Category

Music Marketing

How To Write A Fire Ass Artist Bio

Any musician or band out there  has one thing in common. They are all constantly being asked the question, who you are, what does your music sound like? As an artist, if you don’t know how to answer these simple question in a understandable way, you are on a road to nowhere. For this reason and this reason alone, musicians and artist all around the world have a dedicated bio page written. This document is your professional sales and marketing tool. It is there to communicate with all the interested and involved parties when you simply can’t find the words, or the time to do it.

What Separates The Men From The Boys!

Most artists that already made a name for themselves hired a professional to write their musician  bio page for them. In a lot of cases hiring a professional is out of the question due to their high cost. But the fact still remains that you need a professionally written bio page. The next reasonable course of action is of course for you to sit down and write your own bio for further use in the field of self-promotion. Needless to say that if you want to be taken seriously, as a person and as an artist, you need to have your own promotional material. In this article we will give you pointers on how a musician should go about making his or hers own bio page.

Define Who You Are!

This is the perfect opening to any bio, make it clear what your purpose is and what exactly you are doing in the music industry. This paragraph of your bio page shouldn’t be longer than a 2 or three sentences, so make sure you stick to the point when writing it. Talk about how you would describe your band or your music. Tell the world what kind of impact you wish to have on the music world, as well as telling the world where you get your inspiration from. All of the above mentioned information will be clear insight in to your mind, and with just a couple of sentences, people who read your bio page will know what to expect from you in terms of dedication and music, as well as how serious you are about the whole “music” thing.

Skip The Early Days.

Unless you were a kid superstar lol at the age of 8 you should leave this part out. While there aren’t any specific reasons why this simply is, your first days as a musician rarely interest people who are looking for somebody of your caliber. Your bio needs to be about you, and not about who you were! One of many clear indicators of a poorly written bio page is a bio page that consists of many smaller bios. The story you tell needs to be consistent, flowing and engaging. So feel free to leave something out for the sake of the overall project.

Personal Stories!

This is where people actually come to know you as a person and as a musician! What you need to do at this point is simply not fall into the same category as everybody else. If you put some effort and research some of the online available bio pages, you will shortly see that they are dull, follow a formula and contains sentences like “he loved to perform since when he was little”. These kind of sentences are a strict indicator of unprofessionalism. Under no circumstances should you follow this formula, make your bio stand out, tell an interesting and a compelling story, make people like what they read, and make them want to know more about you as a person.

Use Your Bio Sparingly!

Once you actually have something that looks like a bio, don’t go around spamming the inboxes of every major music producer, promoter or local radio station. Like the title of the segment states, use your bio sparingly. Do the required research in order to find  music promoters,music websites , and  music blogger in you niche of music and submit your bio to them.This is exactly what music pr companies charge an arm and a leg for and you can actually do it yourself. and save lot of money.Another good way to use your bio is to  get it printed off and make sure it has all your contact info so they can find your music,videos etc and  connect with you online you so you can build fans which in return will increase your profits down the road.Below is an example of a bio created we created for a musician to give an idea of what I’m talking about.

Update Your Bio Accordingly!

Needless to say that your bio should stay the same until the end of time, your bio should stay in line with your career and it should change correspondingly. So whenever you get a big show,or doing a big event you should  add that to your bio, or for example you dropped a mixtape that’s doing good numbers post that and also add pics of the mixtape cover art design also to give readers more visuals to reel them in.

It’s a fact that you will grow as a person in that time, so the general tone of your bio needs to reflect on that. And with the right amount of effort and with the right words, you will have a professionally written bio in no time.

Stay positive!

It goes without saying that when your bio is read, its needs to connect  with readers on an emotional level once you do that you can turn them into a life long fan.. Like we stated in this article before, the bio needs to reflect on what kind of person you are and your story  and stay true to that, If you would like to have a professional music journalist write your bio for you click this link https://www.mixtapecoverking.com/music-artist-bio-writing/

Get Your Money’s Worth Out Of Your Paid Music Feature

Learn How To Get Your Money’s Worth Out Of Your Paid Music Feature

Do you have a mixtape dropping or a single wit a major feature on or someone with a buzz in the music industry? Well if you do don’t let your money go to waste just by getting the feature from them and releasing it on your social media sites like Facebook,Soundcloud etc.I mean that might help you  look like your doing something to all the local music fans in your city, but the reality is that you just helped the artist out and paid them for a verse nothing is wrong with that but you have to figure out how to make your feature go to work for you.

I work with artist who purchase features from artist in the music industry and they think maybe by doing a song with an artist they might like it and sign them lol lol  good luck that artist is in the process of building their career they could care less about you building yours. Your just another paycheck, it’s an independent game now so it’s every man for himself,but I’m gonna tell you 3 things you need to do that will allow you to piggyback off of your music features success in the industry  fast as hell and if your song is good you could possibly be the next overnight success story no bs.

1.Mixtape covers or Single Cover Design- Whenever you do a feature with a major artist or artist with a huge buzz you need to have artwork created with both of your pics on it that gives fans,bloggers,etc a visual that you and the artist have a real relationship.and give you more credibility,

but you have to make sure you have a professional mixtape cover designer or single cover designer  with high quality music graphics. Your cover art is also what bloggers, and hip hop websites will use to post on their sites so you have to make sure your graphics grab attention and make you standout so music fans check your music out soon as they see the cover and of course they will because you also have whoever you got the feature on the cover also.

2.Press Coverage Pimpin lol- This is what I call press pimpin lol you get all the music  blogs and sites who support or who have covered stories on  your artist you used for a feature rather past or present and you just get them to show you the same love by contacting them name dropping your new single with that artist.I see so many artist with features who never do this and its like flushing your money down the drain.

So I know your probably wondering how do you find these sites who support this artist well….It’s simple just go to the Google search engine and type in “name of artist you used for a feature”+interviews, then do one with  +press release, and one with +reviews. After you do those 3 separately you will have plenty of results with sites you can contact you can write them down on notepad and we will come back to them shortly.

3.Get a professional journalist to create you a music press release promoting you and your artist feature and  don’t be afraid to use his name first on the press release just to grab the bloggers attention then get thousands of submissions everyday so you want yours to stand out as soon as they see it. After your press release is finished now you can go back to the list of websites that you created earlier who gave your feature artist coverage and submit your press release and watch all the traffic pour in.

Let us create you a press release that will get you coverage from all the music sites and blogs so you can get the full potential out of your investment and get more fans. Contact Us

So You Want To Be A Rapper? Then Read This…

3 People You Need On Your Team To Become A Rap Star

The music business is over saturated, but yet and still we see new artist blowing up and going viral on a regular basis. Do you ever wonder how these artist get all this blog coverage,Youtube views, interviews, booked on tours and more?

Well the answer is……… They finally decide to really invest in their career and  build a team of people who have industry connections and resources .Working with these people is mandatory to take your career to the next level and I guarantee you they will get your brand in front of people who matter who you could never get your music to on your own. Well enough with the talking lets get to down to business. Here are the 3 people you need to add to your team..

1.Manager-You need a manger because he will work for you behind the scenes so while you’re recording your music they will be contacting A&R’s at labels to try negotiate distribution deals,setting up tours,And having you in places where artist should be like award shows etc.

2.Professional Music Graphic Designer- We all know there are thousands of artist dropping mixtapes,albums, and singles everyday so you have to make sure you standout from the crowd and how do you do that? With attention grabbing professional graphics. You need to make sure all you mixtape cover designs, single cover designs flyers, and logo designs are hi quality and brand you the right way. Once you have a designer that you work with they will naturally get the feel of what type of overall look you’re going for instead of having to contact a new designer for every single project and hoping they can match the feel you’re looking for.

3.Publicist-Its funny how you never hear artist mention their publicist and how they helped them catapult their career to the next level, but the music publicist is  a key player when it comes to building an artist brand and music career. The publicist job isn’t to book you shows or get you a record deal they work the media and control how your image is portrayed to the world.A publicist already has connections with major music blogs,magazines, and radio programmers and they will create you press presses, and help craft you a custom bio so you can get your story to all of these outlets.Having a publicist or running a Pr campaign is mandatory if you want to get in front of thousands if not millions of fans quick.The good thing is that it’s not that expensive to run a pr campaign or even hire a publicist to try them out.

How to promote your music in other cities and get results.

Street teams And How To Use Them

Since the drastic change the music industry , the forms of artist and band promoting has changed as well  well, nowadays  there are tons of different ways  to promote your music online, but the whole goal is to find a way to promote yourself in a way that makes you standout and using a method your competition isn’t aware of.

One such way is the creation and utilization of street teams. Out of all forms of marketing and music advertising, one of the most potent ways for you to make people listen to your music is by positive feedback that your fans give out, but there lies the problem, while your fans like your music they won’t make it their job to spread the word. This is where the creation of a street team is needed!

What Does A Street Team Do?

In short, they spread the word. Needless to say that this is no easy task, while the fact remains that “mouth-to-mouth” advertising is the option for any band or musician it is quite hard to pull off. This is where the street teams come in to play to helps build a buzz around your brand,and music  on your behalf.

A street team is  a small group of people that are under your direct command and are suited for the job of promoting your band, your music and you on the street. One of the most common tasks that any street team is given is to hand out flyers to a targeted audience (Egg. Age) that promote your band in any way you see fit. So it can be your upcoming show, a new single dropping,  the release of your new mixtape or just a coming soon flyer with just your mixtape cover graphics and your website link.The point behind it all is fairly simple to  get the people talking about your band and to spread the positive impressions they had with your music. Handing out flyers is only one idea, there are countless ways for you to utilize your street team which are for you to discover.

Assembling Your First Street Team!

In spite of what you might think , hiring a street team as a  method of promotion is not  expensive at all, Some artist street teams are their  family and closest friends,or you can think about all the cities you would like to promote in and 9 times out o time if it’s a major city they already  have available street teams ready to work.Most  of these companies will  hand out 1,000 flyers for $100 in any location you want.For example they have the BET awards in Atlanta you contact a street team and have them outside the awards pushing your music and brand.

The Psychology Behind It All

The fact is that people love to talk about music, good or bad it doesn’t matter, it’s quite simple and easy to understand. The trick here comes when your street team actually does a good job to, and grab the attention of some people, out of hundreds of people that your street team finds if only a couple take the time to listen to your music they will start spreading the word immediately to their friend and thus creating the “mouth-to-mouth” marketing concept which has been discussed previously.

Expanding Your Street team

Like with many other cases in live, street teams work better if there are a lot more of them to begin with, if you have more than one street team they will be able to cover different areas of the city and high density population areas. But if you have already exhausted the option to use the people that are closest to you, how would you go about expanding your street team? Start with sending a mass E-mail to your fans and announcing it on your website that you are looking for a couple of people to help out with street team promotions on your new project, or you can actually just Google street teams and whatever city your trying to target and you will find a ton of quality companies that can help you with your campaign.

The Reward System

In the previous segment we stated that you can hire fans to be your street team for a reward, what we didn’t say is the fact that it’s absolutely free of charge for you. So what exactly are we talking about? In any case one simple fact remains which can be linked to any fan, and that is the fact that they indeed are a fan of your music, meaning that you can hire them to be on your street team and promote your music for something simple like spending time with the band backstage before and after the show, another good idea is a free T-shirt or VIP passes for the upcoming show. In any case the list goes on, and all the above mentioned fan rewards have one thing in common, they are free for you and mean the world to your fans.

Hit the campus!

College ground are one of the best ways for you to find new fans and people that will work in your street teams, college students are usually broke and love music, so the odds are in your favor when it comes to recruiting them to your street team. Your fans would love to  be a part of your street team for free merchandise, and tickets to your show, in any other case, if they are not a fan of your music they will work for small amounts of money, but we feel that we should ad that you should always choose the people which show the most enthusiasm when it comes to your music as they will work harder because it’s for artist they all love to listen to.

In conclusion

Street teams are a powerful asset, and unlike many other assets of marketing, they have a tendency to grow. Feel free to experiment with your street team and find out what works best for you, as an artist and  ultimately producing the best results for you!

Learn How To Use Facebook Ad For Music Promotion

How To Use Facebook Ads To Promote Your Music

Countless campaigns are launched through Facebook daily, people use these campaigns to promote their products through the Facebook ads. So needless to say that the mega corporation which is Facebook actually makes most of its profit from ads, what you may or may not know is the fact that people behind these campaigns also make a lot of money promoting products and their music .

Let’s look at things from a different angle, while people use Facebook ads to promote products, they could be used for so much more, as a musician or somebody that is in to music promotion, you should already have a couple of ideas on how this could be done.

The psychology of people

Before you even think about using Facebook ads you need to understand how to get the most out of them, to ensure this you need to understand how people think. So with this being said it’s safe to assume that people won’t click on ads that simply say “buy music here”. While this method works the profit margins it produces are below average so we suggest you stay clear of something like that. On the other hand when professionals make Facebook ads, they ensure that people will click them, if nothing else, out of curiosity.

Let’s look at a couple of ideas from a perspective of a music promoter or a musician, how would you make people click your ads? One of the most common method is by offering something free, which in your case can be a T-shirt or tickets to an upcoming show, so that can be your lead idea from which you can try to make something unique and exclusive to your campaign.

So how would you make a profit if you offer stuff for free? This is quite simple in spite how it may seem, let’s say for example that you want people to purchase your new album, or a new album you are promoting, and you Facebook ad states “Get a Free T-Shirt”, which will needless to say get peoples’ attention. The trick is simple at this point, only give free T-shirts to people that are willing to buy your new album at the online store, this conduct of operations can be quite lucrative for everybody, the buyer ends up with a new CD or mixtape, and a brand new T-shirt while you end up with money in your pocket and somebody that will most likely spread the word about your music or the music you are promoting, it’s something called a Win-Win situation and the concept behind it can be used on more things than just promoting music or your music shows.

Localization!

When launching a Facebook advert campaign you need to ensure that you will get the most out it, the best way to do this is to track the analytics of your previously sold albums if possible,if not it doesn’t matter because you can target ads by city,age,music interest and more and all this is important because when making an advert campaign you will have the possibility to localize how, where and to who are these adverts shown. Needless to say that you shouldn’t launch an advert campaign in the region where people haven’t heard of your music, the most likely place for success is the place where people have already heard of you and your music.

Profit margins!

How many sales do you have per click? For how much money does your album sell? These are the facts that will determine your overall profit margin for the products you are selling, which in this case is your music. Needless to say that promoting music, or in fact anything else, over Facebook costs money, and you need to make sure that you always stay in the green zone.Also make sure you have a professional mixape or album cover design to reel people in.I know this sounds scarier than it actually is, the odds are that if you made a good Facebook ad campaign, by which we mean you used all the information found in this article, you will succeed in your primary goal, which is to sell music and to make money of course. The only thing that you need to keep an eye out for is how much money you have into the entire thing, including the free T-shirts or whatever method you chose to increase the number of clicks on your ad. Needless to say that the output number must be bigger than the input number, so the bottom line is that you need to make at least a couple of dollars when you sell an album. Making these couple of dollars bonus will ensure that you have the invested money in your Facebook advert campaign covered which will later on increase you return on investment, all leading to a successful Facebook advert campaign bringing you more money..

The Reason Your Fanbase Ain’t Growing Like It Should Be

The importance of branding in music
The music business is much like any other, you need to have connections, you need to invest and you need a lot of effort and love in order for you to succeed. And as in any other business, you need quality marketing. So the first thing that we need to ask is, how does a band or a rapper promote himself? The obvious reasons always come to mind, Facebook posting and Twitter tweeting are the most common ways for any musician to promote. While these methods are free and they do work to a certain extent they lack a couple of features that remain reserved to marketing that requires some form of investment.

The art of branding!

Branding is a wide term, and can mean all sorts of things. But when it comes to music, it means one simple thing. Making you and what you are recognizable from your logos, your flyer designs, your mixtape design or anything related to your name is professional and uses the same emblem or logo to give everything the same look . If you still feel unsure about what branding is all about, just think back a couple of years and try to remember how the famous rapper 50 cent branded his own name “50 cent”. And by doing so he immortalized his music in the daily lives we all live. So anybody who has even heard of his name will immediately remember him when they see a coin lying around the house. With this said we feel that we should first explain, what are the most common ways for any musician to brand their name or image into the future?

  • Branding your design
  • Branding your style
  • Branding your image
  • Branding your music

All of the previously mentioned methods were done by some musicians in the past and they are guaranteed to work for anybody who is trying to make a name for themselves.

How to make people remember you?

The fact still remains that the best way for any musician to make a name for himself is to put on a show that will be remembered for months. When it comes to this method, it has some drawbacks. The first and foremost is the fact that if the show was an absolute killer, you have to remember that  people are drunk at the show and it might be hard for them to remember anything that happened that night. While the previous statement was harsh, it doesn’t make it any less true. The fact still remains that you need to make people remember you. So how does a musician go about doing such a thing? This is where branding comes in to play.

It is a scientifically proven fact that people have a much easier time connecting to pictures and unified objects than they do to actual people and the things they do. Let’s look at the famous band “guns n roses”. The symbol they branded for their custom logo design, is two revolvers and the rose in between them makes it instantly recognizable by people all round the world. So needless to say that people from the United States will recognize the symbol just as fine as the people from Japan. This just goes to show how powerful image and design branding really is. So in accordance with this we suggest the following for any band.

Make an emblem that will generalize and show what your music is all about, also make it reflect your own personalities, people will have much easier time connecting to thing they find closer to themselves and easier to understand. After you have achieved this, the next step is simple. Make your image recognizable by all the people that are on your show, so how would you do this when you have a drunk crowd? Flyers and business cards with links to your facebook to connect with you and links to your music and videos. The whole purpose to build your fanbase and, these methods of promotion only need a small investment, but the results they bring are well worth it.Even after a night of heavy drinking once they see your business card in the morning they will be able to connect with you.,. Whatever the case is, the fact remains that your symbol will be looked at for days to come. Even after an extensive period people will still tend to find your flyers and business cards  around, branding your image into their mind for years to come, and making your band recognizable almost anywhere.

The psychology aspect

People, like you and me, are simple creatures, and we tend to emotionally relate to our memories. This fact can be used to your advantage, and is one more step in making your band that much more famous. Let’s say that your band made an awesome show last night, and you gave out autographed business cards to the crowd and were throwing flyers everywhere for people to find and pick up. The fact is that your show was a positive experience for the entire crowd, and some of them maybe experienced shivers when you started playing. So imagine their mental reaction when they find your autographed business card in their pocket three days later . All those positive emotions would came back in an instant reminding them how good of a time they had at your show. This will ultimately work to your advantage because of course they will share their experience and  your music with all their facebook friends which will get you even more exposure.

Branding Music!

So, music being tricky as it is, how does one artist go around branding their own sound? While this sounds complicated in reality it really is quite simple. Like many times before let’s take a look at an example, the artist  “Young Jeezy”. For everybody that doesn’t know Young Jeezy,he is a down south rapper from Atlanta and calls himself  Jeezy The Snowman  and used a Snowman for his emblem we all know what he was talking about and when you seen the Snowman anywhere you see a snowman you would  relate it to Young Jeezy he did a good job branding himself, same thing for Trina Da Baddest Bitch when you here baddest bitch its related to Trina due to her branding that with her name all over the place.

So with all this said, what can we get out of the entire ordeal. Branding music simply means that you need to understand what kind of emotions and what kind of tone your songs have, do you express anger or love through your songs, and is the general tone of your music dark or mild? Understanding your own music is the most challenging part of the entire process, and will ultimately lead to the understanding of it. Your ultimate goal should be to make the music your fans recognize and love. And when they hear one of your new songs they immediately say, “Is this a song from such and such ….”

This method of promoting your music can be implemented into the marketing campaigns you already have in motion. We previously mentioned that business cards and flyers were a good way for you to promote your music. What we didn’t mention is the fact that you can put some of the more catchy lyrics on to the flyers and business cards, making the words spin inside the persons head the whole day, while this can be psychological warfare to some degree, all is fair in love and war. If your ready to brand yourself and start really building your fanbase everywhere we got you covered at www.MixtapeCoverKing.com we can get you your branding package deal today for a affordable price you can checkout an example below of a fan generating business card. These are a great marketing tool. Hell you can be at the Mall and see some teenagers who look like they listen to your type of music and hand them a card. they will be excited that they get to meet a musician  two They won’t have no choice but to look at you  like a  a professional because you will have a professional designed card and that will bait them to check you out on the links you provide on your card. The good thing is that if they like your music they will post and share it on facebook , tell their friends and more.So start building your fanbase and branding yourself today  Use the contact link above and we will contact you within a hr.

What You Need To Know Before You Release A Mixtape

Four things you need to think about before you make a Mixtape

Considering how the music industry is oversaturated with so much bs music and half ass artist, the chances of a new serious artists to making it to  stardom are very slim, with this said we would like to point out that that the new way for artist to get in the game and become famous is to drop  mixtapes.Now with the internet you can your mixtape on hundreds if not thousands of mixtape websites . So what makes a good mixtape, and what do you need to know in order to make a good one and separate yourself from the competition which is oversaturated with knock off artist  who don’t take their craft seriously ?

You need a plan!

What most artists and musicians fail to understand is the fact that music is like any other business, and as a musician you make music and sell your product to wider masses. What we are trying to say is the fact that many musician out there don’t actually have a plan of promotion, they just go ahead and make a mixtape and don’t have any leftover funds to promote it in any way than the free social media that surrounds us today. This is a recipe for failure, to say the least for any businessman. What you need to do is devise a plan. Match your available funding with the plan and make it succeed. A lot of artists purchase expensive studio time with the top of the line record houses, only to realize that they left a big portion of the job unfinished, and what they have in the end is an unfinished mixtape which doesn’t even have a professionally designed mixtape cover, with no means of promotion whatsoever. So as we stated before, make a plan, write it down if you have to, make your money work for you in the best way possible, spread out your funds to match all aspects of your project evenly and you will succeed.

Having a good mixtape cover!

We previously mentioned that people usually neglect the fact that they need a professional or semi-professional designer to make their mixtape cover, now let’s look at why? The first thing we need to understand is the fact that people can’t listen to you mixtape while it’s on the shelf. With this said it’s safe to assume that eyes are the ones who purchase the record, not ears. So keep that in mind when you go about making you mixtape. While the quality of the music needs to be top notch, the mixtape cover needs to match and reflect upon that quality. Another  important thing  is  that your mixtape graphics must resemble the type of music which you are making. Let’s say you are a rapper which is trying to make it to the big leagues, would you like to have a mixtape cover which resembles something that looks like a cover of guns n roses? As we stated before, you need to focus on the impulse buy aspect of people, and the better you mixtape cover is the better the chances of you succeeding are!

Quality beats!

The first thing which we need to state before we get any deeper in to this is the fact that beats can define and sell your music, and they can also destroy it! So with this said how would you go about finding good beats that would ultimately sell your mixtape? The most expensive options are usually the best ones, but without unlimited funds they are un-real. One method which is recommended is the idea that beats are being sold online on various internet music stores, a simple Google search will reveal the rest. The best thing about this is the fact that before you purchase a beat you can listen to a sample of it, and another good thing is the fact that all those beats that are being sold online are usually cheap, and if you put in the time and the effort in to it, you will find what you are looking for. That one sound that will ultimately define your music and your career. When you add all the previously stated to the larger picture of you having a plan it will fall into place perfectly. So don’t just go around making music with beats that don’t suite your needs, take your time, find the exact things you are looking for before you even start recording a song, it will be worth it in the long run.

Recording equipment

This is an aspect which cannot be overlooked. Many musician out there simply pay for studio time, only to regret it later on, so why is that? Musicians which you may or may not already know are much like any other artist, they think of something after the job has been done and they add it to the larger picture as the ideas come, leading up to an almost perfect final product. This is something which cannot be done if you are one of those musicians that buys studio time. However the way around this is pretty simple. While as we stated before, many musicians buy studio time, why wouldn’t you make a studio of your own, not fully professional, but just enough to suite your needs. You will have all the studio time in the world to perfect your masterpiece then once you have a final draft of how you want the song to sound the you can book professional studio and lay the track down doing it this way will save you alot of money. We know what you are thinking, it’s expensive to set up a studio! While this is true, the fact still remains that used studio equipment can be found in online stores like amazon or eBay for a lot less money than you would expect. And the same principle as with buying beats can be applied here as well, if you put in the time and the effort into your work it will pay out in the long run.

Another interesting thing to be aware of is the fact that if you manage to perfecting your craft recording and invest in some of the best equipment out, you can always start to sell the studio time for a lot less than any other studio out there, bringing you a good profit margin.

Indie Artist Invest in Yourself to Become at Top in Music

Making music is like any other business model, it requires connection, money, knowledge and investment. The only difference between music making and any other business model is the investment part. While you for example invest in property when doing real-estate, when doing music you need to invest in yourself, your brand and marketing.

 

What to invest in and how:

Let’s say, you are a hip-hop artist. This directly implies that your primary instrument is your voice, so how good is it actually and how can you improve it?

  • E-book – this is a good way for anybody to get the knowledge of any kind, E-books aren’t expensive and can provide you with all sorts of useful knowledge like how to promote your music online or you can get an ebook that teaches you how to just increase your overall vocabulary in general
  • Online courses – there are a lot of online courses out there, some are cheap and some are expensive, but one thing they have in common is the fact that they have information that takes a lot of time to accumulate, and it is at your reach with just a few clicks
  • Attend events – this is a good way for any artist to learn new things about their genre of music as well as meet people in this same business.

 

Another fact that you have to consider is your sound. Nowadays everyone once to get the at home in the closet studio and I’m not knocking that, but you should just use that to make rough drafts and then go to a professional studio to do the final recording of the song so you can have radio ready sound and it will make you stand out from the cheap artist with an unprofessional sound.

 

When it comes down to your music marketing and branding, there are a lot of things that you should consider from making sure you have professional music graphic to knowing how and where to invest your money how does a musician do It properly and where to invest.

 

  • Web hosting – having a website of your own will make you look more professional, you can put samples of your work on the dedicated webpage and simply link the webpage to anybody that is interested in your work, another thing is the fact that you could sell your music on your webpage giving you a portion of your money back.
  • Social tools – Twitter, Facebook, these are all social media that are very popular in the modern world we all live in. so it is a generally good idea to buy some followers and likes to get the word out.

 

I don’t want to invest!

This is a common problem for all the musicians, hip-hop artists included. It is a fact that the music industry is oversaturated and people don’t want to invest in their business, product or themselves just because they are unsure that it will be worth it. When considering this there is a term you should be aware of, it’s called ROI or simply put the return on investment. What this means that all the money you spend on yourself, marketing, Mixtape Cover Designs, and more will be worth in the long run, it’s almost impossible for a musician not to get a portion of the money back, due to online stores like iTunes, if nothing else, you will certainly acquire experience and the connections you need to go up a step or two on the ladder.

 

Time is money:

Consider the time aspects of it all, when you make music you spend your time, and your time is worth money, so be sure to not give your music out for free, your music is worth your time. On the other hand providing free samples with a link to your website is a pretty good idea.

 

It Takes Money to Make Money:

Like the title said, it takes money to make money, you all know what this means. In order for you to make money you need to invest in the places that will make your money back. Previously we discussed that having a web-site is a wise investment, what we didn’t discuss is the fact that website hosting costs around 10$ per month, so do the math, how much money do you stand to make if you have a website, which is by today’s standards cheap. As we stated before, websites are not the marketing tools at your disposal, newsletters, blog posts, SEO, mailing lists, and banner ads are things you can use to generate the fans to your website. The only drawback is the fact that you will pay for them and will have to wait for a week or so in order to make your money back.

 

In conclusion:

As an artist instead of wasting money on new J’s and blowing money at the club every single weekend you can invest 50 a week into your music career and build your brand like a professional. There is no free ride to get into the music game it takes money, marketing and hustle. Look at all the artist you see today that are independent their all over music sites, music blogs, internet radio and more you can advertise in those same places and you will be surprised at the results you receive trust me once I started investing money into marketing for my company Mixtape Cover King my leads and sales increased by 63% so it’s worth it. So start trying different ways of advertising and marketing because you can’t grow your fan base promoting and doing shows for the same people every month you have to expand and the internet is the perfect tool to help you.

 

I hope that this post has clarified and opened some up solution when it comes to music marketing and investment, just remember, never stop investing in you, it will be worth it in the long run.

Slick Way to Make Money From Your Youtube Music Video

So what are the new YouTube cards, it’s a new YouTube feature that has been widely overlooked when it comes to the in video promotional options, in short terms YouTube cards the next logical step that annotations took in their evolution, and as annotations they are represented inside the video to give more info on the subject video itself. But unlike annotations which are always the same, YouTube cards offer a variety of options when setting up. So correspondingly there are various types of YouTube cards that can be created in your video. Each suited for individual needs of the video owner.

  • Fund raising cards – which are pretty self-explanatory, any musician can use this to increase income, which can be used to produce more high-grade videos
  • Sell cards – commonly used when advertising products, it offers a direct link to the location where the product can be purchased, this includes movies, music and various other products
  • Website link card – provides a direct link to your website, as a musician this can be used to increase your mailing list or to generate an increased online presence on your website
  • Drive video cards – offers the ability to play an entire playlist with one simple click, the reasons how a musician can use this for marketing are obvious.

 

Why use YouTube cards over annotations?

There are several reasons to do so. First of all YouTube cards look better than old plain annotations, and second of all they are customizable. So in regarding with the previously stated, it’s not an uncommon fact that customizing your YouTube cards effectively increases your fan base, make them look represent able, and make them represent your music. Couple of more thing that are worth mentioning. When it comes to YouTube cards in general and how they operate.

  • YouTube analytics – the influence and overall success of YouTube cards can be tracked over the integrated analytics page, this can be useful for anybody that is unsure if their fan base is growing
  • YouTube cards are mobile friendly – weather you are viewing the video in your mobile device or your desktop PC, the cards will always show, this is pretty important due to the widespread of mobile devices in today’s modern world, and let’s not forget the fact that people usually listen to YouTube on these mobile devices to begin with
  • They simply look better – people won’t click what they don’t like, and when it comes to looks, YouTube cards are the best looking thing out there; they are highly customizable and can increase your profits and conversion rates by a healthy margin.

 

Using YouTube cards to monetize your music

This newly developed feature allows musicians to monetize their music  in a number of ways whether It’s a music video are just a song you uploaded that playing over your Mixtape Cover Design. Let’s start off with the fundraising option. The music industry is over saturated at the moment, and there are a lot of quality musicians who simply can’t make a name for themselves, do to this fact. To succeed in the music business you need money, and this is the perfect way to do it. If you feel confident that your music is high-quality and you feel that you should receive donations for your effort, this is the perfect option for you. High quality content will ultimately lead to a high number of fans. And if they like what they hear, a donation of a small amount will be in order, so needless to say that this effect is accumulative and in the long run it can be quite profitable.

 

Another option that I feel that should be discussed is the so called “Sell cards”. As we stated before they offer a possibility to link your music video to an online store which sells your music. This is a perfect way for artists that don’t have their own website to try and sell their music. Think of iTunes and other similar programs which offer the option to sell music when it comes to this.

 

The third option for monetization using cards is the option to link the card to your website. Doing this can monetize your music in more ways than one, considering that the website is owned by you, you can set up an online store in your website, you could set up banners that provide further marketing for your music. So as far as the website goes, the possibilities are endless.

How to add YouTube cards to your video?

The procedure is pretty simple, you only need to log in to your YouTube account, check your video manager for a list of current videos, click edit on the video and click on the “cards” button. From this point onward things can get a bit complicated, due to the high customizability of the cards themselves. So feel free to experiment in order to find out what works best for you, and remember to use YouTube analytics while experimenting to keep track of all the good and bad changes.

 

In conclusion

As we stated before, the music business is over saturated at the moment, and there are more ways to monetize your music than ever before. YouTube cards are just the best from the batch; we highly recommend this feature to anybody that is trying to make a name for them in this industry. Try it out, experiment, find out what works best for you, and never forget to give your fans what they want in return!

How to Get Your Music on BET, MTV AND MORE

The art of making a name for yourself

In the modern world we all live in, music is a business like any other, it has its ups and downs as well as risks that come with it. As such, music can be treated like any other business model, and a constant fact about any business model is the idea that there are more ways than one to promote yourself or your product which in this case is the music you are making. We all watch TV, play video games and watch various YouTube shows and Netflix. So as a musician did you ever ask yourself, who makes the music for all these types of entertainment? It’s silly to think that programmers that make video games produce music, and yet, there is some quality music in the game industry which is made by famous artists like DMX. So what is at hand here? Every aspect of the previously mentioned relies in the hands of Music Supervisors. They generally oversee every aspect of TV show, movies and video games that is music related.

What is a music supervisor?

As we have stated before, Music Supervisors are people in charge of overseeing the music aspect of our daily lives. For example, their job is to negotiate with the director of a certain TV show, this can be very tricky, TV show directors can be quite abstract people to begin with, and sometimes they don’t know what they want. So a music supervisor need to understand the mentality of the director and hand in order to find out what he or she is looking for in terms of music for their TV show. After the Music Supervisor has a general idea what to look for, they will generally look at the resources they have at their disposal. By this we mean that he or she will look at the available bands and music makers that are looking for a job, and which one is suited the best for the job at hand. O needless to say that if you want to promote your music in video games TV shows, music supervisors need to have you on their map. After you have done this, the best thing for any musician to do is not to let the quality of your music drop, a good product is the best marketing that you can afford, and it goes a long way.

What comes after you got a job?

This part of business can often be quite tricky, a lot of money can be involved and the number of involved parties can only make things worse. Some of the involved parties can be song writers, music producer, the artist, Mixtape Makers and record label you record under and many others. So the contract you set up before you start the job at hand can often be quite tricky to set up in terms of trying to satisfy the needs of all involved parties as well as the music supervisor and the director that you are now working for. When doing this we advise that you keep a clear mind and keep all options available, not every deal goes the way you want to.

Contacting a music supervisor

Before you put any effort in to contacting a music supervisor we advise you be aware of the following. Nobody likes spam E-mails, so the same can be said for any music supervisors, this is a good way to kill of your career before you even started it. So don’t go around sending mass E-mails to people that you don’t even know are interested. One thing that we do recommend is the following. Take a look at the music you make in general. What emotions surface when you listen to your music, this is very important when trying to get involved with Music Supervisors, and let’s face it, you never heard “Metallica” play in a soap opera, so needless to say you need to find the right people for the type of music you play. While doing this does sound tricky, it is really quite simple to do in terms of finding the people to contact. Let’sassume you watch TV a lot, which you probably do. The odds are that you heard music that is similar to yours in many TV shows or movies in terms of the overall tone and the emotional response in general. Now comes the fun part. Wait for the credits of the TV show or movie in question and look for the name of the music supervisor, it will be there. After you have achieved this and now have a clear name of a Music Supervisor the only thing to do is some internet research, the odds are that the name of the music supervisor is already registered with a major company and his or hers E-mail address can easily obtained. So by now you have a targeted music supervisor that will almost certainly be interested in the music that you have you have to offer.

Sending the E-mail that will change everything

For starters when was the last time you read a long E-mail with a lot of attachments? The odds are you never did that, the same can be done for music supervisors, nobody wants to read column after column of text in order to find out a couple of key information’s. So it’s safe to assume that Music Supervisors, busy as they are, won’t read a 1000 word essay that you sent them. Keep your E-mail short and say everything in a shortest manner possible. And make your subject line include simple keywords that you know that will work and make any music supervisor open it. For example, “A great song that has 50 cent all over it”. Another thing that is important is the fact that under no circumstance should you attach and MP3 of your song. A general god idea is to simply provide a link of your song to YouTube. Clicking one link to listen to a good song goes a long way than having to download it.

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