How To Get Your Music Heard By The Right People [Hint: Avoid These 9 Mistakes]

Here's the deal:

Knowing how to get your music heard is one thing.

BUT knowing how to do it without ripping hours away from your practice and creative time is something else entirely.

If you've been a DIY Musician for any amount of time, I'm sure you know first hand that it is really freakin time consuming to promote music online.

You gotta create an event for this weeks gigs…

Update 10 profiles… upload that new single everywhere… update those profiles again… Mail out that EPK…

Scream…

Rinse and repeat.

Eventually you lose track of why your are even making music in the first place.

Usually the mistake I see musicians making – myself included – is that they are doing to much of the wrong things. Or they are trying to do things more popular artists are doing without realizing that those strategies do not apply to them.

Sound familiar?

They end up spreading themselves way too thin, burning themselves out and throwing pity parties on Reddit about how you can't make money in music anymore.

How To Get Your Music Heard Using Addition By Subtraction

All you need to do is to stop making all the time-sucking mistakes and spend quality time focusing on the few things that really matter.

I'll get to the things that matter below but first…

Here the 9 time-sucking mistakes to avoid:

1. SPAMMING the crap out of your family and friends

Now:

Family and friends are not your ideal fans. Most of the time they are going to be biased in some way. Your mom is never going to tell you suck or ignore you – with the hope that you go away (because she thinks you suck).

The same with your friends. They will either be like mom and be nice about it to not hurt your feelings.

OR in some cases they may be overly critical because they fear you’ll succeed and they want you to stay just the way you are.

OR they aren't somebody who likes your style of music anyway (so who cares what they think?).

Either way, not good.

Bottom line, when you are first starting out, there's nothing wrong with inviting family and friends to a show or to an email list. In fact I recommend it. BUT after that, keep it to a minimum. If they want to know, they will ask.

When you do that and you'll know where to find them and what to say to them. Plus, your chances of turning them into a fan are way better because they like your stuff.

2. Hiring some expensive Music Promotion slash PR company to run a massive campaign.

This is crazy:

I’ve talked with more than one musician who has spent thousands… yes THOUSANDS… of dollars on a 30-60 day PR campaign and not get more than one or two fans (and they weren’t positive they came from the PR campaign).

Is one or two fans worth thousands of dollars?

Maybe, if they become your version of a Dead Head and come to hundreds of shows and buy anything and everything you put out. But, it is quite a gamble and there less expensive things you can do.

Don’t get me wrong, music promotion companies and PR campaigns are not bad. They do serve a purpose for more established artists (I doubt if you are reading this, you are one of them, right?).

BUT if you are going to do a PR campaign, or hire someone to promote your music, make sure you have an effective way to maximize the blast of exposure you’ll be getting first.

For instance, make sure you are directing them to web properties that you control and can track results on. Then you can offer them the chance to get them on your email list.

Once they are on your email list you can continue building a relationship with them and promote your new stuff to them over and Over and OVER for years to come.

After all, a Dead Head wasn’t built in a day. It takes time.

>>> Get fans the right way. My free Email List Jumpstart PDF checklist will show you how. Click here or the image below to get it and a free copy of my Sell More Singles ebook.<<<

3. Buying radio airplay from a guy named Rod who is going to help break your song.

This one fall into pretty much the same category as the PR campaign so I won’t go into great detail.

I will say this:

Getting the right fan to hear your song, have them remember who you were and then go to look you up online is asking a lot. A lot of steps there.

Not only that but sometimes it takes 3, 4, 5+ listens to get that song in their heads. That’s asking a lot. Besides, there are more effective, free ways to get someone to listen to your stuff.

Side note: Yes there are exceptions like Radio Airplay, Earbits and Shazam. They do bring the listener closer to you, but again, you need to get the listener to a web property that you control and track as quickly as possible. I’ve spent hundreds on a few of these these services and they typically do not give you a lot of control over where you can send interested listeners (they want them to stay on their site). Less control = more risk.

4. Joining sites like Reverbnation or Fandalism or join LinkedIn groups thinking you will find fans.

Can you say musician sausage party?

Sorry, there are very few fans on these sites. What few fans there are likely pretty battered from constant promotion (think raw t-bone that has been thrown into a cage with 50 hungry pit bulls).

These are great places for other things like networking with other musicians, sharing ideas, equipment talk or whatever but, 9.9 times out 10, not finding fans.

Going back to item number 1, take the time to learn about your ideals fans. When you do that you'll know exactly where to find them.

5. Joining every social networking site known to man and spread yourself too thin, declare they have no time and give up.

Learn from my mistakes:

I am the freakin poster boy for this. There was I time I was trying to keep up appearances on over 10 social networks.

It gets old fast.

It’s like those dudes who are spinning plates on those skinning rods. Once you get beyond 3-4 plates… you're screwed… and plates start falling.

Plus, it affects how you interact with people. There are many times where I didn’t notice comments or replies from fans for days or even weeks. By the time I got back to them they were long gone or they didn’t care anymore.

It cost me a good conversation and/or a nice string of comments if I had been able to respond quicker.

I recommend that you pick 1 or 2 max where you think the highest concentration of your ideals fans are. Then get really good at posting stuff and engaging people. Then m-a-y-b-e… when it is under control… add another.

Side Note: You might still want to take a few seconds to grab a profile on a few different platforms even if you are not going to use it. It is wise to make sure you have the same profile name across the web (just in case). Get in and get out.

6. Using Sites like Facebook or Reverbnation as your home base.

Imagine this:

You spend months or years building your fan base on some social network. Things are great. You have thousands of fans hanging out. they like your posts, comment and praise your work.

Every time you release something people are right there waiting to hear from you.

Then all of the sudden, the site goes down.

Now what?

You have no way to reach all those fans you spent months (or years) finding and building a relationship with. No one to tell about your new stuff or this weeks show.

That may sound extreme but it is?

Remember MySpace? Or you about the death of organic reach on Facebook? (Now you have to pay to communicate with the community YOU BUILT).

In a perfect world you need your own website and a way to collect emails. If you do not have the funds for a website, you can get started with an email newsletter.

You can take email anywhere. You can download your list and keep it safe so that you can promote to your list forever.

7. Endlessly pitching… errr harassing… record label execs.

New Bulletin:

Music exec don't listen to music they look at data (need proof? read this). [click to Tweet this]

Data as in: Shazam searches, Instagram mentions or fast growing Twitter followings.

Do you want them to discover you? Learn how to grow and motivate a fan base. Then let the metric speak for you.

8. Sending out thousands of mix tapes and CD’s to “every” Tom, Dick and Harry hoping someone will play their stuff and discover you.

Have you ever spent hours stuff CD's, mixtapes or USB sticks in envelopes? How much did that cost you in time, merch and postage?

Guess what, that piece of media is sitting in a GIANT pile of everyone else's media or it has been thrown away. OUCH!

How do I know?

Once upon a time I produced a podcast here on Musicgoat. When the podcast started getting some traction, I was getting like 5-10 packages a day filled with CD's and other stuff.

There were just too many to listen to. And I was just a small time podcast. Imagine what record labels, music execs and radio stations are getting.

Best chance any artist had with me was by either reaching out to me personally to ask it I wanted it, by them being somewhere I was going to notice them or by getting it recommended by a listener of the show (my favorite).

All goes back to focusing on the fan.

9. Entering every talent competition thinking that is the only way they can get anywhere.

OK, I admit:

Very few people know this but I tried out for The Voice. Part of me felt dirty but so many people were telling me I should, I figured I owed it to myself (and some of them) to give it a try.

Based on the experience and all of the conversations I had with people who have auditioned many times for many shows. It was like buying a lottery ticket. It was fun once but to do it again I think would be a waste of time.

To me, putting all your music career hopes into getting on these talent shows is the same as putting all of your financial hopes into the state lottery (except the talent show audition is more time consuming).

Keep trying if you’d like but you are better off investing your time and resources in understanding who your ideal fan is and building your fan base one by one.

Besides, how many of the all time great would’ve won any of these competitions? Do you think Dylan or Springsteen would’ve had a fighting chance? Hard to say.

How many of those mistakes have you made (or are still making)?

Yeah, well don’t sweat it.

You are not alone. Myself and thousands of musicians have made many or all of them.

You don’t know what you don’t right?

And besides you can now wear them like badges of honor. A purple heart in the war of art. Just payin your dues.

So what can you do going forward?

Focus on What Really Matters

Really the only things that matter are the thing that revolve around you ideal fans.

Things like:

take time to identify/define your ideal fan (so you know where to look, you to talk to them).
get clear about your unique message (so you attract the ideal fans, instead of drown in the pool of other musicians pimping their stuff).
put an email capture system in place to keep interested people around and build a relationship with them (so they want to hang out, keep tabs on you and support you).
focus on the 1 or 2 social networks (not 10) where you know your ideal fans are hanging out (so you can get great at it and build some momentum, and be present)

I know, you want a bazillion people to just show up on your site and buy your stuff so you can start that dream tour or just be able lock yourself in your studio for hours. But you gotta build your audience 1 fan at a time.

Get to know you ideal fan better then he/she knows themselves.

Get great a few simple promotional tasks.

And get in the habit of doing that simple thing every single day.

Eventually you will get there without stressing your self out.

I Have A Questions For You

Which of these mistakes are you guilty off?

Let me know by leaving a quick comment below.

If I missed anything or if you think I am out of line, let me know that too.

(P.S. To jumpstart your email list and see how I sell my music by the single, click here or the image below.)

Chris Rust on July 15, 2015 at 5:13 am

Thanks for this. We use Facebook and have a website and because I’m oldschool I focus on the website but imagine that’s a bit old-fashioned, so we look more for Facebook likes than people following our website by email. But I guess I’ll think more about email and the website now.
Corey Koehler on July 15, 2015 at 7:40 am

Thanks Chris, the website should be your hub, your home base. Send people there and offer them something (free track) to get on your email list. I have some training on how to do that. If you are interested, shoot me an email.
frankie on July 20, 2015 at 6:09 am

I’ve got 561 fans on Reverbnation,so it’s hard for me to understand you when you say that there aren’t many fans there;could please let me know which site has many fans?
Buddy Powell on July 20, 2015 at 10:58 am

Guilty of most of these over the past 6 years.

1. Spamming-Did this when I first began to get digital music online via distributors. Sent links via posts on Facebook to those who were friends and family. (FB is my smaller group of followers now).

2. Hiring-paid groups like Paramount $ to produce 1 song, had to pay for copies of cds. They had 2 studio musicians who tried to copy my style from the scratch track but it was substandard. They did put it on a compilation and sent me a few copies to send out but the other songs were terrible so I never sent them anywhere. I never heard anything from the compilations they sent out either. Lesson learned to the tune of 100s of dollars.

3. Never have paid for plays, at least that’s one trap I haven’t fallen for.

4. I do have profiles on Linked in and Reverb but use them for networking and promotions, I like the Reverb platform and the look of their pages. My largest fanbase is from Twitter though.

5. Guilty, however I have learned to link them so does it count if I blast posts across networks? I will say that I have very different demographics on the 3 main sites that have the most followers. (Twitter 20-40 yr olds.; Reverb 40s, 50-60s; Number One Music 20-30; Radio Airplay 13-20). I have learned to use email collectors and analytics to learn more about my fans.

6. I was really surprised when I looked at the numbers as although I have more engagement with folks on Facebook the numbers of fans are relatively small (double digits) and Twitter definitely out shines all others with thousands growing daily and loyal retweeters though they are harder to engage.

7. I used to work through lists in the beginning when I finished my first CD and religiously sent lyrics sheets, cover letters and CDs. The feedback I got from some did help me to improve my product and change how I did things so it was valuable in a sense. I abandoned this practice as it never really produced results and feedback was conflicting and confusing. One would like something that another wouldn’t, it seemed like a battle of opinion and I realized you can’t please everyone.

8. I sent out cds to specific stations, especially the local ones to no avail. I did have label contact me from a compilation Cd that Oasis sent out when I had them produce my first album. Thought it was years after and this relationship has proved fruitful. I have had some play from cds that Lampco has sent out globally but have had more results from fans requesting songs from their DJs and then the DJs email me for more songs. I also have had luck from being referred to stations that fellow musicians have gotten airplay with and then sending my music to the DJ after a short intro email.

9. I do enter a few contests on Reverb and have gotten some spins from them. I have found that those that I receive personal invitation (not spam) have been more fruitful. I won the Ohio Music Awards 2014 Best Blues for Wild Cat Blues and Best Gospel for Same Old Story and only sent in 3 songs. I also won Northwest Alabama Songwriters, Songwriter of the Year 2014, and best Album 2015, Best Religious Song 2015, and Best Gospel Song 2015. These have let to recording new albums,jamming with Peanut Montgomery, Ray Wix & Spooner Oldham and having the latter two featured on an album of my original songs.

I wish I would have gotten your post much earlier you offer sound advice!
Best wishes,
Buddy Powell
Corey Koehler on July 20, 2015 at 1:41 pm

Frankie, just curious…

Of those 561 how many:
– have signed up on your email list
– have purchased music from you
– have come to a show
– have their own music

Let me know. If they are solid numbers I will tweak my article.
Corey Koehler on July 20, 2015 at 1:45 pm

Thanks Buddy,

Appreciate the time you spent on this extensive comment. We can all learn a few things from your experience. Congrats on your success with contests.

And I am glad you dig the post.
Twics007 on July 21, 2015 at 2:37 pm

I’m guilty of the ReverbNation one and Facebook I also use Songcast thanks for this advice.
Gilad on July 22, 2015 at 3:40 pm

Guilty, guilty, guilty.
I feel like you wrote everything I went through the last 3 years.
I learned what not to do the hard way.
Thanks for the post. You made me see things clearer and focus on the fans.
Thanks
Corey Koehler on July 23, 2015 at 9:17 pm

Thanks Twic and Gilad. Glad to know I’m not alone and that I am able to help.
phil rock on July 24, 2015 at 1:38 pm

I to have made mistakes like this mine through music xray mostly .I have since removed myself from that site .I also had a verbnation site got rid of that also .You find when you join these sites you get a lot of fans fast but look at the plays of your songs. I had many fan for fan requests total waste of time. Now I invest my money in me! getting singing lessons new equipment etc.Maybe Ill never be noticed but at least Ill have my music recorded to a decent standard..
Corey Koehler on July 24, 2015 at 3:45 pm

Thanks Phil, “fan for fan” requests… ugh…you hit the nail on the head there. Not cool. Keep us posted on your new investment strategy. \m/
Karl Neumann on July 24, 2015 at 7:22 pm

I really appreciate this article. I’d have to say I’ve been guilty of…well, just about all of it. Spamming the family and friends, yeah that’s where I started my music “career”, until I realized they weren’t jumping up and down with each new tune I churned out. They were happy for me, and very encouraging, but not what I’d call fans. Nobody ever called me up and said “Hey! What new music do you have, to set loose upon a hungry world?” Lol! Just doesn’t happen!

I won’t go through all of my offenses, but I do want to mention the Reverbnation, etc. music site situation. Reverb is a great resource for networking and comparing notes (pun awkwardly intended!) with other musicians and artists. But as far as promoting and selling music, well we’re kinda preaching to the choir! I fell into that “fan for fan” thing for awhile and made it to #1 in my town for the Indie genre. So what? How many albums did I sell? Exactly zero. Did I boost my song listens? Not really.

So, yeah I’ve had to learn some things the hard way. When I compose and record my music, I’m that guy who’s digging deep within his heart to communicate his feelings and ideas. But when it comes to promoting the music, I have to become another person, “put on my business suit”, and be all logic and strategies. Your article has helped to drive this “logic and strategies” idea home. Thank you for that!
Corey Koehler on July 25, 2015 at 1:53 pm

Thanks Karl, glad to know it is helpful.
Ryk Mead on July 27, 2015 at 7:13 am

If there was a magic bullet we’d all be on the gravy train. For sure your advice is good, but the mistakes are only mistakes when they don’t work. You have to put yourself out there and find out what doesn’t work for you. And chances are it’s going to be the same as you. But some lucky sucker has to hit the the sweet spot every now and then. As you say, it’s a lottery. You just have to keep plugging away. It will happen or it won’t, that’s it some never make any headway. As long as there is a law of averages. Some make it big, some never make it. everybody else is somewhere in the middle.What can i tell you, it’s no mystery, it’s just life.
Steve on July 27, 2015 at 11:32 am

Good article Corey. It’s a shame as social media seems like such a natural fit for promotion but it’s so saturated now that even though you’re blasting stuff out there, engagement seems to be tending toward zero. Bystander apathy is at an all-time high… Music-centric sites like ReverbNation and SoundCloud at least seem to be in the right realm but you’re absolutely right when you say that people are there to peddle their own stuff, rather than listen to and collect other people’s material. I guess that the bottom line is that short of getting extremely lucky, there’s no easy way to do it; it’s a grind.
There was a period where my band BisonSound was getting a lot of hits and comments on SoundCloud but eventually it tapered off. (check out this action: https://soundcloud.com/bisonsound/all-the-angles).
We later updated these rough demos with a self-produced LP, which we posted on BandCamp and enjoyed moderately pleasing levels of exposure. One thing that helped us a lot was a connection we made with a start-up label called Factory Fast Records NYC. They approached us and we later authorized them to include a hand full of songs on some of their music sampler compilations. They have done a lot of networking with internet radio stations and pod-casters, and now our music is in pretty steady rotation on several stations. The audience is small, and it won’t likely generate any revenue but it didn’t cost us a dime, and we have never really been about the money anyway. I cherish our relationship with FF as they are working hard to gain exposure to artists in the traditional way, in an nontraditional space. Look them up, they’re awesome guys! Just wondering what you think of something like that? ie. small label samplers.
Thanks for the article, Steve (BisonSound)
Corey Koehler on July 27, 2015 at 1:23 pm

Thanks Ryk. Appreciate the input.
Corey Koehler on July 27, 2015 at 1:29 pm

Steve. Thanks for the heads up on Factory Fast. Interesting idea they have going there. If its free and you are getting plays… rock on. That said, you could still attempt to drive listeners to a website or page that collects email. See the second portion of point 2.
Neil Milliner on August 2, 2015 at 8:02 pm

Just how I am doing it. FB gets me seen by 6-7 people now (got a few hundred friends) so not even all my friends get to see my posts. If they are ads nobody sees nothing cos FB just doesn’t send em. Whatever is on Soundcloud & Reverb just gets nothing coz they listen for free and move on. Twitter is/was the best for reaching out but severely limited and too much can get you suspended. Best method for now is to get on YouTube & G+ and Google plays ball and actually helps you. Not a lot but at least they don’t actively put up a brick toll booth.
Matt Mclelland on August 26, 2015 at 12:23 pm

I’ve definitely made the mistake of trying to use every social media site. I ended up spreading myself way to thin and never really gained any traction.

I’m starting to see a lot more traction now that I focus on my top three (Facebook, twitter, instagram) and direct everybody to my website where i can capture their email and follow up with them in a much more personal way.

This was a solid article!
Garry Warned on September 14, 2015 at 12:00 pm

I’m new to it all, I’ve done none of the above. As an up and coming mixing artist I’m on two upload sites, so I can grow my fan base. I have a Facebook page, but, I plan to just keep that going so my family and friends can see how good or bad I’m doing with a single click.

I’m currently looking for a sponsor, but, unlike most people I’m not doing that for the perks I may or may not get. I’m doing it for the sheer hell of it! My attitude is ‘You get something positive, give something back’.

I feel it’s all about your personal conduct, if you’re needy and greedy it will show, but those guys won’t get far 🙂