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May 2015

Shit On Your Competition With An Animated Mixtape Cover


As independent artist in the music industry today it’s harder then ever to standout amongst the thousands of rappers that drop a mixtape or a single everyday.It’s your job as independent artist to make sure you and your brand by  any means necessary especially when  you release your mixtape, album or single.

There are tons of mixtape websites that can help you get your more exposure  to your project ,but just like how they will allow to use their sites for exposure so can everyone else so your branding and graphics have to be on point from your logo design to your project artwork this will make viewers  people  pay attention to you project and remember your brand.

So we decided to take our mixtape graphic designs to the next level and now we are offering animated mixtape cover design.These animated covers will increase your click thru rates and downloads guaranteed and if you have good music you will build your fanbase fast as hell because these covers make people checkout your project.

With our animated mixtape cover you can add the effects to any type of design you would like and we can bring it to life.If your looking for a cover that will increase your exposure and generate new listeners to your music. Checkout the example below.

As you can see these cover are dope as hell and if you were on any mixtape site that has tons of mixtape cover thumbnails to choose from to decide what mixtape you want  to listen to this mixtape cover  will standout  no questions asked.

So make sure as an independent artist in 2017 you focus on outside the box marketing and branding so you can standout and  get your music recognized, that’s what your doing it for right? Well make sure your next release you get you an animated cover design there ain’t no way in hell the won’t see your mixtape, and watch how many new listeners you get to your music.

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.

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