think its benefits extend only to weight loss teas and whatever brand the Kardashian’s happen to be peddling, the truth is, influencer marketing has moved beyond fringe marketing fad and has infiltrated almost every industry. So prolific is modern-day influencer marketing, that your purchasing decisions are probably affected by it, even if you don’t realise. It’s called influence for a reason, after all.
But what about the music industry?
The music industry by its very nature is well-positioned to benefit from influencer marketing. The exciting nature of the industry and its event-based nature means there are already a large number of people generating a huge amount of content.
Read on as we take a deep dive into the world of influencer marketing, explaining first what is actually is and how it can be harnessed to assist with music industry marketing campaigns. We’ll then examine the often tricky process of actually finding and contacting influencers, and dish out some tips on cost and distinguishing good influencers from the not so good.
What is influencer marketing?
In order to understand the beast that is influencer marketing, you first need to get your head around influencers themselves.
So what is an influencer?
Well, in a nutshell, anybody can be an influencer. From media personalities to sportspeople, models and musicians, an influencer is anyone who has a captive audience that listens and acts when they speak. The good news for brands and businesses is, when these influencers open their mouths and recommend a product, service or brand, their audiences tend to move with their feet (and their wallets) and make a purchase.
Once businesses and influencers cottoned on to the potential of leveraging these engaged audiences to promote products, influencer marketing was born. What started as a niche practice that left many business owners and even marketers sceptical has grown into the cornerstone of many businesses’ marketing strategies.
These days, influencer marketing is an umbrella term for a wide range of different marketing techniques that harness the power and influencer of an individual to help promote a product or brand.
Let’s take a look at some of the most common types of influencer marketing.
Types of Influencer Marketing
1. Competitions
Competitions and giveaways are a popular tool to increase brand awareness and increase a businesses’ social following or email database. Typically, a business or brand would provide items or services to an influencer or a number of influencers to promote and give away on their social platforms.
The key to making a competition campaign stand out is by getting creative with the entry requirements. Maybe all entrants need to engage with the original post by commenting and tagging friends or signing up to a brand’s mailing list on the website.
Say you are a record label launching the new album for an artist. By drilling down into the target audience for that artist, you could engage a group of influencers with audiences that matched your own.
Inject a bit of creativity into the competition by having each influencer reenact the album cover in line with their individual style, and ask their audiences to do the same and use a branded hashtag to enter the competition. Not only will you get the posts from your chosen influencers, but your competition will also result in a flood of user-generated content (UGC) that will drum up interest in the album and may even go viral!
2. Discount Codes
Discount codes are one of the cornerstones of influencer marketing and are commonly used by themselves or in conjunction with other activities in a broader influencer marketing campaign. Discount codes are most effective in campaigns that are aimed at directly driving product sales and are a great way for businesses to keep track of their return on investment (ROI).
In the music industry, one way of utilising discount codes could be by offering limited time pre-sale or first release tickets to an event when attendees use an influencers’ code. In order to get the most bang for your buck and really track the success of your campaign, generate unique discount codes for each influencer you are engaging to help you track what has worked and what hasn’t.
Supercharge your music promotion and start your free 7 day Promoly trial. Promoly sends music directly to your influencer’s inbox. Track when they open, play, download and leave feedback – watch the results, in real-time.
3. Ambassador Roles
Ambassador roles are typically a long-term arrangement and go beyond the one or two posts that have become typical of many influencer marketing campaigns. Depending on your campaign goals and the requirements of your business or brand, an ambassador could be a good option if you find an influencer who has proven to be a good fit with your target market.
If an influencer has proven to deliver results for your business, be that awareness, sales or whatever the goal of your campaign is, an ambassador role is a great solution to leverage their reputation and following even more.
This sort of arrangement is good for many reasons, not only the improved results that can come the more an influencer gets to know your brand. Think about it, while the first post promoting your business may well be good, the more your relationship with an influencer develops, the more they will get to know your products or brand and the better they will be able to promote it to their audience.
A longterm relationship with an influencer or multiple influencers is also good news for your customers. While working with new spokespeople can help you tap into new markets, the stability that comes from working with an influencer on a long term basis means a lower churn rate in your marketing strategy. This will allow your ambassador’s audience to get to know your brand better while ensuring you remain top of mind.
4. Reviews
When most people think of influencer reviews their mind may wander to unboxing videos and other similar content. While it’s true that reviews are commonly used for new product launches and certain areas in the service and experience industry, reviews can be a great resource for those in the music biz as well.
Typically, an influencer-led review campaign would begin with a brand offering goods or services to an influencer in exchange for a review. The waters can become muddied when the brand gets specific with the content in the review or when a business instructs the influencer to only make positive comments.
While these sorts of practices are never encouraged, there are a few things you can do as a brand to encourage positive feedback without going as far as asking for it.
One of the best ways to facilitate a good review is by getting picky with your influencers. Say you are releasing a new album or promoting an upcoming tour. Rather than just looking for influencers with a similar following to your target market, actively search for people who have demonstrated an interest in the artist you are promoting.
The thing with reviews is their popularity is a blessing as well as a curse. As more and more brands and influencers are jumping on the review format as an effective tool to promote products and services, audiences are waking up to the practice and getting better at spotting fakes.
Engaging an influencer to give your brand a non-legitimate review is a big gamble and one that may blow up in your face. If you’re looking at going down this road, it pays to do your research and make sure you select influencers who are not only going to promote you to the right audience but really believe in and sell your brand.
5. Mentions
One common mistake brands make when journeying into the world of influencer marketing is overcomplicating things. This doesn’t need to be tricky! A kick-ass influencer marketing campaign can be as simple as a well-selected influencer mentioning your venue on Instagram and thanking you for putting on a great show.
Having said that, there are a few things you should keep in mind to ensure you are getting the most bang for your buck.
The first thing to keep in mind is that the world of social media moves fast. Considering an influencer may make several posts and even more stories on a single day, that shoutout from one influencer may not get your brand as much mileage as you would like.
Like any campaign, a strategy involving mentions should be well thought out and executed to have the biggest impact. Consider engaging a number of influencers with similar or overlapping audiences to ensure your message has the biggest reach and isn’t immediately forgotten by your target audience.
Another thing to keep in mind is the account and hashtag you want to promote. It may sound simple, but ensuring your influencers are provided with your correct social handles and hashtags can be the difference between your campaign making a splash or fizzling out before it’s even begun.
It’s a good idea to make mentions a part of a bigger campaign strategy and think up hashtags that align with that, so your influencer posts help tap into a bigger campaign.
6. Guest Blog/ Takeovers
Social media takeovers and guest blog posts have quickly become one of the strategies of choice for brands engaging in influencer marketing. This strategy is wide and can easily be tweaked to suit the needs of your business.
One easy way to explore this type of marketing and to assess whether an influencer is the right fit for your brand is to have them create some content for your platform. Depending on your audience and what you are trying to achieve, the influencer could write a blog, create a video or even take a photo to be shared on your social networks and site.
Taking this one step further, if you are convinced an influencer is the right fit for your brand, consider having them “take over” one or more of your social platforms for a short period of time.
Both of these strategies are proven techniques to tap into an influencer’s audience and help increase awareness of your product or brand. While guest blog posts have the advantage of having more longevity than a social media post, an influencer takeover promotes a sense of urgency and often results in a significant uptick of people visiting your platforms to view the influencer’s content.
One common worry with social media takeover’s is businesses that are hesitant to provide their account details to an influencer, particularly one they don’t know well. This is completely understandable and, depending on the type of takeover you have planned, and the level of creative control you want to give your influencer, you don’t even need to give them access to your accounts.
One way of dealing with this is having your chosen influencer capture the content in advance and send it through to a member of your team all at once or at regular intervals so they can post it on your social platforms from the influencer’s perspective.
This strategy is most effective when combined with other events in your business. Consider planning an influencer takeover to coincide with a new product launch, event or another moment you want to promote to really make the most of the extra exposure your influencer will bring.
Benefits of Influencer Marketing
So now you know what influencer marketing is, how can it benefit your brand? By now you’re probably getting a sense of the wide and varied nature of influencer marketing, so it should come as no surprise that the benefits are just as diverse. Here are some of the common benefits of influencer marketing.
1. Brand Awareness
First and foremost, increased brand awareness is a result of many influencer marketing campaigns. Let’s look at a real-life example. Think about those weight loss teas you see celebrities and micro-influencers spruiking all over Instagram – would you have ever heard of them if they hadn’t landed right in your feed? Probably not.
While it’s true that your target customer isn’t necessarily in a purchase mindset when they are scrolling through their social media accounts, regularly seeing your product and mentions of your brand will help ensure you remain top of mind. When used as part of your marketing strategy, influencer marketing is one of the best ways to boost brand awareness among your target market.
2. SEO
This is one side effect of influencer marketing you may not have considered. While there’s no denying the fact that search engine optimisation (SEO) is a multi-faceted beast that takes some serious work to get right, your influencer marketing strategy can add a welcome boost to your search rankings.
In a nutshell, when you commission influencers to blog about your product or brand and link to your website in the copy, a link is created to your website, these are called backlinks. The quality of these backlinks depends on lots of different things, for example, the profile of the influencer and the amount of traffic their site receives, the legitimacy of their website and more techy factors like whether their site is secured with an SSL certificate.
While there are some exceptions, the more backlinks to your website from things like influencer blogs, the better.
3. Engagement (Online and Offline)
Engagement is a goal of most marketing campaigns, and influencer marketing is no different. The type of engagement your brand receives and the period of time all depends on the type of campaign you opt for.
Many businesses are satisfied with creating a buzz through online only engagement, with an increase in their social media followings and an uptick in conversation around the brand enough to convince them of a campaigns’ success.
For brands looking to drive sales or encourage other behaviours from their audience, influencer marketing can also be an effective tool to drive offline engagement. Using tactics like promo codes, advertising sales and even activations, influencer marketing has been proven to boost offline engagement as well as online.
4. Sales
The benefits above are all well and good, but if an influencer marketing campaign isn’t leading to increased sales, what’s the point? The good news is, when done correctly, influencer marketing can be a useful tool to boost sales in your business.
As we’ve mentioned previously, the ability of your business to turn all these social media mentions and extra brand awareness into cold hard cash comes down to your choice of influencer and the effectiveness of the message. If you choose to work with the very first influencer who crosses your path and put next to no thought into how you would like your message conveyed, don’t be surprised if your campaign is a flop.
If you want to make the most of your campaign and get a resulting boost to your bottom line, it pays to do your research. Really drill down into your prospective influencers until you find someone who meshes well with your target audience but also someone who is a good fit for your brand.
To give yourself the best chance of tracking the effectiveness of your influencer campaigns, make sure to use unique tracked links anywhere an influencer is driving traffic to your website, your business or otherwise driving customers to take an action. Not only will this help you track your ROI, but it will also help you ditch any influencers that aren’t bringing in the sales.
Where to find influencers
So now you know what influencers are and the benefits they can bring to your business, how do you go about finding them? We’re so glad you asked! The recent boom in the influencer industry has really raised the stock of professional influencers the world over. Not only does this bring a sense of legitimacy to the industry, but it has also made it easier for brands to find and connect with potential influencers.
Here are some of the most common ways of finding influencers that suit your brand.
1. Use an Influencer Marketing Platform
These days you can’t throw a selfie stick without coming across another platform startup claiming to simplify the process of finding influencers for brands. From Hootsuite to Buzzsumo to Followerwonk to Scrunch, these platforms all offer similar products helping brands connect with influencers.
The majority of these platforms include some sort of search functionality that will enable you to search based on factors like age, gender, location, size of following and if you’re looking for more professional influencers, industry.
An added bonus of some of these platforms is that they also facilitate the meeting and contract negotiation aspect of the job. While this can be seen as more impersonal and even cold, some businesses prefer to have this taken care of.
2. Go Old School
Before influencer marketing really took off, the most common way for brands to connect with potential influencers was the slide into their DM’s, or contact them via email if they have an account linked to their social media.
While this may sound a little personal, it’s still one of the best ways to ensure your message gets to the right person. Reaching out on social media also gives you a great opportunity to engage with an influencer’s profile and get to know them a little bit better. Trust us – both of these will massively help your chances of getting a response. (More on that later)
Essentially, any influencer worth their salt is likely to view their Instagram and other social profiles as business tools, so they are unlikely to mind this approach.
3. Let them Come to You
Now chances are, depending on the strength of your brand and your customer type, you may be overlooking the best type of influencer there is. This is the influencer who comes to you.
As a starting point, take a dive through your DM’s, examine your social media accounts and your email inbox. What you’re looking for are existing customers who have shown an obvious passion for your brand and a high level of satisfaction with your product. Maybe they left you a Google review or tagged you in a post raving about how much they love you. Either way, these are potentially some of your best influencers and you should be reaching out to them now!
First off, people who are already familiar with your brand are immediately more believable than someone who has never heard of it. By engaging an influencer who knows the in’s and out’s of your brand already, you are saving yourself a boatload of work and increasing the chances of getting a believable, effective campaign.
Secondly, choosing to use an influencer who is an existing customer rather than a professional is likely to save you some cash. Depending on the type and quantity of work you are looking for, as well as the size of your chosen influencer’s following, you may be able to get some exposure in exchange for free concert tickets, merch or any other swag you have related to your brand.
How should influencers be contacted?
Once you’ve decided on an influencer or set of influencers to use for your campaign, you need to actually get them on board. While it’s important not to overcomplicate this process, it’s important to be clear with your needs upfront when contacting your influencers of choice. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind when reaching out to an influencer.
1. Get to Know Them
It may seem simple, but one of the things that can help your message to a potential influencer stand out from other businesses is the time you take to get to know them and their brand. Rather than shooting through a generic DM, take a couple of minutes to follow them, check out their stories and browse their recent posts.
Armed with this information, you will have a much better chance of connecting with your influencer of choice in your first interaction rather than risking your message getting lost in the digital oblivion.
2. Be Upfront
There’s no shortage of individuals and businesses reaching out to influencers asking to “collaborate” on upcoming projects. If you want to cut through the noise, make your first message as clear as possible. What is your business? What exactly do you need from the influencer? What are you willing to pay? By including this information, a potential influencer is far more likely to take your offer seriously than if you start with a generic “hi”.
3. Pay Attention
Many influencers, especially those with a higher profile, will indicate on their social media profiles how they wish to be contacted. Rather than just shooting them through a DM, take a minute to stop, read their profile and see if they specify where to direct collaboration requests.
How much do influencers charge?
There is no simple answer to this, as pricing for influencers depends on a range of different factors including the influencer themselves, the work you have commissioned and the amount of time needed to produce it. Having said that, some rough online guides suggest that for Instagram feed posts, an average influencer may charge from $1,000 per 100,000 followers.
Again, this price will vary wildly depending on the influencer, your relationship with them and the work involved. If you have a limited budget, it pays to shop around and find an influencer who suits your needs and your budget.
What makes a ‘good influencer’ vs a ‘bad influencer’
Talk of good vs bad influencers is all relative. Things that may lead one brand to assume an influencer as bad may be exactly what another is looking for. Here are some major things to keep in mind when selecting an influencer to work with so ensure you find one that suits your needs.
1. Good Fit
The biggest difference between a good influencer and a bad influencer is how well they suit your brand. If you are promoting a new death metal album and select a beauty influencer with a mostly pre-teen following, chances are your campaign isn’t going to get the traction you’re looking for.
In order to get the best results for your campaigns, it pays to take your time and be selective when choosing influencers to work with. In addition to researching the major things like the location, background and following of an influencer, it’s a good idea to look closely at their past posts as well as previous brands they have worked with. Not only will this give you a better understanding of what the influencer is capable of, and whether it’s a good fit for your brand, it will help you weed out those that may have worked with your competitors or other brands that don’t mesh with your own.
2. Clear Expectations
Perhaps the most important factor in determining a good influencer comes back to you and your business. When engaging with an influencer, it is your responsibility to set clear expectations and ensure your chosen influencers understand them. By doing this, your influencer marketing campaign is almost guaranteed to be a success.
Conclusion
We’ll mention it one more time for the people in the back – influencer marketing is nothing to fear. When launching your first campaign, bear in mind that it doesn’t need to be huge. The best way to discover whether it will be a good fit for your product or business is to give it a try.
Now that you know the potential an influencer marketing campaign can bring for your business, what are you waiting for? Armed with the info you need to find, vet and approach an influencer (or influencers), take a leap into this trending marketing technique and explore the possibilities.
How To Boost Your Plays Through Spotify Marketing
Spotify has become such a major platform for audio streaming that musicians must factor it in distributing their songs. Because of this, it’s not enough to just upload songs while hoping that a ton of people will accidentally stumble upon your music. You will need an approach to get the most listens possible – here are four ways to guarantee that.
1. Establish your goals
Before anything else, you must first establish your goals for the campaign. Without it, your marketing strategy will not have any direction and the success of the campaign cannot be measured. Your goals should always dictate your action and it should be clear from the start. If not, the push will be worthless.
Since distribution will be done online, jot down three social media goals to promote your music. Use the acronym S.M.A.R.T to be guided. S stands for Specific, which means that it must be exactly written. M for Measurable, meaning that the results can be quantified. A corresponds to
Attainable or controlled optimism. R for Relevant to the business and finally, T for Time-bound which states that the goal must have a deadline.
2. Target user playlists
Spotify rewards songs that are frequently added by users to their playlists. They also favour songs that have been shared on other online platforms like Soundcloud or blogs. In contrast, you get penalized when your song is skipped.
If that’s the case, creating playlists help to bump your popularity up. Combine your song with other popular songs with the same theme or emotion and assign a catchy name for the mix. Your plays will increase as your music is being promoted alongside the biggest names in the business.
3. Give listeners a preview of your work
Don’t go for long intros and outros if you want to keep your audience engaged – you must upload tracks that play within three seconds to avoid being skipped. Uploading a shorter version of your song can entice new listeners to follow you as well.
4. Upload the song before the grand release
It takes time before Spotify finalizes the songs they want to feature. To ensure that people discover your music, upload the song five weeks before you intend to announce its launch. Leading up into the launch, you can create noise by posting teasers on blogs, getting reviews from early listeners and by spreading the word via social media.
Take note that YouTube, Soundcloud, and the likes are Spotify’s competitors. To funnel listeners onto Spotify, release 30 seconds of the song on other sites and direct them to hear the full song on Spotify. You can also drum up excitement by sharing promotional material on Facebook and Twitter a few weeks before the launch.
When it’s time to announce the song, make another wave of announcements on social media. This time, include the link to your Spotify song – this will considerably help engagement.
Struggling to do all the work yourself? That’s what we’re here for! If you need help communicating your music updates to your followers, give Promo.ly a try! We are a music promo delivery system for artists, labels, and PR agencies, helping you maximize your current mailing list. We’re a music PR service that delivers music to your mailing list, get in touch to see how we can help today.
How to Market to New Fans You Make on Tour – Music Marketing 101
After years of hard work, planning, and dedication, you’ve finally done it—you’ve built a sizeable loyal following that awaits every new track you release. It’s been a long journey, but amidst the album drops, the tours, and the marketing, there’s one thing that has and will always remain true: the grind never stops.
During music releases and tours, you’re bound to expand your reach and gain new fans, resulting in a huge increase in your social media following. You might even get a shoutout from a recording artist you’ve always wanted to collaborate with!
Any up-and-coming artist dreams of naturally growing their following. However, those that click the “follow” button on Instagram aren’t necessarily going to be around forever. You have to keep them interested and show them that you’re worth their attention. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done.
1. How exactly are you supposed to maintain your newfound fans?
When your following starts to grow, your dedication to maintaining a strong online presence should as well. Fans are a picky bunch, often willing to drop an artist if they don’t get regular updates. Here’s what you can do to get started:
Thanks to social media, artists have a ton of different opportunities to keep the conversation going with their fans. By bridging the gap between both parties, social media can help aspiring talents keep their followers engaged and looking forward to the next album drop or concert date.
A great way to use social media to your advantage is to use the geo-tag tool, which can allow you to see all the photos and videos that your fans took at different shows that you held. Once you’ve found your fans online through the help of the trusty geotag, feel free to personally message them with a tweet, direct message, or comment to thank them for going to your show.
2. Use social media advertising to your advantage
While we’re on the topic of social media, did you know that one great way to keep yourself in the forefront of followers’ minds is to run paid ads? With paid ads, you’ll be able to reach a greater audience while ensuring any updates reach your existing fans.
Want to give it a try? Consider running a paid ad that will promote your latest single or upcoming tour date, giving fans and would-be fans even more reason to follow your page and your journey as an artist. When a paid ad is done right, it can yield fantastic results!
3. Get your fans to follow you on your artist channels
Spotify, YouTube, Apple, Amazon, and Soundcloud: what do they all have in common? They can all help your fans discover even more of your material beyond your show’s setlist while allowing them to foster a greater liking to your stuff. Artist channels allow fans to hone their interest in an artist’s material while easily getting updates on what they’re about to do next or release. A great and easy way to get more fans to follow your journey is to put a little self-promotion in between your songs during shows, where you can give your fans the name of your different pages and how they can follow them.
4. Give your fans something to act on!
If you’re ready to take things to the next level in terms of keeping your newfound fans (and even gaining new ones), you should definitely try this marketing secret: a call-to-action. As an extremely effective marketing tool, a call-to-action (or CTA, for short) is a marketing tool that you can use to encourage shares, likes, and comments by incentivizing this action for your fans. By giving your fans an incentive towards spreading the word, you can reward them and keep them going with rewards like exclusive content and live-streamed shows.
Struggling to do all the work yourself? That’s what we’re here for! If you need help communicating your music updates to your followers, give Promo.ly a try! We are a music promo delivery system for artists, labels, and PR agencies, helping you maximize your current mailing list. We’re a music service that delivers music to your mailing list, get in touch to see how we can help today.
How to Harness Influencer Marketing in the Music Industry
Creating and producing music is different from promoting it. The latter takes more than just artistic freedom and talent. It needs a crafty mind and good business sense.
While the internet has made it easier for musicians to get their music out there and attract a wider audience, the oversaturation in the online world has created a number of challenges. The competition is quite fierce. However, in today’s day in age, success in the music scene is not exclusive to major labels and popular artists. Even those new to the game have a fighting chance to make it big.
A big part of these growing opportunities is Influencer Marketing.
While this strategy is more popular in the beauty, fashion, and lifestyle industries, it is also effective in the music industry.
Research shows that 26% of the music industry made use of influencer marketing. And they do so over various platforms. Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have billions of users, and their growing numbers show no signs of slowing down, at least not in the near future.
Most influencers gain their following on these social media platforms. And that means working with them might be just what you need to widen your audience and increase engagement. But how exactly should you do it?
Identify Your Platforms
The online world is vast. Before you take a pick from millions of influencers, you need to determine which platform will suit your needs best. Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram are just some of the social media channels that complement the music industry. They are great if you want to market your newest album or expand your audience. But It is important to consider each platform’s benefits before taking your pick so you can more easily plan your marketing campaigns around them and consider which influencers can help you reach your goals.
Collaborate Creatively
Sometimes, two heads are indeed better than one. Working with an influencer when it comes to your marketing content can take the burden off your shoulders and allow you more time to devote to your craft. Influencers are professional content creators. So be sure to collaborate with them, while still allowing their unique voice and creativity to shine through.
Connect with the Audience on a Personal Level
Being a musician or producer is a hectic job. Every production requires attention to detail, and the pressure can be overwhelming. Unfortunately, this means that oftentimes you won’t have the opportunity to truly connect and build a relationship with your fans.
Influencers, on the other hand, are extremely skilled in connecting with their audience. Their loyal base of followers find their content authentic and relatable, and they often listen to their recommendations. While working with an influencer, this trust can rub off on you, allowing you to widen your reach and increase your music’s engagement.
Convert Views to Sales
While influencers can help you generate views and increase your engagement, they can actually do better than mere promotions. Influencers can provide a short music teaser and include a link to buy it, ideally with a special offer of discounts through a unique promo code. This move will help convert your viewers and followers into paying customers.
The benefits of influencer marketing are numerous. Including this tactic in your marketing strategy can take your next big hit to new heights. What are you waiting for?