Posted: Dec 2, 2025

Category: Merch

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**Guest post written by Julia Kater for Bandzoogle.com.

"Bundles are a smart way to sell your music and clear out merchandise while reinforcing the artist-to-fan connection. They also increase average order value (AOV) and can streamline fulfillment — especially if you pre-kit bundles or ship items from a single location. Setting up and promoting your bundles on your music website can revitalize your site and help you move digital music, physical merch, and print-on-demand items."

Posted: Aug 19, 2025

Category: Promotion

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**Guest post written by Julia Kater for Bandzoogle.com.

"No matter what tools you use or how smart your promotional strategy is, quality and creativity in your actual music is what wins fans over, and keeps them coming back. That's why one of the best audience-building strategies for indie musicians these days is still the same as it was a decade ago: cover songs. But not just any covers; covers that truly stand out. A creative, personal take on a familiar song gives new fans a musical on-ramp into your world. Think of it like a gateway: the right cover can grab attention through familiarity, then win people over with your originality and style."

Posted: Mar 18, 2025

Category: Online Presence

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**Guest post written by Melanie Kealey for Bandzoogle.com.

"As a musician you need a beautiful online presence to set yourself apart from the crowd...Updating your band website’s design, much like releasing new music, can revitalize your story and not only make your content feel fresh. It will give you something to work on and promote to your fans, keeping your music top of mind. So if you haven't thought about your website design in some time, these tips will help kickstart your creativity. Time to get updating — let’s take a look!"

Posted: Jan 8, 2025

Category: Online Presence

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**Guest post written by Joseph Longo for Bandzoogle.com.

"Your website is one of the most powerful tools in your artist toolbox. It’s your home base online, where fans can connect with you directly and discover everything they need to know about your music. To make your site work harder for you, here are five essential tips to help you maximize its potential..."

Posted: Oct 9, 2024

Category: Music Streaming

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**Guest post written by Lisa Occhino for Bandzoogle.com.

"Although DIY artists are finally starting to earn more royalties from music streaming services, it’s still quite rare to make a living off of that income. But does that mean that distributing your music is pointless? Far from it. Major platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Pandora offer free artist dashboards to track and analyze how your songs are performing. They also provide you with invaluable data that can help you understand who your audience is, where to tour, how to most effectively spend your marketing dollars, and much more. So how do you leverage all this data to grow your streams, and also benefit the other areas of your music career?"

Posted: Aug 13, 2024

Category: Licensing

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**Guest post written by Caleb Murphy for Bandzoogle.com.

"In the sync licensing world, any little edge could help you succeed. Most importantly, you want it to be as easy as possible for sync licensing people to listen to and use your music in TV shows and movies. I’ve gotten several placements on TV shows and in indie films as an indie artist, so I want to share what I’ve learned first-hand and through research. I’m not an expert, but this article will be a good introduction to how to optimize your website for sync licensing. Hopefully, doing these things will increase your chances of getting placements."

Posted: Jul 3, 2024

Category: Live Performance

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**Guest post written by Adam Percy for Bandzoogle.com.

"While they had a bit of a shaky start when they came out, QR codes have now become a popular tool for sharing content and for promoting pages or products online. The advantages of QR codes are that they’re very portable, they’re unique, and they can be used just about anywhere—they can be scanned with a smartphone camera to quickly get anyone to a specific page on the web...Here are five ways you can use QR codes to elevate your live shows..."

Posted: Nov 22, 2023

Category: Fans

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**Guest post written by Sammy Hakim for Bandzoogle.com.

"Whether it’s over the internet or on a stage, one of our main jobs as musicians is to engage with our audience...in the modern era, engaging with your audience means a lot more than generating powerful work: fans expect artists to be active online using various platforms, from TikTok to streaming services. Some even deem this online activity to be necessary for building a sustainable career. With that said, if you’re struggling to find ways to engage with your audience online, we’ve got your back! Here are five tips to get you started..."

Posted: Oct 18, 2023

Category: The Musician Business

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**Guest post written by David Andrew Wiebe for Bandzoogle.com.

"One of the reasons musicians end up choosing to become artists and joining bands in the first place is because they love live performance and simply can’t get enough of the adrenaline and dopamine cocktail. That is, of course, until they’ve been rejected by 10 venues in a row and grow tired of trying to grind it out. It’s usually at this point that the bassist chimes in with – “I know! We should find a booking agent!” But is now the right time for a booking agent? And, if it is, how do you get one?"

Posted: Sep 20, 2023

Category: Live Performance

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**Guest post written by Adam Percy of Bandzoogle.

"No matter your genre or style, if you’re a musician, chances are you’ll be looking at playing shows on a tour. For a lot of musicians, crossing the country and playing in other parts of the world is the dream - and it can be a huge component for your success as you reach outside of your core local fans...One of the best ways to set up a tour and hit the road effectively is to network and plan gig swaps. It’s a helpful way to find suitable venues as well as broaden your audience reach. Here we’ll look at figuring out if gig swapping is a good fit for your band, and how to get started with it."

Posted: May 9, 2023

Category: Online Presence

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**Guest post written by Melanie Kealey of Bandzoogle.

"As a musician, you need tools for promotion. An EPK is your online resume and musical business card, making it easy for industry professionals to discover who you are. Included in an EPK are assets to help industry easily understand and promote a band’s music. You’ve likely heard that every artist should have an EPK - let’s look at the reasons you might need one."

Posted: Feb 14, 2023

Category: Fans

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**Guest post written by Caleb Murphy for Bandzoogle.com.

"As an indie artist, you have several ways to make money from your music. And launching a fan subscriber community is one of those ways...To succeed at this, you need an established fanbase - people who regularly listen to your music, open your emails, and engage with your social media content. The trick is, getting those fans to subscribe and effectively become super fans. There are lots of ways to encourage more fans to subscribe, but below are six of the most creative perk ideas."

Posted: Sep 13, 2022

Category: Online Presence

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**Guest post written by Wes Walls of Bandzoogle.

"Once you have created a music website, you can take your online presence a step further by optimizing your band's ranking in search engines. This is called SEO for musicians, and it makes it easier for your fans to find the information about you that they want. Whether you want to discover the best SEO keywords for musicians, or just start making your songs, social profiles and events show up in Google, this checklist will help you to get started."

Posted: Jul 19, 2022

Category: Marketing

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**Guest post written by Haley McCarthy of Bandzoogle.

"A landing page is the perfect combination of creativity and action, allowing you to gain more fans and build a lasting relationship...As a musician, you can cater to this part of the fan experience with well-crafted newsletters...To build your mailing list, you can create a custom landing page on your music website to capture fan emails. But what is a landing page and how do you encourage fans to sign up for your mailing list? Let’s explore how to use the email opt-in landing page to build your email list!"

Posted: Mar 21, 2022

Category: Selling Music

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**Guest post written by Melanie Kealey of Bandzoogle.

"Whether you’re an up and coming indie artist, or have a new album almost ready, releasing a single is a great way to create some momentum around your music. A single can not only get your fans excited, but can be pitched to press, radio, or playlists to build some buzz. Along with this, you should sell a single from your official website...Anyone who gets to your website is interested in finding out more about you - so make it a priority to pitch your single and the story behind it. Here’s how to prepare, release and sell a single from your music website."

Posted: Dec 6, 2021

Category: Websites

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**Guest post written by Dave Cool of Bandzoogle.

"There are countless blogs that offer advice to musicians, with topics ranging from industry news, to songwriting and recording, music marketing and promotion, and more. But with so much information available to musicians and bands online, it can be a serious undertaking to find the most legitimate, valuable sources to help with your music career. Fortunately, we spend a lot of time in the world of music blogging, so we’ve put together this list to help point you in the right direction. Here are ten of the best blogs for musicians and bands."

Posted: Aug 16, 2021

Category: The Musician Business

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**Guest post written by Carla Malrowe for Bandzoogle.

"A brilliant band photo is one that captures the style and story of the music, expresses the characters of the musicians, and bears elements akin to the genre. It is impressionable, professional, unique and authentic. Brilliant photos sell the total sonic experience that awaits the listener...Here are the do’s and don'ts when it comes to putting together your band photoshoot project."

Posted: Jul 12, 2021

Category: Live Performance

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**Guest post written by Melanie Kealey for Bandzoogle.

"As restrictions are starting to ease in some parts of the world, we thought it would be beneficial to have a conversation with Kyle Weber (founder of live show & tour booking platform Indie on the Move) and Kristen Ford (singer-songwriter and touring artist) to gain some perspective on how artists are going about booking or re-booking tours..."

Posted: Jun 7, 2021

Category: Merch

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**Guest post written by Desi Thorne for Bandzoogle.

"The beauty of digital merch is that you can offer it to fans anywhere in the world. Create some one-of-a-kind items for your online store."

Posted: Jun 1, 2021

Category: Merch

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**Guest post written by Desi Thorne for Bandzoogle.

"To get started, think about the different kinds of band merch you might offer. Items that can be handmade may be difficult to reproduce, but can also be offered for a significantly higher price point. Offering a good balance of custom merch and scalable merch allows you to offer unique merch for all fans at different levels of dedication."

Posted: Apr 26, 2021

Category: Touring

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**Guest post written by Patrick McGuire for Bandzoogle.

"...responsible budgeting is just as important here as it is in any other facet of life. If you’re just starting out booking shows on the road, or if you’ve had bad experiences that have cost you gobs of money in the past, here are four considerations to make so that you can safely avoid going broke on your next tour."

Posted: Oct 5, 2020

Category: Online Presence

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**Guest post written by Dre Dimura of Bandzoogle.

"With so many methods of promoting your music online these days, the importance of having a dedicated website can often be overlooked. Websites are still one of the best tools to drive fan engagement, curate your web presence, and manage the rest of your socials from a branded homebase. Here are five reasons to have a website for your band or solo musical effort..."

Posted: Jul 27, 2020

Category: The Musician Business

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**Guest post written by Gideon Waxman, a London based drummer & music educator.

"There are times in life when we are forced to adapt in order to survive. This is one of those times, and it’s why we as musicians need to become flexible in order to achieve financial security—I also want to give you some advice as to how to start becoming more self-reliant..."

Posted: Jul 1, 2019

Category: Online Presence

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**Guest post written by Dave Cool of Bandzoogle.com.

"An electronic press kit (EPK) is essential for making a strong first impression on promoters, bookers, media, and other music industry professionals...You can use your EPK to help you get more press, more gigs, and come across as a serious artist."

Posted: May 20, 2019

Category: Fundraising

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**Guest post written by Dave Cool, Director of Artist & Industry Outreach at Bandzoogle, originally featured on Hypebot.com.

"The demise of PledgeMusic and the hundreds of musicians left in its wake are a sadly familiar story for music industry veteran Dave Cool of Bandzoogle. "The company takes on millions in investment to support rapid growth," writes Cool. "Flashy headlines ensue." But when things fall apart, too often it's the unsuspecting musicians that suffer."