The basics of marketing is the same for every artist, what separates them is how they use the principles of marketing creatively.

Before figuring out what you can do, you must study the mistakes that other artists make. How many times have you seen artists just spam their song links in whatever platform they’re using? How many times has that made you want to listen to their music?

If you don’t have a following, posting your link and asking someone to listen to it, won’t get them to do it. You have to find a way to creatively either force them to hear the music, or impress them with the content around the music enough to convince them to listen. Here are some ways to accomplish this:

The final reason, which is the most important, is that music is consumed differently than the days of CDs and vinyls. People find new music in curated playlists and they curate their own personal playlists or pick the songs in which they want to listen. They aren’t listening to full projects, especially if they don’t know or are fans of you, the attention span of consumers these days is too short. Bodies of work still have their place in the industry, but only once the artist builds integrity with their fans.

The goal, though, is to convert that support into listens on paid streaming sites. Spotify is the best site in which to convert potential listeners. It allows you to create your own playlists and pitch your song to someone else’s. Playlists should be one of your most important tools, because playlist curation allows you to bring many artists together. Each artist that supports your playlist is another listener added to your stats.