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: Oct 8, 2025

Category: Marketing

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**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."

Posted: Sep 16, 2025

Category: The Musician Business

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**Guest post by Musician Indie Coalition, Business-Based Artist Development Experts who help DIY Musicians develop, launch and scale their music careers.

"In the music world...your artist or band name plays a massively important role in shaping audience perception and marketing opportunities from the very start. When selecting your artists or band name, you should give significant thought and consideration."

Posted: Jul 16, 2025

Category: Marketing

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**Guest post written by Yona Marie, originally featured in her blog.

"Artificial intelligence (AI) is having a massive impact on the music industry, and many musicians and listeners are concerned about the transformations the technology is bringing about...Artists are rightfully concerned about how this will affect music composition and their ability to earn. While these are legitimate concerns, AI is a game-changer in how artists market their music."

Posted: Feb 11, 2025

Category: The Musician Business

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**Guest post by Eric Todd, Founder/CEO of iProdigy, a Grammy-winning artist development and funding platform for artists at every career stage.

"With the dominance of streaming platforms like Spotify offering unprecedented competition and dismally low payouts, independent artists are finding it nearly impossible to earn a sustainable living solely from streaming revenue...The reality is that success in the music business no longer revolves around simply getting placed on playlists or racking up streams. Instead, artists must cultivate dedicated fan bases and build direct-to-fan (D2F) communities that they can monetize outside the constraints of digital service providers (DSPs)..."

Posted: Jan 2, 2025

Category: Social Media

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**Guest post written by Cyber PR, originally featured on the Cyber PR Blog.

Posted: Nov 27, 2024

Category: The Musician Business

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**Guest post by Kristen Ford, LA based indie rock act with a passion for music business.

"Happy Thanksgiving! A time for awkward chats around the dinner table, carbs with a side of carbs, sweater weather, and Black Friday Sales! This is that unique time of the year when all the retailers, life coaches, and memberships flex their marketing muscles and slash prices. For annual memberships, this can be the BEST time to purchase."

Posted: Oct 2, 2024

Category: The Musician Business

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**Guest post written by Scott Aumann, originally featured on The Legit Musician blog.

"Show posters are still one of the best ways to promote your band and a live show. I know most of the venues that I played at still used show posters for every show. Some venues even required that you send posters. These are a low-cost option for promotion and still can work great if done correctly. Don’t just write some stuff on a sheet of paper with a sharpie. Put some thought into your show posters and they will pay off with larger crowds and more engaged fans. I’m going to teach you how to make the most kick-ass show poster ever!"

Posted: Sep 10, 2024

Category: Marketing

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**Guest post written by Modern Musician.

"If you're serious about making a full-time career out of your passion for music, you've likely invested countless hours, energy, and money into honing your craft. But the big question remains—how do you build a loyal fanbase, make a sustainable income, and keep your artistic identity intact in today’s saturated industry? The good news is, it’s possible to achieve all this without relying on luck or record labels."

Posted: Aug 20, 2024

Category: Promotion

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**Guest post by Musician Indie Coalition, Business-Based Artist Development Experts who help DIY Musicians develop, launch and scale their music careers.

"As an independent artist in the modern music industry, having a direct line of communication with your fans is absolutely paramount when promoting your music...Two of the most powerful channels at your disposal for marketing music are email marketing and social media marketing. Both are fantastic tools that allow you to connect directly with your audience, share updates, tour dates, promote new releases and sell products and tickets to live shows. So let’s discuss each..."

Posted: Jul 24, 2024

Category: Merch

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**Guest post written by James Hill, a veteran of the music industry. He has worked at Warner Reprise Records and then Interscope/ Geffen Records and now helps indie artists with branding and manufacturing through his company Unified Manufacturing, a CD/DVD, custom vinyl records and merch company in LA.

Posted: Mar 19, 2024

Category: Promotion

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**Guest post written by Cyber PR, originally featured on the Cyber PR Blog.

Posted: Mar 5, 2024

Category: The Musician Business

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**Guest post written by James Hill, a veteran of the music industry. He has worked at Warner Reprise Records and then Interscope/ Geffen Records and now helps indie artists with branding and manufacturing through his company Unified Manufacturing, a CD/DVD, custom vinyl records and merch company in LA.

Posted: Aug 30, 2023

Category: Marketing

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**Guest post originally featured in the Symphonic Distribution Blog.

"Publicity is arguably the most misunderstood of all the marketing efforts recording artists go through. Many creators, from musicians and influencers to songwriters and producers, have wild visions of what publicity is and how it functions to support and enhance the trajectory of their career. Typically, these visions aren’t accurate. To clarify this process, here’s a rundown of everything you need to know..."

Posted: Jun 20, 2023

Category: Promotion

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**Guest post written by Cyber PR, originally featured on the Cyber PR Blog.

Posted: Jan 31, 2023

Category: Marketing

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**Guest post originally featured in the Symphonic Distribution Blog.

"Effective marketing is a fundamental part of being an artist. Without it, you, your music, and your branding can only go so far. This is where spending the money for thoughtful and dependable marketing comes into play. But how do you know how much money is the right amount to help you achieve your goals? In this part of our marketing journey series, we’ll break down everything you need to know about building a successful marketing budget..."

Posted: Jan 18, 2023

Category: Promotion

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**Guest post written by Lacie Blue, director of artist relations at Musik and Film Promotions.

"Nashville used to be the land where dreams came true for musicians. Superstar makers would walk into a bar and swoop up the “next big thing”—pretty soon you had Garth Brooks. Perhaps it still happens…once in a blue moon. Once upon a time, musicians and songwriters created music to create. They performed because it was in their blood to perform. They didn’t care if they fit into a genre. They wanted to connect to people on a higher level through music. Gone are those days. (But not the musicians…)"

Posted: Jan 10, 2023

Category: Social Media

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**Guest post originally featured in the Symphonic Distribution Blog.

"If you’re an active social media user, then you don’t need to be told how important accurate image sizing is on socials. Social platforms change their preferred image sizing and formatting every year, so make sure to update yours accordingly! To help you out, here are the updated requirements for 2023..."

Posted: Oct 25, 2022

Category: Promotion

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**Guest post by One Submit, the ultimate music submission platform.

"Your song is now uploaded to digital distribution platforms and it’s officially online with millions of streaming stores...Once your song is on all streaming platforms, the hard work begins: Promoting and Sourcing Your Music...Sending to a playlist is the most efficient and effective way to get your music heard, undoubtedly. But how do you place your track on a playlist? Should you focus your efforts on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer or Tidal?...If you want to know more, you've come to the right place."

Posted: Oct 4, 2022

Category: Live Performance

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**Guest post written by Matt Santry, founder of www.WellPaidMusician.com.

"The app is called Thumbtack. I think it's overlooked by musicians because it's an app for every imaginable freelancer from dog walkers, plumbers, website designers, and yes, performing musicians. So what sets this app apart from Fiverr and other freelancing marketplaces?...how does it work?...what's their business model?"

Posted: Sep 6, 2022

Category: The Musician Business

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**Guest post written by Jesse Young El.

"You're an artist who's just starting out in your career. You've been hustling, grinding, and making connections for years, and you're finally starting to see some success. Your music is starting to get attention, and you're beginning to perform at shows and venues. Or maybe that's not your story at all. Maybe you're rarely getting calls for shows. Maybe the venue you do get booked in is paying you very little. Perhaps your music isn't generating much revenue from royalties. If any of these is the case, then you're really going to have to hustle differently to make additional income. But don't worry, there are ways that you can make money as a singer or hip-hop artist beyond just shows and royalties."

Posted: Aug 16, 2022

Category: Promotion

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**Guest post by One Submit, the ultimate music submission platform.

"How to avoid this kind of fraud? 1. Use Chartmetric and SpotOnTrack 2. Curators have multiple playlists that all roughly have the same number of followers 3. Curators have large playlists but hardly any followers for themselves 4. The curators' playlist followers have very often no profile pictures and similar names 5. Curators sell playlist placements for money 6. Playlists do not appear on the ‘Discovered On’ section on the profile of an artist..."

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: Jun 21, 2022

Category: Promotion

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**Guest post by One Submit, the ultimate music submission platform.

"Spotify is one of the biggest online platforms for streaming and promoting music in 2022. Spotify currently has an astonishing 406m active users and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Spotify has created an amazing platform for indie artists to promote their music. Spotify’s success however, has led to the unfortunate establishment of Spotify playlist fraud and scams. From fake Spotify playlists to fake streams, there are many scams you should be aware of when using Spotify to promote your music."

Posted: May 24, 2022

Category: Social Media

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**Guest post by One Submit, the ultimate music submission platform.

"TikTok is one of the most popular social media platforms to date. If you are an up & coming artist and want to know the best way to expose & promote your music on TikTok, you came to the right place...A massive benefit of using TikTok is that it brings with a sense of authenticity and creativity to its platform, which allows creators to explore and use their imagination to its fullest, with only minor limitations in place...The question I'm sure you are wondering is, “how do I upload a song on TikTok?”"