**Guest post written by Jason Lekberg, a musician with 20+ years of experience in the industry and creator of Hard Target.

"As indie artists, marketing can feel overwhelming. There is no shortage of companies promoting “shortcuts”, including the social networks themselves. Whether or not you’ve ever executed a campaign before, you are likely skeptical of them all. And rightly so. Between AI, bots and trolls, the internet is more toxic and crowded than ever. There are few better examples of a necessary evil.

How do you focus? How do you know which path is right, and which is essentially setting your money on fire.
+Is Social Media Failing Your Music Promotion?

Marketing guru Seth Godin’s assertation “Choose your customers and chose your future” is key. Regardless of how great your music is, it’s not for everyone. Even the highest selling artist of all time, The Beatles, has only sold around 500 Million albums and there are 8 Billion people on the planet. Choosing who you are going to market to is the first, and most important, step towards clarity.

Begin by building a profile of your existing fans. What other artists do they like? Who do they feel you sound like? Ask them one on one at your next show or poll them through your social accounts. Look at the age range of these fans. Look at where they live, and if you can determine it, factors like marital status, children, professions, etc.

Put all of this into a document and begin sorting to find the similarities. Very quickly, patterns will begin to emerge. For instance, maybe you will see that your existing audience is 70% male, between the ages of 18-24 and in college. Record all the other bands your fans say you sound like and determine which overall genre they fall into. It’s likely that you will disagree with some of their assertions about similar sounds – but do not let that bother you. If people with this opinion like your music, it’s likely more people with the same opinion will also. Take the win of the new fan and move on.
+Stop Selling To Everybody. Find Your Dream Fan Instead.

These will be the parameters you will use to focus your marketing campaigns and maximize your spend. This is called Programmatic advertising.

There are two primary ways to spend programmatically. First, using the customization tools in the online ad buying platform of your choice, and second, finding ad networks that are already tailored to the group of people you are trying to reach.

An example of an online buying platform is Meta’s advertiser dashboard. As you set up your campaign, you will be given the opportunity to build an audience to promote your ads to. Use this data you’ve collected to specify which people should be in this audience. Based on our earlier information, it should be male, between the ages of 18-24, in college and fans of the genre and bands you identified. It will also give you the opportunity to choose a location. Unless your data has told you different, I would recommend targeting your local city or state only. This will make your budget go significantly further than marketing to a wider audience, many of whom will likely not be interested in your music.
+How To Determine Your Marketing Budget

An example of a network already tailored to a specific audience is https://hardtargetads.com. If you happen to play heavy music, this network will allow you to place ads on screens in locations that cater to fans of those genres. Bars, Record Stores, Tattoo Shops, Restaurants, etc. This type of network is naturally programmatic in that you do not need to find the fans. The screens are already located in front of the people you wish to reach. It also has the added benefit of removing the white noise of online networks.

In either case, targeting the fans you want to reach will allow you to get the most for your money, and quickly see feedback that will allow you to refine your profile, build an even better audience, and reach even more of the people most likely to love your music."

Related Blog Posts:

+10 Smart Ways To Analyze Your Fans

+How Artists Can Use AI to Their Advantage Marketing Their Music

+How to build a marketing funnel to promote your music