Music Promotion & Marketing

Get Your Music Heard – Making Your Music More Accessible

Posted on July 5th, 2009 in Music Promotion & Marketing, Online Marketing & Promotion.
Tags: accessibility, exposure, hype, marketing, music, promotion, samples, viral marketing

Although this is all about making your music accessible, something that I’d covered briefly in a previous post, I want to look into ‘how’ this can be done and the best approaches to take.

I know of some people that would rather not include samples of their music anywhere – or if they have to, they’d allow only a few seconds. I guess their main worry is having their songs ripped off, leaked or someone else claim ownership and they’ll lose out on their hard work. Although they do have a valid point they are also severely reducing their chances of getting any attention through their work at all.

The way I see this is that if you aren’t yet earning money through your music and you aren’t getting your music heard then this approach just isn’t going to pay off – not financially and not in getting the right kind of exposure.

It’s unlikely a short sample will drum up any interest from listeners, whether they are fans, musicians, labels, A&R so is it even worth using such a short sample? Put yourself in their shoes and think about whether you’d be happy to recommend a band after hearing just a snippet of a song as opposed to a proper listen to the majority of the track.

Try to think of it as a demo that you’d send to a record label. You won’t send them a 15 second sample just because you’re worried they’ll steal it. They just won’t give it a chance. The same goes with showcasing your work.

But allowing all of your tracks to be heard in full online also comes with risks. Let’s look at one of the worst-case scenarios mentioned above – your song may be leaked to the world.

If your full song is leaked it could quite easily spread throughout the internet. You won’t get money from the song and people will be downloading one of your songs for free and sharing it with anyone they know. It’s spreading uncontrollably and you have no idea how far it has spread, who has got hold of the track and what it’s being used for.

But, is that really so bad? The track has now become ‘viral’ – a very powerful form of marketing. I won’t go into too much detail about what viral marketing is in this post but is this really such a bad thing that has happened?

If you already have some exposure and following the hype is heightened by it being a ‘leaked’ song and is likely to spread further because of it. If you don’t then the track is still spreading itself reaching potential fans of your genre and may reach someone who has the ability and authority to take it somewhere. Who knows who may be listening to it? If it’s good enough then something may come of this ‘misfortune’, whether intentional or not.

Now, if the song didn’t get leaked then there’s no chance of any of the above happening and people aren’t going to hear about you as quickly and the hype is unlikely to be the same.

Ask yourself; is the potential outcome worth the risk? If it is then don’t hold back so much. Think of your best interests and goals as opposed to your worries about the worst-case scenario and see which holds the most advantages.

I’m not saying you need to make all of your music available for free download but this demonstrates my point exactly when it comes to the need of making your music accessible. If it isn’t accessible it can’t be promoted easily. The above example wouldn’t have been possible if the music was easily available in the first place.

You could intentionally allow a track to be downloaded for free from your site. Let that spread. Make it spread. Join in with the hype and see where that gets you. You’d be surprised at the response it gets if you start letting people know the song is available for download everywhere you go – online or offline.

If you’ve had any experiences with viral downloads, leaked songs or have recently put your music online then we’d love to hear from you. Feel free to post a comment below with your stories.