The best ways to promote your musical releases
Pre-Release Campaign
This is worth putting some thought into. What does it mean? Should you come up with teasers on social media, paid advertising, or contact a music influencer? How do you go about all this? Do you need a video, photos, album cover? A bio? What is your story? Try to write a bullet list about this release. What is the genre, beat, or atmosphere, mood or color of this song? What is the theme, how long is the song? How long did it take you to create this particular piece of art? This pre-release period can be the most valuable time to build excitement and curiosity. Gathering all your information and making sense of it all in a professional manner is important.
Videos
Making several short videos for multiple platforms to include the best 15 second hook of the song. Make all your posts in a way that will help you find your audience and set your algorithm. Consistency is key. Encourage collaboration with other artists with your posts, ask for engagement. Show yourself playing or singing, show some of the lyrics.
Playlist Promotion and Streaming
Write 3-4 pitches to have them ready for consideration for platforms like Spotify. Research independent curators and target those that make sense for your music. Getting your song on a major Spotify playlist can really boost the chances of people listening. Create your own playlists and feature your song along with similar artists. Make sure all your profiles are updated at each platform you use. There are quite a few different distribution services as well. Do the research to find them and decide what works for you. Do you want to plan a pre-order, pre-release campaign? Will you have multiple distributors and only use the preferred one for pre-release?
- Spotify
- Amazon
- YouTube
- DistroKid
Marketing
Consider paid advertising. Do you have a release date in mind so you can actually plan all the hype leading up to it? Does it make sense? Your budget may have to be examined for this to help decide where your hard earned money will be best spent. Build momentum before you ever release the music. Write a detailed description of the song so you have it ready. Will you want to design a logo? Possibly ask for fan interaction to help you choose your art to get fans involved. What is your brand? Colors? Do you have a business card? One software example that can be used is Canva to help create posts, logos and business cards.
What exactly are your goals? Do you wish to only release a couple of songs leading up to the full release of the album? How would you measure success? If you sell 150 songs and 200 albums, is that your goal?
Build Your Community
Will you collect E-mails and contact fans directly? Will you blast an invitation to see you play somewhere? How will you communicate with your fan base? Will you have a release party? Are you open to collaboration?
Post Release Considerations
Figure out if the budget was used and that you received appropriate value for money spent. Create posts after the release to keep fans in the loop and thank them for support. Review the release plan and see what may need to be changed to create more success.
Create a press kit!
- Keep this kit updated with hi res photos, an artist bio and all information about your music ready to go. It will make it much easier and faster to be able to send to newspapers, influencers, blogs and more.
- Offer to play your music either in person, or digitally in coffee shops, stores and radio stations.
- Release singles on a more predictable schedule to keep engagement and maintain your algorithms.
