Author: pete

  • A Quick Guide to Music Marketing for Indie Musicians

    A Quick Guide to Music Marketing for Indie Musicians

    There are many different platforms that musicians can use to market their music. However, before you start planning your music marketing campaign, here are some important tips to help ensure that everything goes smoothly.

    A Quick Guide to Music Marketing for Indie Musicians

    1 – Set the right budget for your music marketing campaign

    With a limited budget, it’s important to spend your money wisely. Make sure that your social media marketing on Facebook and Twitter, for example, is well managed. Ensure you have a clear, detailed plan for your marketing strategy.

    2 – Set your music and story apart from other artists

    Try to think of ways to make your music and story stand out. Make it easy for people to remember you. This can help to build your reputation and popularity. Whether it is your music, stage show, or your band, find that unique aspect that defines you. Your audience can be sure to enjoy something that not many other artists can provide.

    3 – Your music marketing should capture your listeners’ attention

    Track how many people are clicking on your music, videos, and other content. Monitor how your music is being received by those who listen to your music, whether it is a live show or simply a digital download. Your goal should be to effectively market and promote your music. Find a way to connect with both new and existing fans. Be sure to make it as easy as possible for your fans to find you.

    4 – Use a clear CTA

    Make it as easy as possible for your fans to help you promote your music. If you want your fans to share your music on social media, make a clear call to action. This will help you connect with more people who are interested in what you have to offer. For example, instead of asking a fan to help you promote your music on their social media, ask them to share your music. You can still use the word “share,” but it might be a better option for you to use something like “share on Facebook.” This will give you more opportunities to connect with new people who may not be your fan yet. Reaching a wider audience is the key to establishing yourself as an indie musician.

    5 – Know what your marketing goal is

    Take some time to think about what kind of outcome you want from your music marketing campaign. You may have several goals. For example, you may want to establish your reputation as an indie musician. You could also want to help grow your fan base. You might have a goal that touches on both of these aspects. It’s also important to think about what you want your fans to do. Do you want your fans to purchase more of your music? Do you want them to share your music with their friends? Do you want them to attend your shows? Thinking about your goals will bring you one step closer to achieving them.

    Conclusion

    Music marketing does not have to be difficult. If you have a clear plan in place, you will be more likely to succeed. Spend some time thinking about all the aspects that need to be in place before you start planning your music marketing campaign. It’s important to take the time to think about the goals you have and the things that you want your fans to do.

    If you want to have higher chances of getting noticed as an artist, Promoly can help! We are a digital music marketing company that helps innovative brands promote their audio over email and social media. Track recipient engagement, drive more features, push more sales and get your brand noticed. Start now; no credit card required.

     
  • The Beginner’s Guide to Email Marketing for Podcasters

    The Beginner’s Guide to Email Marketing for Podcasters

    Email marketing is a great way to engage your audience on a consistent basis. Send your subscribers updates on your latest shows, promote new episodes, drive traffic to your podcast, ask for feedback from your audience, promote your products, and much more. This blog post will tell you all about the benefits of email marketing with a podcast.

    The Beginner’s Guide to Email Marketing for Podcasters

    1 – Connect with your loyal listeners

    Your podcast is like a conversation with your audience. You share your content with them, and your audience gives you feedback. Because of this, it’s important to stay connected with your audience. Email is one of the best ways to do so.

    2 – Grow your revenue

    Email marketing is a convenient way to grow your revenue, and a podcast is a great way to grow your revenue. So, if you grow your revenue with a podcast, you can then grow your revenue with email marketing.

    3 – Control your messages

    One great thing about marketing through email is that you can control what you say. You can create your email templates using your best content (or the most recent episodes). You can send out content with your voice (your podcast) or with someone else’s voice (like your host). You can send out content with the podcast’s logo or without it. You can also sell your products directly through email.

    Tips to Turn Loyal Listeners into Eager email Subscribers

    1 – Create a simple, short, memorable URL

    You want your audience to remember where to go to subscribe, and you want it to be easy for them to type. A great way to accomplish this is to use a short and memorable URL. Use a word and a number (example: podcast.com/v5j). If you don’t like your podcast’s name, or if it’s too long, you can always create a subdomain. For example, if you want to turn www.example.com/podcast into www.example.com/podcast, just create a subdomain like podcast.example.com and use it as your email address.

    2 – Create a clear call-to-action, and use it a lot!

    If you want your listeners to subscribe to your show, you’re going to have to ask them. You need to be very clear about what you want, and you also need to repeat it. You can’t just ask once and then assume that everyone will remember. Use different wording and imagery as much as possible. Make sure that the link is obvious, and make sure it’s easy to type.

    3 – Use your social media following or existing audience

    Use your social media following and existing email list to grow your email list. Updating your Twitter and Facebook accounts to tell your audience about your new email subscription is a great way to grow your list. You may also consider sending out a personal tweet or Facebook message to your followers and fans asking them to sign up.

    Conclusion

    Email marketing and podcasting go together like peanut butter and jelly. It’s an easy way to grow your podcast and its following, and it’s an easy way to grow your revenue. There are a lot of ways to market your podcast through email, and if you use them all, it could easily be one of your most profitable marketing channels.

    If you need help growing your following, get started in using Promoly! We aim to help innovative brands promote their audio over email and social media. Let us help you with your audio marketing strategy today!

     
  • Red Flags in Branding That You Need to Address Quickly

    Red Flags in Branding That You Need to Address Quickly

    Sometimes, your company’s branding can become stuck for reasons you don’t understand. Understand that this is normal for most people, but it is something that you must not overlook. If you believe your branding is falling behind the competition, you should always consider rebranding.

    With day-to-day business operation issues piling up, it may be difficult for you to think of better rebranding strategies. The only way to solve it is to look at it from a different angle, identify the problem, and solve it.

    It’s easier said than done, right? Well, read on for more information on identifying branding red flags that you need to address right away.

    Your Business Isn’t Being Discovered

    The most difficult challenge for businesses is a lack of brand awareness. This is a red flag when your potential customers are unaware of your existence. You’re having a lot of trouble with branding because your target audience can’t find you online.

    You must act quickly to develop better marketing strategies or partner with marketing agencies that can assist you in building a stronger digital presence and reaching a more significant number of potential customers. Good planning of social media strategies and a reliable audio marketing strategy or word-of-mouth are all strategies.

    Consider also ensuring that you focus on the correct audience. Your branding can be very poor because your target audience is not the right one for your business.

    Your Clients Are Not Aware of Your Products or Services

    Another red flag, and perhaps the most telling sign, that your marketing is failing is when your target audience does not understand your company. Your brand is the focal point of your identity. It embodies who you are, what you offer, and how you conduct business. Your company may be the best solution for your target audience, but your branding will be the one that introduces it to them.

    Furthermore, while your branding strategy may work at first, business demands change quickly. You should know how to keep up with the changes and immediately apply solutions to your branding.

    Your Brand Identity Is Not Appealing

    Examine your branding and its distinctiveness if you’re losing business to the competition. Apply your branding to show your audience why they should choose you over your competitors if you want to set yourself out from the competition. An appealing brand is unique and exciting.

    Bear in mind that if you do not distinguish yourself from your competitors, you will be compelled to compete on price. If you do not provide a good enough reason for your audience to choose you, they may opt for the less expensive option.

    Conclusion

    Creating a captivating brand is one of the most important things you can do to ensure your company’s long-term success. A brand is the soul of your company; what it stands for, how it looks, how it sounds, and, most importantly, how it distinguishes itself from the competition. Developing a new brand identity requires time, thought, and planning. Whether you go in-house or hire a design firm, make sure you have a clear vision for the result.

    Promoly is a digital audio advertising company specializing in assisting innovative brands in boosting online interaction through music marketing and other cutting-edge tactics. Additionally, we can guide you in tracking recipient engagement, eenhancing feature adoption, increasing sales, and improving brand recognition. Contact us immediately!

     
  • How Nimrod Azoulai co-launched Mysphera and helped thousands of artists reach new audiences and fans

    How Nimrod Azoulai co-launched Mysphera and helped thousands of artists reach new audiences and fans

    Nimrod Azoulai is Co-Founder and CEO of Mysphera, a music promotion business that connects new music to content creators. Mysphera’s tailor-made solutions have helped thousands of artists reach new audiences and fans. In this episode, Nimrod talked about launching Mysphera, growing the company, and building an algorithm for connecting new music with playlisters, DJs, bloggers, and more. Nimrod also shares cutting edge techniques about how you can promote your music and build new audiences. 

    Find out more about Mysphera here.

     
  • 5 Things to Prepare Before Marketing Your New Music

    5 Things to Prepare Before Marketing Your New Music

    Just like consumer brands, your music career also requires sound marketing strategies to succeed. You need to get people to listen to your songs, and you can’t do that without advertising. To broaden your reach and open more doors of opportunity, you must invest resources into promotion and marketing.

    To reach more listeners, you can develop a marketing and sales funnel, which is a customer-focused marketing approach that goes through the journey a listener would go through towards purchasing your music. The reason it’s called a funnel is because people get out of the process along the way and fall into particular stages of marketing.

    However, before you design a marketing and sales funnel, you have to take into account a few crucial considerations. Keep on reading for the prerequisites you need to make your marketing campaign a success.

    1. Focus On Creating Amazing Music

    Before you think about how to market your music, you need to deliver a great product. To build a career in this industry, it’s important to build up a solid foundation first—write and produce music that your target audience will adore.

    2. Define Your Brand

    Accordingly, it is important to establish your brand before you rise to fame. What do you want people to think about when they hear your name? Think about how you want to show the world who you are and the type of music you want to make. People will be captivated by your personality, so think about merging it with your public persona.

    3. Design an Attractive Website

    One way to express who you are is by launching an aesthetically pleasing, fully functional, and optimized website. This is the very first stage of your marketing journey, and it will be the primary objective for your marketing efforts. Make sure you focus on web design, navigation, and user-friendliness to keep your target customers satisfied.

    4. Be Active on Social Media

    When people hear your music and become interested in what else you’ve created, they will look for you on social media. Make sure you have profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Post new content regularly and engage with the fans that find you.

    5. Utilize Tracking Tools and Prepare Analytics

    To measure success in your marketing ventures, you need some specific tools and analytics.

    • Social Media Analytics – You can use tools that allow you to do content research, curation, brand monitoring, collaboration, and post scheduling. 
    • Music Brand Engagement Analytics – If you can, you should sign up for tools that offer data integration across sources like streaming, radio, and social media.
    • Lead Generation Analytics – Work on email marketing campaigns and designing effective landing pages to gain leads and convert them to listeners and even paying customers.
    • Music Distribution Analytics – You should be able to access a dashboard of your music performance on streaming platforms and digital storefronts like Spotify for Artists.

    Final Thoughts

    As a musician, you should treat your career like a business startup. Aside from offering unique products (your songs), you should also be strategic in marketing to reach business success. Remember to target your actions toward your chosen demographic and build relationships to get loyal customers (your fans!).

    If you are looking to build your music marketing strategies, check the solutions offered by Promoly. Promoly is an audio content promotion tool to help you promote an album release or anything related to your music. Go through our pricing packages today to learn more.

     
  • Audio Marketing: Why You Should Invest in This Medium

    Audio Marketing: Why You Should Invest in This Medium

    When it comes to digital marketing, videos and photos are the go-to media for advertisers. While they are indeed good content types, there is another currently thriving medium that companies should not overlook―audio marketing. 

    Now that people are becoming busier each day, their free time is more limited than ever. For that reason, these people are on the lookout for activities they can do that do not require much attention. 

    That is where audio marketing becomes advantageous. People can listen to audio materials anytime and anywhere. They play an audiobook while doing household chores, listen to a podcast while they take a shower or travel from place to place, or put on their favorite tunes while they work or exercise. Overall, these audio materials help people double up their productivity. 

    In the US, Spoken Word Audio reported that almost half (43 percent) of the US population at the age of 13 and up listen to audio content daily. If you are looking for more marketing opportunities, this is a medium you should explore and include in your marketing strategy. If not, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. 

    How Powerful Is Audio Marketing?

    The world is getting more technologically advanced each day. Nowadays, people can get what they need by simply commanding voice-activated devices. There are also emerging applications that are highly focused on audio and voice communication, such as Alexa and Amazon’s Audible. 

    Tech giants like Google and Apple are also building their home automation system activated by voice, and apps like Google Maps also utilize the same medium. There is no denying audio’s contribution to the advancing world.

    Podcasts also provide the perfect medium for those looking for advertisement placement in an online audio broadcast. They come in long episodes, but the loyalty of listeners is high, with a high average retention rate. Thanks to this format, advertisers can reach out to their target audience with more in-depth and compelling messaging. 

    Benefits of Adding Audio Marketing Strategy to Your Content Marketing

    Helps You Gain More Leads

    Doesn’t an audio material appeal more than the other usual lead-generating pop-ups, landing pages, or forms? Audio posts on blogs can successfully increase your lead generation efforts by 20 percent and more. That is according to the experience of RD Station, which used the same strategy and achieved excellent results in the process. Audio advertising is refreshing, as people do not always have the time to watch or read on the internet. 

    Brings User a Better Experience

    Audio content is relatively new that you can try. It can also allow users to just listen anytime to your audio content, which helps improve their experience. Add text support to the experience, and you sandwich your audience with a text and sound that can keep their attention longer. That is always better than just reading the long text version only. Plus, it helps strengthen your website’s SEO and the audience’s average time spent on the page. 

    Human Voice Makes Your Content More Humane

    Nothing makes your content more sensible and approachable than letting people read and communicate with other people. You get to engage people who have no time to read or do other activities while listening to your audio content. 

    Conclusion

    The digital platform is fast-changing every time, and those who are always ahead of the game survive. If you have not tried to include an audio marketing strategy in your content plan, it is time you consider it. If it fits your brand and there are unique ideas you can do, why not start implementing them soon? You could reach your goals faster if you continue to discover and own great content.

    Once you have it, Promoly can help companies promote that audio content over email and social media through an effective audio marketing strategy. Our dashboard can help you track your promo campaigns on a simple and readily accessible platform. Start your seven-day trial today!

     
  • What You Need to Know When Designing Your Podcast Cover Art

    What You Need to Know When Designing Your Podcast Cover Art

    Just because a podcast is mostly audio doesn’t mean there aren’t any visuals involved. You still need to create a stellar podcast cover art to help users identify your podcast. And if you’re not sure how to make one, we’ve gathered some tips that will hopefully help you make the best cover art for your podcast.

    Use Your Cover Art to Tell Your Podcast’s Story

    Think of your podcast cover art as a cover of a book. Yes, it’s what’s on the inside that matters and you should never judge a book by its cover. But the book cover is often what draws people in, making them curious enough to check what the book is all about.

    So in this sense, your podcast cover art should be able to clearly show what your podcast is about. Think about the main topic or main themes of your podcast. And use those elements to create your cover art.

    For example, if it’s a true-crime podcast, you may want to go with a darker theme. You can also use some true-crime elements, such as case files and magnifying glasses, in your art. But if, let’s say, your podcast is a comedy podcast, then maybe you would want to use more vibrant colors and have your photo in the cover art. 

    Identify Your Audience

    One of the most important things when starting a podcast is correctly identifying your audience. This can help you make your decisions moving forward, such as what type of cover art you want to make. 

    For example, if you’re hosting a podcast all about finance, then your audience is likely to be more serious. So, you probably want to make a podcast cover art that looks more professional.

    Don’t Use Too Many Fonts

    One of the basics of graphic design is to never go overboard with the fonts. Yes, it can be overwhelming with all the cool fonts available out there. But you need to stick to just one or two, so it won’t look like such a mess. 

    You should also be careful about the type of font you use. Remember, your end goal with the fonts is to ensure that it is clear and readable. So, going with an overly complicated font may not be what’s best for you. You also have to consider how small cover arts can look on a mobile device. So, fonts that are too thin may not exactly be readable all the time.

    Consider Whether to Use Photos Or Drawings

    For podcast cover arts, you can go with a photo or an illustration. There is also the option to have a combination of photos and graphic illustrations. 

    The choice ultimately comes down to what vibe you want your podcast cover art to give off. For example, photos give a podcast cover art a more realistic feel. So, it may be better for more serious topics. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t use drawings for those types of topics. You just have to be more careful about what art style to go with.

    Final Thoughts

    Your podcast cover art reflects your podcast. It gives the audience a sense of what your podcast is about before they start listening. And when you have good cover art, you are more likely to attract the attention of new listeners.

    Get more people to listen to your podcast with the help of Promoly. We are a digital audio advertising company that helps innovative brands promote their audio over email and social media. Start your seven-day trial now!

     
  • For Musicians: How To Make an Effective Marketing Strategy

    For Musicians: How To Make an Effective Marketing Strategy

    For most musicians, creating and producing music is a passion. However, if you’re a musician yourself, you must know that your passion will not be enough to make people listen to your music. Creating and producing music is also like a business. If you want them to listen to your songs, you must effectively market yourself and your music to them. That’s why you need to have a marketing strategy in place. 

    Fortunately for you, we’ve curated some tips on making an effective marketing strategy so that you can spread your songs out there for the world to hear and consume. 

    Here’s how you can make an effective marketing strategy to make people listen and appreciate your craft: 

    Tip #1:  Know Who Your Fans Are

    To reach the widest possible audience, you need to know those people interested in your music. You need to know who your fans are because that can help you create an effective marketing strategy. If you have a background about where your audience is based, how old they are, and where they spend time online, you can build a marketing strategy that accurately reaches them. Moreover, your efforts will not be wasted because you know those people will really listen to your music

    To know who your fan bases are, you can utilize data that is already available to you. You can use analytics tools built into your musician website and review the results of your site visits. From there, you can determine your fans’ demographics, search terms, and interests that can help you understand your audience.  

    Tip #2: Market on Both Potential and Current Fans

    When creating your marketing strategy, make sure that it is for your current fans and potential fans. Don’t solely focus on your current fans because that will not grow your fan base. While going heavy on marketing your music to your current fans will help because they can spread and share your music with others, you should still make your own efforts to build your fan base by creating new fans with exciting and engaging content. This way, there’s a higher chance that you can get the results you want. 

    Tip #3: Include Social Media in Your Marketing Strategy

    Social media is the most effective platform to grow your audience. It’s where you can target most people, so focus on creating your social media efforts to make your marketing strategy more effective. 

    You can use social media to drive fans back to your website. This way, they can explore your content and music in more depth, increasing your chances of converting them into loyal and true fans who will continue to engage with your future releases. You can also utilize paid social media ads to better target and reach potential listeners. 

    Conclusion

    As a musician, having a marketing strategy is important because no matter how good your music is, people will not listen if they don’t know you and your music existed in the first place. So, you have to serve yourself and your music to them with the help of an effective marketing strategy. Just follow our tips to jumpstart your marketing strategy creation for your music. 

    If you need help in promoting an album release, Promoly is the perfect tool you can rely on! It is an audio and content promotion tool that helps you drive downloads and grow your audience. It also helps innovative brands promote their audio over email and social media, track their recipient engagement, drive more features, push more sales, and get their brand noticed. Sign up today and start your 7-day trial! 

     
  • 4 Ways You Can Release Singles To Maximize Success

    4 Ways You Can Release Singles To Maximize Success

    Releasing singles can be an exciting moment for you. After so much hard work, you can share with the world the wonderful music you have made. You’ve been through many challenges, and now you’re here. However, there’s one more challenge to overcome: how should you exactly release your singles? If you cannot answer that question, don’t worry. There are many strategies as to which you can release your singles to achieve different goals.

    Today, we want to share with you various ways to deploy your singles to take your music career to the next level:

    1. Plant the Flag

    As you might have noticed, many big names today started their career by releasing their singles. They treated their single as an introduction to all the songs that were to follow. Such powerful debuts of their songs can solidify to the audience the type of music they can expect from the artist, and those who love it can stay. If this is what you want to do with your singles, then go ahead. Make sure it is authentic to you and clarify who you are as an artist. Think of it like planting a flag, telling others exactly what you’re all about.

    2. Forever a Stand-Alone

    Some singles are exactly what their name implies: singles. They stand alone, not connected to any other songs. If you are experiencing different music or want to produce songs that you can put all your creativity into, one-offs are a great way to share your singles. Not only can it be a lot more fun, but if the music doesn’t actually do well, it won’t tarnish your image as much as music that was meant to showcase to others what else you have in store that’s related to the song.

    3. Clear the Clutter

    Do you have a pile of songs you tried to compose many years ago? Don’t worry. Every artist faces the same challenge as you do. However, do understand that these old songs can be revitalized and used. Often you can find yourself halfway through a piece before giving up. However, once you come back to listen to it again, you might have new ideas and new takes that can turn what was “okay” into something extraordinary. Releasing these singles, in a way, helps to reduce clutter and allows you to continue releasing music that won’t take as much effort as starting from scratch.

    4. Maintain the Momentum

    If you’ve been on fire releasing hit songs that people love, you can release singles to continue the previous songs’ momentums. This is especially true if you released a full album but still want to capitalize on its popularity. When people start to move on to other songs, you can bring them right back with singles that carry out the story. Everything from remixes, demos, and even live recordings can help you carry the momentum of your previous songs, and when they are finally released, they can be used to refer to your main album.

    Conclusion

    As you can tell, there are just so many ways to release your singles. You can release it as a stand-alone, as a momentum carrier, or as a way to showcase who you really are. Regardless of how you release it, however, be sure that the music you release are ones you can truly stand behind. There’s no point releasing songs you don’t vibe with, as that will do nothing more than push away your audience. As such, spend the time understanding how and why a single will be released, but spend more time ensuring that the music you craft speaks to your heart!

    Promoly is a platform that helps innovative bands promote their music over social media and email, all the while tracking engagement, pushing more sales, and more. If you are looking for an audio marketing strategy to grow your brand, sign up for our service today!

     
  • Talk the Talk: 5 Best Practices for Launching a Podcast

    Talk the Talk: 5 Best Practices for Launching a Podcast

    Launching a podcast isn’t a walk in the park. But since podcasting is one of the newer forms of media available to the public, most people use it to discuss topics that may be relevant to others. Therefore, you may want to consider putting out audio files for others to listen to and hopefully learn something from.

    Similarly, many things could go wrong when launching a website where you plan to showcase your podcast. Fortunately, through the experience of others, you can avoid some common mistakes newbies make to ensure a seamless listening experience. 

    Here are some best practices new podcasters should incorporate into their podcast launch.

    1. Choose a Simple Name

    If people want to succeed with podcasting, they should choose a simple yet catchy name for the show. Although complexity isn’t discouraged, naming a podcast show shouldn’t be difficult as listeners would need to recall and identify it at a single glance.

    Some podcasts may contain valuable content but lack the simplicity of the show’s name. As a result, people often forget about them and continue listening to other podcasts whose titles have been recalled and built for the general public.

    2. Implore an Audio Marketing Strategy

    Similar to other forms of media, podcasts may also need help from various advertising or marketing campaigns to boost audience engagement and visibility. An excellent audio marketing strategy should help introduce the show to the general public, especially for those starting.

    As a result, more people will be tuned in to the show. Podcast shows can depend on organic audience growth as well. However, if you’re in a rush and want to share the content immediately with your listeners, it’s best to use specific advertising and marketing campaigns to get people interested.

    3. Use Sophisticated and Fitting Graphics

    Graphics play a significant role in podcasting. Some people base their attention on podcasts that use creative graphic art on their covers for each episode or series on streaming platforms.

    Like album art, the graphics used on podcast covers should entice people and convince them to listen to the show’s content. Although judging a book by its cover isn’t good, some people rely on compelling graphics, encouraging them to engage or interact with the media format.

    4. Launch a Complimentary Website

    A website is an essential tool for most businesses nowadays. If you’re planning to monetize your podcast in the future, it’s best to launch it with a complimentary website that listeners could visit.

    In turn, the website grows its reputation and online authority while the podcast establishes its place in the public’s eyes. In the end, both platforms should support the goal of informing people about how they can reach out to the podcast creators for more information on the content released.

    5. Select a Specific Niche

    Selecting a niche is the most critical part of launching a website. Podcasts can’t be a general-themed show—people wouldn’t think of it as a reliable source of information unless it focuses on one topic and branches out to relevant themes around it.

    Conclusion

    Launching a podcast isn’t a walk in the park. However, because of people who have found their shows first, mistakes have been made and can now guide future podcasters into establishing their presentations on an excellent note.

    Promoly is a digital music marketing platform for creators, helping clients build and grow their audience online. Our goal is to establish digital content creators through systematized audio marketing strategies while getting the audience interested. Instead of hiring expensive music PR companies, work with us by starting your seven-day free trial on our website today!