The two school subjects that I hated the most were surely mathematics and economics. Anything that had to do with numbers bored me to death and I personally found it very difficult. However, this is an essential part of any business, and this is exactly how you should treat yourself my dear musician: as a business. Investing time and financial resources on yourself takes dedication, commitment, and sacrifice. You are your own “product” and you should learn how to sell yourself and your music to the world.
I wish I could tell you that in this journey, you won’t spend any money but unfortunately the reality is different: whether you will have to pay for an ad or an influencer, I can guarantee that you will have to use your Paypal account a few times. However, the good news is that you don’t need to be Bezoz’s son or daughter in order to see results. Even a 10€ budget per month will help you pushing your music in front of the right people.
One of the first questions I ask my musicians is “What is your budget?”. Sometimes I get realistic numbers, sometimes the budgets are extremely low considering the amount of work requested. However, the worst answer you can give me is “I have no idea”. This makes you look unprofessional and it would push me to work with people who have at least a rough idea of how much they can allocate for music marketing.
Even though you can save money on many marketing tools and professionals, I would not recommend to start your music marketing journey without taking into consideration a budget for ads and influencer marketing. Unfortunately, the “organic way” will not put your music in front of many people, simply because you are selling a product and therefore platforms like Facebook and Instagram want a slice of the cake to promote it.
Lastly, digital ads are nowadays the cheapest way to market your music (compared to influencers and PR) and furthermore, you can see exactly how your investment is paying off (cost per follower, cost per click etc.)
So sit down, get your calculator out and make a realistic budget for your music career.