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Today, the role of an independent musician is extremely varied. Not only are you tasked with producing quality tracks, but you need to promote your music business through online advertising at the same time. Thankfully, the digital age has made it relatively straightforward to market your tracks independently, even though it takes a lot of time and effort to get your music heard. Here, we take a look at why self-promotion is crucial for independent artists, and we explain a number of things you can try to get your music heard by new people. So, read on to discover our musician’s guide to online advertising and kick-start your independent music career today. Online Advertising: Why should you advertise your music? It might seem obvious to say so, but you need to promote your music if you want to attract fans to your portfolio. Some musicians are put off promoting their own tracks because developing a promotion strategy can seem daunting. But the reality is that you need to work hard to get your music out there and heard by new people. If you rest on your laurels and hope that fans will find your music, you’re leaving a lot up to chance! The good news is that you have lots of options when it comes to advertising your music, both offline and online, as we explain below. Online Advertising: How can you find fans? As a modern-day musician, you can find new fans offline and online. Playing gigs in your city is a great way to increase your fanbase organically, without the help of the internet. Be sure to check out suitable music venues in your area and secure a regular spot to showcase your talents to local crowds. Even if it’s unpaid, it’s a great way to increase your following offline. But thanks to the evolution of digital platforms in recent years, the best way to find fans is to focus most of your attention on online marketing. Let’s take a look at some of the ways that you can grow your fanbase and promote your music online as an independent artist. As a modern-day musician, you can find new fans offline and online. Playing gigs in your city is a great way to increase your fanbase organically, without the help of the internet. Be sure to check out suitable music venues in your area and secure a regular spot to showcase your talents to local crowds. Even if it’s unpaid, it’s a great way to increase your following offline. But thanks to the evolution of digital platforms in recent years, the best way to find fans is to focus most of your attention on online marketing. Let’s take a look at some of the ways that you can grow your fanbase and promote your music online as an independent artist. Online Advertising: How and where to publicize your music? It’s entirely up to you how many of these promotion tips you take on board, but they can all help you find new fans. Let’s begin with the artists’ services that you can benefit from as a musician. Sign up for streaming platforms The biggest streaming platforms out there have services that are exclusively for artists. So, if you haven’t done so already, create an account on streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music to release your music into the world. For instance, Spotify for Artists allows you to personalize your profile with images and a bio while linking out to your social platforms. You can also view a huge range of streaming analytics that help you track the popularity of your songs. You can also check out Amazon Music, Deezer for Creators, and YouTube for artists to grow your potential fanbase. Create a website, blog, & mailing list In addition to maintaining profiles on music streaming platforms, it’s important to create a website for your music. Your website serves as your online hub and is a great place from which to promote your latest releases and details about upcoming gigs.

This is written for all you beat makers/producers in mind. It can be extremely difficult to sell/lease beats online nowadays - as I'm sure you can already tell. I don't need to explain why, do i? You know why. But allow me to refresh your memory on all the daily ins-and-outs required to begin living off your beats. This is part 1 of my 21 step guide. I'm sure none of these are new to you - so let it serve as reminders. If i may, I'd just like to say one thing I think you should take in. And that is... Keep at it. If you can't do it all - just do a little... Just keep doing something. Everyday. Do something PART A 1. FRAME OF MIND: If you think you're going to read a book andstart making thousands of dollars tomorrow you're already heading inthewrong direction. Understand that this takes time as you might have to develop a few skills before you can start selling. 2. WEBSITE: I know you've heard that you need a website to sell beats from, but I bet nobody told you that you should study SEO(search engine optimization).If you want your website to rank high in the search engines then you need to have it keyword optimized so Google can pick it up and rank it yo 3. BLOG: A blog is just like a website, the difference is you can update a blog regularly with written content in order to build loyal readers who hopefully keep coming back to read every new post you make. A blog is not focused on design or appeal or page load speed times, etc much like a website where you have only one chance to make a good first impression. with a blog u can link your website + embed your Youtube videos + social medias + everything else, which will only help to increase your presence online. 4. BUILD YOUR BRAND: Who are you? What is your style? These are just afer questions you need to ask yourselfbefore you try to sell beats.Think of producers likeMike Will,Just Blaze,Timbaland, etc. These guys have built a brand for themselves. When you hear "Mike Will made it" you already know what time it is. 5. BE A BUSINESS MAN: If you treat your beats/production like a hobby, you will NOT get the results that you're looking for. However, if you treat this like a business and take it serious you will be surprised by the results you get. 6. INVEST IN YOUR EDUCATION: This is probably the best advice I can give you. Investing in your education will bring you the biggest ROI. Most producers invest in sound kits and VST's and leave their education out of the equation.If you want to have a successful business, you need to invest in learning how to run it. 7. BUILD RELATIONSHIPS If you want tosell beats online like a pro youhave to build relationships. People buy from people they know, like, and trust, so you need to make artists trust you before they will give you their money. 8. NETWORK: I'm sure you know the saying "its not what you know but who you know" and that's why you need to network with as many people as possible. You never know who somebody might know that's looking for beats so you might wanna start making some connects son. 9. MARKETING: This is the one thing most producers neglect but is one of the most important things. Investing in your education to learn how to market is vital in your beat selling business. If you don't knowhow to market how will people ever see your content? 10. EMAIL AUTORESPONDER: As an entrepreneur if you don't have an auto responder service then you're missing out on money/networking/building your brand/everything listed above. An autoresponder is how you capture leads (emails) and build a relationship with them. GetResponse is one of the best autoresponder services on the market and it's only $15/month. However, Mailchimp is free up to 2,000 contacts (leads). it's an obvious place to start. That's how I started, anyway. I would encourage you to do the same if you haven't already! TO BE CONTINUED... & remember- KEEP. DOING

Since every artists wants to make money from their music, I thought I'd share a neat technique with y'all that I found on a producer forum. I wish I could remember the dude who originally posted this idea because it is truly brilliant and he deserves all the credit for dropping this gem! It works no matter who you are or what stage of your career you are at. We utilize this approach ourselves so there's no reason why you cant either. Ready for this one? Ok here we go... Check it out: Before you get started you need to do a few things: 1. Sign up with a PRO like ascap or bmi. 2. Sign up with an online music distributor like Distrokid or CD baby, or any of the hundred others 3. sign up for an account at a site like audiam, adrev, or adsense. Once that is done all you have to do is this: 1. Make tons of beats/music and arrange it as an album or several albums. 2. Publish it through your distributor. 3. Create a youtube channel/ a dedicated website for your release and promote it as "free youtube backing music" or "beats for video" etc. or anything of that nature. 4. Collect royalties from ad plays on Youtube! Thats it! HOW IT WORKS [and makes you money]: A lot of people need [free] background music for their YouTube videos and need a source to get it from. Same thing with rappers. They want to make music [with free beats] and eventually upload it to YouTube. Well, once your music is published, registered and available through the online retailers they will have bar codes and ISRC codes assigned to them. Those codes are used to track your music. So, in addition to the royalties from sales you get from your PRO and the online retailers, when someone downloads your free beats / music and uploads their version to YouTube, ads will be placed on their videos because it "matches third party content" [your content] and these companies [adrev & audiam] will collect on your behalf and pay you money from the ads placed on their videos as well. You may also be eligible to collect from other places as well (maybe someone else can chime in on this) but I'm not too sure. As you can see, this is a very simple method that does require an initial investment of your time but in the long run you should make a decent return on that investment and build your name up in the process. Plus: [the most beautiful part] your music gets out there and you still own it! Just make sure you make this clear to the "free downloaders" of your music. Lets be real. The chances of you becoming a millionaire overnight from this isn't very likely but on the road to riches all revenue streams add up. Please believe. And there you have it.