Hey guys! Before you get started, we have a Holiday Marketing Guide for Musicians you can swipe for help customizing and organizing your Holiday Marketing Campaign. Click HERE to get it.
The holidays are a time of good cheer and gift giving. It’s around this time of year, when people are frantically searching for affordable and easy gifts to give their friends and loved ones. Businesses small and large love to capitalize on this time of year because sales often double and triple which increases their bottom line. As a result of the extra push, they gain even more exposure. There’s no reason why us musicians can’t get in on this healthy increase in sales and exposure, right? The key is being creative while also creating an affordable value for your fans. In this article we will share 7 tips to help you leverage this fruitful time of year for your own profit even if you don’t have any Christmas music to sell.
Number 1: Consider ALL holidays to sell your music related products or experiences.
It’s holiday season! This means there is more than just one day to consider. You’ve got Christmas of course, but there’s also Thanksgiving, Advent (for faith-based patrons) Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Hanukkah, Giving Tuesday, Kwanzaa, and Winter Solstice among others. All of these holidays can be leveraged to create special offers and experiences for your fans and earn money for yourself in the process. For example, you could pair up with a non-profit and offer a portion of your music sales to your favorite charity for Giving Tuesday. This year (2019), Giving Tuesday falls on December 3. Another idea is to offer a discount on Cyber Monday and send a special email out to your fans with discounts to your latest music tracks. Obviously, you don’t have to do something for every holiday, but if you can find a few that fit well with your music and audience, why not make the effort? It could mean more sales for you. For a list of all holidays and observances, click here.
Number 2: Create your own holiday gift guide.
This is a fun way to engage your fans and sell your music at the same time. Your holiday gift guide can be targeting specific pain points such as what to get the kids this year if you have kid-centric music. Or, you can opt for a more relaxing, stress-relief theme such as “The Perfect Stress Relief Gifts – For the Busy Professionals In Your Life.” This is great for musicians who create soft or relaxing music. With this gift guide you could offer any of your albums that match the mood. The trick is to create a gift guide based on the hobbies, habits, and interests of your fans and figure out a way to tie your music into it somehow.
You could post your gift guide on your blog, or send it out in an email newsletter. You could even create a video of you talking about the gift ideas. Don’t forget to add links to all the gifts you mention where your audience can go to buy the gifts. Specifically, remember to add links to buy your music, since that’s what all this effort is for in the first place. If you want to take this a bit further, you could potentially earn affiliate income from Amazon as an affiliate by creating idea lists on Amazon and linking to products on their website using your affiliate link. Alternatively, you can become an affiliate on Viglink (also known as sovrn//Commerce). Viglink is great because they don’t have a probationary period where you have to worry about getting a number of sales like Amazon does. You also don’t have to stick to just Amazon products with Viglink since they offer a wider range of brands for you to choose from.
Number 3: Host a Gift Giveaway on social media to attract more fans.
Hosting a giveaway on social media can unleash a windfall of activity on your channels. If you’re doing it during the holidays, you can take advantage of the holiday scramble since people are looking for gift ideas, free gifts they can get or give, and extra money to shop with. Utilize your official social media pages to conduct your giveaway and invite everyone you know to participate, including subscribers on your mailing list if applicable. Be sure to highlight all your requirements upfront so people know how to join and win. Plus, by posting rules for participating in your giveaway, you’ll cover yourself from any legal liabilities as well. Here is a helpful article and template for creating your own contest/giveaway rules.
We suggest that you focus on one or two specific needs. If you really need more Facebook fans, then have all participants like your page. Likewise, you can do the same for Twitter, YouTube, etc. On the other hand, you may want to use this opportunity to build your email list. In that case, you would make joining your email list a requirement to win. Will people simply join and then unsubscribe or unfollow once the contest is over? Sure, you will get some of those. But for the most part, you’ll see a permanent increase if you can keep your new fans engaged.
It’s important to select a gift that your ideal fan would want. Of course anyone would want money, but alternatively you could possibly get gift cards to specific stores where your ideal fans typically shop in order to attract the right people to your giveaway. If you haven’t already created profiles for your ideal fans, use our Fan Targeting Tool here to help you identify who your ideal fan is and how to reach them.
Number 4: Design a gift basket.
This one takes a lot more planning, time and effort. But it can result in earning you even more money this holiday season. Create a special gift basket that incorporates smaller gifts along with your physical album as the focal point. For example, if your music is great for road trips, you can create a Road Trip Gift Basket for people who are often on the road. You could include things like a water bottle, a box of Cheez its, candy, popcorn, a small drink, and a small word puzzle book. These are all things you can get from the dollar store, even down to the basket! Decorate it, set your price point, and market it to your fans and followers as a gift idea. Here are some examples we found on the net for a road trip gift basket. Be sure to market your basket heavily with your mailing list, at your shows, on your websites, and on all your social media channels.
Number 5: Host a special holiday show online.
If you don’t have your own holiday music, you can take advantage of holiday music that’s already been created! You can do a special set covering famous christmas songs. What’s more, you can host a holiday show where you showcase any holiday gifts you might be selling, your holiday gift guide, or your holiday giveaways. With an online show, you can sell your music and even provide the opportunity for listeners to tip you. Be careful, as some platforms have copyright laws governing which songs you can cover. Take a look at this handy list of public domain Christmas songs. You are free to use public domain songs anywhere without running into copyright issues.
Number 6: Send out Christmas cards.
People love getting christmas cards. They collect them and put them on their mantle or refrigerator. Why not send one out to your fans? It will do five things…
A – Give you an excuse to get their mailing address
B – Make them feel special
C – Remind them you’re available for holiday parties (if you can get them out early enough)
D – Remind them about any holiday gifts you might be selling
E – Rekindle their interest in you and your music
Related: 20 Well Known Christmas Songs You Can Cover Without Worrying About Copyrights
Sending cards out to your fans during this time can strengthen the bond you have with them and prime them for whatever you’re trying to do in the following year. Another thing this will do is help you build and strengthen your mailing list. When people first sign up to your mailing list, they likely did not give you their physical mailing address. Well, now is a time to collect that data! Or, if you hope to increase mailing list subscribers, you can offer this incentive as a perk to join your mailing list this season. Before you launch this initiative, send out an email asking your subscribers to update their mailing address if they want a card from you this year. You can also post something similar on social media. Give yourself time to collect the data. After a couple weeks, you can buy cards or have them printed using a service like Touchnote to conveniently send the cards.
Number 7: Organize an online campaign.
One of the simplest things you can do to boost engagement during the holidays, is give your online presence a festive feel. This involves creating special graphics for your website such as holiday banners and ornamentals. You can do the same for your social media banners and profile pictures. In addition, you can create a special social media campaign centered around a holiday theme such as, 12 Days of Christmas Music where you discuss or cover your favorite Christmas songs for 12 days. If you have a holiday set, you can devise a campaign to advertise yourself for Christmas party entertainment. Often times you can customize free clipart and vector images or artwork from Canva to generate content for your holiday campaign. For example, people will be looking for holiday quotes and festive things to share on social media. Use this to your advantage and create share-worthy content.
As the holidays are approaching, it’s time to get into gear in more ways than one. In addition to reminding yourself how to play holiday songs, you will also want to look at any marketing you can do to capitalize on the season for more exposure and more money! The ideas in this article are a great start! But the sky’s the limit. With anything you do, you’ll need to plan ahead and be strategic about achieving your specific business needs. Holiday marketing takes a lot of planning and execution so you’ll want to start early – at least a month in advance. There are so many options you can take, but the best option is one that addresses a specific business need. So consider what you want for your business in this last quarter of the year. Do you need more fans? More followers on social media? More YouTube subscribers? More money? A boost in engagement? Take a look at your business objectives, and plan your holiday marketing around that.
Don’t forget to swipe our FREE Holiday Marketing Guide for Musicians where you’ll be able to customize and organize all your Holiday Marketing Campaigns in one spot. Click HERE to get it.If you enjoyed reading this post, join our mailing list! We’ll send weekly tips and tricks you can use to advance your music career without the help of a label. Click here to subscribe.
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