Music marketing,
simplified.

Intro

After working with thousands of artists on music video projects, I’ve come to recognize that many of them inadvertently get sucked into inefficient and often questionable marketing services. Starting a couple of businesses that have made several million in sales let me experiment with a lot of marketing. Here’s what actually works, and what doesn’t.

If you’d like my help along the way, you can reach me here.

New artists start here

Before we dive into paid marketing: even the best strategies only work when they sit on a sturdy foundation and a great product: an artist who consistently performs, or who has clear, direct paths to income. You need something tangible and genuinely valuable to market, not just the idea of something that could be marketed. In one case good marketing always works; in the other, it rarely does.

If you’re here, I’m excited for you, because this part of the journey is a lot of fun. Just don’t let the excitement lead to financially risky decisions. Nobody is going to sweep you off your feet and take you to the promised land (though plenty will try to sell it to you). Keep two things in mind: only small risks, and focus on the music.

Take small risks until you see progress: shows that lead to more shows, posts that get real traction, feedback and shares. If that isn’t happening yet, keep refining the music and how you share it. These lists flip as you grow: a mainstream artist playing a local restaurant is a bad risk, while making a music video becomes a good one.

The 1,000 true fans theory

Success in your craft often boils down to a dedicated following of just 1,000 genuine fans. Don’t think of it as 1,000 new followers. Think of it as 1,000 real connections: people who know you, trust your work and resonate with your music because you’ve built equity with them through value, entertainment and good music over time.

Whether you’re releasing an album, selling a collectible vinyl or dropping merch, those 1,000 have your back, if you’ve earned them. You’ll gain far more than 1,000 fans along the way, and aiming for true fans in every branding and marketing decision grows you faster, with a more valuable audience.

Posting to build fans

We need people to hear you, see you and know you. That’s about it. The fancy stuff won’t work until the basics are mastered, and the top personal brands produce around 1,000 pieces of content a month across platforms. I’m not saying you need to, but aim for as many as you can manage, up to three per day per platform.

Checklist

• First 3 seconds: a first-time viewer should see and hear you immediately.
• Text on screen: people read it, and it bumps retention.
• Quality audio: use a mic or dub in a professional recording.
• Vertical: film in a vertical aspect ratio.
• Retention: hit ~40% average retention and a video is primed to perform.
• Shares: if you show a song to five strangers and two share it, it’s likely to travel.
• Engage: reply to comments; write descriptive copy and only relevant hashtags.

Worried about annoying your audience or messing up your grid? That’s a limiting belief. If you can’t shake it, start an “@artistnameextra” account as a playground. You get to train a fresh algorithm, too.

The viral mistake

One of the biggest mistakes I see is trying to trick an audience into hearing the music: post after post that has nothing to do with it, often reposts, just to get views. It teaches the platforms (and you) nothing about who your real audience is, which makes it harder for everyone to promote your music to the right people.

The three platforms

With limited time, focus on three: Instagram and TikTok with vertical reels of 20–60 seconds, and YouTube with vertical reels plus landscape, full-length songs.

From the beginning of time until recently, marketing was pay-to-play. Now anyone with a phone can reach hundreds of millions of people for free. You don’t need to beg for a seat at the table. You can build your own table.

So: be cautious with money, invest most of your time in your craft, post one to three times a day on each network, and gear it all toward true fans. Once you see a positive feedback loop (growth, gigs, opportunities), that’s when small strategic investments make sense. Keep the music alive. 🎵

Level 2: paid media

If you’re starting to see the first signs of success (traction online, regular gigs, licensing, new income), this part is for you. (If not, I wouldn’t even peek. We’re talking trillion-dollar, military-grade social engineering tools.)

There are a million and a half marketing tools for artists. I only care about the two that significantly outperform the rest on cost: Google Ads and Meta’s Ads Manager. The objective is simple: the highest impact for the lowest cost per result. An effective campaign is custom-built, from targeting to creative, to serve one specific path of monetization. If your band makes most of its money from weddings, the goal is more wedding bookings for the lowest cost.

Services vs. products

What to market

Make a pie chart of your income so far. That’s a good rule of thumb for how to split your marketing budget and effort. Whatever currently makes the most money is usually the quickest and easiest thing to grow.

Do good, do good better, then do new. When you do good better, you create the most effective, profitable version of the thing before moving on. You only need one product and one sales channel to make $1M.

Your addressable market

Google’s Keyword Planner shows how many people in your service area search for what you offer, and what a click costs. For music video production in NJ and NYC, around 400 people a month search the relevant phrases at $1–$4 per click. Meta’s Ads Manager can’t target intent as precisely, but reaches many more people for much less. For example: recently engaged couples in high-income NJ/NYC zip codes for a wedding band.

For my own business: about 140 artists a month in NJ/NYC show buyer intent. With campaigns set up properly and conversions tracked, my return on ad spend runs around 400:1 with a 12% conversion rate. That’s much better than average, and it took years of testing.

Marketing a music video

Full-length music videos are promoted on YouTube through Google Ads. Those pre-roll ads you see are just videos advertisers pay to show. Any service selling “YouTube views” uses this and takes a cut of your ad spend; anything else is likely fake views.

• The first 3 seconds must grab attention, or viewers skip.
• Start with five target audiences with little overlap.
• Spend about $20 on each over a day to see which converts viewers into fans.
• Cut the bottom three, add three new ones, repeat. Over time you’ll find your best audience.

Remember the 1,000 true fans: your brand is worth what your fans are worth. Making it in music is a blend of hard work, creativity and savvy resource management.