It’s all too easy for an independent artist focusing on creating music to forget about the other important things they need to succeed; including how to promote your music, music marketing, finding people to network with, and so on. Something every artist, particularly independent ones, needs to learn is that producing music is only one part of the process.

Independent artists should make establishing a music marketing plan one of the first things they do. This plan should include a comprehensive overview of marketing and promotion efforts with the possible best way to promote your music and outline what you hope to achieve as a rapper.

You might be wondering why you need to put together a marketing plan. We want to show you the best way on how to promote your music and the following reasons speak for a music marketing plan:

For yourself

Putting together a solid marketing plan gives you a reference point for your career. It lets you track where you are against where you want to be while you experiment and try out new things.

For the team

This includes your manager, promoter, publicist, and anyone else involved with making you a success. Providing everyone with a copy of your marketing plan ensures everyone is working on achieving the same goals.

For sponsors and investors

These are people who would be interested in injecting some money into your career. Being able to give them a good marketing plan will make them more confident about investing in you and makes you look more professional and serious than anyone who doesn’t do this.

For record labels

Record labels are interested in people that can create their own fanbase, promote their own brand, and market their music. Putting together a marketing plan is the first step to achieving all of that.

Now we know why we need a marketing plan, let’s take a look at how to establish one as an independent artist:

How To Promote Your Music – The Marketing Plan

1. Introduce the Artist/Project

Start out with a brief introduction of the artist, sort of like a bio. There’s no need to write a lot of information about yourself. It’s just an introduction after all. Focus on all the important things and then move on.
If this marketing plan includes marketing a particular mixtape or album then make sure to include a summary about the project as well.
The introduction is there to inform the reader – whether they’re a label, investor, or just some stranger learning about you for the first time – about who you are.

2. How To Promote Your Music – Know The Target Audience

Talk to any marketer and they will tell you that the number one key on how to promote your music is to know your target audience when putting together a marketing plan. Do you know who your audience is?
Are you talking to the fans that come to see your shows? Do you interact with them on social media? What about their demographic? Do you have international fans or are they all American? Do you have any European or Japanese fans for example?
The better you understand your audience, the better you can promote your music, merchandise, and your overall brand.

3. Achievements to Date

This is the part of the music promotion where you showcase your accomplishments and showcase how serious you are about what you are doing.
List some of your key milestones and successes, including your latest sales numbers, a recent interview you did, any awards you won, and successful live shows.
Also think about how you use to promote your music to the audience and what did work well.

4. KPIs (The Goals and Key Performance Indicators)

What goals do you have in the music industry? Where do you want to be in five or ten years?
These goals could be anything, such as releasing a single before the year is over, getting played on the radio within six months, being featured on a website like Complex, starting your own independent label, and anything else.
The most important thing is actually having a goal, a timeframe, and key performance indicators that can be used to track your success. For example, speaking to a blogger about setting up an interview, reaching 55k followers on Twitter, half a million plays on SoundCloud, etc.

5. Branding

Something that gets brought up a lot is the fact that an independent rapper’s branding is how they separate themselves from all the other musicians out there.
Invest some time and money working with graphic designers to develop a logo and important brand concepts to ensure you have long-term marketing assets and aren’t working with outdated ones.
Your brand concepts and logos are going to be used across every marketing channel, including your website and Facebook and they will be printed on merchandise and used in press kits too. That’s why it’s so important you put the work in to make them.

6. Press Kit

A press kit is one of the most important – but underrated – aspects of how to promote your music as an independent rapper. You need to have a great press kit so it can get featured on websites and in publications.
A good press kit will typically include
- A biography of the artist
- Contact information
- High-resolution press photos
- Up-to-date tour dates
- Promotional videos – music videos and tour videos are good choices
- Links to social media profiles, websites, and streaming platforms such as SoundCloud and Bandcamp
- Interviews and press reviews
How do you plan on distributing the press kit? Will it be through social media and your website? Will you have a physical one you can hand to people?

7. How To Promote Your Music – Create a Radio Promotion Strategy

Don’t believe people who say that radio is dead. It’s still alive and kicking and it’s still the best way for rappers to get exposure
Do you know the radio stations you should be targeting? Put together a list and make sure you include more than just Power 105.1 and Hot 97. You want to do some research to understand which radio stations would be a good fit for you. Hot 97 are hardly about to interview a rapper on their morning show, but maybe you could get on Real Late with Rosenberg.
Have your local radio stations supported you in the past? Have you established a relationship with the DJs, hosts, and people behind the scenes there? If you haven’t then it’s about time you started.

8. How To Promote Your Music – Websites and Social Media

It’s 2018; everyone needs to have their own website and that includes you. It’s great to be on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram as they put you in touch with millions of potential fans, but you don’t own these platforms and you need something you do own.
One reason that every independent rapper needs their own website is because it serves as a music marketing and promotion platform that you own and are in complete control over. You could do anything you want on your own website, whether that’s selling merchandise, giving daily updates, collecting email addresses, posting touring videos, interacting with fans through discussion boards and forums, or anything else you can think of.
- We definitely live in a world where social media and your website play a major role in the marketing strategy. Don’t forget it.

9. How To Promote Your Music – Engaging Your Fanbase

Those with a solid fanbase have all the power in the modern era. They are the ones who will have long and successful careers as independent rappers.
There are lots of great examples of this; rappers like Kevin Gates, Chance the Rapper, Tech N9ne and Freddie Gibbs all worked hard and spent years building their fanbase brick by brick and are now enjoying the benefits, this is how to promote your music through engagement.
Do you know who your fans are? Are you engaging with them properly? How do they get news about you? Is it through your website, through press releases, or through social media?
Do you get the email address of people that visit your website or buy your music? If you aren’t, then it’s something you should look into. There are lots of ways that independent rappers can get subscribers to their email lists.
Learn more about the innovative new ways to engage fans, such as distributing music through BitTorrent. The leading independent rapper Currency recently took to distributing music through BitTorrent and it proved to be a major success. Musicians are against things like BitTorrent because they allow for illegal file sharing, but don’t overlook the power of legal file sharing.

10. Touring

It should be known that the most reliable – not to mention important – revenue stream for an independent rapper is touring. Make sure you focus plenty of time and attention on the touring section of marketing.
You should do your research and provide all the information you can about past performances and current touring goals; do you have a relationship with a venue? What venues have you performed in before? Did you join other rappers and tour together? Who did you tour with and how did it go?
Investors and record labels will want to know that you can be relied on to tour regularly. They want to deal with rappers that understand which venues are best for them and are able to fit in with the touring strategy of other artists.

11. Distribution and Retail Strategy

The distribution and retail strategy is essentially on how to promote your music, how you plan on getting your music and brand on a range of distribution channels so it can reach fans. What distribution strategy do you have for your music? What about for merchandise?
Do you only distribute music through your website and through mixtape hosting sites such as DatPff? Are you planning on partnering together with other distribution companies to get physical copies of your music put in retail stores where it can reach more people?
If you are planning on distributing through retail stores then you should research and identify which distribution companies are known to work with independent rappers such as yourself. After finding some companies think about the best way to approach them and start a relationship.
When it comes to approaching retail stores yourself you should take the time to identify the independent music shops that are most likely to support you and sell your music. Think of it like when you were researching radio stations and ask yourself if your music matches what’s on offer at the store.

12. Sponsors and Investors

If you are planning on pitching your music marketing plan to sponsors and investors then you need to take some time to talk about the people that have already invested in your brand. This reassures other investors that they can put their trust in you too.

How To Promote Your Music And How To Get Your Music Heard As An Indie Musician