Here is a blog post on paid mixtape promotion yeah that's right I said "paid avertisement". If you want to be sucessfull online yes you will need to pay for ways to promote your mixtape. There only some much you can do with free online service's like social media a free blog's. Don't get me wrong the keep using all your free methods that you have and some of the free method that I have given you here on my site.
Paying for advertisments will promote your music much faster than the free method's plus it make you look ten times more professional people will look at you in a different light if they see that you care about your mixtape and you really want to be sucessfull. Also record labels and A&R's may see that your willing to put your own money where your mouth is and feel that your willing to take a risk on yourself and have belief in your craft.
How can you expect any record label to take a risk on you if your not willing to take a risk on yourself. A record label is really just a bank that gives you a loan of money to record and promote your music and if they see that you dont have the large following that the would like you to have then they will not invest in you. So invest in your music , have a plan on what your going to do with your budget make sure you know exactly where your going to place your advertisment and who effective they will be. Do some research and some home work on where your going to advertsie.
Don't just pay some blog some money or website some money for Datpiff plays and download without any creditable eveidence that the site will do you justice. There are a lot of sites promoting services like these and you just don't truely know what your getting with these sites. Are these crediable download's, plays and streams. My advice unless these site can prove what they provide don't use them.
Start with good real reliable marketing ways of how to promote a mixtape. This will help you big time in the long run as you will gain real fans that will follow your progress online and download mixtapes from your website. This will not leave you with just a bunch of fake views on youtube or a bunch of mixtape downloads that people just trashed after they downloaded your mixtape.
Awords is one of the best ways online to promote anything on the internet. Adwords can be a double-edged sword if your not that familiar with using it. But adwords can be the best piece of advertising you use too. Be carefull what you do on adwords you can lose your ass if not carefull as I learned this the hard way. Start by setting up little campaigns Like $30 - $50. You have to study the numbers if your not get the the right traffic and CTR % (click through rate) set up a new campaign and start again.
Find targeted ways of finding your audience that will listen to mixtapes online. There is no point of having a campaign and your ads are coming up on a fishing website. So study keywords and use the google keyword tool that are in your ad campagin like if your mixtape is mostly trap beats or old school hip hop then use these as a keywords in finding the audience. Make sure that your sending your audience your own website where your mixtape is loctated, you can use the datpiff player and embed it on your site and have the download link underneath it. If you send your paid traffic directly to hulk share or datpiff you might lose your traffic to competitors and you have just wasted your money paying for advertisment for some else's music.
Keyword Ideas Competetion Global Monthly Searches
Rap Blogs Low 6600
Hip Hop Blogs Low 14000
Rap forums Low 33000
Rap websites Low 6600
Hip hop music Medium 600000
These are just sugestions that you should try and may work for you but don't hold me to it. Try and experiment with it before you start putting up big money. It's difficult trying to find the right place for the audience you want so spent a bit time and do your home work with the keywords.
Try using both text ads and banner advertisments depending on the time and keywords either or can be just as effective in your mixtape promotion. Make sure you have a good banner for your ad campagin or else your just wasting your time google won't accept bad banners and website will remove it if it looks bad and too flashy. 20dollarbannersdid banners for me and made the banner that is at the top of this article and they are a professional and affordable service a good banner can save you so much money and give you a much higher CTR%.
All so you can target the place where you want your add to come up on. For instance certain site like datpiff and hotnewhiphop have adsence on there sites. Awords has changed it design over the past few days but it has the same features just different buttons to click.
Once you have set up your ad on adwords click on the "Display Network tab".
This will let you pick topic related to you niche "Arts and Entertainment" with in your new campagin.
You can pick as many related niche area's here that are closely linked to music.
After you pick these topic's it will let you set the max "Cost Per Click" and the destination Url.
You can put the Url of any site that uses adsence. (Best effective on hip hop related sites)
You can even target specific youtube videos with this url with ethier your banner or text ad
Depending on the level of competition you might have to adjust your "Cost Per Click" to get a good CTR%
Remember Just to becareful using adword, start setting up little ad campagins find the best way for you to get downloads for your mixtape. Study your keywords and if a campagin is not working delete it and start again.
Fiverr.com
This is little site if your clever is a great resource if you use it effectively to your advantage. Little Ideas can go along way. Some people will do any thing for you for $5, like write great reviews on your mixtape and post them to blog and websites. You could set up twitter accounts for street teams and pay them like a fiverr to find followers for you and to tweet to them.
Try not to pay for tweets from people who say the have 20000 followers , this is jus a waste of money and time , there followers are more than likey fake and even if they are real I highly doubt that this person will influence them. So set up some street team accounts of your own and hire people on fiver to do this work for you. Paying for facebook likes and youtube views are just a waste of money find other ways people can help you.
Get a couple of them to wear your merchandice and hold your mixtape in a video or photo and post the picture on your website and social media sites ,this will create a huge buzz about your mixtape and many of your other followers and friends will be intrested in whats going on. Getting on Lots of rap blog is very hard and grueling work so pay people from fiverr to send out your own scripted message and get them to hit up like 20 rap blogs topost your mixtapeor video.
You could also get them to take part in some hip hop forums for you and spend some time post your mixtapes or giving feedback to others on your behalf getting your name spread throughout the community. I had one person place all 80+ of my videos under the vevo channels on youtube as video responces for $5. Bcareful who you give out your login details too and change anything like this after the have finished the work.
Some people offer banner ads on there sites for a week or a day do a little research on their website using alexa.com if there website has good traffic it might be a steal.
Freelancerr.com offers services like this too and maybe worth taking a look at they have a more professional service but may cost more than fiverr.com
Facebook.com
We all Know how big facebook is by now and we know the huge potenial of setting up a facebook add campagin. Facebook has a large amount of people your age online all day and night. But with huge potenial may come at a cost. You can set the cost per click on facebook like that of adwords but with setting the cost too low can be your downfall as a facebook ad lifespan is short lived. You can pay over $1.50+ for a click here so choose your budget carefully and only use it on the day your mixtape is released for effective marketing.
Its simple to set up and ad campagin click on the create and ad button
Pick your URL (website where your mixtape is located)
Make Sure to create a good headline and text in the add using proper spelling and capitals where needed.
Upload an Image (mixtape cover) Make sure its easy to read or it's a waste of time
Pick Broad Categories and exact Categories eg music, hip hop, rap music,
Target the country and age group of people that will be intrested in your mixtape
Set your daily budget
Finaly you have two choices here for the cost
CPC Cost per click every time someone clicks your ad you get charged the amount you place on the ad $0.50 - $1.50
CPM cost per thousand impressions so you only pay the amout you choose on the 1000 views your ad has.
I hope that this blog will help get you started with advertising your mixtape online. This will make you look much more professional online with your marketing. The are only so many hours in the day, by seting up a good avertising campagin will help you reach the audience you need and want. All the greats have to pay for advertising every day. If you real want to be sucessful online you have to start paying for advertising the right way of marketing your mixtape online just keep your head focused and study what your doing with your budget.
