10 Music Promotion Tools You Need to Know About

I've spent years compiling a list of over a hundred apps for music promotion (you can download it, I update it every quarter or so). Today, I'm sharing the best. These are 10 tools that have been thoroughly vetted by myself and my friends who work in this weird world of getting people to listen to songs. I have never been paid by any of these services and enjoy them and want them to flourish so I can keep using them.

Let's dive into these tools and explore how they can revolutionize your approach to music marketing:

1. Artist.tools

Since Spotify seems to be indiscriminately punishing artists for bottled streams whether they paid for them, themselves or not it really helps to make sure you are not pitching booted playlists. To do that, Artist.tools offer a crucial service: bot detection. This premium website allows you to:

• Check the authenticity of your own audience

• Verify the legitimacy of playlists before submitting your music

• Access a comprehensive playlist directory with contact information (in the paid tier)

The affordability of Artist.tools, especially compared to similar services, makes it a great choice for musicians who want to be safe rather than sorry.

2. Musicstax

Musicstax is an indispensable resource that offers a wealth of information for artists and possibly the best free tool for musicians (you can donate to keep it going, which I highly suggest). Here are four ways to use it to your advantage:

1. Community Research: Use the visual representation of similar artists to build your community spreadsheet. This is crucial for identifying your target audience and potential collaborators.

2. Genre Exploration: Discover the micro-genres and tags Spotify assigns to artists similar to you. This information is gold for optimizing your social media presence and ensuring you're using the right hashtags.

3. Song Similarity Analysis: Find tracks that Spotify considers similar to yours. This can help you understand your place in the musical landscape and discover potential playlist opportunities. Some of my musician friends even find their favorite songs. I particularly like it for building playlists where you can deepen your algorithmic ties to another song.

4. Popularity Tracking: Monitor changes in your popularity score over time, allowing you to gauge the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

3. Beacons

Beacons stands out as the most developed link-in-bio tool, offering a robust free tier that outshines its competitors. But it's more than just a pretty face for your social media profiles. Beacons provides:

• A visually appealing and customizable landing page with integrated with Seated, BandsInTown & more to make your link-in-bio as painless as possible.

• An email tool that is cheaper and better designed than those that cost much more and has a perfect feature set for musicians’ needs.

• Link shortening capabilities

• QR code generation

• I really like using a separate Beacons page to link tickets for a tour, as they look great and can be designed in minutes.

4. Perplexity

I am lucky enough I am paid by one of my many employers to find AI tools that make their systems run smoother. And as of this writing AI tools often create more problems than they solve, one that has saved my group of friends a life changing amount of time is search for email addresses on Perplexity. Type the person's name and email address into perplexity, and if it finds the wrong person, give it more clues. I find this gives better results than Google results to the degree it has given me hours of my life back.

5. AudioPen

For those who struggle with writing but can articulate their thoughts verbally, AudioPen is a game-changer. This app converts voice notes into structured, readable text. Use it to:

• Create engaging social media captions

• Draft email pitches

• Compose blog posts or press releases

The paid version even allows you to mimic specific writing styles, elevating your content to a professional level with minimal effort.