 Talking to musicians each day, I realize that the broad advice given by so many YouTube channels just doesn't work because it's so one-size-fits-all. You may remember in the first video in the series on how to grow your fan base from zero to 10,000 fans that I briefly discussed that you may need a niche promotion plan. This often stems from traditional publicity isn't what's right for you and not going to be helpful in what breaks you and builds a fan base. In nearly every genre or demographic of fans, there is some place where fans live and they can be targeted with effective promotional dollars that will go way further than Facebook ads or any of the things the Connors trying to sell you courses will tell you. In this video I'm going to help you understand how a niche promotion strategy can help you promote your music. Hi, I'm Jesse Kennan and this is Muse Formation. So let's get into what this niche promotion strategy is. What we want to do is find a more condensed place where your audience is likely to be highly susceptible to hearing your music and getting into it. Because most promotion plans try to cast a wide net and hope to move large numbers. Instead, this takes the approach of either trying to find a small section of an audience you can use to get some momentum or to play off your strengths. So what we're going to discuss is some way to do alternate promotion that may be worth investing in. Let's start with video promotion. If you're killing the music video game, promoting them so they get put in other outlets and more eyes them like those cable jukebox channels and the TVs that play in stores in the ball or in stores where fans end up shazamming the songs can be a huge deal. Music videos exist in more places than just YouTube. And music promo can do really good work if you're making great videos. Many groups who know they have strong video imagery to match their songs make this a part of their marketing strategy since they know it's likely to tip susceptible fans when they're able to see their great imagery with their music. This mostly works though with people who have a teen audience or are those in their early 20s. It's not going to work on older fans. For this next one, you may think I'm messing with you, but it's 100% true. So what about if you make strip club jams that strippers should dance to? Yes, there's actually a lot of documentation that strip club DJs move the needle on breaking tons of songs. And in my work in Atlantic and Electro Records, the amount of times I was on emails asking for promo on this, if it's a good idea, was kind of shocking. There's literally companies that promote to club DJs or even strip clubs only. If that's where your music is going to do well, countless rappers starting with two live crew onto the Migos have done this onto rockers like Motley Crew or Buck Cherry. If your jams are for the club, get them into the club. You may also think I'm crazy for suggesting radio promotion. For many people who make music that appeal to older people, radio promo campaigns are cheaper than ever. And since many of the companies who do it are on their last dying breath, they will often do it for cheap. Since so few people are working this angle, it can work great results. And a few campaigns I've worked on in recent years have had amazing ROI from it. For jam bands, hard rock, and acts who are going to get broken by 25 to 45 year olds listening to them, this could be a sneaky way to build your audience that moves the needle. Seeing as most of these radio services are very thirsty for clients these days, you can negotiate with them and hopefully do some strict targeting that really helps you get in with the radio outlets that are looking to break new music that still exists in America today. Let's also remember this. If you're like, Jesse, this shit is dead, yo. I want you to remember how behind in technology this country is. 15% of America in 2020 reports listening to CDs, which is almost 50 million people. And secondly, remember, getting played in public creates Shazams. And Apple Music, who owns Shazam, uses Shazams to determine who they're going to promote and put on playlists. So if people are hearing you and they're liking their song, they then will shazam you and it'll get you more playlist placements, since I know that's what you really want. Should I sing you the circle of life now? The fact is radio and especially satellite radio still drives a lot of breaking music acts. And as long as you have some momentum and you fall in the niches that do well here, you can often get a huge break from it. But let's return back to the youth. If your audience is largely going to be college kids, you can target them. If you're going to go over well with frat boys or athletic types, target college campuses with big sports programs. Whereas if you make music for art school kids, liberal arts colleges with artsy type programs are where tons of careers have been built. My studio is right next to one of the biggest art schools in America and I see tons of people effectively promoting themselves on this campus. So more specifically, college radio PR can be insanely effective with these kids. One of the things I tell musicians who appeal to college kids is they should find a handful of colleges in their region and focus on being a phenomenon in them. Hire a radio programmer and tell them exactly which colleges you want to focus on and push hard there. Maybe it's only those liberal arts colleges I just talked about because you sound like Fiona Apple or art schools because you sound like Grimes. Then hire the local wheat pasting team to put up your posters while that radio PR company is on and hit them hard and then book shows in these towns as much as you can play them. Countless musicians have built their careers this way where they balloon out from getting big in a few regions first, which spreads the word when these kids go home and tell their friends about what they're listening to. Let's also remember, targeting college radio isn't just about getting played on college radio. The kids who do college radio stations are the ones telling all their friends who to listen to and they're also the ones who are tweeting and Instagramming, shouting online that people pay attention to. Let's also be honest, if you have a college radio program you usually end up in the music business since everyone I hang out with seems to have one. Let's also remember when we talk about these local strategies going really far so your name is everywhere or doing something bold and crazy advertising-wise. You can try to build yourself into a phenomenon in a hyper-local area. Ryan Holiday talks of trying to name an abortion clinic after the bro-douchebag author, Tucker Max. While it never happened, they got articles written about them doing it that resulted in more advertising than if it had actually happened. If you go to extreme efforts and go past the me, the minimum expected effort, you can get a lot of attention in one area. The problem is most people barely do enough to get noticed. I suggest that if you're gonna go out and we paste, you really go all out and do it so people are like, why is this group everywhere? What I'm telling you to do is think about your fans and everything they do, whether it's what they do for fun, where they hang out, and then think about how you get in front of their eyes where they hang out. Use your imagination. I always think of one of the ways epitaph records cemented themselves as the biggest indie label in the world for the past 25 years was their massive record store relations because that's what moved the needle at the time. They were calling records constantly and faxing them and they made them able to turn their best records into golden multi-platinum records when no other indie label was doing that. There's niche promotions and cultural adjacent ways to promote your music. Think of what surrounds the culture of your potential fans and then how to target them in new ways. If your fans are gonna be gamers or there's literally starting to be Twitch promotion services to service your music to these influencers or have you as a guest on their stream. Find a strength of yours and invest in the promotion money into targeting a small niche with your promotions that could be exploited since this is often more effective than paying the publicists your favorite bands work with. That's it, thanks so much. That's it, am I missing anything? Is there any way you would have done this? I need to know your questions and what no one else is telling you since I wanna answer them. So leave them in the comments. I hope you liked this video and if you did please like and subscribe and get notified for my future videos since I'm gonna be breaking down the concepts in this video along with tons of others on promoting your music and how to make music you're more happy with. As well, I have a Facebook group that's linked below that has only helpful information. No one tried to sell you anything, playlist or con artists, only helpful information for musicians looking to be better themselves. If you wanna learn more about me, make a record with me or check out any of my books, podcasts or anything else I do, head to jessecanon.com or at jessecanon.com on any of the socials. Thanks for watching. One last thing, if you liked this video, there's two playlists here with tons more videos that you'll probably enjoy. One's about how you promote your music and the other's about how you make songs you're happy with. Otherwise, you can hit the subscribe button here to see the rest of my videos. Thanks so much for watching.