Hi guys, today I want to look at how to get people involved with promoting your music. Why would you want to do this? Simple, because doing all the promotion by yourself is a uphill struggle! And as we know, more hands mean lighter work.

Now let me make this clear: I know not everyone currently has the money to hire music marketers to get involved (One day, but maybe not now). It’s because of this, that in this guide I want to look at how to get your fans involved with the marketing in your music career. I’m not just talking about encouraging them to share your updates (Although you should be doing that as well), but how to actually get them to actively promote your music.

So have a read of the below guide, and start getting people involved in marketing your music asap.

Should I Form A Street Team Or Have Fans Marketing Online?

The first thing you need to decide is how fans will be marketing your music. Are you looking to create a street team who deal with spreading the word about you in the ‘real world’? Or do you want to encourage online promotion more then anything?

While you should ideally get into both if you have the money, most people start out going the online route. This is because some initial type of capital is usually required to get street teams up and running. They usually require bigger incentives (We’ll look at what incentives are and why you need to offer them later), and therefore aren’t suitable for everyone.

So start out getting people to help you out online, and as you get your hands on more merch and have a bigger budget, get a street team up in play as well.

Where To Find People To Promote You

So where can you find people to promote you? Well, the main two places are:

• In Your Existing Fanbase.This is the best place to find people to promote your music. They’ve already proven themselves to be fans of yours, so it’ll often be a lot easier to convince them to get involved with the process.
• People Looking To Work In The Music Industry.There are a number of people who want experience in the music industry, and will be willing to do voluntary work promoting you for a while in order to get it. Your best bet for finding these people are in places of study (People taking music marketing related courses are college or university), on forums, and the like.

Important: You Won’t Get Something For Nothing

Now, I want to say this from early; If you don’t give people a real reason to promote you, they’re not going to! If you simply have a sign on your website which says ‘I’m looking for people to promote me, sign up here’, chances are you’ll get very few people signing up.

In order to get people involved, you need to offer them incentives. You need to make it a two way thing. If people feel like promoting you will benefit them in some way, they’ll be more likely to take you up on your offer.

In short: Offering incentives are important!

With that in mind, let’s look at what kind of incentives you can give.

Offering The Right Incentives

So what can you offer your fans and promoters in exchange for their time and effort? Well while not the only things, here are some good incentives which can get people on board with promotion duties:

• Physical Merchandise.If you’ve got physical merchandise such as CDs, t shirts, pens etc, these can be used as strong incentives for your fans. After all, who wouldn’t want to be sent something through the post from a artist they’re keen on? These incentives can get costly though, so be sure you’re getting some good promotion for your offerings.
• Gig Tickets.Got a ticketed show coming up? Then offer free entry to select fans who get involved with the promotion of the show. You can let them know that if they spread the word they’ll get one free ticket. The clever thing about this is that they’re not going to go on their own, so they’ll need to promote it anyway to find a second (Paying) person to go along with them. So free exposure and them bringing a paying customer… Nice.
• Digital Downloads.Digital downloads can be hit and miss. If you already offer a lot of these, chances are the incentive won’t be as strong. But if you’ve been clever and only give out a limited amount of freebies, this could still work. The great thing about this is each incentive doesn’t cost you anything extra; once the song’s made, you can give out 1 or 10,000 for the same cost.

  Exclusive digital downloads which can’t legally be obtained in any other way work best.

• The Chance To Work With You.Ok, now we’re getting into the big boy ideas. Many fans would love the chance to work with you, so make it happen! You can enter whoever helps with promotion into a competition to win a one off collaboration with you. For example, you could let them know they can add guest vocals in one of your tracks (Maybe them talking in the intro). You could let them hang out with you during a rehearsal one day. Or how about them giving feedback on one of your art covers and you going whichever one they choose? Don’ underestimate how strong a motivator being involved in someone’s music career is; You’ll create diehard fans from this sort of thing. And diehard fans spread the word.
• Their Name In Lights.As humans, we love being recognized for our efforts. A good way to take advantage of this is by creating a leader-board for your ‘top fans’. Let people know they can get on this leader-board by helping out with promotions, and include each fan’s image and small ‘about me’ section which they can personalize. This’ll encourage them to do more promotions to get higher up the board.
• The Promise Of Experience.If you do students people wanting to break into music marketing related jobs, the promise of experience is often enough to get them on board. Remember though, you’ll have to show them you’re talented and have potential, otherwise they’ll choose one of the other thousands of musicians who are also looking for help over you.

There are also many other incentives you can offer to fans, so think outside the box and see what you can come up with.

What Should You Ask Your Fans To Do?

So now that you know how you can get people to help promote you, the next thing to ask is what you should get them to do.

This part can be tricky. You don’t want to ask them to do too much, as most people probably won’t feel like it’s worth it. If that’s the case, they may distance themselves from the project, and your music in general.

On the other hand, you want to make sure they’re doing enough. If you’re giving out a physical product or something of value, this is going to cost you money to produce. For that reason, you’re going to want a decent return.

Some things you could ask your fanbase to do include:

• Mention You On Their Social Sites.When you have a new video or promotion, let them know so they can also recommend you to their friends. Again, encourage them to leave a genuine comment rather then a hyped sales pitch, as natural recommendations are the best. Also encourage them to say a little something about it in their own voice, possibly tagging friends in it as well.

  To further increase the chances these posts will get seen by others, get fans to like / share each other’s posts.

• Get Involved In Discussion About You Around The Web.Find a forum which has a post about you? Send your fanbase there to chime in with their thoughts. Forums are a great place to promote yourself as a musician, but are even more effective when others do the promotions for you.
• Talk To Others About You.Again, natural recommendations are the best. If people already like you, the next step is to encourage them to let others know this. They could have your CD on in the background when their friends come over and let them know about you, they could talk about you in a conversation on new music, or they could see if their friends want to go and see one of your gigs with them. Dropping your name in conversations and encouraging their friends to actively check you out is always good; hopefully their friends start to do the same and things spread.
• Request Your Music.If there are radio stations or other places who have your music and may / may not play it, get some of your fans to phone or text in and request that song.
• Distribute Flyers And The Like.If you’ve any flyers which need promoting for an event, you can get your street team to do this. Get them to wait outside related events, and give out the flyers as the event finishes. They can also go to relevant places where your target audience are likely to hang out, and hand out your flyers and other promotional materials there. You can also get the more dedicated and trusted fans to sell your CDs.

Conclusion

So there you have it, a look at how to get fans and other people involved with promoting your music. I hope you’ve found this guide useful; if so, please share if on social networking sites and link back to it from your site.

If you’ve any questions on this, feel free to ask in the comments section below.

If you want to read any more of my guides, you can do so on my website Music Industry How To. One of my latest guides looks at the reasons musicians fail, so you may want to check that out and avoid these mistakes.

We’ll speak soon.

Shaun Letang,

Music Industry How To