Being a hip-hop artist is like having your own business. It requires a lot of time, commitment, and plain old hard work - there’s no way around it. However, you can use some of the available tools and resources to make getting ahead in your career easier.
I could list the typical tools like Soundcloud, Twitter, but I thought I’d add in a few tools that you may not be familiar with. All of these tools are free (or have free plans) and can be used today to make building your music career easier. Shall we begin?
MailChimp
Mailchimp is an email marketing and management tool. If you’re unfamiliar with why email marketing is important for hip-hop artists - basically, it helps you build an asset you actually own (your email list), that you can use to connect with fans and promote your music.
I like MailChimp because it’s free for up to 2,000 subscribers and by the time you have 2,000 fans subscribed to your email list, you should be able to monetize that list and have it pay for itself.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a social media management tool. We all know how important social media is, but finding the time to stay consistent on social media while actually getting work done is not easy.
I like Hootsuite because it makes it easy for you to schedule daily posts and prevents you from being one of those artists that only update their social media accounts once per month.
SmartURL
SmartURL is a link tracking and management tool. You should know what platforms your most engaged fans are on, as well as how your marketing is performing.
I like SmartURL because it gives you a lot of control over how your links redirect, some analytics, and allows you to create 1 global link that you can redirect to whatever target URL you like, at any time. For example, you can create SmartURL.it/LilRapper and link it to your website 1 month and your album release another month.
In most cases, you wouldn’t change the redirect URL so you can keep things organized, but under certain circumstance (like if you change website URLs), it can be helpful to have 1 consistent URL across all of your platforms.
Google Keyword Planner
Google’s keyword Planner is a tool for viewing what people are searching for in Google. This is a great tool for finding content opportunities to better engage with your fans.
I like Google’s Keyword Planner because I can enter an artist’s name and see what their fans are looking for surrounding the artist and then create that content on their website to bring those fans back to our website and ‘funnel’.
The Keyword Planner can also be used to find what your most popular song is. Just because your song isn’t being tweeted or shared a lot on social media does not mean it’s not popular.
For example, I remember a time when Lil B’s music didn’t get shared that much, but if you took a look at what people were searching for around his name, you’d see that his music was booming.
MailTrack.io
MailTrack is a Google Chrome extension that you can integrate with your Gmail account to track when someone opens and reads your emails.
I like MailTrack because it automatically embeds the tracking code in all of my emails and sends me a notification when someone opens the email.
This is helpful when pitching yourself or music to someone. If they open your email but don’t reply, you can make sure to follow up later. And, if you’re really in a pushy mood - you can reach out via phone or social media as soon as you get a notification saying they’ve opened your email.
My Question To You
Those are 5 free tools that you can start using right now to help grow your music career. If you have any questions about these tools, feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll answer ASAP.
What tools are you currently using to grow your music career? Leave a comment below with your most valuable tools you use to help grow your music career.
