How to promote your music with fan-based marketing

Get some sweet tips on how to promote your band by engaging your fans to help you. For even more inspo, check out these Amazon affiliate links:
It All Begins With A Song
Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for the Whole Branding Team
Fanocracy: Turning Fans into Customers and Customers into Fans

Watch the new Hartiverse video about fan-based marketing here: https://youtu.be/Mg-M_KQ7St4

As an indie musician, do you feel held back because you don’t have the power of the big distribution companies to help you sell your CDs? It’s a common problem, but there are some easy-to-learn ways to get local exposure for your gigs and ultimately get your stockpile of CDs sold. To do it all alone is possible, but it’s better to have some help.

One of the positives of being an indie band is that you have some loyal fans who want you to succeed. If you know how to do it right, you can have your fans actually help you sell your CDs. Don t be too literal and recruit your fans to be salesmen, but have them spread the words about you, and this is something they will do naturally if they are excited about your band. Word-of-mouth is generally the best form of advertising, and your fans are one of your best resources. The key is to channel that momentum into generating a buzz about your music. There are a couple of tried-and-true methods for doing this.

Street teams consist of fans who are willing to promote your band in a number of ways in return for perks like free merchandise and admission to concerts. Gather your street team through email lists on your band’s website. Prominently place a signup form on your website to draw attention to it. Street teams work for free, so be clear about what you’ll give them in exchange for their help. Don’t try to get your street team to sell the CDs directly. They are your advertising crew, not your sales force. Rather, just have your street team create a buzz about the band itself, by giving them small posters they can print out and post for you, or send them stickers. Get them to encourage their friends to attend shows, and point people to a website where your CDs are available for purchase.

These days, everybody is into social networking, including your fans. If you can connect with them on places like Facebook and Twitter, you can use this to your advantage. Post fun stuff like YouTube videos, along with mentions of your CDs for sale, because your fans are more likely to spread the word by Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Snapchat to their own circles of friends. The rapper Tom MacDonald is a natural at this kind of grassroots organizing, and being spontaneous on his YouTube channel, talking to his friends over the right-hand chat bar, or by telling exciting stories, like the time he went to Tranquille, Canada, to shoot a music video at the sanitorium and got completely spooked out by the paranormal forces at work there. Offer autographed CDs. Be a friendly artist because it’s okay to occasionally ask your fans to share about your CD specifically. But don’t be overly aggressive about sales with them. Just interact naturally with your fans, and they’ll spread the word about you, and you know what that means: money in your pocket!

Be cool and natural about gaining fans and growing your fan base, because it’s better to have fan loyalty to get exposure for your band.

If you got some sweet ideas on how to promote your band from this video, be sure to slap a like on it and subscribe to the channel. Bye for now!

jamiehart

Content creator and Chewbacca cosplayer.

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