Anyone can be a musician, but establishing your brand as an artist, and becoming an artist in the business, is a whole other beast.  Being involved in the business side of the industry goes further than registering your LLC and registering with ASCAP. The marketing of your product – which is your public persona and your music – is key in gaining momentum for your project; to properly market yourself, you have to build your brand… But how do you do that? 

1. Narrow in on your Brand Identity 

Brand identity is comprised of all of the elements that help portray your brand to the outside world: your color pallet, your logo, your clothing style, etc. But your brand identity must coordinate with your genre and sound. 

2. Make your Brand cohesive across all elements 

No matter how outlandish or bland your music and look is, they have to be as cohesive as possible. Nothing about your socials, artwork, image, or persona should feel out of place. For example, Lady Gaga’s image has changed drastically over the years; now she wouldn’t show up in an alien pod in a meat dress to her show with Tony Bennet. 

3. Understand your Target Audience 

Who are you playing to? Is your audience comprised of people you would be friends with? It should be. You should intimately know what your audience does and doesn’t like about your brand, what about your music moves them, and interact with them consistently. The better you know your audience, the more you can tailor your content, so the more loyal your following will become.

4. Identify your competition 

As unique as you’d like to be, you’re probably not. And that is very okay – uniqueness doesn’t grab fans, hard work and heart does. So know who you’re up against, focus on what they do well, what they don’t do, and how you could do it better. 

5. Build Awareness

Spreading awareness can be easier said than done. Sometimes you have to spend money on ads that you’re barely scraping together, other times your small fanbase will do your promotion for you. But you have to figure out what you have, and use it. Don’t rely on anyone but yourself to do the work of promoting your music across socials, in media, and IRL. Put up your own posters, contact influencers in your range, and push your music like your life depends on it. If it’s good, people will catch on.