How YouTube Betrayed The Friendship Of Unsigned Musicians

This article questions the value of YouTube to unsigned artists. Why are YouTube still not paying unsigned artists for every stream?  There are 400 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every day, driving projected net advertising revenues of $3.96 billion in 2018. Google are starting to look evil.

YouTube a new distribution channel for unsigned artists

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Things To Consider When Creating Your Band's Website

These days, it’s impossible to get by as a musician without a great web presence. Of course, one of the most effective ways to manage this will be with your own website where you can quickly send anyone who’s interested in learning more about you, finding merch, streaming your music, or booking you for your next gig. Sure, you can probably get by with a Facebook profile and a Bandcamp page, but an attractive website hosted on a domain that you own will make you appear more professional than most other new bands in your area. 

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How Musicians Can Build An Email List From Scratch

It’s fairly common knowledge today that email is among the most effective and affordable marketing tools. So let’s not waste any time with a bunch of statistics to prove what you already know.

Instead, let’s dive right into how to get started with email marketing.

The first thing you need is a list of email addresses to send your clever emails to. It might seem a bit daunting if you have no email list, but fear not - here are some simple tips on how to build an email list from scratch.

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How To Choose The Perfect Music For Your Video

There are a lot of important elements that go into creating a successful video, but one that many often overlook (or don’t put any thought to until the last second) is music.  

Music can hugely impact the mood of your video, and that, in turn, can have an effect on its success.  

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Brand New Book - How To Succeed With Self-Produced Concerts

For musical artists who are just breaking in, or experienced performers who have been at it a long time, this book is a helpful tool to manage the new era of independent music: This guide will show you how to take control of your ability to find or create new places to play, book venues on your own, be your own agent, manager, promoter and publicist. This means taking control of all aspects of the touring business and having a system in place that will greatly increase your proficiency to make it work.

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How To Promote Your Demo Online Without A Budget

In 2018, it’s much easier for up-and-coming creative artists to find their way to their audience with zero promotion budget and not being contracted with monopoly labels. Along with streaming services and indie labels, a completely new phenomenon is being introduced into the music industry: a community label named Younk.

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How To Promote Your Product Or New Project On A Budget

When a product or service promises consumers greater bang for their buck, it’s a powerful motivator. Getting the highest value from spending the least amount of money is what most people want from the products they buy. It’s no different for the marketers themselves. Marketers are always looking for ways to strengthen their return on investment when it comes to promoting a new product or service. Not every business has the promotional resources of Apple or Microsoft, of course, so most businesses won’t be able to use a multimillion-dollar media blitz to advertise a new product or service.

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How To Use Merch To Engage Your Fans

Fan engagement and direct-to-fan are hot topics these days because it’s finally come to light that fans are the real gatekeepers in the music business. And by now we should also know that merchandise is one of the surefire ways that artists can make solid money today. Like most other revenue streams for artists, being successful at your merch biz is highly dependent on your fans. The good news is that in addition to being a cash generator, your merch can actually be used as a fan engagement tool. When you’re using your merch to engage your fans, they’ll feel connected to you.  When they feel connected and as if they are part of your journey, they will be likely to buy more. So how exactly can you use merch to engage your fans? Here are five ways:

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20 Creative Marketing Resources For Musicians On A Budget

If you’re like most musicians from humble beginnings, you likely don’t have a very large pool from which to gather money to support your dreams in the early stages. Here’s a collection of affordable, often free, resources to help you get your feet off the ground and save as much money along the way.

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Business Cards For Musicians

Business cards, we’ve all had them. Some of us swear by them, others say “neh” and do away with them. Whatever type you are, I’m sure someone’s handed you one at some point. And you probably thought, “what the hell am I supposed to do with this?” Or maybe you were like “sweet dude, I’m gonna call you right away.” Either way it probably got you thinking. You may have thought, “wow this person really comes prepared.” I seriously doubt you thought, “heh, look this guy, what a dinosaur, still uses business cards.”

In this article we’re going to take a look at a few things you can do with business cards to stand out amongst the sea of musicians out there, and why business cards for musicians still can be used today.

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The Music Marketing Manifesto: 10 Principles For Success

Five years ago, we were asked to write a simple marketing guide for unsigned bands and independent artists. We came up with ten principles for success and it was shared on the Unsigned Guide Music Blog. Since then the music industry has changed dramatically with the shift from music sales to music access. iTunes has been replaced by Apple Music and downloads with streaming. Spotify is increasingly becoming the default music service for the masses. With these developments ringing in our ears, we decided to update our principles for success.

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Your Band Is Your Brand

Your band is the music making machine that will enable your career, and your brand is the face of your music that people will learn to know and love. Your brand can be a powerful and invaluable asset that holds deep meaning for your fans and others who interact with it.

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Artists & Musicians Are Wasting Time With Social Media

The web is a flutter with news and panicked updates on the decline of Facebook media reach. They saw organic reach drop 52% in 2016 and engagement for brands drop by over 20% from January to August in 2017. Add to that declarations of “Organic reach on Facebook is dead” from this year (2018) and you can see why anybody who’s not pumping copious amounts of cash into the platform’s paid reach and advertising system is wasting their time.

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How To Write An E-mail Pitch That Gets Your Music Heard

Here are the five key elements you should include to make your pitch e-mails stand out from the rest.

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