How to Create a Music Marketing Plan

So, you’re ready to create a marketing plan on your own? Congratulations!

Music-marketing plans play an important role for indie labels and musicians. By plotting your marketing strategies ahead of time, your campaigns will run more smoothly and your efforts will be more likely to pay off.

Here’s how you can create a music-marketing plan on your own:

There are 6 core components in a marketing plan. These include the Summary, a SWOT Analysis, your Goals & Objectives, Strategic Actions to be taken, Budgeting, and lastly Tracking your progress.

Summary

The summary should feature key points of the plan. The goal of this step is to lay the foundation down:

• Who are you as an artist or label?
• What is your current state or condition?
• What are your goals?

A helpful tip: complete this portion of the marketing plan at the very end. This way, all you have to do is fill in what you’ve already completed.

Discover Your Potential

After you’ve figured out your current state, the next step is to create a SWOT chart, which is a chart designed to help identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities to help discover your potential. It’ll help highlight key areas that need improvement, so you’ll be able to make decisions that align with your goals and objectives.

Feel free to use bullet points to keep this chart concise.

Consider strengths from an internal perspective.

• What seems to be working you as an artist or label?
• What generates recognition or revenue?

For weaknesses consider from an internal and external perspective.

• Are other artists performing better?
• What are they doing different?

Finally, take a look at your strengths and ask yourself whether they make way for any opportunities.

Goals & Objectives

Based on your weaknesses and opportunities, you must decide what your goals should be.

• Do you lack a concrete brand voice?
• Is the label having trouble building a solid roster of artists?
• Do you lack strong brand awareness?
• Are you actively gigging?

Once you decide, designate a deadline to reach your goals.

To-Do List

After assessing your current state and creating your goals, you must outline how you’ll reach them. What should your next steps be?

If you have an upcoming release,

• is your album cover art ready?
• Do you need to plan a photo shoot?
• Are you signed up for distribution?
• Should you search for sponsorship?
• Plan a tour?
• Create an official website?

Create a checklist of every task you have to complete and a timeline (content calendars are our go-to for scheduling and staying on top of things).

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Some helpful links: 

How to Book a Tour Using Spotify and Soundcloud Analytics

4 Ways to Get Endorsements as an Independent Musician

5 Things Every Musician Needs on Their Website

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Budget

You’ll undoubtedly have to invest in yourself and music, so why not crunch those numbers ahead of time to prepare yourself?

Track every service you’ll need funds for, total it up, and ensure you have enough to get you where you need to be. This helps ensure you’re not overspending.

Track Your Progress

You want to make sure your efforts aren’t in vain, and be able to make strategic changes  if it is. To do so, outline what changes you should be seeing as you tackle your “To-Do List.”

Log the number of followers you have from beginning to end. Track the number of sales you receive newsletter subscription sign-ups, etc. This will come in handy for future use.

We hope these tips helped you create your very own marketing plan with ease.

Download Your Free Music Marketing Plan.