Music projects are in the top 5 most popular categories on Kickstarter. In addition, we’ve seen the emergence of many different types of niche crowdfunding sites for musicians in the last couple of years.
Musicians and music crowdfunding projects have their own unique set of challenges and unlike other categories, often have fanbase dynamics. To help shed some light on this category, I’ve compiled a crowdfunding for musicians guide, linking to some of the top resources on the web.
Check out the tips below and leave a comment letting me know what type of project you are planning to launch.
General Guidelines
25 music crowdfunding mistakes that can make you look like a money hungry fool via diymusician
This comprehensive article covers some of the mistakes that musicians make when they are pitching the crowdfunding project to their fans and the general public. It was put together by Ian Anderson, who also runs a music crowdfunding blog.
15 Top Tips For Successful Music Crowdfunding And Fan Funding Campaigns via HypeBot
HypeBot has put together a compilation of advice from different music crowdfunders covering marketing, planning, rewards, and more.
LaunchandRelease, a music crowdfunding blog put this article together, dissecting Kickstarter’s advice to musicians from their experience. The blog also has a lot of good case studies and insights into elements that are required to succeed if you are an artist.
Case Studies & Interviews
Successful Crowdfunding: A Musician’s Experience of Kickstarter vs. PledgeMusic vs. DIY
Where all this Kickstarter money is going (Amanda Palmer campaign’s financial breakdown)
Everything You Need to Know About Using Kickstarter as an Independent Musician
3 Successful Kickstarter Music Campaigns You Can Learn From
General Music Marketing Tips
The title is self-explanatory. Some of them range from the practical like “Leave comments in blogs related to your genre” to the strange “Get your hair re-styled – so you look different.”
25 Social Media Resources For Musicians
Put together by MusicThinkTank, this article links to helpful resources for getting started with social media.
9 Kickstarter Social Media Marketing Tips From Guy Kawasaki
This article gives an on overview of different social media platforms and how to build up a following over time.
6 Tools to generate a buzz before you launch a crowdfunding project
Preparation is the mother of success and there are many tools out there like Thunderclap that can help you organize your pre-launch promotional and marketing efforts. This post dives into a few of those.
38 Sure Ways To Market Your Band With Little To No Budget!
I think that a lot of the principles of general music marketing also apply to crowdfunding campaigns. These marketing ideas can help jumpstart the brainstorming process of ways you can rise above the rest on Kickstarter, PledgeMusic, or another platform.
Tools & Communities
There are a lot of different tools you can use to help run your crowdfunding campaign. I’ve put together a list of 20+ that I think are helpful (many of which are free). Regarding communities, be sure to check out:
Music and Kickstarter Subreddits
Find a complete list of music-related subreddits here.
Forums
Social Media Groups
Check out our big list of Facebook Kickstarter groups here.
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Conclusion
I’d love to hear what kind of music-related project you are thinking of starting in a comment below. For further reading, I recommend downloading my ebook ‘How to Succeed on Kickstarter.’
