Music Promotion and Marketing tips for Indie Musicians
Even megastars “piece it together.” Ticket sales, merch, streaming, publishing, appearances, sponsorships, the list goes on. But how can a DIY musician earn a living via a diversified revenue stream that includes production, session work,…
The world’s most successful artists, brands, and companies have one thing in common: They understand their true fans. If you want to build a sustainable, thriving music career, you’ve got to understand how to work…
You can learn a thing or two (or seven) when you hang out with 1000+ DIY musicians for an entire weekend. In this episode, Kevin and Chris talk through their “takeaways” (which is an annoying…
Once upon a time crowd funding (or fan funding) offered artists the illusion of musical streets paved with gold, all paid for by their adoring fans. Fast forward to today, where many artist have hitchhiked…
Catch up on the first half of 2019’s big music stories in less than an hour! Kevin and Chris talk through a number of recent news items that relate to independent music-makers. Plus, listener calls…
Musicians make a lot of assumptions about what it means to “distribute” a track or album. In the wake of Spotify jumping out of the distribution game (almost as quickly as they jumped in), what…
A life in music is full of high highs and low lows — but being down doesn’t mean you have to stay down. In this episode, Kevin and Chris talk about five common ways musicians…
3 days could change the course of your whole music career. In this episode, Kevin and Chris discuss what sets the DIY Musician Conference apart from other industry events, and they preview some of the…
Are listeners leaning in at your gigs, or are they tuning you out? There are many ways to build a solid set list, but lots of ways to lose your audience too. In this episode,…
A good band name is hard to com by. Before you decide what you’re going to call yourself as an artist, listen to this episode. Kevin and Chris list a number of common problems with band…
Live-streaming gives you as a DIY musician a consistent, low-cost way to reach listeners on huge social platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and more. You can also format your broadcasts in a number of ways:…
In this listener feedback episode, Kevin and Chris answer emails and calls from DIY musicians who are wondering how to market their music in the streaming world, how to brand themselves, how to make sure…
In this live taping of the DIY Musician Podcast, CD Baby’s Kevin Breuner and Chris Robley compare notes on how they launched and managed their “Free + Shipping & Handling” campaigns to give away their…
A good producer can turn your songs into masterpieces. But a bad producer can ruin more than just your recordings. They can sap your self-confidence, wreck your reputation, and exhaust your energy and bank account….
The foundations of music marketing stay pretty solid: capture attention, offer value, lead listeners on a journey from awareness to action. But the house you build on that foundation is always shifting. What older marketing…
At CD Baby, we are always looking for new and innovative ways for artists to market and promote their music. That’s why we’re happy to announce Spotify audio ads and banner ad targeting as a…
Are you standing in the way of your own success? Are you accidentally making it harder to accomplish your music goals? In this episode Kevin and Chris talk about 25 kinds of self-sabotaging artist. Are…
As we close out 2018, we have another episode dedicated (mostly) to our listeners, where DIY musicians call and email with great questions and tips! “Mostly” dedicated, because the episode begins with Kevin and Chris…
Our listeners ask great questions, so we thought we’d do a whole episode taking calls and emails from DIY musicians, and then try our best to provide answers that aren’t bonkers. Plus, inspirational film and…
The holiday season is the perfect time of year to crank up your music promotion efforts and try something new and different to engage your fans. In this episode, Kevin and Chris share their holiday…
Time to say goodbye to a few false assumptions that have been holding you back! The music industry has stayed loyal to some really destructive myths, so it’s always great to see when independent artists…
Do “real” artists do cover songs? What kind of songs should you cover? And what are the different uses of a great cover version? In this episode, Kevin and Chris talk about the controversy and…
The European market has a rich live-music tradition, but artists often feel lost when trying to infiltrate the scene as an outsider. However, with the aid of online tools like Google Translate and Skype, booking…
Once you’ve finished recording your new album or single there is still some work to do in order to get the release over the finish line. In this episode, Kevin and Chris discuss all the…
Streaming has opened up new opportunities for artists to get creative with the way they release music. What strategies actually work? How can you ensure your album release has maximum impact? In this episode that…
The way musicians — heck, the way ANYONE uses Instagram today — is very different from how we used it years ago. Whether you’ve been marketing your music on Instagram for years or you’re brand…