Ideas for marketing your hip hop music
After you’ve written a dope song which flows, has a solid theme, fresh rhymes and a tight beat, you’re ready to market your hit-to-be. It may seem obvious, but before you even decide to promote your music you need to have quality material to promote. Otherwise, it’ll be a waste of time and money with no progress made. So, make sure your product is great and by great I mean mixed and mastered, high quality and relevant to your fans. There’s lots of competition out there, so give your fans and potential fans more than just a top quality record. Deliver a record DJs will be happy to play.
Once you have a song that will truly go viral, there are other things to do to best market your hip hop music.
Know your goals (and have some milestones set up so you know you’re attaining those goals and tracking your progress). Do your goals include getting radio play in the next 3 months, releasing a single, being reviewed on a hot new website? Goals can be attainable, but you must first outline your goals in detail. Figure out some short-term and long-term goals. Then every day, do something, anything, to work on attaining those goals.
Know your target. Do you know who your target audience is? Have you had conversations – in person or online – with your fans? The music you make appeals to a certain group, a certain demographic, certain types of people. Do your research to find out who this “group” consists of. Do a few polls on FB to find out what fans like about your music. Or better yet, do a few polls to find out more about your fans. You have to know your audience in order to market to them.
Brand yourself. Branding was covered in previous posts. See information on branding here.
Tour. Touring is one of the most important things you can do. Fans need to not only hear you, but they need to see you. Touring will give you a connection with your fans. It will also help you to determine which venues work best for your music and style. Labels and investors will look positively on rappers who know their audiences and have favorable relationships with several venues.
Build relationships. A key part of marketing is building relationships. Building relationships with whom? It’s important to build relationships with not only your fans, but with promoters, radio stations, and even other rappers.
And finally, remember to never give up. Keep pushing and your breakthrough will come. For example, look at rapper Kevin Gates. Gates has built a loyal fan base, but it wasn’t always easy. According to Gates, “We passed the music out, we went hand to hand. We went to different neighborhoods, wherever we went, passed them out. There was a time I used to pass CD’s out, me and my team, and people threw them on the ground. Kids wouldn’t listen to it, but me and my team kept pushing.” He never gave up and ended up having his first album, Islah, debut at number 2 on the Billboard 200. If he can do it, you can too.