I'm talking during modern times, maybe within the last couple of years. "Successfully" is defined very modestly also, by no means did you have to make millions upon its release (though if you did, congrats and please divulge!). If you managed to reach a respectable audience, consistently garnered new ears and interest, maybe a little bit of earnings, what strategies do you feel best assisted in that progress?

Belated reply, but I'd take a look at what Laura Kidd is doing with her Penfriend albums:

https://penfriend.rocks/

Exotic Monsters went to #1 0 in the UK Album Sales charts in May 2021, and #3 in the UK Album Downloads. It might even have gone to #1 , but it was the same week that Olivia Rodrigo's "Sour" launched & the new Gary Numan "Intruder" album too.

So many marketing tricks you can learn from browsing her site. She is very passionate about her weekly email newsletter (everyone seems to ignore email as a way of keeping in touch with fans). She had a 50 episode podcast series too, interviewing other musicians. Right now she posts a new YouTube video every week, weekly blog posts, and she puts lots of effort into interacting with fans and replying to them in comments, emails, and even a self-hosted discussion forum for fans. The album was successful, but it seems her ongoing success & funding comes from her own monthly fan subscriptions, where she sends out a mini-magazine and EP every quarter in the mail (hence "Penfriend").

I could go on and on - lots you can learn just from exploring her site and observing how she does things.

Great advice by OP above. There is a thousand ways to give your chance to be successful at what you goal is! Define that first. I always say do what you like and then find people like you. If you like what you do - it is YOUR job to find out where other people like you hang out. Think of OTB ways to connect with them. Start small grow... (enjoy the process)

Music revenue and sales are fickle and ever changing. Music is not like starting a cupcake company. Much music has NO value to someone else while some music (rare) promotes and sells itself. Depends what you like and what you want to do.

Study artists like Doja and NEFFEX and 21 Pilots and on and on... and also USE your creativity to create revenue ops - I mean use it!! best of luck.

you've got to have a strategy/plan, do what record companies do, release singles first, then promote the album, have deadlines, release the actual day it will be released and here's the most important part, actually play live and promote tf out of it, then you're giving your audience a reason to come and see you again and buy the album, too many artists simply don't promote anything and have no strategy, also once it's released don't expect it to be a success, not many people actually buy music anymore