(The following information is based on our research as of the date of publication. Although we strive for accuracy, this content is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied on as definitive or exhaustive. All rights reserved. We encourage you to conduct your own independent research to verify any information presented about the featured music marketing tools.)
Digital technology has irrevocably complicated the music industry. On one hand, it has massively democratized access for artists of all kinds. You no longer need to live in a major music mecca to succeed. Nor do you need to spend tens of thousands of dollars to obtain quality recordings and mastering. Superficially, the internet and affordable music technology have done more to make music truly meritocratic than at any other point in history.
Anyone who has spent any amount of time in the music industry can tell you that there is more to it than that. While anyone can technically do what a major label does (sans huge budgets), you do not have to spend much time marketing your own music to realize how much of a head start the majors truly have, especially with their reach and input to the editorial playlists at Spotify, Apple, and Amazon.
That being said, marketing is an art form as well as a science. It can take nearly as long to master as learning an instrument. And long-term, should marketing really be your job anyway? If you have read Perennial Seller by Ryan Holiday, the answer is yes. According to Holiday, you should be spending about an equal amount of time, love, originality, and creativity in marketing your music (i.e., TikTok, social media, Reddit and Discord communities, the tools below, etc.) as you did actually making it.
Only you can do this with your level of authenticity.
Luckily, powerful music marketing tools give independent artists access to the same powerful resources available to major labels and huge stars. Even better, many tools for digital marketing for musicians are even available for free, meaning you can create targeted, highly effective marketing campaigns even if you do not have a lot of money.
As you might expect, there is a vast ocean of music marketing tools out there, ranging from resources for scheduling your social media posts to music promotion platforms where you can post your creations to expand your audience. To help you have a better sense of what is out there, we have put together a thorough guide with everything you need to know about tools to promote your music.
Complete Guide to Music Marketing Tools
Music Marketing Tools for Playlist Promotion
un:hurd
un:hurd is a tool that combines traditional marketing tools alongside features for pitching to playlists. Like several of the music marketing tools we have mentioned, Un:hurd uses AI-driven analytics and machine learning to identify the best playlists to submit music to, maximizing the chances of getting placed on a popular playlist while keeping wasted time to a minimum.
Playlist Push
Playlist Push is a playlist promotion service that focuses on Spotify and Apple Music. It is worth checking out for its targeting, which is useful for putting your songs in the hands of the right influencers.
Promotion Tools for Musicians
If you are trying to expand your audience and get your music heard, you cannot overlook Reddit. It is the sixth most visited website in the world, for one thing, getting over 6.3 billion monthly visitors each month. It also has one of the largest ecosystems of music-related communities, known as subreddits, of any network on Earth.
With that being said, marketing on Reddit is its own special science, making it a specialized subset of an already specialized knowledge base. If you want to use Reddit to promote your music, you would do well to start by reading our article on marketing music on Reddit and by remembering that each subreddit is its own community. Every community has its own rules and social customs, and it is beyond tacky to ignore them. Do so at your peril.
As a general rule of thumb, follow the campsite rule when joining a music community on Reddit: leave it better than when you found it. Do not simply spam your links and disappear. Engage with the community. Provide feedback on other people’s posts, and they will likely repay you in kind. Being a kind, supportive, and encouraging presence on Reddit could earn you even more fans than your songs themselves.
PR Tools for Musicians
SubmitHub
SubmitHub is a godsend for musicians looking for premium marketing services. It puts you directly in touch with blogs, music journalists, influencers, and playlisters, making it one of the digital marketing tools for musicians most closely resembling a traditional PR agency. Even if they decline to share your song, they will still sometimes give feedback on your submission. This makes SubmitHub an invaluable tool for anyone trying to grow as a musician who might not have access to music lessons or an outside producer.
Sound.me
Social media marketing and influencer marketing for musicians allows everyone to become their own PR agent, but it has to be handled correctly. Anyone who has spent any amount of time randomly searching hashtags and messaging influencers out of the blue knows how much work this takes for very minimal rewards. Sound.me removes the guesswork by putting musicians in direct contact with over 2 million influencers.
Venice Co-Manager
Venice Co-Manager offers a novel service. It combines traditional music management and PR services with cutting-edge AI tools, letting you create an electronic press kit and create promotion campaigns that can all be monitored through a single platform.
The only downside to Venice Co-Manager is that the Free Plan is only available for a week. After that, it is $49.99/month, which might be kind of pricey for independent artists on a budget.
MusoSoup
MusoSoup is another platform connecting you directly to bloggers, music journalists, playlisters, and influencers. Many users find it easy and intuitive to use, while others praise its one-size-fits-all pricing strategy, which submits your track to every relevant curator for around $30. Some still find SubmitHub to yield better results due to its more targeted focus, so keep that in mind when choosing a music marketing tool.
Analytics Tools for Musicians
Spotify for Artists
If you are on Spotify, you simply cannot beat Spotify for Artists for advanced analytics. You can see who is listening to your music, when they are listening, even how they are tuning in. Understanding whether or not your listeners are discovering your music passively or actively is worth its weight in silver. Understanding when they are willing to part with some of their hard-earned cash is worth its weight in platinum. Add in the ability to engage with your audience as well as support for merchandise, further letting you monetize your network, and you simply cannot pass up Spotify for Artists if you are planning on being on the streaming platform.
Google Trends
Google Trends is more like a trend forecasting tool than an outright analytics platform, but there is no denying the potential of possessing historical data for creating marketing campaigns and understanding current tastes. It can even give you ideas for content, as you can see all of the topics that have been trending for the last 24 hours. Considering that it is totally free to use Google Trends, every digital marketer should have it in their toolkit.
ChartMetric
ChartMetric is another tool to help you promote your music across platforms by cleverly integrating AI. Assessing user behavior across multiple platforms provides advanced insight into how users listen to and engage with music, making ChartMetric’s analytics some of the most advanced, powerful, and useful music marketing tools in the industry. The only downside is that the Free Plan is only available for seven days, unfortunately. If you are willing to pay to grow your music career, though, you should definitely give ChartMetric a shot!
Tools for Social Media Marketing
TikTok Creative Center
Nobody beats TikTok when it comes to trends. It is no surprise that TikTok Creative Center is the best in the business when it comes to trend forecasting. Not only does it show you what hashtags and creators are trending, giving you some idea about the tastes and aesthetics of the moment, it also shows the top songs on the platform. This could help you brainstorm everything from TikTok videos to new songs, should you find yourself inspired by a new sound.
Later
Later is a social media marketing platform and influencer network all rolled into one. It also allows social listening, monitoring social media for mentions of your project for the paid version, making it useful for anyone willing to invest a bit in a marketing platform.
Although limited, Later does offer a free plan that is likely robust enough for many independent artists. You can schedule up to 12 posts for Instagram, Facebook, X, YouTube, or even TikTok on the free plan. The layout is one of the best in the industry, as well, with a clean, clear layout that greatly demystifies the social media marketing process.
Buffer
Buffer is another popular social media marketing platform whose free plan is powerful enough for many independent artists. Like Later, Buffer allows you to schedule up to 10 posts for free each month for up to three accounts. You can even schedule posts for slightly more obscure social networks like Bluesky or LinkedIn.
Even more impressively, Buffer offers a place to store ideas and works in progress, making it like a social media scheduling platform and to-do list all in one. You can also set posting goals, making Buffer a useful tool for anyone running social media marketing campaigns to build engagement.
The only slight downside is that the scheduler is not quite as slick and intuitive as Later, whose timeline layout makes social media marketing campaigns immediately obvious.
Meta Business Suite
Even better still, Meta Business Suite is completely free for anyone building their reputation on Meta products. You can schedule up to 25 Instagram posts a day at no charge. Meta Business Suite also offers impressively useful analytics, unlike the two other social media schedulers we have mentioned already. This alone makes Meta Business Suite worth a look if you are maintaining a presence on Instagram or Facebook.
Music Marketing Tools for Trend Forecasting
Pinterest Predicts
As musicians and music marketers, we need to embrace every tool at our disposal. Digital marketing for musicians removes much of the uncertainty in a way that used to be only available to the largest of the major labels. While Pinterest might not be the first social media network that springs to mind when it comes to promoting your music, you should not discount the insights it offers into current tastes and trends—and the ones soon to come.
Each year, Pinterest Predicts analyzes billions of data trends to get an idea of where people’s tastes are heading. Knowing that “Cherry Coded” is trending could give you ideas for your social media campaigns, for example. Understanding that “Castlecore” is currently en vogue could be the permission you need to start your Chappell Roan-coded side project.
Music Marketing Tools for Digital and Social Ads
Symphony.OS
SymphonyOS is similar to Venice Co-Manager and ChartMetric. It combines the precise targeting of digital ads with the convenience and powerful insights of AI. It lets you run automated marketing campaigns across numerous social media networks in addition to scheduling social media posts.
ToneDen
ToneDen is another sophisticated digital marketing tool for musicians that lets you automate digital ads in addition to creating highly targeted digital marketing campaigns. They also offer a wide range of sophisticated tools to help you grow your brand, from smart landing pages to clever contests to crisp, modern promotional materials.
Tools for SMS and Email Marketing
MailChimp
We have expounded on this topic numerous times—on how important it is to have your fans’ email or mobile number. Social platforms come and go (or if you are in the U.S., even TikTok is still on the verge of being blocked), but if you have your fans’ email, not only do you have a one-to-one relationship, but you know that that message will go right to them, without any of that silly “boosting” nonsense.
Let us take a look at how you can engage directly with your fans and get your music heard. Often, it is as simple as having an email/SMS sign-up on your web or mobile artist page or offering something unique in return for their information.
MailChimp remains one of the most widely used email marketing tools for musicians. Its easy-to-use automation features, customizable templates, and audience segmentation make Mailchimp useful for newsletters as well as engaging with fans via exclusive content and updates.
The free plan is great for independent artists, offering basic automation and up to 500 contacts. In a time when you never know when the next online platform could come crashing down, it has never been more important to own your own mailing lists and contacts.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign takes email marketing for musicians to the next level with advanced automation, detailed analytics, and tools commonly found in e-commerce, like customer relationship management. It is ideal for musicians looking to build deeper connections with their fans through highly personalized messaging and advanced automated sequences that nurture fan relationships over time.
Community
Community goes one step beyond email marketing, letting musicians connect with their fans directly via SMS. Text messages tend to have a much higher open rate, making your music marketing much less likely to drown in the inbox. SMS marketing is an incredibly useful tool for keeping fans informed about new releases, live events, and exclusive offers.
Music Marketing Tools for Content Creation
The District
The District is a distribution network focusing on YouTube that specializes in EDM and chill music genres. Not only do they give you the tools to create and manage content for YouTube, they also have a network of over 300 music networks, accounting for over 2 billion plays each month. If you are an electronic or chill artist, you simply cannot afford to overlook numbers like those!
Canva
Canva is a simple yet powerful graphic design tool that lets virtually anybody make eye-popping designs for any network you can think of. It is also a useful tool for creating a cohesive visual identity, as you can save projects and campaigns. If you are serious about making your visual content look as sharp and stylish as possible, you should definitely have Canva as part of your marketing toolkit.
Adobe Rush
Adobe Rush is for musicians and music marketers who do not want to master yet another discipline. Not everybody is cut out to be a master video editor, after all. Now you do not have to be, as Adobe Rush takes care of much of the painstaking work for you. Best of all, it is even available as a mobile app in case you want to share polished, high-quality footage when you are on the go.
TubeBuddy
TubeBuddy is another must-have for musicians looking to flourish on YouTube. It offers everything from keyword research and SEO optimization to A/B testing and scheduling uploads. It is everything you need to run full marketing campaigns on YouTube.
Subscription Platforms for Musicians
Patreon or Ko-Fi
One of the greatest potentials of digital marketing for musicians is the ability to directly engage with your audience. Depending on how active your fanbase is, it can even be quite an opportunity for monetization. If your audience or your workflow allows for it, you might set up a subscription service through a platform like Patreon or Ko-Fi.
You could offer exclusive content, limited edition merchandise, early access to tickets or releases, fan meet-and-greets, or behind-the-scenes glimpses into your creative project. Just make sure you are in a good place to provide additional content that will be worthwhile for both you and your audience, or you could just make more work for yourself without sufficient payback.
Music Marketing Tools for Live Event Promotion
Bandsintown
Bandsintown is the leading event promotion tool for connecting fans with musicians by announcing tour dates, live shows, and virtual concerts. It lets fans keep track of artists they follow, receive notifications about upcoming events, and buy tickets directly through an app. It is essential if you are focusing on building a live following to get your music heard.
Eventbrite
Eventbrite is another popular and powerful live music promotion tool that is notable for its easy integration with social media and email marketing.
Songkick
Songkick is a live music promotion tool similar to Bandsintown and Eventbrite, except it also integrates with Spotify, making it a useful tool for connecting with fans on that network.
Music Marketing Tools for Merchandise and Direct-to-Fan Sales
Shopify
Shopify is one of the most popular tools for merchandise sales for artists. It gives you the customizability of your own website but with the convenience of high-quality templates and support for processing payments. If you are going to be selling shirts, vinyl records, cassette tapes, or various other swag, you should really consider Shopify as one of your options.
Bandcamp
Bandcamp has many of the same advantages as Shopify as a virtual merchandise booth but with the advantage of having a healthy community to boot. Considering how many other things Bandcamp has going for it as a digital marketing tool, you should definitely consider it for merchandise and direct sales.
Printful
Printful offers the best of multiple worlds. They are a print-on-demand service that integrates nicely with Shopify and Bandcamp. If you are looking to print T-shirts or concert posters but without having overhead or having to maintain a physical inventory, Printful is worth a look.
Music Marketing Tools for Fan Engagement
The Feature
The Feature is an all-inclusive music marketing platform that is specifically geared toward fan engagement. It gives you everything you need to create press kits, landing pages, and distribute your music to more than hundreds of digital music services. Having all of these features available lets you know how all of your assets and campaigns are performing across all networks, removing the guesswork so you know where to focus your efforts. Even better, The Feature lets you gather your audience’s email address.
Fave
Fave is how you turn fans into superfans, creating special promotional content and special perks for your most active audience. Best of all, Fave offers advanced, detailed analytics, so you will not be left wondering what is working and what is not.
Preffy
Preffy is a music marketing tool that lets musicians engage their audience via contests and giveaways. It encourages fans to create their own original content around your music as well as share your singles and albums on social media, making it a highly useful tool for reaching new listeners, especially in these days of diminishing organic reach.
Laylo
Laylo is another tool that helps you incentivize your megafans with exclusive merchandise, custom drops, and limited edition tickets. It also lets you communicate directly with your audience, encouraging fans to stay glued to the app so they never miss a drop or release!
Discord
Discord is worth mentioning for its popularity and prevalence alone. Tons of people already have the app on their mobile devices and smartphones, making it an easy way to engage with your fans—and keep them engaged. If it is good enough for FKA Twigs, Richie Hawtin, and Rivers Cuomo, it should be good enough for you, too.
Mighty Networks
Here is one for the musician looking to future-proof all of their marketing! Mighty Networks is a music promotion platform that lets you build your own social media network. Unlike corporate social media, Mighty Networks lets you upload your own customized branding, explore more opportunities for direct monetization options, and engage with your fans deeply with exclusive content and member-only events.
Music Marketing Tools for Fundraising
Kickstarter
Kickstarter is the longest-running and best-known of the crowdfunding sites. This makes it a good choice for raising funds for recording costs, touring expenses, or raising funds for a particular project on name recognition alone. A Kickstarter campaign in conjunction with a push to increase fan engagement can be a deadly effective method for monetizing your music when done correctly.
GoFundMe
GoFundMe is a useful and popular crowdfunding tool due to its flexibility. Unlike Kickstarter, you do not have to reach your full goal to get paid out. This makes GoFundMe a slightly better choice if you are not entirely sure how your crowdfunding efforts are going to play out.
IndieGoGo
IndieGoGo splits the difference, offering both full and partial funding options. It is not as well-known as the other two crowdfunding platforms, but it is still worth considering if you are trying to raise funds for the next stage of your musical adventure.
Final Thoughts on Music Marketing Tools
We are living in an interesting time for the music industry. On one hand, there has never been greater access to huge numbers of potential fans. At this point, anyone with a laptop, a DAW, a smartphone, a guitar, some nerve, and something to say truly can make it—especially if they keep saying it with excellence and authenticity.
The trouble is that, as musicians and creatives, we also have to work six jobs if we hope to truly flourish in today’s music world.
Keep in mind as well that if you do your job exceptionally as a music artist—that is, being authentic and creating amazing music and content that truly resonates—your fans will often do the heavy lifting for you. Yes, your true fans are the proverbial “sneezers,” as Seth Godin would say (“Great ideas spread.”). Your fans will be your evangelists, so make sure you are providing the fire for them so they can help you appropriately.
It turns out there is a reason that music marketers, PR agents, sound and mastering engineers, graphic designers, photographers, and visual artists all used to command tens of thousands of dollars for their services. This job is hard!
It can take a lifetime to master the art of the gentle inbox urging or the obscurantist magic of marketing metrics. That is where music marketing tools come in, as they eliminate as many of the drawbacks as possible.
With the right music promotion platforms in your arsenal—and (most importantly) the music and art to back it up—everyone has a shot. Of course, building a sustainable music career takes more than just great tools; it takes strategy, persistence, and the right guidance. That is why I offer courses and coaching for songwriters, helping them move forward with clarity and confidence.
(This article was co-written with J. Simpson.)
