CMU Trends In Ten Music Marketing Library

CMU Trends In Ten: The Music Marketing Toolkit

By Chris Cooke | Last Updated: March 2020

This is a ten step guide to the music marketing toolkit – covering gigs, social, direct-to-fan, press, radio, TV, clubs, playlists, influencers and advertising.

The music marketing toolkit
The music marketing toolkit consists of all the platforms, channels and services commonly used by the music industry to promote and publicise its artists, releases and events. The toolkit has expanded over the years as new platforms, channels and services have emerged, although the new tools don’t usually replace the old tools, instead the toolkit expands.

Which tools any one artist uses at any one time will depend on various factors, including: the stage they are at in their career; whether they are actively promoting a new release; the age, preferences and location of each artist’s fanbase; the business partners each artist has in place; and the budgets that are available.

Some tools will be used on a constant basis, certainly when an artist is still building their initial fanbase. Others will only be employed as part of higher profile, shorter term marketing campaigns designed to escalate fanbase growth and generate interest in certain specific projects. These higher profile campaigns still tend to be built around new releases.

For those higher profile, shorter term campaigns, the more tools that can be employed at the same time the better, as all the different activity is inter-related, and the more places people are exposed to the music, the more effective each tool becomes.

Though, of course, realistically most artists can’t afford to employ every tool at the same time. Given most artists will have to decide which tools to employ and which tools to forgo, the trickiest part is often deciding which tools to employ when.