Music Promotion for Independent Artists: PR and Advertising

When unsigned artists and bands look to their favorite artists and at record labels for guidance on how to promote music and grow a fan base, they see the standard industry equation of: Create Great Music + Ads + PR Campaigns + Tour = Success

However, that equation works because major artists have an established audience that's ready and willing to buy their music and purchase tickets for all their tour dates, so there's a high chance that they'll make back the money they spend to promote. Plus, it doesn't hurt that both major artists and labels have money to burn and media outlets itching to cover their next release.

That said, the same isn't true when it comes to music promotion for independent artists. Most new artists or indie musicians that have been pursuing a career for a few years or more are in the process of working towards success. They may be talented artists with amazing music, but that doesn't mean they've built a loyal audience that's willing to financially support them nor are they typically earning enough money to cover something as expensive as paying a music promotion company for PR and Advertising.

If you want to hear us discuss this topic in more detail, I invite you to watch the video below.

PR and Advertising: The Path to Stardom or Financial Ruin

To give a brief summary, PR and Ads are great tools to use to reach established fans that you're unable to connect with organically, but we don't recommend using them to create new fans.

Why?

Simply put, it's too expensive and you won't earn back what you spend, even if you work with one of the best music promotion services. Plus, at best, PR and ads are a good option to create followers and streams, but not fans that support you because it takes more than a listen or an article to create a fan. Additionally, for any music promotion technique to be effective, including PR and Advertising, you need to spend quite a bit of time marketing you and your music first.

An Alternative to PR and Advertising: Music Marketing

Music Marketing: Nurtures your relationship with fans and communicates 'WHY' they should support your career.

Music Promotion: Communicates 'WHAT' you're selling to fans and where and when they can buy it.

In short, if you don't have an effective music marketing system that conveys why fans should support you, when it comes time for you to start promoting your music, it will fall on deaf ears. This is exactly what happens to the majority of indie musicians and why expensive PR and Ad campaigns are a bad idea and a high risk for musicians.

You can learn more about Music Marketing vs Music Promotion: The Reason Behind Why Fans Do Or Don’t Care About Your Music, where we explain this process in more detail.

Listen, it would be amazing if every artist and band that has great music, could simply tell people about it and in return, instantaneously gain a die-hard fanbase whose primary focus is to support their music career, but that's not how the world works. In reality, mutually beneficial relationships take time to build and the process for building a loyal audience is no different. And that process isn't accomplished through PR, Ads or any other type of promotion, it's done through marketing.

That said, if you simply want to learn some effective promotional strategies, check out Promoting My Music: Strategies for Success. In the article, we cover social media platforms, music video promotion, creating your online presence, Spotify playlists (playlist promotion), blog coverage, live music + livestreams, as well as a bunch of self-promotion ideas all designed to help you engage with your target audience. The article includes some of the best music promotion strategies for indie musicians trying to 'make it' in today's music industry. It doesn't matter whether you're a solo artist or in a metal band, these strategies will help you, as long as you're willing to believe that growing your email list is better for your career than chasing Spotify streams.

If you want to effectively promote, start by creating your brand

So when it comes to music promotion, use PR and advertising with caution or better yet, not at all. At some point, there may come a time where you will try it or at least experiment with it, but you should be somewhat established first or a least be in a position where you able absorb the financial investment.

If you want to start down the path to effectively marketing and promoting your music you can Enroll in our Signature Sales Story (Brand Creation) program for FREE. Creating a brand is the first step in the marketing process and the key element for transforming casual followers into fans and fans into financial supporters, and that will make your music promotion efforts more effective. Does it involve hard work? Yes! There's a lot of work involved, but it's crucial your success and there's no way around doing it.

Or if you want to learn How to BUILD a music career from SCRATCH, I encourage you to check out our online artist development program the Musician Success Blueprint.

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