Connect with fans & get your music heard

Daniel Ek, founder of Spotify, said this week that “close to 40,000” tracks are now being uploaded to the Spotify platform daily. That’s almost 15 million songs per year.

It takes more than just publishing your music to Spotify, iTunes or selling directly via your web store to get your music heard. Releasing music that gets noticed takes a focused and creative effort - but that doesn’t necessarily mean a huge budget. Today we will share with you 5 ways to market your next release - so you can connect with fans and get your record heard.

Merch // Unique Product Offerings

An album is a snapshot of your ideas and state of mind. The better you bring together these ideas into a cohesive piece, the more fans can connect with your message. Create album-branded merch to solidify the message even further.

Thanks to the power of print-on-demand, indie artists are able to design merch, publish it to their webstore and begin selling without printing any inventory. Experiment with different products and stick with what sells. Attach digital music to each product and drive sales of your album.

Geotarget Events

Even if you’re not playing Coachella or opening for Ariana Grande, you can still use these events in your marketing plan. Let’s say your target demographic is in line with people who attend Coachella. You can create location-based ads to target those in Indio, California, throughout the duration of the festival.

Location based ads are nothing new - but take this one step further by specifying the dates your ad is displayed and you can now target events. Both Google Ads and Facebook location targeting are easy ways to get started.

You know your target demographic better than anyone else, so use that to your advantage. If you make relaxing music, set up location based ads for college campuses during finals week. If you make reggae, consider targeting vacation destinations during spring break season.

Target Sound-Alikes

Today’s artists rely less on genre to describe their sound, and instead opt to name 3-5 artists that they sound similar to. Many of these big-name artists already have a following of die-hard fans. Therefore, you should aim to put your music in front of these fans.

This can be as simple as connecting with those who follow / actively engage the artists on Instagram. People who comment or like a photo within the first 5 minutes of the artist posting are clearly engaged fans - they could be your passionate fans. Interact with them and see where that leads.

Album Release Shows (Tix + Digital Album)

Release shows are a great way to connect with fans. They give you a specific date to build hype towards through your socials and other marketing efforts. And with Single Music, you now have the ability to attach your new record to every ticket sold.

Setting this up is easy. Create a product in Shopify called “Release Show Ticket”. As you make sales, you essentially build a guest list. Simply attach the digital record you created in Single to the ticket product in Shopify. On release day, not only do fans get to experience your album live, they also get a digital copy automatically delivered to their inbox.

Email Remarketing

Email remarketing is a general term for following up with website visitors who have yet to make a purchase. The two main types are “browse abandonment emails” and “cart abandonment emails”. Remarketing emails are more personal than standard marketing because you (the store owner) have some basic customer data.

If you are on the Shopify platform, there are many apps available that handle remarketing. While most are paid-apps, you can easily create a cost / benefit analysis; a successful remarketing campaign will translate directly into sales. You can also use the Google Ads platform for your remarketing campaign. Take a look at Google’s instructions on how to set this up.

Have some ideas that we didn’t mention here? We’d love to talk. Make Single a part of your marketing campaign by engaging us early in your release cycle.

- Joe