9 Best Music Marketing Tools & 6 Platforms to Drive Artist Growth

The digital music landscape is more crowded than ever, but the proliferation of platforms and mediums has had a democratizing effect. The gates of the music industry — once guarded by labels and distributors — are now open to anyone.

That’s why the real challenge of music promotion in the 21st century is to develop a 360° marketing strategy that reaches all these audiences and connects with every potential opportunity — and to do that you need the right tools. 

From platform-specific advertising managers to CRM solutions and link shorteners: every music marketing tool plays its role in creating, organizing, and distributing your content (and your message) so that it reaches the right people at the right time. 

We created Soundcharts as the ultimate tool to tie it all together: a platform that aggregates data across all channels (global or local, digital or analog) and organizes it into actionable insights that form the bedrock of your marketing strategy. Soundcharts tracks the performance of your marketing campaigns and gives you information that is critical to optimize your strategy and reach new audiences more efficiently. However, we’re far from the ONLY solution that you’ll need: other tools do the outreach and marketing legwork. 

That’s why we drew up this list of our favorite music marketing tools that will help grow your career. 

9 best music marketing tools

There's a million of ways to promote an artist. Get on the radio, engage in TV promotion, step up your PR game, tour, invest into digital ads, get your music synced to a hit movie (or a video game) — this list could go on and on. In fact, the entire music industry is, in a way, dedicated to connecting the artist's with their audiences and growing careers.

That is an intricate and nuanced process, and obviously, we wouldn't be able to cover it all in one blog post. However, what we can do is to share some of our favourite digital tools that can help you get the best out of your marketing budget and get some quick wins along the way.

1. Spotify for Artists

Spotify for Artists gives you the tools to optimize and improve your performance on the platform. This starts with customizing your Spotify profile and accessing critical data on playlist additions, number of streams, and number of followers/listeners. 

Playlist additions are the lifeblood of Spotify performance, and Spotify for Artists gives you a direct channel to pitch your music to Spotify’s editorial team, leveling out the playing field for independent artists out there. 

2. Soundcharts 

Soundcharts gathers all the various data points to help you assess your marketing strategy and figure out what is (or isn’t) working.  Soundcharts platform gives you a comprehensive view of an artist’s performance across the music industry, including:

• Social media performance
• Streaming consumption metrics and playlist exposure
• Thousands of digital charts, from TikTok and Instagram Stories to Shazam and YouTube
• Real-time radio airplay data from over 1,900 major stations in 74 countries
• Online media mentions

With Soundcharts, marketers have access to insights that help identify new opportunities, highlight high-potential markets, assess the results of your campaigns, and make strategic, data-inspired marketing decisions.

Access all music marketing metrics in a single, real-time dashboard and pave your own way to success. Try Soundcharts for free — no credit card required.

3. ReverbNation

ReverbNation is one of the largest online communities of music professionals in the world, and an excellent hub for music marketing tools across multiple channels, including (but not limited to):

• Email newsletters
• Targeted advertisements on social media and streaming platforms
• Crowd Reviews where users can rate your music
• Viral marketing widgets
• Electronic, trackable press-releases 

4. Hubspot (CRM) 

Hubspot is a full-suite Customer Relationship Management tool which music professionals can use to construct and carry out a cross-platform marketing strategy, then assess the success of this strategy and optimize moving forward. You can centralize all your marketing campaigns (emails, blogs, social media posts, advertisements) on HubSpot — and track exact metrics at the same time.

5. Show.co

Show.co provides a range of music marketing tools, including:

• Spotify pre-save: let listeners save your music on Spotify before it’s released to boost early streaming.
• YouTube Premiere: create unique debut webpages for your YouTube videos to drive view counts and enhance your branding.
• Spotify and iHeartRadio ads: create and launch ads on the largest streaming platforms.
• Banner ads on major music websites: place ads on sites like Rolling Stone and Billboard.

6. ToneDen

ToneDen is especially valuable to music professionals as a marketing platform for live events. With ToneDen, you can:

• Create marketing playbooks that cover each phase of the event lifecycle
• Design unique landing pages
• Launch social media and email marketing campaigns

7. Amplify

Your fans are scattered across dozens of platforms — so just giving them a Spotify link is probably not the best move. Content sharing is the crux of digital music marketing, and a link shortener like Amplify streamlines it in several ways:

• Customize your links with artwork, metadata, or videos
• Track how many people view your links
• Create landing pages and smart links

8. Buzzstream

Buzzstream is an outreach and PR tool that automates critical parts of link building and marketing. You can send out bulk pitches tailored to different audiences and create a link building database. Buzzstream is also an excellent way to find social media influencers in your genre. 

9. Facebook Bots

Engaging with your audience in a personalized manner becomes more and more difficult as you gain traction. With social media bots, you can engage at scale and send customized direct messages to your listeners en masse. It’s great for viral marketing campaigns, like the recent campaign by the animated band Gorillaz which let fans chat with “imprisoned” band member Murdoc through direct messages on Facebook. 

Marketing Tools vs. Platforms: What’s the Difference for Musicians?

Music marketing platforms are streaming services, radio, and social media — all the different spaces where musicians can promote their music and connect with their audience. Marketing tools, on the other hand, can help you analyze your performance and amplify your success on these platforms. 

Marketing platforms and tools work hand in hand: you can’t reach an audience without a presence on major digital platforms, but cutting through the noise and putting together a successful marketing strategy requires the right instruments — and the right insights. 

6 Types of Music Marketing Platforms

Marketing platforms of the music industry can be divided into the following types:

1. Social Media

However, to build a following on social media, you need to understand the demographics of your target audience and set goals in terms of web-mentions or content engagement metrics. In the digital sharing age, your fans are the media itself, one that can sometimes be much more powerful than the conventional communication channels. However, don’t forget about other channels.  Social media marketing should be just a part of your overall communication strategy. 

2. Advertising

Digital advertising can bring a lot of value since it allows you to choose not only the time and place of your communication but also the type of people you engage with. Advertising through social media (e.g. Facebook ads), search engines (e.g. GoogleAdWords), digital displays or even digital audio platforms of Spotify/Pandora allows you to target people based on demographics (age, location, income, etc), musical preferences and interests.

When it comes to physical space, OOH (out of home) advertising is perhaps the only format used by the music professionals — due to its low relative cost of reach and location-based nature. However, it remains reserved for more popular acts, targeting wider audiences.  

Paid advertising is a great way to get in front of the audience, but it should be approached with caution — the acquired traffic won’t stick around for long if you’re not able to spark an organic interest across other channels and platforms. 

3. CRM: Direct-to-Fan Communication 

The two marketing platforms listed above help you reach new listeners, but when it comes to cultivating a loyal fan base, direct-to-fan communication is crucial. First and foremost, music is a passion and part of people’s identity. Direct engagement helps to build a deeper connection with your audience — and that is something that can come a long way in the music business. 

Emails, text messages, or direct messages over social media — whether manual or via bots — will help you build a tight-knit ring of fans that will stick with you (and consistently support you). 

4. Digital Service Providers 

Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Soundcloud: the digital music consumption landscape is made up of dozens of DSPs. Getting in front of the audience of these platforms is a key to expanding your fan base and growing your career. 

One of the most prominent channels to reach the audience of the various streaming platforms are the playlist placement. That’s why the playlist strategy is now at the heart of any music marketing campaign. 

Generally, playlists on the DSPs can be divided into five types:

• Official playlists, curated by a corresponding streaming platform's team
• Major-owned playlists, curated by major brands 
• Third-party playlists: curated by independent influencers 
• Personalized playlists, created by the algorithms of the DSP
• User-generated playlists, created by fans

The playlist space can offer a vast opportunity to reach new fans but, at the same time, it puts the artist at risk of being reduced to just another name in a long list — so you have to build your story on the other platforms to turn the streaming audiences into fans who will go out to your shows.

5. Media and Publications

Musicians should leverage all forms of media whenever possible:

• Online blogs and publications are some of the best places to reach a niche audience and generate local excitement.
• Appearances on TV and radio allow you to reach more mainstream audiences.
• Newspapers and magazines don’t have the heft they once did, but remain the mainstays of the music industry’s “old guard.”
• Synch licensing gets your music out there AND generates royalties. 

Promotion of this kind free advertisement — except that it never comes for free. You need a PR strategy, a network of connections across different mediums, a press event, and a solid (and preferably data-based) pitch. News doesn’t create itself, so musicians have to work with journalists and media pros to make it happen. 

6. User-Generated Content Platforms & Word-of-Mouth

Music was always the social phenomena, and the digital space has made the world more connected than ever. Digital WOM can now travel around the globe overnight and turn an unknown artist into an international sensation.

Right now, TikTok is the UGC platform on top of everybody’s mind — but the fan-driven content can live on several platforms: from Twitter to YouTube to Spotify (remember the user-generated playlists?) However, you have to remember that virality doesn’t just happen — it’s always driven by a solid strategy. 

6 Best Music Marketing Platforms

1. YouTube

The massively popular video-sharing platform is ground zero for music marketing, and the first place you should post your content:

• People watch over 1 billion hours of YouTube videos every day.
• Music is by far the most viewed category of video (27%)
• 95% of the most watched videos on YouTube are music videos. 

2. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram

Most of the digital world is congregated on this trio of social media platforms, so your presence on each is critical to maximizing your reach. 

You know the drill. With 330 million MAU, Twitter is the playground of most influencers and budding music journalists, at the heart of all things viral and word-of-mouth. Facebook has a staggering 2.38 billion MASU, and is the most-used social media platform worldwide — and people will discover your live events. Instagram, with 1 billion MAUs, is a great place to cultivate a unique brand and visual aesthetic.

Each platform requires a tailored approach since all of them have their own niche, demographic, and most importantly, content format. Your social media marketing strategy should tie all three together — and make the best use of their corresponding advantages.

3. Spotify

Spotify is the world’s most popular music streaming platform, controlling 31% of the global streaming market with its 365 million annually active users. Depending on your strategy, your goal can be the placement on the editorial or label-owned playlists, which can provide colossal exposure and transform careers; or getting featured by the “middle-tail” of 3rd-party influencers. The latter is easier to reach — although it still takes time and resources — but the promotional effect of a single plug goes down accordingly. 

The bottom line is: 54% of people say that digital playlists are replacing albums for them, and platforms like Spotify have driven this change.  Nowadays just a single song featured on prominent playlists on Spotify can be a game-changer — and the playlists should be a center of attention for any music marketing campaign. However, don’t forget about the album —   it is still a vital artist-focused format.

4. TikTok 

TikTok is the latest object of fixation in the music marketing world. The platform lets users repurpose music into sharing-friendly memes — and as it turns out those can go a long way. This is the new frontier of music marketing: making your music available to users so they can generate their own content and build word-of-mouth. TikTok is the pioneer in this budding area. 

TikTok goes to show that fans are your most important source of media: they share your content, engage with it, and amplify it across mediums like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. But make no mistake, even Lil Nas X’s spectacular rise through the platform was part of a carefully cultivated marketing strategy that targeted platforms with viral potential. 

5. Spotify Audio Ads and Pandora AMP

With a combined 150 million+ “ad-supported” users, Spotify and Pandora can offer a huge opportunity to find new audiences. Getting close to the purchase point is a holy grail of advertising, and audio ads can help you push your music to new audiences right inside the listening session.

On top of that, the streaming platforms are a great way to reach out to fans and advertise live events, since Spotify and Pandora allow you to target your fans at best possible time — when they’re listening to your music!

6. Radio 

While it’s not the all-encompassing juggernaut it once was, radio is still one of the most potent mediums for reaching new audiences. Radio reaches 92% of Americans each week, with 49% of Americans cite radio as their primary channel for music discovery. 

The power of radio varies from market to market and from audience to audience, with radio listeners generally skewing older (young listeners nowadays prefer streaming). But while it’s exact importance depends on your target audience, radio airplay is still undoubtedly a vital performance indicator and a key component of success. 

Conclusion

No marketing strategy will make your music better, but finding new audiences for your music requires an approach that meets the digital crowds on their own ground: whether it’s listening on YouTube or Spotify, browsing Rolling Stone and PitchFork, or splicing your song into a meme on TikTok. Each of these platforms and tools will play a role in finding you a new slice of listeners, but you need the data that ties it all together — so that you’re always refining, iterating and improving your strategy.

Music industry is a place of constant innovation — and that's why we love it. The marketing strategies that worked yesterday, might not work today, so to stay ahead of the curve music professionals need to stay agile and constantly innovate. As Darren Hemmings, MD of Motive Unknown put it in our recent interview: "smart marketing is where you swim upstream to where it's quieter — to get space and be noticed." Often, finding this quite place is a question of going out there and trying new things, and using data to see if that's something worth exploring further. Find out more about how Soundcharts can help you do this.