If you are a musician or a band and you want to develop your activity, you absolutely need to subscribe to Bandcamp. This is probably one of the best platforms to ensure the promotion of your own music: it’s completely free and you have a total control on it.
Here are 10 ten tips to help you optimize your Bandcamp
1. Stream your music for free
First of all, we recommend to make your music as accessible as possible in implementing a free streaming access to your tracks. The aim is to let people discover your universe. It very is rare that people pay after the track heard of an artist they’ve just discovered. Yet, it is still preferable to keep the upload in pay mode. Thus, you can still make money if listeners like what you’re doing.
2. Refine your visuals
It is very important to display coherent visuals around your music. If your visual doesn’t fit, your music won’t work. Make sure to have high quality visuals displayed on all your social media platforms. Trust us, this is an incredible asset for the success of your projects!
Bandcamp – Cigarettes After Sex
3. Spend time on your biography
The artist’s bio is very important but often neglected. In Bandcamp, it has to be short and catchy. This also applies to every music streaming platform, so make sure to work hard on it.
| See also : How to write a good biography to promote your music ?
4. Gather your tracks
With the same regard as the most renowned streaming websites (like Netflix for instance), where new content is automatically broadcasted at the end of the previous one, gathering your music on Bandcamp is essential. This allows you to increase the number of plays and adds fluidity to your content. Facilitate the access to your music is primordial if you want to gain visibility.
5. Make sure to choose the good first track
Starting with your best track or with the one that describes you best is a powerful tool to grab your audience’s attention. The first track is the showcase of your music, so make sure to choose the right one.
6. Turn on the option “pay more”
It is not uncommon to notice some listeners having a surge of generosity when they’re touched by a song. The option “pay more” allows every buyer to add an additional amount to the minimum established. It would be a shame to miss it!
7. Create a following system
Allowing your visitors to subscribe to your Bandcamp (per month or per year) is an interesting way to federate your most loyal fan base. For example, you can propose exclusive gifts (unreleased tracks, concert tickets reductions, previews of your next project etc). This is also a convenient method to ensure you a regular income.
8. Create scarcity
Fans do like to own unique things, especially when it’s from their favorite artists. Thus, it can be quite interesting to distribute some projects in very few copies, or even create unique projects that can be relatively more costly on your Bandcamp. At the end of the day, you don’t risk anything, except not selling them.
You can also make your projects available in preorder with a bonus track, premium packaging, etc. Moreover, it is important to display the number of the remaining copies of your productions. This will allow you to distribute your stock more quickly. Create scarcity around your projects is a powerful way to give them more value.
9. Apply to Bandcamp Weekly Show
Bandcamp collaborates with Andrew Jarvis, a very cool guy who creates every fortnight a mix of the best new tracks posted on the platform. We highly recommend you to listen to his playlist to see if your music has a chance to be selected and send him your track. This can increase your audience up to 5000 listenings, it’s not negligible!
BONUS for managers and record labels
Bandcamp offers the availability of an account specially designed for record labels and managers. This is an exclusive feature (not available in Apple Music nor Spotify) which aims to give a large flexibility to artists’ representatives regarding management and communication.
It turns out that Groover also includes this feature for artists’ representatives, come and test for yourself!
