An area that is (rightly) focused on by many bands and music marketing strategists is the area of ads. Specifically, digital ads on Meta and Google/YouTube. The reason why is that it is absolutely vital to get your music in front of new people, and ads, when targeted correctly, can prove to be invaluable to the overall success of a band’s single or album drop.
However, one thing to make sure of is that you don’t spend your entire time and financial budget on *just* digital advertising. A correctly targeted ad campaign, while vital, is just one component of a successful launch.
When you’re planning out a campaign, whether it be for a single, video, or album, you should make sure you have a few elements in place, including:
Press outreach
Make sure that appropriate media have been sent a press release. This means making sure that the relevant blogs and journalists who cover your genre have the news. The reason why is press is third-party validation. If people see your ad after seeing a third-party news post or review, they are far more likely to click. This is what is known as “social proof’ and can immensely help build your credibility.
Social media posts
These help build awareness and drive traffic to your music via direct interaction with fans. Responding to comments and thanking people directly for listening builds tremendous goodwill and helps to build a rabid fan base.
Email Blasts
Email lists are owned by your band and are also made up of people who have either purchased from you or opted in to your list in the past. These are people who have directly said they want to hear from you. This is a powerful and vastly underutilized tool to help drive traffic to your music. Send an email when you announce your song, when you release your song, and a few weeks after in order to create the most powerful effects.
Influencers
Social media influencers exist for all genres of music nowadays and on all platforms. Many don’t require any payment at all and will post about your band simply for the sheer love of music. Frequently, if you reach out to one and they like your music, they will make a post.
YouTube Channels
This is a huge untapped resource in many instances. Again, there are YouTube channels that cover pretty much every genre nowadays. Some channels will do a reaction to your song, some will do a review, and some might even interview you! YouTube is the second-largest search engine, next to Google, so if you spend some time making connections with some of these channels, it can really help make your band grow.
These are just a few of the actions you can take in addition to paid advertising. The main thing to do is to make sure you focus on incorporating all of these strategies into making your campaign a success vs just limiting yourself to one avenue. The thing with ads is that they need to be backed up with other actions in order to truly utilize their potential. If you do, the sky is the limit on what you can achieve.
For more information on how we can help you to utilize these strategies, please contact Curtis or Cori at corinne@csquared.info or curtis@csquared.info