In this solo talk, Wendy Day of Rap Coalition explains why many common promotional tactics that work for established musicians—radio rotation, billboards, WorldStar, and mass email blasts—are ineffective and wasteful for brand‑new artists who lack name recognition and budget. She stresses that marketing a new artist must start with low‑cost, grassroots methods that get the music directly into listeners’ hands, such as handing out CDs, download cards, and building local buzz through live shows and personal networking. Day also highlights the essential role of funding (or lack thereof), work ethic, and realistic expectations, urging newcomers to focus on building a solid foundation before attempting high‑profile channels. The talk concludes with practical, region‑specific advice (e.g., Atlanta’s continued use of physical media) and a reminder to avoid copying the promotional playbooks of established stars until the artist reaches a comparable level of awareness.
Chapters
Hi guys, how are you today? Thanks for tuning in. As you know, I post videos every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 11 AM, and I answer questions live on Wednesday nights at 7 PM on my YouTube channel. So if you would please subscribe subscribe to my channel— subscribe, subscribe— then, um, and turn your notifications on, you will receive either an email or a text when I go live, and it will come to your email or to your phone, and you can just click on the link and very easily, um, join in the frivolities. Okay guys, so, um, marketing, marketing and promotion is going to be key to your success. So I'm going to try to talk about it more because in the emails that you're sending me, I'm feeling like that's probably the hardest part for you guys. And, um, a lot of it is funding. You don't have the money to properly market and promote, and I can't really help you with that. You're gonna have to either find an investor or get a job or, um, you know, find a way to raise the money to be able to market and promote yourself. You can't do this without money. I wish there was a way that you could, but there's not. At the very least, you're going to have to pay for your internet service so that you can market online and put gas in your vehicle so that you can get around. At the very least. There's a lot more that needs to go into it than that, but at the very least, um, that's what you need. So Um, today I'm going to talk about, um, one of the sides of marketing that I think most people and most artists struggle with, and that is the places where you market and promote. Um, the way that you market a new artist and the way that you market as an established artist are two very different things. Um, and not only are the ways that you market, but the areas in which you market are very different. And I'm going to give you the obvious one that you all pretty much know to make my point, and then I'm going to go deeper, and that's radio. When you're building a brand new artist that nobody has ever heard of You don't just go to radio and get into rotation. Um, but an artist that already has a fan base, somewhat of a fan base, can do that. So if, um, Jeezy is putting music out, he will go to radio. Rick Ross will go to radio. Young Thug will go to radio. Um, Lucci will go to radio. Kendrick Lamar will go to radio, J. Cole will go to radio, but Louie Lump Lump, the brand new rapper, should not go right to radio and expect to be played 50 times a day. I think that's kind of basic. I think most of you already know that. If you don't, you should absolutely watch my video on radio, but I'm going to take for granted that you all kind of get that one. So if you're going to build a bit of a buzz and let people know who you are before you go right to radio, shouldn't you do that for other things? Like, the way that I would spread the word about a new artist is a little bit different than the way I would spread the word about an established artist. Billboards. Billboards are another great example. I would never in a million years buy a billboard for a newer artist, for an artist that isn't known yet. Because when somebody is driving by a billboard and they've got, you know, 3 seconds to read it, if they don't know who that artist is on that billboard, the chances of them looking up that artist when they get someplace where they can do that, where they're not driving, the chances are very slim. They're gonna have a million other things going on. And they're not gonna go back and say, hmm, who was that guy on the billboard again? Let me go check out his music. It doesn't work that way. So you could effectively be spending a couple thousand dollars up to $15,000 or $20,000 depending on where that billboard is located, and you're wasting money. But someone who is established might do that. Like Lil Wayne, he's been out of the marketplace for a while, right? When Wayne puts out new music and he's making a comeback, he could very easily buy billboards. He won't have to because the word of mouth on that is gonna be so huge. But my point is, if he wanted to buy billboards that said Lil Wayne is back, go to LilWayneIsBack.com, then people would remember that driving by because it's such a monumentous occasion. So they're gonna remember that. But if Louie Lump Lump, who's unknown, is putting out a release and buys a billboard that says Louie Lump Lump is back, the chances of them remembering that are really slim. There's just no— there's nothing to anchor that memory for them so that when they get home or to their office or to wherever they're going, and they can pull out their phone and look it up, they're just not gonna remember to do that. Maybe a couple will, Maybe, you know, the friends and family of the artist will, but for the most part, there's just better ways to spend money. And I think what happens sometimes with new artists is that you see all the things that established artists do, and because you want to be established, you repeat what you see, you repeat their process, and it doesn't work for you because people don't know who you are yet. And therefore you waste money and your career doesn't grow, and you get frustrated and you say that the music industry is full of shit, that they only pay attention to, um, artists who suck up or artists who don't make great music. You've got a million excuses, you know you do. You've heard them, I've heard them. We all know what the excuses are. Um, I see this a lot with WorldStar. A lot of artists that I work with want to get on WorldStar, and the thing is that WorldStar is not a great place to break a new artist. People aren't there to find new music. They're there to see ratchetness. They're there to see bum fights. They're there to see women punch each other. They're there to see, you know, women get naked. They're there for reasons other other than to discover music. Now, um, I work with Trouble, and we use WorldStar heavily for Trouble because people know who Trouble is. But before he was known, it was not a great resource for us to promote Trouble because he was unknown and people weren't there to check out unknown artists. And you know there's a million of them because all of you go to WorldStar, you check out WorldStar, and you feel like if you're on WorldStar then you'll get noticed. Because after all, it works for Wayne, it works for Trouble, it works for Young Thug, it works for whoever is on WorldStar. Um, but understand that WorldStar utilizes established artists and artists with a buzz in order to get their fan base to come to WorldStar and to see what else is going on WorldStar. They're not making money by posting a Wayne video per se on WorldStar or whoever. You know, I'm just using Wayne as an example. But again, if you're Louie Lump Lump and you put a video on WorldStar for $750 or whatever kind of deal that you can work out with them, it's gonna be very hard for you to build your marketing and your awareness from just doing that. And I know that when you post on WorldStar, all of your friends call you and say they saw you on WorldStar. But they're the people who are already gonna support you anyway because they know you. If they're able to tell you they saw you on WorldStar, then they were able to tell you that they support you, and they do. I've noticed, um, a lot of times brand new artists will buy the DJ email blast services. Um, you'll target internet radio heavily so that you can grow. And while those things may help you, the risk is high that it won't because you're not known yet. So you're gonna have to do the actual legwork and get established in your area and build a buzz. And every artist does that. Artists don't just pop up miraculously and they're superstars. Every artist that has ever become known was unknown at one point in time. And, and I know I'm kind of like making this really basic right now, but I want you to understand that everybody starts somewhere. And maybe they have more budget than you, maybe have— they have less budget than you, maybe they have more talent than you, maybe they have less talent than you, but the one thing that is level amongst everybody is work ethic and grind. If they're getting further than you and their music isn't better than yours, then maybe they're outworking you. Maybe you just have to put in more work. And that's an area that I can't quantify that for you. I can't say if you go out and you promote yourself for 6 hours a day every day that you're working hard, because it may take 20 hours a day to break you. It might take 1 hour a day to break you. It depends on your charisma. It depends on your music. It depends on your market. It depends on your budget. It depends on your timing. There's so many different, um, things out there that you can't control that are going to affect your ability to market and to spread your music that you're just gonna have to go out and do it. And you're gonna have to put in as much time as you can spare, as much time as you can spend away from your family, away from work, um, because most of you still need to make a living. So you're gonna have to balance everything. And yeah, I know it's hard, and there will be times in your life where it will get easier, and there are times in your life where it's going to get harder. Every time you put out new music, you have to work it. It may take you 5 minutes to create a song. It might take you 5 days to create a song, but it's going to take you 5 months or longer to work a record. It's going to take a lot of time and a lot of effort. And the last thing I want you to do is to look at, you know, and this is always my biggest fear for new artists, is I don't want you looking at what famous artists are doing to market and promote themselves and then imitate that. Because you're not at their level. You are not at their level. And I know it sucks for you to, to hear that, but you've got to build your foundation and build yourself as a new artist until you get to their level, until you're known, until you're a star, until you are profitable, until you are making money. So guys, Don't look at what people that have a buzz are doing. Don't even compare yourself to the newer artists like the 21 Savages, the Lil Yachty's. And I don't mean in terms of music, I mean in terms of promotion and in terms of where they are in the marketplace with their careers. If you're brand new, act like you're brand new and build from the ground up. For us here in the South, we still use CDs to promote. Anytime you can get your music in front of somebody, and not by spamming them, but anytime that you can get somebody to embrace you and listen to your music is gonna be a better opportunity for you than if they just hear your name or they see your logo. So you wanna get your music out there as much as possible. For us here in Atlanta, we still give out CDs. We give out CDs and we give out download cards. But the great thing about CDs is that if somebody has a vehicle that has a CD player, the second you hand them that CD, which costs you about 30 cents to, to, to, to press up, as soon as you hand them that CD, they can pop it into the car and they will know within the next 5 or 10 minutes whether they like you or they don't like you. That's not something that you can get from a billboard. That's not something you can get from an email blast. That's not something you can get from any other arena other than having your music played, either played in the club or played at radio or, or played out loud, whatever that means. So all that to say, when you're promoting yourself, promote yourself with music as much as you can. Let your music stand for who you are. Get as much music as you can into somebody's hands so that if they don't like one song, they might like another. If they don't like two songs, they might like the third one. If they don't like three songs, they're not gonna— you don't have many more shots with them. Okay guys, so thanks for tuning in. This is Wendy Day from Rap Coalition, and check for my videos, make sure you subscribe, and see you soon. Bye guys!
