How to Effectively Market Your Music in One Simple Step
This post originally appeared on DarrenCooper.com.
By Darren Cooper
In today’s industry one of the biggest obstacles independent musicians face is figuring out the best way to do music marketing. What tools should be used? Is Facebook or Twitter better? How can they get people to stop and take interest in what they’re doing? All are great questions, but I would go as far to say that best thing you can do as an independent musician is stop marketing your music!
I remember walking up to my dorm room when my friend from down the hall busted out of his door and came running towards me.
“Have you heard this?,” he asked, as he wildly shook a CD in my face. “What is it?,” I said in return, simply because his excitement was somewhat contagious. “Ummm…their called Sugar Ross or Cigar Row or something like that. I don’t know exactly, but you have to listen to them!”
The band he was trying to pronounce was Sigur Rós, an Icelandic post-rock band that produced this wonderfully angelic sound like something I had never hear before. By the time the first song was over, I was hooked.
From there Sigur Rós took over our campus. It didn’t matter who’s dorm room you entered, you immediately recognized the album playing. There was just something about it. It drew you in, compelling you to hang on ever note. Each track digging into you a little deeper until you were exactly where it wanted you. It was purely intoxicating.
In the moths to come there wasn’t a person I met that I didn’t tell them about the amazing experience Sigur Rós was. I feel in love with them all over again with each person I introduced to their wonderful sound. I was hooked.
This got me thinking…
We’re always asking ourselves what the next best practice is and how we can get our music in front of the right fans. We’re wondering how use tools like Facebook and Twitter to maximize our reach. We just want people to pay attention to us.
This is all well and good, but I believe they best way to market your music is to make your audience feel something. Something deep down in their gut, something that leaves them begging for just one more listen. I believe that this is best practice for marketing your music.
Years ago I read a quote by Maya Angelou that hit me hard. She said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
When you make your fans feel something they will do what I did when I heard Sigur Rós for the first time. They will tell anyone and everyone about you just so they can relive how you made them feel all over again.
So let’s stop trying so hard to market our music and let’s start making people feel something with our music. Then we can sit back and watch as others start paying attention in ways we only could dream of before. It’s all about how they feel.
It’s a simple concept, but one that doesn’t come easily. You have to always be thinking, pushing yourself to figure out new ways to take your audience on a journey. It’s going to be hard, but it will be worth it. People pay attention to the way you make them feel!
Don’t give up.
Keep trying and keep creating.
We need you and your voice.
Let’s go! Rise up and create your art!!
Question: What do you think about this? Agree? Who was the last artist that made you feel something? What was your response after you heard them?
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