How to market your music as an upcoming/Independent artist.
by SA Hip Hop Music Blog
Introduction
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In today’s age, many musicians have decided to take the independent route. Previously musicians would sign to labels, & thereafter record labels would promote your music and get it to the world. In today’s age, many artists are struggling to get their music out there and convert streams & sales.
We compiled information & tips on how to promote your music. Key components of a successful music career are, good music with a clear & impactful message, a good & clean mix, good mastering, good clean visuals & finally, good marketing. (No artist does not need promotion; every single artist needs promotion.)
Benefits of promoting your music:
- You reach a louder audience.
- You connect with more fans.
- Increase in streams & views.
- Connect with brands.
- Connect with promoters.
- More bookings & shows.
(Remember your talent is only a piece of the puzzle. The other pieces that you need in order to create impact are " Connections & marketing. " Without these two, you will struggle greatly.)
Disadvantages of not promoting your music:
- It takes time (If you decide not to invest in marketing, you will reach your destination, but it will take time.)
- You reach a smaller audience; therefore, your impact is not as great.
- Less streams and sales due to low reach.
- Brands & companies many not recognise you, due to the fact that they do not know you & your brand, or they do not have enough information about you to engage with you.
- You have less shows & bookings due to the fact that they do not know you & your brand, or they do not have enough information about you to engage with you.
Artists who have promoted their music:
- 25K
- Nasty C
- J Cole
- Lil Durk
- Cassper Nyovest
- Emtee
- Shane Eagle
Music promotion varies and can be subdivided into many categories.
Here are a few types of promotions. There are millions of ways to promote your music & most artists either are Lazy, don't know how to promote, or don't have the time or the resources. If you are not able to market yourself, you will have to ask a friend or family member to help you, otherwise you will have to pay someone to do it for you.
- Social media promotion
- Paid promotion
- Billboard marketing
- TV & Radio placement
- Email marketing
- Word of mouth
How to promote your own music?
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- Make a role out plan.
Create a strategy according to your music. Create a 6-month plan & every month tackle a different task.
If you make club music, target club people who go clubbing, if you make festival music target people who attend festivals. Don’t market your music to the wrong people otherwise you won’t be as successful.
- Create promotional videos.
Create promotional videos according to your type of music. The new form today is Visualizers, examples of artists that have used Visualizers are; multi award-wining producer Mashbeatz on his hit hit single Never ride Ft Maglera Doe Boy & Thato Saul, the Visualizer reached over 2.5 million views with no music video & achieved gold status in South Africa.
- Contact bloggers
Contact bloggers and submit your music. In today’s age bloggers are the new go to media platforms.
Most people visit blogs to find out what’s happening and who dropped new music? Bloggers are followed by brands, labels, artist’s, producers, promoters, clubs & many more. If the blogs are spinning you, you are bound to get new fans, more streams, brand deals & more bookings.
Blogs that are good for promotion:
- SA Hip Hop 247
- Slikour on Life
- Mzansi Prolific Connect
- SA Hip Hop Music Blog
- SA Hip Hop Mag
- SA Hip Hop TV
- SA Hip Hop Experts
- Who Got The Block Hot ZA
- NESAHH MAG
- Nothing Too Hard
How to promote your own music?
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- Contact influencers.
Contact influencers and find a way to get them to help you promote your music. Influencers have huge following & engagement rates, and having them promote your music has a huge impact on your career. Amapiano artists have used this strategy a lot. Artists such as Tyler ICU (Mnike) utilized this and made a big impact by having one of the biggest songs in the world in 2023, with over 29 million views on YouTube.
- Do challenges.
Create challenges for your music & get people to join the challenge. Every day, people on social media are looking for challenges, once you start a challenge a lot of people will join. Challenges create huge awareness around your single. An example of this is Tyler ICU’s Mnike challenge on Tik Tok.
- Do performance videos.
Take videos of yourself performing your music. If you have a show, take videos of yourself performing at the show. Some people engage when they see you perform. Remember that in today’s generation content is key and it can change your musical career.
Examples are Lucas Raps, Emtee, Nasty C, and many more.
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Best ways to promote an EP, mixtape or album.
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- Drop singles before the album.
Dropping singles before the project is still the most effective way to get anticipation for your music. An artist that used this method frequently is AKA( AKA is South Africa’s highest selling SA Hip Hop artist of all time)
- Do a tour.
There are different types of tours.
School tour - School tours help you to connect with the youth and spread awareness.
Club & festival tours - Club & festival tours are the best way to connect to promoters, create revenue thru ticket sales & get more listeners & fans, and sell merch.
Radio tour - Radio tours really help with awareness simply because radio stations have huge fan bases & the pay out for radio play is extremely high. Imagine going to 4 radio stations namely: Metro FM, YFM, Kaya FM & 5FM. Each of these radio stations reaches over 2 Million listeners per day, so that is a total of 8 Million impressions in one tour.
- Get a reliable publisher.
Publishing is the business side of things. Remember that without proper publishing, you're not going to get the real money that is in the music industry. Do research, contact publishers and see how you can get reliable publisher. A good publisher is Sheer Publishing, they are highly recommended, especially for international artists.
- Get a reliable distributor.
Your music needs a good distributor if you want to create impact, especially internationally. A good distributor is Afri-cori.
- Submit for Playlists.
Submitting to playlists helps increase-streams & gets you fans. Submit 6 weeks before your release date to get your Music onto Spotify playlists. Contact playlisters & bloggers to help get your songs playlisted. Read more about Spotify playlisting here ----> https://artists.spotify.com/playlisting.
Check out SA Hip Hop Music Blog's Spotify Playlists here
---> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3cJQadaFqYPzi4LZhRv95Y
- Do a launch party.
A launch party is the best way to create anticipation for your new release. People get to see you & hear you perform your songs, & this a great way to create impact. A-Reece recently held a launch party for his P2 album and managed to achieve over 1 Million streams on the first day of his album release.
Best ways to promote an EP, mixtape or album.
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- Submit to radio stations - Radio stations have huge listeners such as YFM (They reach over 2 million people per day [Aross all platforms].) EG, People who use public transportation are forced to listen to radio on the way to work or school, and they might hear your song. The payout of radio is also high, so airplay also puts money into your pocket.
- Submit to tv stations - TV stations have a huge amount of viewers such as MTV Base South (They reach over 10 million viewers per day in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland & Lesotho.) As you can see, TV also helps you tap into an international market and the payout of TV is also high, so airplay also puts money into your pocket.
- Create an email - Create an email list with TV stations & radio stations and submit your music via email.
- Register with rights organisations; such as samro, Capasso, Sampra & Risa & other rights organization platforms -This will assist you in terms of copyrights and royalty pay outs for TV & radio.
- Drop music videos - Music videos are still the best & most effective way of promoting your music. Music videos express the visual side of your music & a good music video can actually change your life. An example is Master KG, who received over 450 Million views on his hit single Jerusalema on Youtube. Some people only engage after seeing your music videos.
- Drop snippets of the music video - Snippets help to build hype and awareness before the video drops. People know what to expect before you drop your music video. Create short snippets of the video and drop them as previews on social media.
- Promote the video via reels - Use snippets and drop them on Instagram reels & Tik Tok videos, to create awareness & anticipation.
- Sponsored posts - Sponsored posts can change your life, through sponsored posts you can target your market directly & tap into an international market, since you are able to choose the locations for your campaign.
Best ways to promote yourself as an artist.
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- Drop freestyle videos - Dropping freestyle videos frequently helps to build a fan base & create awareness for yourself. South African rapper Lucas Raps used this method to promote and boost his career. In this age content is key and one of the best methods is freestyle videos.
- Use social media - Social media is a tool that you can use to create a fan base, create awareness, connect to brands, companies & promoters. Nasty C, A-Reece & Emtee built strong fan bases on social media & it helped their careers. Social media is a tool that can change your life.
- Get a manager - Many artists are trying to do the music thing alone, but the truth is “You are not going anywhere if you think you can do this all on your own. " Music is a team sport, you can't be the goalkeeper & striker at the same time. A manager will help negotiate deals, shows & elements that will build and take your career to the next level.
- Go live on social media frequently - Going live helps you to connect with fans, you can use the medium to play your upcoming singles and let fans know what to expect. Nasty C uses this method to promote singles.
Best platforms to use as an upcoming artist & Independent artist.
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- SoundCloud - Soundcloud is an absolute game changer; the app has helped so many artists change their lives. Soundcloud is the best way to build & create a whole fans base for yourself. Artists such as The Big Hash, Blxckie, Nasty C, Ski Mask The Slump god, Juice Wxrld & Lil Yachty all used Soundcloud to start and build their musical careers.
- Audiomack - Audiomack is also a good platform and is developing rapidly.
- Slikour On Life - Slikour On Life is one of South Africa’s biggest media platform for musicians. They do articles, video interviews & also allow you to upload & host your music.
- Spotify - Spotify is the new Soundcloud, a lot of artists are using Spotify to build and start their careers. Spotify has over half a billion users and is known across the whole world.
Best distribution platforms.
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Low budget
- Amuse & United Masters allows artists who have a low budget to create free accounts & publish your music onto various digital stores. This is perfect for artists who are still building but want to start releasing music on a low budget.
High Budget
- Tunecore & Ditto are perfect for established artists who are trying to get their music to digital stores. Tunecore & Ditto also have an option for sync licensing, which is the money side of the music business. They also have options to help market your music & get your songs playlisted.
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Communication & connections.
How to communicate?
Communication is a vital part of your music career. You can have good music & good music videos but if your communication is lacking, you won’t go far. If no one is calling you or contacting you to get bookings, shows, brand deals & appearances, it simply means you are lacking in the communication field.
(You are now failing, you just don't have connections.)
Communication allows you to connect and be around the people you need to be in order to take your career to the next level.
Good communication can benefit you in the following ways:
- Connect to brands and get ambassador & partnership deals.
- Get bookings & guest appearances.
- Get radio interviews & radio airplay.
- Get TV interviews & TV airplay.
- Make money by commercialising your brand.
- Interact with other bigger celebs, artists & brands.
- Contact bloggers.
- Attend events & try to talk to club owners, DJ's & promoters.
- Attend music workshops.
- Get a manager.
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