There’s one thing that every artist desires: FANS! Releasing music is one thing, influencing the right audience is a different ball game. You have to find them, impress them, and turn them to your loyal listeners. They need to know that you exist, because competition is fierce. You need different touch points to create that awareness, feed their curiosity, and then capture their attention.

Advertising is a profitable investment in your music career’s long-term growth, but you need to be very precise about the goals you set. It could be to boost streams on Spotify, to grow your email list, to persuade people to your website, or to sell merch. Think like an impatient viewer. How do you respond to a video or an interactive banner ad? You can either overlook, skip or mute it, or scroll past.

HOW DOES ONLINE ADVERTISING WORK?

There are a lot of ad platforms online that can be use to create awareness for your music. Thankfully, there are both free and paid platforms available online to aid your music reach so why not make use of them? Sister platforms like Facebook and Instagram can be beneficial, both free and paid. There are some basics you need to figure out for yourself before venturing out into the world of online advertising. You need to find out where your listeners are and how you can reach them. If you have a good following on Instagram and Facebook, that is a great place to start, before branching out as you release more music.

For instance, imagine you are trying to increase your social reach to Africa. Someone in Johannesburg who is into your style of music sees your video in their Tik Tok feeds, as an in-feed ad. He takes notice of your name but quickly scrolls down and ignores your promotional video. During his coffee break, he sees your banner ad, clicks it and lands on your website with your latest release on the front page, but he can’t wait to listen because the coffee break is over and he has to get back to work. The next day, he’s listening to the radio and then your audio ad comes on: “Good morning Johannesburg, this is your favorite artist (your name)….” Now you’ve made him curious to actually listen to your music. Now that’s a ripple effect.

If you're just new to the game, I don't see why you shouldn't dive into online advertising. If you haven’t yet familiarized yourself with online advertising, it’s time to do so. If you think it's a waste of your time and money, then you need to reconsider how your music can benefit from this. Online advertisements are like a two-edged sword, and there's no excuse for not taking advantage of it if you really want to get loyal listeners.