One of the biggest mistakes that I see most new musicians make is that they try to build a fanbase by promoting their original music, hoping that a song of theirs becomes a hit and they blow up in the process.
This is the same strategy that record labels use to push their artists, and while it sometimes works for them, it’s a terrible strategy to use if you’re an independent artist as you’re going to run into some really big issues that are difficult to overcome.
In fact, this strategy is the number one reason why most new artists fail to gain any traction with their music.
In this video, I’m going to talk about 5 of these issues, and if you stick around to the end, I’ll share with you a much more effective way to push your music that will help you build a super loyal fanbase that not only streams your music but also buys your merch, joins your Patreon or even buy tickets to your concerts if you decide to go on tour.
Problem 1: Problem 1: Lack of Brand Recognition
As a new artist, no one knows who you are, and because of this, you’re going to struggle to get people to listen to your music.
And if you can’t get people to listen to your music, it’s going to be super difficult to build a fanbase with it.
If you think about it, how many new independent musicians do you listen to or have on your Spotify or Apple music playlists.
I’m willing to bet not that many or none at all.
People don’t really care about independent artists like that, and it’s going to be a huge mountain to climb to get them to listen to your music.
Problem 2: You don’t have a fan base
Now, if you’ve got some kind of a following already, say you’re an influencer on Tik Tok, or got a popping youtube channel, then go ahead a promote your own music, as you already have people that know like, and trust you, and they’ll gladly listen to your new music when you post it.
However, if you’re like most indies that don’t have any kind of following at all, then you’re going to get crickets when you release your own music.
What’s going to happen is that you’re going to release your song and get crickets. [crickets b roll]
And then you go into what I call “promo mode” – doing whatever you can to get as many people as possible to listen to your song without much success.
And that will put you in the same group of 90 million artists doing the same thing
In due time, you’ll realize that promoting music costs a lot of money.
This brings me to the next issue.
Problem 3: You don’t have the resources
For you to make any meaningful progress with pushing your own music, you’ll need a lot of resources.
And by resources, I mean a lot of time or money, or both.
You’ll need to consistently promote your song over a period of time for it to stick with fans, and promotion costs a lot of money.
From PR campaigns, running Facebook Ads, or even paying Tik Tok influencers, you’ll need a big budget to get these things done.
And this is why labels spend the majority of their budget on promo.
Unfortunately, most independent artists don’t have the resources to pull this off, meaning that they’re very likely to be unsuccessful at building a fanbase by promoting their own music.
Problem 4: You need a lot of luck to make this work.
This strategy can actually work if you don’t have label money, but you’ll need to be super lucky and have one of your songs go viral or become a hit record on its own.
But then, that’s like winning the lottery, which is very rare, and you don’t want to base the success of your music career on winning the lottery, do you?
I wouldn’t think so.
Problem 5: It has a high rate of failure
Think about it, if record labels, with all their resources, use this strategy to push their artists and still have a very low success rate with it, what are the odds of you, an indie artist on a budget, having success by doing the same?
It’s extremely low.
So those are the 5 main challenges that you’re going to face if you use your original music to build a fanbase, and if you can’t overcome these challenges, you’re going to end up with a failed music career like 99% of indie artists out there.
So what should you do instead? What’s a better way to build a fanbase
What you want to do instead is record covers of popular songs, use them to build your fanbase initially, and then promote your original music to your fanbase.
Why covers?
As we’ve already established, record labels spend a lot of money to make songs popular, you just need to do is take advantage of this, create your own versions and place them in front of fans of these songs.
And because it’s so much easier to get a fan to listen to your own version of their favorite song than your original song, you’ll be able to steal them from popular artists and turn them into your own fans.
Once you do that, you can then start promoting your original music to them.
And because they now know, like, and trust you, they will not only listen to your music but also buy your merch, join your Patreon and even buy tickets to your concerts whenever you’re touring.
And this strategy is so effective that it’s worked for some of the biggest singers you listen to today like Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran
Need help with marketing your music?
Feel free to book a free chat with me, we could iron out any issues you might be struggling with and point you in the right direction.