The BEST Music Marketing Strategy in 2025 (Don’t Tell Anyone)
When you are a performer and songwriter, of course you want to record and play your own songs. But today we’ll introduce you to a very effective and easy way to take your music career to the next level: cover songs. A highly explosive way to reach a larger audience. People love to listen to new versions of their old favorites. Furthermore, many famous musicians such as Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Jessie J were discovered through covering music on YouTube!
Many musicians start their first rehearsal by learning a cover song. Even experienced acts can benefit from covering someone else’s music. Cover songs have been doing well these days, as they have appeared in “best cover” award-winning music magazines and blogs when done correctly, and some songs may receive approval or retweets from the original artist himself. If people know a trendy song on the charts that they play on repeat they will be curious to hear how your version sounds. Cover songs are a good strategy as they can be viral.
What is a cover song?
A cover song is a new recording or performance of a song by an artist other than the original composer and/or performer. Cover songs are colloquially called cover versions or covers. Bands and solo acts record cover songs as album fillers, singles, or reinterpretations, release in live albums, studio albums, best album compilations, and perform at award shows and concerts.
Why can it boost your career?
If you’re picking up a popular song on YouTube and its popular or talked about, it’s a great way to spread your name. Every time someone like Beyonce or Adele releases a new song, you can be assured that you have thousands of covers on YouTube within hours. For the first few days after the release, people will inevitably look for songs from these artists. Furthermore, for artists, covering songs is also a great shortcut for making hits before creating their own original songs enough to fill an album or stage show.
Music covers can be a powerful promotional tool. And you can do even more than just recording the song. You can record a music video for a cover song that will reveal your creativity and personality as a musician, benefiting your own project.
How To Make The Perfect Cover?
1. Choose The Right Song
You should show your greatest strength as a musician and select the right songs for your search traffic. While digging deeper into the work of your favorite artist is great for super fans, it doesn’t always help generate clicks or spread by word of mouth. The cover strategy should start by choosing a song that is popular in the charts. Songs that music fans are currently desperately searching for on YouTube and streaming platforms.
However, creating the perfect representation of a popular song is not enough. Viewers are looking for truly creative expression, and the ability to build on the creation of others determines your success. Remember, this is not karaoke. It must go beyond the great reproduction of the original recording. Make sure you add your own twist to the song and offer something that the original doesn’t have. Many artists believe that when it comes to covers, you should “stick to what you know,” but genre bending has lately caught the attention and are reaching out to new audiences.
Expert Tip: Choosing the right song may seem easy, but there are many pitfalls. Pay attention to the vocal range and ability. You need to choose a song that fits your spectrum.
The cover version of the song can definitely be more popular than the original. Raising the popularity of remakes to a higher level can be just a variation of luck, timing, or how the song is played. And in some cases, the only reason the song is so popular is that it was remade by another artist.
Expert Tip: The most popular way is to strip down the original and create an acoustic version that slows down the original while reducing the instrument to just your voice and the instrument.
2. Use Description And Keywords
It will be increasingly difficult to discover your cover songs if you don’t provide the right description and keywords for your uploads. First, use the appropriate keywords in the title to get the reader’s attention. If you’re covering popular artists or tracks, be sure to include the information in the title and tag. Boring tracks are overlooked. This is an important opportunity to extend your creativity beyond your sound.
Expert Tip: Don’t ignore the video description field either. In this area, you can add tags to your content, add a description of you and your work, and add personal messages and signatures to your audience. You can also use this space to target users and watch them repeatedly. Moreover, provide the option to link your social media account and subscribe to the channel. If you want your users to come back, you need to easily request an engagement.
YouTube description fields aren’t just for search engine tools, they’re also for facilitating engagement and increasing followers. So, before you post your cover; download songs, create, and / or make sure your website and social media pages are up-to-date and the description contains links to all of them.
3. Record with high-quality equipment
Audio and video quality can be an important differentiator between you and other YouTube cover artists that are about to be discovered. With so much competition and traffic, it’s important that all viewers have a good impression. It’s worth investing in high quality microphones for premium audio. Remember that the tools you use are important because you sell sounds.
How To Release The Cover Legally?
When it comes to releasing a cover song, there are some hurdles to overcome. All works you’d be covering are based on copyrighted written music from the original composer(s). With every stream/sale you’ll earn royalties to the composer(s) of the song. You own the copyright of the recording, but you do not own the copyright to the melodies and lyrics, so you need permission to use the song. This is where what is called a “mechanical license” comes into play. This is the permission required by the publisher to record / distribute the songs for which the publisher owns the rights. This is to ensure that the correct royalty rate is repaid to the owner. You need to get the publishing rights from the music publisher and the copyright owner. If you want to publish and distribute the cover song, you need to get permission from the original songwriter. This will ensure that the mechanical usage fee is paid properly.
To Wrap It Up
More and more up-and-coming artists are playing covers as it is a popular way to hear and recognize their voices. Social media sites like YouTube contain a number of videos of artists covering the myriad of hits that helped make music a success. Just know that if fans want to hear the original, they will go and search for it. Therefore, your version needs to provide a fresh perspective, add value and unique artistic expression, and show off your talent. You choose from thousands of songs and you can change the keys, change the placement, and step down to make adjustments. There is art in creating the work of others who have become known as their own work. The audience loves it and so does the industry. This is evident in the success of American Idol, X factor, The Voice and the constant encouragement of judges to do exactly that.
Curious if you can use more help in growing your artist career? We’ve been in the game with a focus on playlist marketing since our start, which led to having helped over 7000+ individual artists with their journey to a successful career. Check out our programs to help you scale to real results. If you want to keep learning, follow us on our social media channels for weekly bite-sized knowledge. Moreover, feel free to ask us your questions on our Instagram (@daimoonmedia)!
