Being an indie artist means taking a lot of time beyond just your creative work for promotion. The modern tools that surround us can allow us to have great success in creating our own career with our passions, but it takes self-motivation to learn how to use those tools correctly.
There are many excellent indie music artists out there who have the skills of their own trade down, but they aren’t taking the time to learn the skills of the trade they really need to become successful. The truth is that the information is out there to learn how to be a successful marketer of your own work, most of us are just plain lazy.
Here are three of the top three things indie music artists don’t do at their own peril:
#1 Make a Plan
Repeat after me: You can’t be successful in internet marketing without making a solid plan. Too many people in so many trades, not just music, go about trying to promote their business, blog or work in all the wrong ways. Namely, they just do whatever feels right at whatever given time to spread word about their work. If you want to be successful as an indie artist, you’re going to have to learn how to create a serious marketing plan that takes into account timelines, market analysis, metrics, specific objectives and strategies.
#2 Marketing Beyond Social Media
No, you won’t get famous simply off social media. Social media is an extremely important element of marketing your music, but it is certainly not the only one. Too many indie artists stick with what they know and only promote their work on social media. To be successful, you should use a mix of both offline and online tactics, such as radio promotion, flyers, video promotions, street performances, online marketing, public appearances and more.
#3 Creating and Maintaining an Email List
When you begin actually building a fan base up, you want to make sure you can keep in contact with that fan base. Too many indie artists rely on social media marketing to communicate with their fan base. The truth is, people are not always going to get notifications and check your page. If you can get your fans on an email list, however, you can communicate directly to them about upcoming events and releases.
