Rapping Beats

Marketing of your music product (mixed and mastered vocals on Rapping Beats or R&B Instrumentals) is probably the most important part of the music BUSINESS. In this Rap Beats and Instrumentals support article I’ll give you an intro in the MASSIVE world of Music Marketing. This article is part of a series on how to become a successful Rapper or Singer. You can view all the articles in this series on the author’s page.

You can have the craziest lyrics and the hottest rapping beats and R&B instrumentals in the world, but if no one knows about you and your music, it makes NO difference. You can even have distribution with the biggest distributors in the world. But without proper marketing it won’t mean anything. If you don’t promote your music heavily, you’ll get lost in the ocean of rappers and singers that are online and in stores. I’ll give you an intro here, but the topic is way to huge to discuss in one article.

Q: Once my song is ready, where and how can I promote it and get it heard?

A: Like I said earlier this is a big subject which can’t be explained in a couple of paragraphs. But once you have a fully mixed and mastered song with solid lyrics on a really HOT rapping beat or R&B instrumental, you’re ready to get it out there into the world. (Remember, as important as marketing is, music quality still matters). One thing you definitely want to keep doing is constantly learn all you can about Music Marketing. The key is to get AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE to hear (to actually listen to) your song. Post your music up everywhere online. Give it to all your friends and tell them to make copies and share it with their own friends. Hand CD’s out at clubs and concerts where they play music similar to yours. When you’re first starting out don’t be afraid to give your music away for free. Yes I said FREE. (well… Almost free, the only thing you should ask for in return is the person’s Email Address – more on this later.) People won’t pay to listen to a song from an unknown artist they might not like. They have to trust and like you before they buy from you. Trust me, giving away your music to gain a true fan will PAY OFF in the end.

The next thing to do is get your music on the internet and let the world hear. Upload your music to any music related website you know of. POST IT EVERYWHERE YOU CAN! Some good ones to focus on are iLike, ReverbNation, MySpace (yes MySpace still matters), Last.fm, Jango and BandCamp but the list goes on and on. After that get on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and socialize with different people – tell them about your music! It’s important NOT to be annoying and spam people with ads of your music. That is one SURE way to get potential fans to HATE you. (Do you ever click on those kinds of posts? Didn’t think so…) You have to start or join in conversations and build personal relationships with people. That’s the key to social networking – It’s hard work, but it WILL pay off.

Another thing you don’t want to forget about is having your OWN website – it looks professional and will give you credibility as an independent artist. Having a MySpace of Facebook Page is great but you need a HOME – your personal website will be your own store-front where you can gather fans. A good solution for this is BandZoogle. You can easily design a professional looking website with them and get your own domain (something like www.YourArtistOrBandName.com). BandZoogle also has a great Mailing List application that will let you collect all your fans email addresses so you can keep in touch with them. This is VERY important. When you give your music away to fans, make sure to get an email address in return and keep them updated on all your new releases. It’s much easier to keep old fans (customers) than it is to get new ones! Well this is the longest article in the series so I’ll leave it at that for now! Keep learning about Music Marketing – It’s Important! Hope this helped.

Holla @ ur boy!

DatPaki

Producer/Songwriter

PBE Music