When working with my clients and I’m putting together a music marketing plan, I usually suggest thinking through the 4 “what” questions before taking action:

1.  What do your fans want?
2.  What do you want to accomplish through your marketing efforts?
3.  What are the priorities?
4.  And what the fuck do your fans want?

^This one is really pretty simple. First and foremost music fans are interested in music! (So you can put away all that “Swag” you bought at the mall)

Music fans are always seeking a new great song to fall in love with. If a fan has become interested enough to visit your website don’t disappoint them by not having music available for streaming, download and purchase on your site. ReverbNation provides several free music player options that can be embedded in a musician’s website making it easy for fans to stream music. Both Audiolife and Nimbit allow musicians to easily sell MP3’s directly from their own website in addition to merchandise, CD’s and DVD’s, without any upfront fees.

Once potential fans have developed an interest in your joints they might become interested in learning more about them as an individual or individuals. Make it easy for fans to keep up with the latest news and updates by prominently featuring an email list signup and RSS subscription link for the blog on the website. Fans may also want to connect with you on all the popular social networks. Be sure to display links to the social networks where you are active such as your Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

Fans want to see the musicians they enjoy play live shows. Regularly communicate the dates, show times and locations of all scheduled live shows on your website, through your email list, on your blog and social networks. ReverbNation also has free Show Schedule Widgets that include show dates and maps to help promote live shows.

What do you want to accomplish through your marketing efforts?
I firmly believe an musician’s success in achieving a sustainable career in music is tied directly to their ability to build and nurture an ongoing, direct relationship with their fans. The central point for this direct relationship should be the musician’s website. (Not your bootsy ass Myspace page)

Marketing efforts that drive your fans to MySpace, YouTube or iTunes help foster relationships between your fans and MySpace, YouTube and iTunes, instead of with you. Definitely have a presence on the most popular websites where fans discover and enjoy music but design your marketing efforts to drive fans directly to your website. Use them as a conduit to scifen users to your homebase.

When considering what you want your marketing efforts to accomplish think more in terms of how you can develop a direct, long-term relationship with fans instead of just focusing on adding “X” number of email subscribers or Twitter followers this month.

Consistently give fans what they are interested in, great music and insight into the songs and creator(s), and they will reward you with their loyalty and support. In addition to sharing your best music, share your personal story, the inspiration for specific songs or your songwriting process through blog or video posts on your website. Ultimately, the goal is to develop relationships to the point where fans will want to buy your music, merch or tickets to your next show.

Don’t forget that real relationships include give and take and two-way communications. To see an example of one give and take strategy check out Rocker Derek Jordon’s website(the whiteboys always get it right). Derek gives fans who sign up for his email list two free MP3’s of his music. That’s a great way to engage music fans and get a dialogue going! It sounds like common sense but…remember to personally and promptly reply to any questions, comments or inquiries you get from fans. It definitely helps foster that direct relationship.

What are the priorities?
It seems like there are is an infinite number of options for marketing music these days and new solutions and companies are constantly popping up. It’s important to prioritize your efforts so you don’t end up trying to “do it all”.  Here is my take on the top priorities for marketing your music:

Get a Website – If you are serious about a career as a musician you should own a url that includes your name (or bands name) and have your own website. If you don’t already have a website check out Bandcamp and Bandzoogle, they both provide full featured and inexpensive website solutions specifically for musicians.

Direct Commerce – Buying directly from a musician helps strengthen the direct to fan relationship. Direct commerce also provides better margins for a musician than selling through a third party. Make sure fans can purchase music, merchandise, tickets and anything else you sell directly from you / your website. Both Audiolife and Nimbit offer direct commerce solutions for musicians that can be easily added to any website.

Direct Marketing – Go sign up at ReverbNation. They offer an impressive set of free direct marketing tools for musicians, including email marketing, media players and electronic press kits, that can help drive traffic to your website and build relationships with fans. RN also provides detailed reporting that can help you better understand fan reaction to your music and marketing efforts.

Internet Radio – Internet radio providers such as Imeem, Last.fm, Pandora have great music discovery tools for their ever expanding listener bases. Be sure to take advantage of the Internet Radio Opportunity for Independent Artists and get your music heard by new potential fans.

Awareness / Reach – It’s important to have your music available in the primary places where music fans discover new music. With so many options available once you are on Facebook and MySpace how do you decide the next place to set up a presence? The key is to start with the sites that have the most traffic. To determine how much traffic a specific site has check them out through Compete or Alexa. The data isn’t perfect but it will give you a general idea of whether or not they have enough fan traffic to justify the time required to regularly maintain another presence there.

Finally, on some real shit…don’t try to do this all by yourself, it’s really too much for one person.  Make sure you build a team to push your movements. Give serious consideration to allocating funds to hire an experienced social media consultant and you just might have time left over to write some hot 16’s and craft your own Illmatic!