Marketing is an essential element in reaching your fans.
Today, it’s not enough to just put out your music. You need to put it in front of the people most likely to listen to it, share it and love it.
This is where powerful marketing tools can assist musicians and producers.
I have compiled a list of great marketing tools that can help you get your music out to more people and expand your audience.
Use the table of contents below for easier navigation. Enjoy! 👇
Table of contents:
Notion
Trello
Mailchimp
YouTube
Spotify for Artists
Canva
Gumroad
Discord
ToneDen
Rekonise
Bonjoro
Buy Me a Coffee
Open AI (Chat GPT)
Flick
Zaap
LinkTree
feature.fm
Bitly
Yola
CapCut
Notion
I’m such a big fan of Notion. It keeps track of everything in my music career.
Even though Notion may best be described as an organizing and productivity tool, it is also very useful for keeping track of your music marketing activities.
With a few clicks in your Notion workspace, you can turn it into a nifty and smart music marketing planner or social media calendar.
You can customize the marketing planner to fit everything you need to quickly plan and share your music content across different channels such as Instagram, YouTube or TikTok.
I have made a custom social media planner where I have uploaded pictures or videos and text, that I want to share on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
If you are not a Notion wizard and wanna built your workspace from scratch, you can browse the endless amount of Notion templates. You can find templates for:
- Personal Productivity
- Finance
- Content Planning
- To-Dos
- And much more
If you wanna boost your music marketing activities, this is definitely a tool I can recommend for you.
And the best part about Notion: It’s free!
Trello
Organizing is key!
Especially, if you wanna run your music marketing effectively.
Here is another tool that can help you keep track of your marketing activities.
Say hello to Trello!
With Trello, you can build a visual overview of your marketing campaigns and keep track of things like:
- Social media posts
- Track release texts for song blogs
- Emails for your newsletter
- And any other tasks related to your music career
Don’t just see Trello as a tool for marketing - it can be used for almost anything.
Start planning, organizing and executing your music marketing tasks with Trello today.
Trello also has a free version you can get started with right away. Enjoy!
Mailchimp
Email marketing isn’t dead!
It can be valuable for you to build a list of dedicated fans, that want to listen to your music and new projects.
As a musician, you need to reach your audience - and Mailchimp is a great marketing tool to do just that.
Mailchimp is perfect if you just want to start out using email marketing. You don’t need to be an expert.
Reasons why I recommend Mailchimp:
- It’s easy to use
- It has a lot of email templates
- It’s scalable as you grow your email list
- You can analyze your emails
One other reason why you are gonna love Mailchimp: It’s free!
You might be thinking: “What kind of email should I send to my fans?”
I got you! Here are some ideas:
- Share your new song releases
- Let people know when your next concert is happening
- Give them some insights into your next upcoming project
- Behind the scenes
- Send an update from your studio
There are so many ways to leverage the power of Mailchimp in your music marketing activities. Just get stated!
YouTube
YouTube is such a great place to share your music and promote you as an artist.
For me, this is an essential marketing tool for musicians. YouTube Studio gives you access to a lot of useful information about the people watching and subscribing to your channel.
The Analytics part is just so good for me to analyze the demographics of my core audience.
Over the years, YouTube has expanded its palette of valuable features for creators. You can upload:
- Regular videos
- Short content form via YouTube Shorts
- Live videos
- Posts - like the ones you see on Facebook or Instagram
- Video playlists
- Podcasts
On YouTube, you can verify your channel as an “Artist channel” so fans can see that this is the real you. That also means that all of your music releases through labels or via self-release are compiled on your YouTube artist channel. Pretty smart!
You can also use your YouTube channel to share insights into your music production techniques and how you created some of your songs.
I think it’s a brilliant way to connect with existing fans and potential new fans.
Here are some ideas on video content, that you can share on your channel:
- Vlogs
- Aftermovie from your concerts
- Live video from your studio
- Track breakdowns
- Music production tips and tricks
YouTube is just one of my favourite marketing tools for musicians.
Spotify for Artists
Manage your music and understand your audience on Spotify.
With Spotify for Artists, you have all the tools at your disposal to grow your music and audience on Spotify.
Here are some of the features I love in Spotify for Artists:
- See which playlists your music is on
- Explore statistics on your listening audience
- Manage song pitches to Spotify Editors
- Create a video canva for your songs
If your music is on Spotify, this is a tool you should add to your music marketing toolkit.
Canva
Power up your graphic skills with Canva!
If you are like me and don’t have too many skills in the graphic areas. Don’t worry.
Tools like Canva can assist you with any design or graphic tasks you might have.
Canva has a huge library of pre-built graphic templates for things like:
- Instagram stories
- Posters
- Flyers
- Video stories
- Email banners
- And much more
With Canva as your trusted right hand, you can make stunning marketing content and share it with your audience across several platforms.
And you can get started for free. Swing by their website and discover new ideas for your music marketing content.
Gumroad
Income. Income. Income.
As an independent and upcoming artist, earning money is essential. Especially if you need to buy new equipment, and plugins, or spend money on music marketing campaigns.
Insert: Gumroad!
What is Gumroad, you might ask?
Gumroad is a great tool for artists looking to sell stuff online without having to invest in building a website, handling orders, digital downloads and all that other stuff.
With Gumroad you can start selling in no time - and they only take a small cut of your sales.
Ideas for stuff you could sell on Gumroad:
- Exclusive sounds kits
- VIP music edits
- Custom album work
- Digital booklets
- Music production courses
It’s very easy to start selling on Gumroad. No hassle.
Well, this is not a marketing tool, but I just wanted to share it with you anyway haha.
Discord
Want to connect with your audience?
Create a community for your diehard fans. It’s a great way to engage with your fans and share your music and journey.
Discord is a powerful community tool where you can build tailored rooms/channels for your fans. A place to hang out and talk about music - your music.
I love to use Discord. I get a closer connection to the people, that like my content. Here, we discuss a lot of topics related to music production, tips and tricks, and also sharing music projects with each other.
BTW - You can join my Producer Discord Community here 👈
Here are some ideas about what you could include in your Discord server:
- Share your new ideas and get feedback from your fans
- Ask your fans about what music they like at the moment
- Share behind-the-scenes
- Talk about other general stuff
- Share discounts on your concert tickets
The great thing about a Discord server is that you can get a closer connection with your superfans and acknowledge their support.
Swing by the Discord website and get some inspiration on how you could build your Discord server.
ToneDen
Want a fast way to build your social following or email list?
One cool way is to use social unlocks. They`re a great tool in every artist's music marketing arsenal.
What is a social unlock?
It is something that you offer to your audience in exchange for example a following on your Instagram account or Spotify profile.
In a social unlock, you could offer your audience:
- a free download of your latest song
- VIP versions of specific tracks
- Unreleased song edits
An ideal tool to create these social unlocks is ToneDen - a social marketing platform.
ToneDen offers a vast amount of different types of social unlock features that you can easily set up.
Here are some ideas for actions, your audience should take in order to unlock your content:
- Like a track on Spotify
- Subscribe to your email list
- Follow on Instagram
- Repost the track on Soundcloud
ToneDen is a highly recommended music marketing tool for artists looking to build and engage their audience.
ToneDen has a version where they offer a lot of their core features for free. Check it out.
Rekonise
Another amazing tool for creating social unlock campaigns is Rekonise.
This music marketing tool is a personal favourite of mine.
The biggest reason is that Rekonise has a very powerful free version with a lot of functionality that suits most artists and producers.
In no time you can set up a series of social actions your audience needs to take in order to unlock your content. Rekonise also offers email capturing, so that you can build your email list.
Here is a list of some social actions supported by Rekonise:
- Follow on Spotify
- Subscribe to YouTube channel
- Follow on Soundcloud
- Repost tweet on X
- Join Discord server
Big recommendation from me!
Bonjoro
Connecting with your fans is essential for every artist out there.
And what better way to acknowledge your peers than sending them a personal video message? Cool right?
I know a perfect marketing tool for this. Drum roll, please!
Please welcome Bonjoro!
Bonjoro is a dedicated video engagement marketing tool for sending personal video messages via email.
I love to use Bonjoro for sending personal video messages to my fans on my email lists.
Here are a couple of ideas for video messages to send:
- Say “thank you” when a person subscribes to your email list
- Send a video to your top fans when you release your new song
- Promote your upcoming concert or gig with a discount code
Is Bonjoro a music marketing tool that you should add to your stack? My answer is YES!
It’s a paid tool, but they offer a free trial where you can explore the different features and functionality it offers. Be careful - you might get hooked right away.
Buy Me a Coffee
Give your core audience and fans a way to thank you.
Let them buy you a coffee.
Buy Me a Coffee is platform where your fans can donate money to you or become a paid member.
This is perhaps not an actual music marketing tool.
But, you can use this platform to engage with your fans and give them the option to become a core supporter of you as a musician or artist.
BTW - If this blog post was helpful, you can support me and Buy Me a Coffee ☕
Well, I just wanted to share this awesome tool with you.
Open AI (Chat GPT)
This is a tool that needs no introduction.
Chat GPT by Open AI.
This AI tool can act as your virtual assistant and help you brainstorm new ideas, write text content or help you with repetitive tasks.
Here are some Chat GPT prompts you can use to create marketing-focussed texts:
- “Write 3 Instagram captions for a new upcoming music release to audiences who love [insert music genre].”
- “Write a joyful press release for my new music release called [insert name of song].”
- “Generate 3 ideas for video content to share as a music artist on Instagram or TikTok.”
Or simply just Google “Chat GPT prompts for marketing”
There are many ways to utilize the capabilities of Chat GPT to grow your music marketing.
Try out the many cool prompts for marketing.
Flick
Hashtags are crucial for growth on social media. You need it to reach new and potential fans of your music.
Introducing Flick!
Flick is an über-cool social media marketing tool - really useful for music marketing!
Flick helps you find, manage and analyze hashtags for Instagram and TikTok. here, you can build lists of common hashtags, that you use for specific posts. You can create folders for quick access.
It even has a built-in AI assistant that can help you generate captions for your social posts. Nice!
It’s a paid tool, but if you want to grow on social media, this is definitely relevant for you.
Zaap
A link in bio is a must on your social media profiles.
One awesome bio link tool is Zaap.
This tool is packed with features and can definitely aid in your music marketing activities.
One of the bigger benefits of Zaap is that you can build a visually cool single page for all your links. But it doesn’t only have to be links, you can also collect email addresses for your newsletter list, sell online products directly in Zaap and create blog posts.
Zaap is a powerhouse of a marketing tool - and you can get most of its functionality for free!
LinkTree
Here is another nifty link in bio tool: LinkTree!
It has everything you need to show all your music and artist-related links on a nice-looking page.
Another cool feature of LinkTree is the many integration possibilities to tools like:
- Spotify
- Soundcloud
- YouTube
- TikTok
- And many more
It means that you can quickly sync content from your different platforms to be displayed in your LinkTree page.
LinkTree is a well-established product that you with great benefit can add to your music marketing toolbox - and it's for free!
feature.fm
Wanna build your fanbase and music career?
Smart links for sharing your current music and upcoming music is a wonderful way to pull your audience towards your music and artist brand.
feature.fm has a powerful suite of features that can accelerate your music marketing.
My favorite function of feature.fm is its “Pre-save” functionality for upcoming music releases.
You can also create smart links for each music release with links to the different platforms where they can stream your music. feature.fm can also autodetect on witch streaming platforms your songs are available on.
Here are some other cool features in this tool:
- Fan base management
- Landing pages
- Performance analytics
feature.fm has a feature-packed free version.
Bitly
Tracking your traffic sources is key to understanding where to focus your marketing activities.
A way to do this is by using UTM codes for tracking links. UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module) and is a snippet of text added to the end of a URL to track the metrics and performance of a specific digital marketing campaign.
Bitly is a URL shortener where you can turn long UTM-tracked links into small and easily sharable links for link-in-bios, descriptions, websites, emails, and much more.
The main reason why UTM-tracking is key: you start to understand where your audience traffic is coming from.
Bitly has a free version where you can create a bunch of short URLs.
Yola
Everybody needs a good website to introduce themselves - also musicians and artists.
One essential music marketing tool is a dedicated website so your audience can find you online and you can build your brand presence. Social media profiles are great, but having a dedicated website is great for sharing:
- Your upcoming events
- A biography about you
- Where to find your music
- Your contact information
But isn’t it both expensive and difficult to build a website? Not really.
A website builder like Yola has a free version where you can quickly create an artist's website in no time. It doesn’t require any coding experience. Just drag-and-drop the content you wanna add to your webpage and you’re good to go.
Get started and slowly build and expand your website with more content.
CapCut
Video is becoming the main type of content on several social media platforms.
Artists need to embrace video content to some extent in their music marketing campaigns and activities.
And no - you don't need to make funny dancing videos on TikTok haha!
There is so much other stuff you can create with video. Here are some ideas:
- Film a short snippet of you playing the melody of your new song
- Screen record and play a section of a project you are working on in the DAW
- Put together material from your last concert or gig and make a short after-movie
- Record yourself talking to the camera explaining the story behind your songs
There are so many creative ideas that you can make.
In fact, video creation is made more accessible to the public by tools like CapCut.
CapCut is a video editor software for both computer and mobile. It has a powerful free version, which offers you all the features you need to create cool and engaging videos for social media and music marketing. Within a few hours, you will feel at home in the simple interface of this video editor. It's very user-friendly.
Check it out and start creating your videos today!
Sum up
I hope these music marketing tools can assist you on your journey to build your artist brand and connect with your audience.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at info@lammerfyr.com. I would love to get help out.
If this blog post was of any value to you, please consider donating or buying me a coffee here ☕
Thank you for your support and have a nice day! 🤩