Bluegrass music is a little different from other her genres in our business model. Not many other styles of music can boast the healthy festival circuit that bluegrass has. Fans of other styles don’t have the ready access to artists that bluegrass fans enjoy. Just because we’re unique, don’t mean that we can’t learn a little business from the larger music world.

Here’s an informative article that will give all you artists out there a few new ways to market your music to your fans, and at little or no cost.

They cover a range of topics and give you their two top choices for marketing in that area of the business. This includes getting your music into the top online radio stations; how to license your music for use in television, film, video games, and advertising, and get paid for it; ways to find new gigs for live performance; mobile marketing that covers text messaging, ringtones, ringbacks, full track downloads, wallpaper and mobile fan clubs; and online strategies for building/strengthening your fan base.

If you made use of every option they describe, the total cost would be only $52.45, most of that being the annual cost of using Sonicbids.com. Most of the things they suggest carry no upfront cost (some incur a cost on the back end by taking a percentage of proceeds).

Some of these ideas may not work with bluegrass, I don’t know, but I think it’s worth taking a few minutes to think them through if you’re an artist trying to make a living in this business.