Successfully marketing your music doesn’t have to be overwhelming or expensive. With the right tools in your pocket, you can reach new fans, build your brand, and promote your releases like a pro without burning out or blowing your budget. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to level up, these platforms make it easier to get your music out to as many people as possible. If this all sounds good to you, you’re in luck! Here are some of our favorite music marketing tools we think every independent artist should know about…
12 Music Marketing Tools Every Independent Musician Should Be Using
Songtools
If you’re managing multiple releases, marketing campaigns, and data sources at once, Songtools can help you simplify the chaos. Designed with independent artists and managers in mind, the platform brings together everything you need to market your music more effectively, all in one place. You can build smart links and pre-save campaigns, track fan behavior with detailed analytics, automate email outreach, and segment your audience to deliver more personalized experiences. Instead of bouncing between tools, Songtools keeps your campaigns organized and your strategy clear, so you can focus more on music and less on stressing over logistics.
un:hurd
un:hurd helps independent artists take their music promotion to the next level, making it easier to cut through the noise and reach the right audience. They’ve got tools for pitching to playlists, automating social media ads, and engaging with fans, all based on data that helps you make smarter decisions. Artists can also create personalized websites and track all their streaming and social media info in one place.
One of our favorite features from them is their Release Cycle tool, which helps you plan out your music releases from start to finish. Whether you’re gearing up for a new single or album, this tool helps keep everything organized and on track. It’s all about making your release strategy as smooth and effective as possible. Plus, everything’s available through the easy-to-use iOS app, so you can manage it all in one place.
Mailchimp
Social media algorithms come and go, but email? Email marketing offers direct access to your biggest fans, and that never goes out of style. Mailchimp makes it easy to build and manage a mailing list, design eye-catching newsletters, and keep your audience in the loop about new releases, tour dates, merch drops, and more. Arguably even cooler, you don’t need to be a graphic designer to understand it. The drag-and-drop templates make things super simple, so anyone can master it in no time. Whether you’re sending a monthly update or teasing a surprise release, email lets you control the message and build deeper connections with fans who actually want to hear from you.
Spotify for Artists
If you aren’t using all the wonderful features Spotify for Artists has to offer already… get with the program! With it, you can promote your music by submitting songs for playlist consideration and getting featured in personalized playlists like Release Radar and Discover Weekly. You can access detailed analytics to understand your audience and track song performance to help you plan strategically. You can even find potential collaborators by exploring similar artists and their audiences, and link to your merch store from your Spotify profile.
One of my favorite features Spotify for Artists has to offer are Promo Cards. With this feature, you can create custom assets for your songs, albums, and artist profile to share on socials. And for you songwriters out there, Spotify recently announced a version of this specifically for you, Songwriter Promo Cards, so you can also get the well-deserved promo and recognition you deserve.
Apple Music for Artists
If you’re distributing to Apple Music, don’t sleep on their artist dashboard. Apple Music for Artists gives you a clear view of how your music is performing with insights on streams, purchases, Shazams, and even how people are discovering your tracks. You can also update your artist image, add a custom bio, and personalize your profile to match your brand. Plus, you can see where in the world your listeners are tuning in from, which is super helpful when planning tours or targeting promo. It’s free, easy to set up, and definitely worth checking regularly.
SubmitHub
If you’re looking to get your music in front of real curators (and not bots!) SubmitHub is a go-to. This platform connects you with over 1,900 vetted Spotify playlisters, bloggers, YouTubers, and influencers who actually take the time to listen. You can submit directly, get feedback, and potentially land coverage that helps your music reach wider audiences. With over 900,000 artists, publicists, and labels using it, SubmitHub’s track record speaks for itself.
We even did a masterclass with them where we broke down the Spotify algorithm, how to get more streams, improve your playlisting strategy, and so much more! Check that out below…
Canva
With Canva, you can design album covers, social media graphics, event flyers, and merchandise without breaking a sweat. Not only is it easy, but it also looks as professional as if you got a degree in design. You can craft engaging social media content, create lyric videos, and even design email headers for newsletters. It’s versatile, collaborative, and offers resources and tutorials specific to musicians, making it a go-to platform for visually enhancing your music marketing strategy. If you decide to get Canva Pro, you can access even more advanced features and get a broader array of design options.
Amplify
Amplify is an awesome platform that lets musicians promote their music with creative link pages that truly represent them. Their smart links, pre-saves, bio links, and more are all seamlessly designed to make an impact on your audience.
They offer a variety of page types to help you share whatever you have going on with ease, including:
- Release Page: Link to your music and content across all streaming platforms and elsewhere on the web.
- Pre-Save: Hype up your fans for new releases and preload your launch day success.
- Bio Link: This is your stage. Easily add your latest releases, merch, socials, videos, links, and more.
- Event: Sell tickets to your event or tour. Link to any provider, and enrich your page with media, embeds, shop, email capture, and more.
- Reward: Reward your fans for joining your email list, following you or subscribing to your content.
Chartmetric
Chartmetric is an OG that gives you a bit of everything from every platform. With it, you get analytics and data from Spotify, Apple, Shazam, YouTube, Amazon, Deezer, Radio, SoundCloud, TikTok, Wikipedia, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Beatport, and more, all in one place. Depending on whether you utilize their Free or all-access Premium tier, you can get whatever you need, depending on what’s most important to you. With Chartmetric, you can also do additional things like:
- Track current and historical playlist adds on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Amazon Music, and YouTube.
- Understand who your audience is and where they are in the world with audience demographics.
- Global Digital Artist Ranking with Cross-Platform Performance (CPP), their proprietary global digital artist ranking that lets you measure artist performance across 16 streaming and social media platforms and metrics.
SoundCloud Promote
Promote is a self-serve tool on SoundCloud that lets you choose targeting options (like age, gender, location, device, or genre) to get your music in front of the audience you want on their Stream and mobile homepage. Targeting a release can benefit you in many ways. For example, if you’d like to build the hype for your new song in an upcoming city on your tour route before the day comes.
To do this, all you have to do is:
- Name your promotion
- Select one of your public, monetizing tracks
- Decide if you want to use Simple or Advanced targeting
- Pick a budget for how much you’d like to spend
- Select your start and end date for the promotion
- Choose the audience you want to reach
- Check availability and add to your cart.
Easy as that!
ToneDen
Running ads can feel intimidating, but ToneDen makes it simple. This platform helps you create highly targeted campaigns on Instagram, Facebook, and beyond with smart automation that takes the guesswork out of the process. You can easily promote your latest release, grow your followers, or drive traffic to your smart link, all from one dashboard. Plus, the campaign setup is designed with musicians in mind, so it’s not overloaded with confusing ad jargon. It’s an ideal tool for artists who want to tap into digital ads without needing to be marketing experts.
SymphonicMS
If you’re a Symphonic client, you already know how cool our SMS is. Our Symphonic Management System has tons of features available for our clients to make their lives easier every day. Some of which include access to things like detailed analytics from Apple Music, Spotify, Beatport, & more, revenue summaries by partner, artist, and release, and additional details to help you plan your marketing strategy with strong data to back you up.
To wrap it all up…
At the end of the day, you’re going to need more than one helpful tool in your music marketing arsenal if you want to make it big. But whether you utilize one of these or all of them, they’re bound to help improve your strategy in no time. Aside from these, however, one of the best things you can do as the industry evolves is to stay up-to-date with new features and updates as they emerge… And the easiest way to do that is by signing up for our Symphonic Newsletter, where we share the latest industry news, tips, and more every week, straight to your inbox. 😉
Good luck!
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