Do you want to know how to get more music fans? Do you wish you knew how to amass a massive following? Do you want to know how to promote yourself as a musician the best way possible? If you want to achieve long-term success in the music industry, you must have a large number of dedicated fans who are interested in what you do as a musician. To do so, you must first learn the most effective methods for promoting yourself and your music.

The answer to the question “How do I get more fans and promote my music career?” is not easily found by taking a highly generalized approach that ‘seems’ to work for other musicians. At any given time, you (or the band you play in) may be facing a variety of unique challenges that necessitate specific actions in order to gain more fans or strengthen your promotional efforts. That being said, regardless of where you are in your music career or the challenges you face, you have three goals to achieve if you want to gain more music fans and promote your music:

• You need to get more people to listen to your music.
• When someone listens to your music, you need them to help you in some way (buying your albums, watching you live, purchasing any merchandise, etc.)
• You must convert your fans into true believers who will spread the word about you and your music through word of mouth.

Whatever your goals are in the music industry, the three goals listed above will apply to anything you do as long as you are attempting to develop a strong relationship with your fans.

These objectives may appear to be unrelated; however, they are all interconnected. If you are successful with even one of them, your chances of success with the others will improve significantly. When you truly understand this fundamental truth, you will find it much easier to be productive in your efforts.

To achieve great success when promoting your music to your fans, you must learn to think strategically rather than taking inconsistent and isolated actions (a mistake that most musicians and bands make). Instead of attempting to find a general formula that will help you gain more fans for your music, you should begin thinking in the same way that most professional musicians do. While teaching other musicians how to succeed in their music careers, I teach them how to find creative ideas that they can apply in their own music careers to quickly gain more music fans. Once you’ve mastered this way of thinking in your own music career, you’ll find it much easier to overcome any obstacles that stand in the way of your promotional efforts.

To demonstrate what I mean and to provide you with various steps (that you can take right now to get more music fans), here are some quick and easy things you can do to achieve all three of the above-mentioned music promotion goals.

To get you started on the path to gaining more music fans and expanding your current music promotion efforts, I’ll now show you a variety of things you can do on your own to achieve the three goals mentioned above.

Now that you’ve completed the assessment, keep reading to discover several actionable steps you can take to promote your music. While reading through them, try not to focus on the actions themselves; instead, think creatively to see the ideas and ‘behind’ the actions to understand why they are so effective. This will keep you from simply ‘copying’ them and will lead you to ideas that you can use in your own music career situation.

Music Promotion Action Step: Increase the number of people who listen to your music.

• Step #1: Collaborate with other musicians to create a compilation CD. You’ve accomplished a couple of significant things by releasing a compilation album. First and foremost, you have successfully produced a record containing your own music. Second, you’ve gained not only a tool to promote yourself to your fans, but also a tool that could potentially promote you to every other musician’s fans on the album (with no additional effort on your part). Remember, the goal is not to make money directly, but rather to use the album as a low-cost tool to promote your music (and the music of the other musicians) to a larger audience. You can also use this concept to promote your own album releases and products to a larger audience. If you want to achieve a high level of success in your music career, you must understand the concept of “leverage” (using one action to gain multiple benefits). This is something I assist members of my Music Careers Mentoring Program in developing and refining.
• Step #2: Collaborate with other musicians in your area. Rather than viewing other local musicians as competition (in terms of gaining more fans), collaborate with local musical artists of a similar genre to help you gain access to a larger number of fans who are interested in hearing and seeing you play music. One way to accomplish this is to collaborate with another band to perform at the same venue in order to bring together the fan bases of both bands. You will not only improve your relationship with the venue’s owner (because you are bringing in more people), but you will also have the opportunity to advertise your music to the fan base of the other band (and them to yours). This is a fundamental concept, but few bands take the initiative to put it into action. Furthermore, many bands make the mistake of sharing a venue with other bands who are not in their target market, or with bands who do not make a concerted effort to bring their fans to the venue (thus taking away the mutual benefit). One example of a band with a small following becoming an opening act for a much larger band (which is fairly common in the music industry) is when a band with a small following becomes an opening act for a much larger band. However, if you are unable to find a highly successful band to open for, you can still accomplish this; you will simply need to find a band that consists of musicians with enough ambition to TAKE ACTION and implement this strategy.

Get your fans to take specific actions as part of your music promotion action step.

• Step #1: Make sure people have a reason to be a fan of your music as well as buy it. Those who have mastered the ability to successfully promote music find ways to get their fan base to purchase their music rather than download it for free online. They can also take an average listener and turn him or her into a devoted fan. Offering something special to people who actually BUY your music is a great way to accomplish this (that cannot be obtained by simply downloading it for free). To do this effectively, whatever you are offering must be difficult to replicate using digital media. This could include VIP tickets to your concerts, merchandise, or other creative and one-of-a-kind items. The main takeaway from this concept is that you can use a single strategy to achieve good music promotion while also strengthening your relationship with your fans.
• Step #2: Get to know your current fan base. When you can put yourself out there to those who already support you whenever you pursue new projects in your musical career, it is easy to successfully promote yourself as a musician. Most musicians believe that their biggest issue is a lack of music fans, when in reality, they simply do not know who their true fans are or how to contact them. Rather than contacting these specific fans, many musicians concentrate their efforts on the general public. The truth is that this strategy can work; however, promoting your music in this manner will cost you a lot of money and time. To drastically reduce your costs in terms of money, energy, and time, make your musical promotion more effective by locating an easy way to stay in constant contact with your fan base.

Music Promotion Action: Convert your current fans into FANATICS.

• Step #1: Plan special gatherings or events that immerse your fans in your music and engage them on a completely new level (in contrast to merely listening to your music or watching you live). There are nearly limitless possibilities for you to do this, limited only by your willingness to be creative. However, keep in mind that the key is to cultivate your relationship with your music fans.
• Step #2: Concentrate on rewarding your most devoted fans with one-of-a-kind gifts that casual listeners do not have access to. This concept can be used in conjunction with the first point mentioned above, or it can stand alone. If you want your music fans to do something specific (for example, bring more people to your performances or buy your albums), look for something of high value that you can offer them that goes beyond the scope of music. (Keep in mind that your music fans do not necessarily want free money or t-shirts… come up with something unique to offer them.)

As you’ve seen, once you take a more detailed approach to understanding exactly what you want to do in terms of “gaining more music fans,” it’s a lot easier to understand which action steps you must take to make this happen. The majority of musicians are only concerned with improving their music and appealing to the general public, but this is only one aspect of musical promotion. Of course, your music is important; however, there are aspects of your music career that you must improve in order to effectively gain more fans. As soon as you start focusing on these aspects, you will notice a significant increase in the effectiveness of your music promotion efforts.