Why You Should Make a Marketing Budget for Your Next Music Release?
When we ask artists this question, “What’s your marketing budget for your next single, EP, or album release?” 90% of them don’t have an answer. It’s also incredibly coincidental that 90% of artists in the music industry are considered undiscovered. This is why you should make a marketing budget for your next music release. Don’t be in the 90th percentile.
Very few independent artists have a formal marketing budget in place because very few artists know how much to invest in a marketing budget. You may be wondering “How much should I budget for marketing considering my current reach, current revenue, and to maximize my return? Those questions sure do break a sweat.
Even more so, there are endless considerations for a marketing budget. What’s normal for the music industry? What are your aspiring & inspirational artists spending on marketing? And what exactly constitutes a marketing budget? Should I include playlist campaigns, social media ads, or a press release?
These questions require a heavy load of research which can lead to a buildup of frustration and loss of hope. Without a marketing budget for your next release, or completely DIY’ing a marketing campaign on your own can downplay or even harm the growth you’re working to achieve,
How will I ever figure this out? There’s so much to do. Is there a way I can distribute, market & promote my music all in one place without doing this all alone and without breaking the bank?
That’s where we come in!
5 BENEFITS OF HAVING A MARKETING BUDGET:
- A marketing budget can help you reach a larger audience and create more visibility for your music release.
- It can help you target your promotions for maximum impact, and make sure you are reaching the right people.
- Having a marketing budget allows you to invest in creative materials such as music videos, posters, and other visuals to help promote your music.
- You can take advantage of various digital marketing techniques to gain traction, and gain more exposure.
- With the right marketing budget, you can build a larger fanbase, and drive more sales of your music.
HOW MUCH SHOULD I SPEND ON MARKETING?
First, how much does it cost to market a song? Making Music Magazine shares:
There’s no definitive guide to how much you’ll spend on advertising, and a single unpaid post could end up going viral if done properly, but a ballpark figure would be around $50,000, bringing the overall total for creating a hit pop song to around $75,000
Fear not. Label Marketing Executive, Amber Horsburgh has worked from budgets as much as $500,000 to as little as $50.00. There is never a morally right or wrong answer to this. Just make a thoughtful one. She recommends the following rule for starting out:
My rule for how much to spend on promoting a video vs. creating it is 20 – 50% of the production budget. Meaning, if you spend $300 on a music video then you should spend between $60 – $150 on promoting it. I like paid social ads because they are cheap to start with and meticulously measurable.
HOW DO I START?
Setting a digital marketing budget is a daunting challenge for many independent artists. The truth is that there is no perfect or definitive marketing budget. These budgets highly vary among various objections and goals and are highly determined by your revenue, price range, and current reach.
Your marketing budget needs to be flexible, and fluctuate as your income does.
The best you can do to begin is:
- Evaluate your spending
- Asses your aspired & inspired artists’ advertising methods
- Look at your historical results
- Go from there!
Remember: in successful artists, marketing drives revenue
NEED ASSISTANCE?
If you need help planning a marketing campaign for your next release, our record label services & music industry connections can help! Joining our membership program will give you 20% off our record label marketing & promotion services if you join today!