Shit You Need To Realize As An Indie Artist!

 Indie Artist Facts

The first problem that indie artist face is the fact that they didn’t become musicians because they are in to promoting themselves and their music, people become musicians because they love making music and expressing themselves with their instruments and their voice. Now this is a problem, while we would love to make money by simply doing something we like, it doesn’t go smoothly as we would like. A musician, in order to be successful needs to be good at promoting and marketing. Especially in the first stages in their respective career where this is crucial.

This fact is any musician, without an effective marketing campaign, musicians simply will not be able to do what they like in order to make a living. And the fact remains that you need money to make money, this of course applies to making music as well, money is constantly lost in promotions and marketing, and the bottom line has to leave you in the profit zone.

How and why people buy your music?

When a musician tries to launch a marketing campaign with minimal investment they all tend to do the same thing, send a bunch of E-mails and of course promote their mixtape covers and tracks on Facebook and twitter. After a couple of days of doing this people tend to generally give up after they landed a couple of sales. This however can be a fatal mistake. First of all you need to understand that people who like your music aren’t labeled as those who buy and those who don’t buy, there is a wide spectrum in between. For example. Somebody saw your Facebook post, and actually wanted to buy your new album, but at the time didn’t have the money. That person needs to be reminded of the fact that you have a new album out. Another angle of approach would be a person who wanted to buy your album, and had the money, but at the last moment didn’t do so for reasons unknown. This list of situations can go on for miles, and the bottom line is that keeping an active marketing campaign is a must when you are a musician, don’t just give up after a few weeks of promotion.

Driving our sales

First let me stress how important your mixtape cover artwork or single artwork is hi def and professional that is the first thing people pay attention to so make sure you graphics are attention grabbing.Now you have a basic understanding of your clientele and how they should not be labeled as those who bought your album and those who didn’t. the first thing that any musician should know is where people fall into the previously mentioned spectrum, understanding this will help you drive you sales.

Let’s say that your first step was sending out mass E-mails to the people who are subscribed to you, of course needless to say you had a link in your E-mail to the location where you album can be purchased and downloaded, the next obvious step would be for you to track your analytics. After a couple of weeks take a good look at them. Look for information that indicates how many people opened your E-mail, how many people clicked your link and how many people actually bought your new album, tracking these analytics will give you a good idea where the people on your mailing list are on your spectrum of buyers, and always keep in mind that a lot of people that are on your mailing list could have missed your E-mail for various reasons. As before, constant marketing will help you drive your sales, with the exception of having analytic data that will improve your overall marketing campaign.

Know your audience

Now that you have actual hard data for you to look over, you will have a general idea what type of people actually like your music. The next step you should take is to make a marketing campaign aimed at the people who already bought your music. The first thing that you should realize that this portion of your audience is generally interested in your music and what you have to offer. With this said its safe to assume that they will most probably buy your older albums as well. So take some time to set up a marketing campaign covering your older albums, people who bought your more recent work will be interested, so feel free to cash in on your previous hard work.

The analytics of your older albums

This is something that most musicians simply do not do, and by not doing so, are making a colossal mistake. After you have marketed your’ newer and older albums, take a look at the analytics one again. It is a hard fact that the number of sales will differ with your new and old albums. So what can you learn from this? The differential margin in sales between your old and new work is a direct indicator of what kind of music people are looking for in your albums. Needless to say that if your new album has more sales than the old one, you are going in the right direction. However, if this is not the case, and your older album has indeed more sales than the new one, take a good look at what you are doing with your music, and maybe take a step back, even listen to your old album and see what kind of vibe you are getting from it.

In conclusion

With this article we hope that we have helped all the musicians out there understand how important it is for them to promote their music, and how important it is for all the musicians out there to understand that there is a wide spectrum of people who actually like their music and who actually buy their music. Whatever you as a musician decide to do with your music, remember that your audience and your fans will ultimately be your way to success, or the way to your downfall, so go ahead, listen do what they have to say and promote your music the best way you can.