Indie Music Success Tips in the Age of iTunes

This new age of ITunes and Internet Music Marketing offers unlimited opportunities to bands and musicians that under the traditional system record labels never would have had a chance.
Here are some tips on how to make the most out of what you have under your hands.
1) Get Distribution. Until very recently, getting any kind of distribution was impossible without a major label contract. Promoting independent artist was almost impossible. ITunes does not take independent artists music. Now this has changed. You can sign up with either TuneCore or CD Baby to get your music into all the major online outlets like ITunes, eMusic, Amazon etc. That's like instant world wide distribution.
2) Market your Music. There are unlimited ways for music marketing on the internet. Your own web site is your first line of defense, if you don't have a site, get one. Selling your music there is as simple as placing a link back to ITunes. Then, there's MySpace, where you can set up an artist site for free and get your music heard, your videos played and more. At first don't concentrate on getting the name of the band into the search engines. Remember, nobody knows you yet. Instead, try to get links that point to your style of music.
3) Market to Radio. As an independent artist, you are wasting your time trying to market yourself to commercial radio stations. It takes millions to tap that market. What you can do, inexpensively and effectively is to market to college radio, internet stations, clubs, jazz programs etc. There are thousands of these platforms and outlets and in this day and age it is actually an advantage if your music is not mainstream pop.

4) Leak it to the Illegals. Now this is probably the boldest tip of all. The big complaint from all musicians and labels is the illegal downloading. But here's a flipside take on that. If you are an 'unkown' and you don't have any sales anyway, why not give your first song away to get a fan base. You will get free music distribution so much quicker than doing it the traditional way. But here's the trick. Do not call your track by it's name. If your track sounds somewhat like another famous artist, include their name or song title. Now everybody who likes that artist and looks for an illegal download will see your song and if they like it, they will download it. The key here is the MP3 tag for the song when they play it will show the real name of your song, your band name and maybe the URL to your web site.