"Marketing Your Songs"
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Music Publishers |
Okay. You've done your due diligence. You've created a body of work, and you have songs that you believe are marketable products. Now you're ready to actually make some money from your songwriting, and realize the fruits of your efforts. What now?
Today's "everything is high-tech" world offers a marketing avenue that wasn't available to songwriters of yesteryear. Of course we're referring to the Internet. Building a website to gain notoriety as an artist, providing a resource for music lovers, and developing a marketing arm for products and promotional messages is one way to get your songs out to the masses.
This "do-it-yourself" method has its advantages in that it can be low-cost, provide you with control over how your songs are marketed, and provide you a direct link to your audience. The downside is that if you don't have an endless stream of money, it may be quite difficult to effectively market on your own. In addition, if you aren't a marketing professional or considerably talented in that arena, you may be doing yourself more harm than good. Knowing and understanding things like streaming audio and/or video, setting up the most suitable e-commerce mechanism, and effectively protecting your copyrighted material are only the beginning of things requiring your consideration. If this is a route you choose to take, be sure to get plenty of professional help and advice.
Another marketing option is hiring a song marketing service. Like agent representatives, all marketing services are not created equal, so do your research. Make sure when shopping services and making comparisons, that you understand exactly what's being offered by each firm (so that you may compare "apples to apples"), what you are required to provide, and specific details of the fee structure. Ask plenty of questions so that you have adequate information from which to make a decision. The advantage of hiring a good marketing service is that they have contacts within the industry, are familiar with preferences and submission requirements for various entities, and they can give a more professional impression of you and your work.
One remaining avenue for marketing your songs is to market through a record label. This may be your best choice because record companies have access to a variety of resources that you most likely cannot otherwise afford. But, this option may also be the most difficult. Getting an "in" with a reputable record label is not easy.
Marketing your songs can be somewhat complicated, especially in today's highly commercialized and competitive music market. But it helps to know what's available, and to consider several options, ultimately choosing the one that you feel is the best fit for you.
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Brian Cook is a freelance writer whose articles on music and songwriting have appeared on many websites.
You can find more of these at SongwritersGuide.com.
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