If you have been following along with my other blog posts, you’ll know that I like to break down complex ideas and make them more memorable by using acronyms. Acronym is just a fancy way of saying an abbreviation using the first letter of multiple words.
If you want to be great at music marketing in 2023, just remember the word ‘CLASSIC’ :
C = Collaboration
L = Leverage
A = Advertising
S = Streaming
S = Social
I = Identify
C = Capture
C is for Collaboration - This is the easiest place to start and something that EVERY music creator should be actively doing.
I can’t count the number of times I have discovered a new artist because they had a collaboration with an artist that I already liked. When you collaborate, you naturally grow your network in a meaningful way. If you choose your collaborators wisely, then each new collaboration multiplies your chances of finding big success.
Other than having talent and being a good fit for your sound, the number one thing to keep in mind when you are looking for collaborators is this:
Make sure it is someone who is in it for the long haul. It takes years of dedication and consistency to build a successful music business, so if your collaborators quit and go do something else then that part of your network is no longer growing and finding opportunities that link back to you.
L is for Leverage - What I mean here is that you should always be thinking of how you can leverage channels that have already gathered your ideal audience. Yes, sometimes organic growth just happens, but most of the time people reach the tipping point by leveraging the followers of influencers, bloggers, media personalities, and also collaborators and superfans.
I also group 3rd party playlisters into this category. They have gathered an audience of people who want to hear a certain type of music, and you can leverage their playlist to reach more people who might end up becoming your fans.
A is for Advertising - Yes, I know, it sucks to pay for ads to reach an audience, but that is how most platforms work these days. Here are a few specific tips that I have seen work consistently for people to build a fanbase:
Use IG or FB Story Ads, getting people to swipe up or click into a Linktree or other similar link hub type landing page. DO NOT have them go straight to your Spotify profile. And DO NOT give them embedded previews of your music. You want them to be able to choose whichever streaming platform they prefer as quickly and seamlessly as possible. Spotify has the most market share of all streaming platforms, therefore the majority of people will choose to stream there. For a more in-depth look at this strategy, HOME Members in our Elite Artist program who are logged into their account can find a full tutorial video that I made called How to Get Spotify Followers and Streams.
YouTube Ads. What I love about YouTube ads is that you can target people who are watching specific videos and specific artist channels. And the cost per view is less than on FB and IG. Logged in Elite Artist Members can learn more about this strategy by checking out the post Youtube Ads for Artists.
Test, repurpose, and repost your old content. For IG & FB Stories, you only need 15 seconds of a vertical video to launch an ad. So you should put in the hard work to do the testing and find your most engaging and ‘high conversion’ 15 seconds and use it over and over again on different audiences. If you don’t want it to look like you are sending people to old content, take down your old content and repost it. You can also re-release old songs that did not get the traction the first time you released if you see that those are working for a particular audience.
S is for Streaming - In order to market your music effectively in 2023, you MUST deconstruct the streaming algorithms. Each platform is different, but since Spotify is the most popular, most artists want to see growth on that platform.
So here is a great marketing secret for understanding the Spotify algorithm:
There is a free website that can help you understand how Spotify classifies all of the music on the platform. According to GitHub:
“EveryNoise.com is a website that expresses Spotify genres across 3 dimensions, primarily heavy/light and organic/mechanic, with a third 'undefined' colour dimension. Glenn McDonald (Senior Software Engineer at Spotify) is the creator of EveryNoise, the dataset contained in this repository has been derived from his work.”
Music marketers use this site to get an idea of the clusters of artists that appear in the genres that they want music to be classified into. So, if I am marketing music that is similar to our Homie Taylor Bickett, I can just type in her name on the EveryNoise site and find out that Spotify classifies her genre as ‘alt z’. If I click into that genre, I can see a cluster of other artists that the Spotify algorithm shows as being similar to her music.
This helps marketers get laser focused on finding artists to collaborate with and also identify playlists where those artists are being discovered. If those playlists are controlled by ‘3rd Parties’, then a good marketer can figure out how to promote the music to the curators of those lists. This allows them to LEVERAGE larger audiences as discussed above. The HOME Community provides some really solid connections for these types of curators!
S is for Social - Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the past couple of years, then you should know that the most effective platform for artists to market their music is now TikTok. I won’t pretend to be an expert on TikTok, however I have personally seen many artists gain organic traction on the platform. Success on TikTok typically translates much better into streaming growth than other social platforms and virality on TikTok often attracts the attention of managers, labels, publishers, etc.
Here are my top three guidelines for success on TikTok (and any other social platform):
Consistency, consistency, consistency. Don’t make a few posts and expect major results. Show up every day to make content, and even then it may take months or years to see the growth you want to see.
Don’t try to recreate the wheel… look at what is working for popular creators, and observe what kinds of posts are trending. Then make your own version of those types of posts.
Get influencers to share your content. This goes back to leverage… building an audience from scratch is hard, but the right influencer can help you grow much faster. That’s why HOME is now connecting our Elite Artists to TikTok influencers!
I is for Identify - Taking the last point about influencers a step further, it’s important to remember that influencers do NOT have to have millions of followers to be effective. Influencers can have smaller engaged audiences. As long as they are authentically sharing about content like yours, then they can be a good candidate. You can identify these people using hashtag research like Gary Vee outlines in his IG growth hacks.
Use these tactics as well as data about your own social media followers to identify your potential superfans. Who is liking your posts? Who is commenting? Who is sharing? Who shows up at your shows?
I cannot overstate the importance of actually identifying these people. You have to get specific about who your real fans are, and then you have to convert them into being your superfans. Give them some extra attention and perks. Make them feel special! If possible, figure out how to make them your brand ambassadors who share all of the content that you put out. If those people have an engaged audience, this will become a HIGHLY effective growth tool!
C is for Capture - Once you have identified your potential superfans, influencers, and brand ambassadors, you MUST capture their direct contact information. The easiest way to start doing this is by using a Google Sheet.
Here are the most important data points that you need to capture:
Their first name.
Their last name
Their email address
Their phone number
Their zip code or the city where they live
You can set up a Google Form on a tablet at your merch table to capture this information at all of your shows and anywhere else you can capture it… in your ‘link in bio’, through your social media posts, through your pre-release campaigns, through your website.
Start by sending out an email and/or a text every time you are releasing new music or merch, Once you get good at managing your data, you can use the geographical information to let people know when you will be in their area for live performance opportunities. You would be surprised how much money and new fans you can make offering people private house shows when you are coming through their town!
I’ve shared a LOT of tips here to help you take your music marketing to the next level. All you have to do is remember the word ‘CLASSIC’ and make sure you implement each of the outlined strategies to get them working for you in the new year.
May these music marketing hacks help you achieve massive growth and success in 2023!