In the not-so-distant past, marketing music involved printing flyers, making countless phone calls, and hoping your demo tape didn't get lost in the mail. Fast forward to today, and the landscape has dramatically changed. Enter AI—the not-so-secret weapon that can help musicians market their music more effectively than ever before. Let's dive into the world of AI and how it can be your best bandmate in the quest for musical success. The AI Revolution in Music Marketing Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionized various industries, and music marketing is no exception. From analyzing data to predicting trends, AI offers tools that can make marketing more efficient and targeted. But let's be real—AI won't write your next hit song (yet), but it can help ensure more people hear it. Here’s how: Personalized Marketing Campaigns AI excels at analyzing data and identifying patterns. For musicians, this means AI can help create personalized marketing campaigns tailored to specific audiences. Platforms like Spotify and Apple Music use AI to recommend music to users based on their listening habits. As an artist, you can tap into these platforms' advertising tools to reach listeners who are most likely to enjoy your music. Pro Tip: Use AI-powered tools like ToneDen Music to create targeted ads that resonate with your audience. Social Media Management Managing social media can feel like a full-time job, but AI can help lighten the load. AI-powered social media management tools like Hootsuite and Buffer analyze engagement metrics to optimize posting times and content. They even suggest hashtags and trends to increase visibility. Think of AI as your virtual band manager who doesn’t take a cut of your earnings and never complains about your late-night studio sessions. Automated Content Creation Ever feel like there aren't enough hours in the day to create all the content you need? AI can help with that too. Tools like Lumen5 and Promo.com can turn your music, photos, and text into engaging videos in minutes. These platforms use AI to match visuals with the mood and tempo of your music, making content creation faster and more efficient. Audience Engagement AI chatbots are becoming increasingly sophisticated and can be used to engage with your audience 24/7. Platforms like ManyChat and Chatfuel allow you to set up automated responses to common questions, freeing you up to focus on creating music. These bots can also collect valuable data on your fans, helping you understand their preferences and behaviors. Music Analytics Understanding your audience is crucial for effective marketing. AI-driven analytics tools like Chartmetric provide in-depth insights into who is listening to your music, where they are located, and how they are discovering your tracks. This data can inform your marketing strategies and help you make data-driven decisions. Pro Tip: Use these insights to plan your next tour or to decide which cities to target with your ads. AI Music Assistants For those who want to take it a step further, AI music assistants like LANDR and eMastered can help with mastering your tracks, ensuring they sound professional. These tools use AI to analyze your music and apply the right adjustments to make it sound its best. A polished track is more likely to get picked up by playlists and radio stations, giving you a better shot at reaching a wider audience. Predictive Analytics Predictive analytics is like having a crystal ball for your music career. Tools like IBM Watson and Google AI can analyze trends and predict what types of music will be popular in the future. This can help you stay ahead of the curve and create music that resonates with future trends. Conclusion AI is not just a buzzword; it’s a powerful tool that can help musicians market their music more effectively. By leveraging AI for personalized marketing, social media management, automated content creation, audience engagement, music analytics, and predictive insights, you can take your music career to the next level. So, whether you're an indie artist hustling to get your music heard or an established musician looking to streamline your marketing efforts, AI can be your new best friend. And remember, while AI can do a lot, it’s your creativity and passion that will truly set you apart. Shameless Plug Alert
If you’re ready to dive deeper into how AI can transform your music career, check out my new course, "The Complete Musician's Guide To Making Money With AI." This in-depth video course bundled with a corresponding eBook is packed with practical tips, tools, and strategies to help you harness the power of AI and make your music and your music marketing sing. Get "The Complete Musician's Guide To Making Money With AI” for 50% off the full price this weekend only, between now and Sunday. Learn more: https://www.htlympremium.com/ai.html Happy marketing, and may the AI be with you! -Aaron
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I work with a lot of musicians, one on one, coaching them on how to successfully navigate sync licensing in 2024. I love working with musicians, and by working with them one on one, I’m able to really give musicians very specific advice, tailored to their specific situations.
I’ve been helping musicians license their music in tv and films for 15 years now. I’ve worked with a lot of musicians, from all over the world. A lot of musicians I work with seem to have very similar challenges and similar obstacles, when it comes to figuring out how to successfully get started in sync licensing. Paralysis By Analysis One of the things I’ve noticed over the years, from working with so many different musicians, is that a lot of musicians seem to suffer from what I call “paralysis by analysis”. Which is to say, a lot of musicians seem to have a pretty good overall idea of how the music licensing business works, but they’re often not quite sure how to get started and the exact steps to take. This is where I come in. Whenever possible, I like to break things down to their simplest components. Although there are a lot of micro steps involved in successfully licensing music, the overall process of getting your music licensed can be broken down into three main steps. Whenever you’re not moving forward as fast as you’d like to, look at where you are in terms of the following three areas, in order to figure out what to do next. Three Pillars Of Music Licensing I’ve discussed this concept before, in previous blog posts and videos, but it’s good to review this concept from time to time. Music Licensing really isn’t that complicated. There are essentially three different things you need to do, or three different “pillars”, as I call them, that you need to be aware of, when it comes to getting your music licensed. They are:
Let’s break each pillar down a bit more: The music you make: It obviously all starts with your music. First and foremost, you need to have “great” marketable music. This obviously is somewhat subjective and there’s an extremely wide range of music that gets licensed in tv and films, in terms of genres. There’s a market for pretty much everything when it comes to sync licensing. To see how wide of a range there is when it comes to sync licensing, start paying attention to the music used in the background of tv shows, ads, films and so on. You’ll see that there’s a bit of everything that gets licensed. It depends on the scene, the premise of the show or film, and the taste of the music supervisor selecting the music. This is why it’s a little hard to teach people how to write for sync, it’s by no means an exact science. There are of course, some types of songs that get used more frequently than others, in terms of both subject matter and genre, but it’s really all over the map and is very dependent on the specifics of the particular project licensing music. Which is why if you’re trying to write for sync licensing, it’s best to stick to themes that are universal (love, relationships, overcoming obstacles, etc). The Production Of Your Music: Music production is obviously a huge topic. We have multiple courses in our premium site, from two hours to eight hours each, that dive into the nuances of music production in the context of music licensing. But for the sake of this article, suffice it to say your music needs to be well produced. Once you have a catalog of around ten solid tracks or so (the more the better), your next step is to fully produce, mix and master them. In the context of sync licensing, your tracks need to be fully produced and ready to be licensed. Like with songwriting and composition, this isn’t an exact science either. There are many different styles of music production and different producers have different production techniques and different approaches to music production. But again, simply listen to the type of music that is being licensed, to get a sense for the production quality required to license music into various projects. The Marketing Of Your Music: This is where the rubber really meets the road. Nothing will ever happen if you don’t get your music to the right people. This seems to be where most artists I work with really get hung up. Artists are often simply not sure where to start when it comes to getting their music into the hands of industry decision makers. There isn’t really one right way to go about pitching your music and connecting with people in the industry. But you do have to start somewhere. This is an area I tend to help artists with the most. Here are a few things to consider before pitching your tracks blindly:
A few thoughts on pitching. Finally, here are a few thoughts on actually pitching your music. -Don’t just blindly pitch your tracks. This much should already be clear. Research places to pitch your tracks that make sense, based on the kind of music you make and the types of placements you’re pursuing. When you reach out, be concise and clear in your message. I usually limit my initial message to new companies to one or two paragraphs. Don’t inundate people with a wall of text they have to sort through when reaching out. Let them know who you are, any relevant credits you have, and why you’re reaching out. If they work with artists that are similar stylistically to you, let them know that. If they place music in a tv show you think your music would be a good fit for, let them know that. Try to make some sort of connection with them beyond simply saying “Hi, I make great music. Please listen and let me know if you’re interested in working together”. Put yourself in their shoes. They’re most likely busy and getting a lot of submissions. Let them know why they should listen to your and why you think you might be a good fit. To sum up. I’ve been working in this business a long time and although different aspects of music licensing have changed, the basics of music licensing have stayed the same: Make great music, produce it well, and market it well. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. |
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