3 top strategies for using paid ads online to promote your music

Bands and musicians usually spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment and recording their music. However, when it comes to promoting it, not many are keen to spend too much money. And that’s understandable. After all, their passion is music, not marketing. 

However, as a young artist, if you want to get the exposure you need and build a loyal fanbase, getting the word out there about your music is crucial. After all, your career is heavily dependent on whether or not people actually listen to your stuff.

Paid advertisements online can do wonders for your music marketing. They can help you reach your target audience, build your reach on streaming sites, and get facetime with big record labels and executives.

But to use paid ads effectively, there are a number of things you need to keep in mind. In this blogpost, we’ve put together some useful tips and strategies for creating the best paid ads. Let’s take a look!

1. Research your target audience

You want to make sure that your ads are being seen by the people who would be most interested in your music. If you play heavy metal, it would be unwise to market to the 50 to 60 year old demographic on social media. Plus, narrowing down your audience also saves you money in the long run, because you won’t be spending money on pointless prospects.

So how do you begin your research? Start by figuring out who your ideal listener is. If you’re a pop group, perhaps your ideal listener is 16 to 18 years old. Once you have this information, match it with who currently buys your music. Now you know who to target your ads towards. 

So when you post paid ads on social media and other online platforms, keep this particular audience in mind. Don’t even bother advertising to anyone else. Figure out your audience’s likes, dislikes, interests, geographical location, etc. Make a spreadsheet if you have to. Then, tailor your ads according to what would grab their attention the fastest. 

Through this strategy, you should be able to have a profile or your ideal listener and create an ad that would grab their attention immediately. 

2. Have an end goal in mind

Most artists make the mistake of shelling out some money on an ad, posting it online, and then forgetting about it. This is not the way you want to market your music. Music marketing is a multi-pronged process and it requires effort and dedication.

Before you make your ad, have a goal in mind. What is it that you want your audience to do once they see your ad? How will the ad help you gain exposure or sell records?

Once you figure out your goal, create a series of advertisements geared towards helping you achieve that end goal. Here’s an example to illustrate this point:

Goal: You want your target audience to listen to your new single and then follow your Spotify page so that they can be notified about new music.

Paid ad 1: You play a short snippet of your new single and introduce yourself. The target audience is 100,000 people. 

Paid ad 2: You play the snippet again and ask people to check you out on Spotify. This time the audience is smaller, let’s say 50,000 people who engaged with your previous ad in some way.

Paid ad 3: Share your single and Spotify with a custom group of people, and ask them to provide their email addresses for regular updates. 

You can focus your marketing efforts even more by taking the email list you’ve collected and sending out announcements, newsletters, or general updates on gigs and new albums to the people who appear to be most interested in your music. 

You can create exciting email campaigns through PosterMyWall’s email campaign manager and send them directly through the site in minutes. 

3. Create eye-catching advertisements

It doesn’t matter how much money you spend on your online ad – if it isn’t eye-catching enough, you will not get the engagement you need. Therefore, be smart about the content you create as your ads. 

Create something that’s visually appealing, that sets the tone for your music, and that tells people what to expect when they hear it. If you’ve put out a bluesy single, your ad should reflect that vibe. In this case, you would go for more muted colors. More importantly, your content should look professional – it should show people that you’re the real deal and that your music is worth paying attention to. 

You can create stunning, professional visuals for your paid ads using PosterMyWall’s music poster templates. You can customize the templates and have them ready in minutes. 

Paid ads online can be a huge help to your music marketing, provided that you’re smart about the content you’re putting out, your end goal, and who you want to market to. So use these strategies to craft a holistic paid ad marketing plan, and build your loyal fanbase.