How long does it take for your marketing efforts to pay off in your Christian music marketing plan?

Hey everyone! So today, I’m going to go over some facts about how long it actually takes for you to succeed in your music marketing efforts. 

Before we get into it, let’s have our moment of silence.

At this time, I would like all of us to take a moment of silence and pray for our neighbors. Pray that our neighbors may find Jesus in their lifetimes. Pray that they may build up their treasures in heaven for that is God’s will. Take a minimum of 5 minutes and pray for these things. 

Now back to the show

How long does marketing actually take? Do you want the truth?

So I think that this has a whole it depends. The reason for that is because if you’re an established artist or songwriter and you already have a support system for your music, then of course it would take you less time to market it. 

If you have the proper funds and resources, you could possibly advertise to the internet and focus more on your audience. 

However, most of us don’t have that same type of resources at our disposal. 

For the vast majority of budding musicians out there, money is an issue, people is an issue, materials are an issue, influence, platforms, etc. etc. They are all issues to the modern musician. 

So I’m going to place you guys into 3 categories revolving around how well established you are. 

1. The brand spanking new musician. At this point in your career, you know music and are good enough to write some songs. You probably can’t make hits yet, but your songs sound nice. You know the difference between parts in a song and how to shape a pop song. However, you have near to no experience if not no experience in marketing or the business side of music. You’ve never played a paid gig, you have a guitar and can sing and you have the talent to do amazing things, now it’s just time to work really hard at it. 
2. The Journeyman (Approximately a year or two into your music career.) Alright now we’re getting somewhere. You know how to make a really solid pop song. Your pop songs sound catchy to you and you sing them all the time because they sound so good. You know that literary devices are your friends in lyrical writing, and you figured out that simplicity is key in music and that simple songs sound the best. Three note phrases are your ideal go to for hooks. You’ve started a blog or a YouTube channel and are getting views and traffic. Not the traffic that you want, but it’s traffic nonetheless. On a blog, you’re probably getting between 100 to 200 views a month on your blog. On a YouTube channel, it’s probably relatively the same numbers. By relatively the same, I mean numbers that would be comparable to 100  to 200 blog views a month. Say for instance if a typical YouTube channel gets around 200 to 300 views a month to their channel after a year or two into their YouTube career, then it would be comparable to 100 to 200 views a month for a blog. 
3. The established musician. You’ve gotten a few internet mentions in the music industry. You could be signed to a major or indie record label. You write consistently with other people in the music world. You have sold a minimum of 1,000 albums in your lifetime ( and if you have sold on the low end 400 albums, I would count you here too.) You have a consistent amount of traffic going to you through your blog or YouTube channel. On a blog, it would probably look something like 30,000 to 50,000 blog views a month minimum, but skies the limit for this. You have resources to record more songs, and you’ve probably quit your dayjob for music full time. It’s an exciting time.  

Since I classify myself as a Journeyman, then I’m not going to talk about something that I don’t know. 

I’m going to be talking about the first few phases of a musician’s career, the brand spanking new musician and the Journeyman. 

Let’s talk about how long it will take for your marketing efforts to succeed. 

The brand spanking new musician (A LONG TIME)

When you first start out your music career, it actually takes a long time to get your foot in the door. You need to have influence and a platform to communicate with masses of people. 

However, there are some good things about our day and age of living. 

1. We have the internet. The internet has in a way leveled the playing field for us musicians. It has made everything even. Why? Because before the internet, it was actually a lot of “fluff” that you had to go through in order to get signed to a record label or be an established musician. It took a lot of things that quite frankly almost no one could do except for those lucky few. I mean on top of having all sorts of talent in music, you had to have toured extensively throughout your area first in order to build a sort of buzz around your music. You had to work extremely hard, and you still do have to work extremely hard, but the internet has given a way for any musician to build their audience. Back in the day, it would only be available to musicians who had a means to get around places and had the proper resources. I know that there are huge success stories that came out from the 70s and 80s about people who were extremely poor, but when I say success, I mean being able to realistically make it. It’s extremely difficult to make your dreams a reality when you have to worry about the bills and where your next meal is going to come from. 
2. Technology is cheaper than ever. Back in the day, it used to cost a pretty penny in order to record an album or song. The equipment was expensive and knowing how to use all of that equipment was even more expensive. Technology is also simpler than ever. Back in the day, you had complicated machines being used in order to record a simple Drum, Guitar, bass, and voice cover. Now I can do infinitely times more things with my laptop alone. And it’s cheap! So the musician nowadays isn’t conformed to the irregularities of money and resources. 
3. Information is cheaper than ever. There are classes out there that teach how to produce, mix, and master music. It’s cheaper than ever to record an album by yourself and see it through all the way past post-production. And you can do it all yourself. It’s a bit of a learning curve to do all of those things, but it’s worth it in the end. You can even buy a mastering software for your DAW and it will automatically master your music for you. Software and hardware is cheap too! I personally bought a version of professional recording software for 250 dollars. And let me tell you, IT”S GOOD! I love the way it sounds in my room. 

But I digress. Marketing is in a way easier than ever to do. You can market effectively through the internet alone. It just takes patience and time. 

I saw an interview with Chance the Rapper. And he said that it just took patience in order to sell music. 

He literally said with a sort of exhausted voice, “have some patience!” 

So like for the new musician, it is going to take a lot of time, FOR MOST PEOPLE. Really I would say for everyone, but there’s probably some dude out there who has done it within a few months or so. 

The rest of us have to play the long game. I would say give yourself a whole 2 years of working on a YouTube channel or blog before you can start to say to yourself that you’ve really tried. Because if it’s anything less than that, You’re not really trying. You’re giving yourself a chance before you can take off! 

Come on free bird, you just hatched and you wanna fly? Even birds don’t fly right after they are born! 

I mean, Justin Bieber was putting up videos on YouTube for 5 years before he got signed. So, take a slice of humble pie and admit that you’re not Justin Bieber! 

I’m not saying that you guys aren’t great musicians! But just be humble! I’m pretty sure that some of you guys are the best musicians that I probably have ever seen, but just be humble.

The Journeyman

So when I say Journeyman and I gave the example that you’re 1 to 2 years into your music career, I was just saying that as an example. In reality you could be between 1 year or 7 years into your music career. 

So at this point, you’re getting views to your blog. You are working hard at your music career and things are going good. 

Now the next step I guess would be to just add volume to it. Take the extra step and make more content than normal. 

Make the extra effort and create those songs that you need to create. 

Look up more music theory that will enhance your music. 

All of these things will add up to your music career and you will benefit from it. 

I’m currently in the Journeyman phase. It’s difficult, I’m not going to lie, but I can practically taste the victory in hand. 

I know that I’m not going to get rich as soon as I start to monetize this blog, but hey I will be getting some money coming in so that I can do the things that I need to do. 

At this point, I would NOT recommend you to stop. If you’re getting views and traffic, then you know exactly what your audience wants. All you have to do is to keep adding to that! 

What can I do to speed things up?

The first thing that you could do is to write more content. 

However, do not sacrifice quality over quantity. Quality always surpasses quantity. 

I remember one time I was just experimenting with different writing techniques. And I started to heavily plan out my blog posts. 

It was strange because the blog post was really short, max 500 words. And I thought that I made something that took so much effort to make and it wasn’t going to do well in search engines. 

Literally, that day from that blog post alone, I got 6 views. That was the highest amount of blog view that I had ever gotten on a single blog post at the time. 

And I looked it over, and I saw that it was completely written professionally.

I said to myself, this looks very professional. 

I was actually amazed at how well I had written the blog post. 

But I said to myself, If I had taken more time on it, then I could’ve had more blog views and a bigger content so it would’ve ranked better on search engines. 

When you first start out, there’s a lot of learning points in a blog. So basically everything that you do is going to be a little bad. 

However, the more you learn about how to write and create good blog posts, the better you will get at it. 

So for the first four to 6 months of blogging, I guess it would be okay to make more quantity and fall a little bit of quality, but I would recommend always doing your best to make a quality blog post.

The reason for that is because you need to start as early as possible in learning what a quality blog post looks like. 

If you start to make steps towards making a good blog post, then you will better know what is a good blog post. 

And I’m just saying blog as in an example. The same applies for YouTube, quality over quantity. 

Nothing is ever guaranteed, but…

Nothing is ever guaranteed, but that shouldn’t stop you from working hard to achieve what you want. 

I know it’s difficult to write in a blog every day. 

I know that it’s  difficult to write good blog posts every day. 

But it’s the extra effort that’s going to make a huge difference in what your blog income looks like two years after you’ve started. 

Don’t be afraid to fail because failure isn’t an option, it’s a requirement in all aspects of life. Remember to pray to God before you start anything, when you’re in the middle of what you’re doing, and when you’re celebrating at the end and you’ll be fine. 

Broadcast

I sure hope that I have been an inspiration and a hope to you all. Please remember to pray, read your bible, go to church, and love God above all else. Like, comment, share, subscribe, and I will see you all next time. 

If you want to go to heaven, then believe in Jesus and you will go to heaven. (John 3:16)

Thank you all for listening in on this blog post. German Gonzalez, signing out!