If you’ve been following the internet music scene for a while now, you’ve probably become quite acquainted with the idea of using SoundCloud to get your music out in the open. With all the years and effort that you’ve put into pursuing your craft and refining your talent so that you can make it a lifelong passion to pay the bills and live comfortably, it makes perfect sense to use SoundCloud. Now, the question is: Are you really making the most out of SoundCloud?
It’s worth knowing that SoundCloud can be used for so much more than simply uploading your music and hoping for the best. You see, SoundCloud yields so much potential for any musician-businessperson to turn their talent into a well-paying profession if they use the platform properly.
You can use Soundcloud to get both your name and music out in the open for everyone to enjoy, follow, and look forward to with the right promotional strategy. Thanks to the platform’s easy-to-use interface and simplistic algorithm, the extent to which your promotional chops take effect is entirely up to your control.
Whether you have a new track or EP coming out or have been aiming to gain some much-needed traction in the industry, here are a few SoundCloud promotion tips that you can put into play right away:
1. Put a marketing plan together—and stick to it
One of the most effective techniques that you can use to your advantage when promoting your SoundCloud is to build a marketing plan that can help set every promotional effort in the right direction. While it may not necessarily be as exciting as playing a concert for 10,000 people, creating a marketing plan and following it step by step is the best approach to make your way there much faster.
When putting your marketing plan together, it’s important to understand your target market on a much deeper level in terms of what they do, what works best to their preferences, and how they enjoy their music. Doing so is a great way to understand how you can promote your SoundCloud music in a manner that’s easy for them to consume.
2. Check who your fans follow
If you already have an ideal fan in mind, knowing who they follow on SoundCloud will help with figuring out how you can be what they look for. Once you pooled a test group of similar potential fans or profiles together, go ahead and check for any common artists that they might be following. Finding the common denominator among those in your ideal fanbase will show how you can represent yourself on SoundCloud so that you can promote better and attract like-minded followers as well.
3. Keep an eye out for data by going pro
SoundCloud also provides its users with valuable data. However, accessing data analytics on SoundCloud requires going pro. As soon as you get SoundCloud pro subscription, you’ll be able to access traffic data and listener data to understand what tweaks you’ll need to make with your promotional efforts. Additionally, upgrading your account to SoundCloud Pro is also a great way to ensure what upcoming trends on the platform are drawing attention and are about to become the next best opportunity for further growth.
Promoting your music on SoundCloud is a step in the right direction towards becoming a full-fledged professional musician. Properly doing it will make a huge difference in how successful you can get. By following the three tips mentioned in this article, you can ensure that your promotional efforts can fast-track you and your music towards success easily.
If you’re looking to learn more about getting more plays on SoundCloud, get in touch with us today to see how we can help.
A quick look at the Internet will reveal multiple ways to share your music and promote your identity. Putting much thought on how you market your image and your music gives you a better chance of getting discovered and heard in a competitive industry. However, promotion and image must not take the bulk of the artist’s time. Instead, developing great music must still be the priority.
That said, here are three ways to use music as your promotion’s focal point.
1. Define who you are
If you still see yourself as a musician or songwriter, then you must put in mind this persona from the way you dress to your posts on social media. Creating great music is challenging even for experienced musicians, and that’s why artists compensate by building their brand and boosting their image as motivation to create great music.
However, nothing is as sleek and more thoughtful as a marketing campaign than promoting their music itself. If you put yourself in the listener’s position, an artist that is all hype but creates no great music is not worth following or listening. After all, it’s still the music that separates the good and the bad artists.
2. Music comes first
Musicians often choose to concentrate on their music instead of their image. This is because building an online presence nowadays is imperative, given the social media-driven culture. It’s not enough to be a great musician anymore. Instead, they must build their image to connect to their fans or gain new followers.
While it’s vital to update your followers about a portion of your daily whereabouts, take some time to feel the essence of your music and promote that instead of yourself. Find a way to connect with your audience using that message for them to appreciate your music on a personal level.
That way, they will appreciate your music more than the memes and the goofy videos that you post online. Posts of that type are useful in gaining short term attention. Unfortunately, they do not align with your overall strategy, especially in pushing your music further.
3. Limit your options for the best
The options are limited but in the right way. An artist who knows what their music is all about limits the means to present themselves and their message. It makes promotions and branding easier when compared to musicians who do not understand what their music means and why are they creating it beyond monetary reasons.
Don’t worry if you can relate to this because it takes years for a great musician to form a solid musical identity. You cannot force or rush it because it is a significant decision that you must start to think as soon as possible. Defining your music sets the tone for your image, which makes promoting and finding a fan base easier.
Leverage technology’s power
Aside from social media, you can also use other platforms to promote your music or your shows. Email messaging is still an effective medium despite its limited reach. Learn more about how you can harness this platform to promote your music effectively.
If you are looking for a music promotion company to help you promote your music effectively, get in touch with us to see how we can help.
Regardless of whether you’re a beginner that’s been tapped to play a few gigs out of town or a well-known act taking the national stage, there’s always the struggle of performing your music in a new city.
Performing in a city that you’ve never had a show before comes with an understandable amount of overthinking, self-doubt, and an overall fear of what’s ahead of you. Out of all the different aspects that you have to worry about when playing a show in a new city, the promotion will be at the top of your priority list. While it may be true that it’s very much possible to gain momentum and a set of new fans to your following by performing in a new city, ensuring that people actually know you’re performing can be more difficult than expected.
Two sure-fire promotional strategies
Fortunately, promoting in a show in an unfamiliar city doesn’t always have to be as hard as people say it is— especially when you know the right tips and tricks for effective promotion. To ensure that your set is a big hit in a place that you’ve been to before, here are two promotion tips that most of the industry’s biggest players abide by:
1. Pitch your show to local press and radio outlets
If you play your cards right, being the newcomer in an unfamiliar town can work to your advantage with the help of the area’s local press and radio outlets. Pitching your show through a simple meeting or conference call can go a long way in making sure that everyone in town has a reason to go to your show.
Presenting your upcoming show as a “debut performance in the city” to a local press or radio outlet will undoubtedly get the attention of the locals. Bringing local press and radio outlets into the mix will speak for itself in terms of answering the question, “why should we promote and cover your show?” Blogs, online news outlets, and radio outlets look for certain stories to generate interest in the area that you’ll be performing in, which makes it much easier for your debut show to come off as a hot topic.
2. Run a targeted ad campaign for your upcoming show over social media and local blogs
Should you find yourself with a comfortable budget that can be used on various promotional expenses for your upcoming show, then its best to go all-out on social media through targeted campaigns.
With the help of a targeted social media ad, you can get the word of your show spreading like wildfire, especially in locations that thrive on discovering talented acts. Selecting the right location, age, and music preference when setting up your social media targeting can be particularly impactful, even more so when you have a flexible budget.
With the right promotion strategies in place, you can easily overcome the pre-performance jitters of performing in an entirely-new territory to a crowd that you’ve never performed in front of before.
If you’re looking for a music promotion company to help you promote your show, get in touch with us to see how we can help.
Let’s face it. Learning how send music through email isn’t the most glamorous of jobs. It’s like herding sheep at the best of times, but like with anything; the more sheep you herd, the better you become at it.
It’s the same with email music promotion; the first couple of promos you send will probably flop, but over time you refine your audience, segment your mailing list, and learn to write better copy.
With practice, tastemakers will start to take notice. But getting to that stage is a bit of an unknown territory, but thankfully for you, I’m going to break it down.
To send the perfect promo campaign, you’ll need to read the following:
Have a suitable email address
Creating a DJ or Press email list
Sending promos manually or by using software
1. Having a killer email address for promoting music:
I know this is blatantly obvious, but to start sending music through email, you will need an emailing address. Yet, you shouldn’t use any email address, for example, your personal account.
Remember, the ultimate goal of promoting music is to gain awareness about the music you’re selling.
If you’re sending music, from [email protected], then your chances of winning features are going to be pretty slim. This is especially important if you own a record label.
Branding is massively essential. Domain names are cheap. Buy yourself one. They’ll make your business look more established, authentic and trustworthy.
There’s plenty of places that sell domain names – I like Namecheap. Signup for an account, do a search for your record label name (or company) and see what’s available. You’ll probably find your record label name is possible. But if it’s not there are some pretty unique extensions accessible, such as .club, .agency, & .digital. Once you’ve picked up your domain name, you’ll need to create an email address from that domain.
Namecheap offers email hosting, or you can go down the route most people take, and that is Gsuite. Gsuite is simple to set up, and Gmail is a trustworthy email client.
I recommend creating an email address with your name as the handle, especially for email outreach. Receiving a music promo from a personal business address, such as [email protected] is more reputable. Whereas receiving an email from [email protected] just looks a little impersonal. Maybe that’s just me – I’ll let you make that decision.
2. Creating a reliable DJ or Press email list for promoting music
This is a hot topic. It baffles a lot of people. They think it’s some sort of elaborate mystery with very complicated resolution. Well, it’s not. I’m going to share some advice on it.
Whenever someone emails me, enquiring about building a DJ list, I always reply with the same answer. It usually starts off with “Having 10 DJs on your email list that love your music is far better than 1000 DJs that don’t care for it.”
I’ve seen record labels who have blatantly scraped their emails lists from the internet and subsequently wonder why less than 2% opened their promo email. Well, that is because their email list doesn’t know they are and probably not interested in their music.
Harsh, I know, but also true.
Think about it like this: If your friend sent you an email, would you read it? Probably.
If a stranger sent you an email, would you read it? Probably not, unless something caught your eye.
What’s the difference between a friend and a stranger?
The answer is a relationship.
Having an affiliation with that person is the key to getting your email opened. So, how do you build a relationship with a stranger?
Talk to them.
But how can we open those lines of communication and maximise return on that investment?
Well first work out what you’re trying to achieve. For example, your goal is building a DJ list, filled with DJs who love your music and want to play your latest release in the clubs and on the radio.
Let’s say you own a tech-house label. Start by writing a list of people who would play your music. Would a dubstep DJ who only plays dubstep play your music? No, well axe them off for starters. Do the same with anyone else who wouldn’t be interested, this includes your blog outreach research.
You’re definitely not a charity.
Firing content around with abandon will devalue the product over time. Promoting music to tastemakers who are not interested is simply not worth your time, regardless of how ‘big in the scene’ they are.
Instead, start a small list of potential DJs or press contacts and build them incrementally over time.
Also, don’t dismiss the lesser-known DJs, they’re very useful. Some of them will become successful and invariably will end up leading the scene.
One of the easiest ways of getting hold of DJs or bloggers is to message them on Facebook. Most companies/DJs/bloggers will have a Facebook page, so getting their attention is pretty straight forward.
Send them a message
Perhaps say something like “Hello Bob, I’m Pete, I would like to send you some music over email. Would it be possible to have an email address for you, please?”
Keep it simple, don’t over complicate it and whatever you do, don’t whine at them if they don’t get back to you within 5 minutes. Believe me, this happens. People are busy. If they want to get back to you immediately, they will, if they don’t, accept it and move on.
Maybe give it a week and provide those people with a gentle follow up. When they reply, they’ll probably ask for some information and a taster of your music. Give the tastemaker what’s needed and perhaps drop a link to your promo. Promoly has a ‘secret link’ function, which is ideal in this situation.
When I was running a record label, I used this technique; it worked well, and I built a decent email list (~1000 contacts) tailored to my record label’s ‘sound’. But I didn’t accomplish that over a week. I grew the mailing list as the years went on and I still dip into it occasionally when I need to contact someone. A couple of things to remember:
Use their real name; this shows you’ve done a little research.
Don’t spam them with 10 releases or send them your life history.
Don’t be needy, annoying or pester them.
Be polite when reaching out and promoting music!
Here’s my personal favourite (read: unconventional) way of obtaining an email address; Use an app that will find an email address based on the domain name you provide.
I use hunter.io for gathering email addresses. However, there are other alternatives available which are comparable. Hunter works very well, and many companies use this technique for cold emailing purposes.
If a DJ/label/etc., has a website, plugin their domain name and the app will display the associated email addresses for the domain provided. (Hunter also has other impressive functions, like email tracking, which could be used in conjunction with promoting music.)
This will save you A LOT of time and give you a personal address instead of a generic info@ address. Here’s an example, using our domain promo.ly.
Once you have their email address, send the contact a simple email, like the Facebook message but this time ask for permission to send them promos. Just because you have their email address it doesn’t mean they want to hear from you, so don’t spam them with release promos without seeking permission first. You don’t want to be flagged for spam or get strung up in a GDPR fiasco.
Remember: music PR is about building relationships. Once you have their approval, build a relationship and then consider sending a song/promo. Also, don’t forget to check in with them from time to time. Don’t be that person who only contacts someone because they need a favour.
3. Sending music promos through email manually or by using software?
So you’ve got your email account and press list in the making. And I assume you have some music to promote?
But how do you promote music successfully?
There are a couple of ways sending promos can be achieved: you can either send a promo to a segmented email list, or you can do manual outreach over email. Both are excellent ways of gaining features, plays and premieres.
Using a tool like Promoly is a great way to organise and track crucial information, such as plays and downloads.
Promoly caters for sending promos as well as generating secret links for manual outreach.
If you wish to send a promo to a whole list, you’ll need to start adding your mailing list in Promoly. Segment the lists into appropriate groups. Really dig deep here.
Segmentation is the key to getting reliable results. Spend some time going through your email list with a fine-tooth comb. Think about the music the tastemaker/DJ would prefer.
Add the contacts to different groups. The work you put in will be worth it in the long run.
Now your mailing list is organised, polished and ready to roll; it’s time to create a promo campaign. You’ll need artwork, press information and music for this part.
Think about your subject line – what makes you open an email in your inbox?
If you’re stuck, we’ve written an article here which will give you some ideas about creating a click-worthy subject.
Subject lines should make people want to open your email, not delete them.
Unfortunately, many record labels often fall into the ‘bland subject line’ category when promoting music, but it’s ok… this is why I write articles like this one.
Hopefully, you’ll learn something, and if you do, drop a comment in the Facebook comment box at the bottom.
What information should be included on a promo?
1. Artwork 2. Music 3. Press Release 4. Release dates
These are crucial factors. Here’s Promoly’s campaign creator:
Including artwork, music, press release & release dates are absolutely vital when sending music through email to your recipient list.
Without all the necessary details you’re cutting down your chance to get featured.
There’s nothing worse than receiving a promo and having to chase the sender for the relevant information. Get this right the first time, and you’ll automatically be in with a higher chance of getting noticed when promoting music.
Finalise your promo, save it and make sure the preview looks good. Promoly will automatically create an attractive landing page for your music to be showcased on.
Here’s an example:
Manual outreach vs bulk sending, what’s the difference? And what’s the best way of sending a song/promo?
Manual vs bulk sending is entirely up to you and totally depends on your goals. If you wish to circulate music to DJs in line with your release date, then don’t go sending individually, as that’s counterproductive and could take too long.
But, if you’re promoting music and seeking a premiere, I suggest manual outreach. Including a Secret Link (created by Promoly) is also recommended. Secret links are direct access to the promo landing pages. They eliminate having to send a whole promo campaign via email.
Instead, Promoly can generate a secret link which you can drop into a Facebook or Whatsapp chat. This is great if you’re chatting freely with a tastemaker about a premiere and want to strike while the iron is hot. Promoly will record all data on that secret link and compile the data into a report. Try doing that with WeTransfer or other link-sharing services. Yep, thought so… you can’t!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCLIdwR2g9o&
When you have a release ready to promote, start thinking about when the promo needs to be sent to tastemakers. Do bloggers take 4 weeks to respond? Does Mixmag need your music 4 weeks in advance to their print cycle? All of these questions need to be thought about before you start to promote music. Sending a release into oblivion and hoping for the best isn’t the most tactical way. Hence the importance of segmentation and pre-planning.
There are many ways to promote music
As you’ve probably worked out, there are 101 different ways to promote music.
This article on ‘how to send music through email’ and promotion is only scratching the surface. When promoting music, it’s all down to what works for you and what gets you great results.
Every record label and publicist works with different methods; they may have some secret sauce from time to time, but essentially they’re doing similar methods highlighted in this article.
The most crucial factor to take away is you must test ideas and stay consistent. Try out an idea for a solid couple of months without changing direction. Results will not appear overnight, but Promoly can help you to achieve them over the long term.
Whether you’re a solo artist or a band looking to land a big break, dropping your album on the spot may not be the best step. As exciting as it is to have the opportunity to share your hard work with the world, silently releasing an album will not work unless you have an impressionable fanbase.
Fortunately, in this digital landscape, there are hundreds of social media channels you can leverage. With 4.48 billion active users online, the possibilities for promoting your music on the internet is limitless. It can be daunting to choose the best route with so many options available, but the key is establishing a strategy that excites your fans.
To that end, the tips and tricks below should help you navigate the saturated world wide web when releasing your album:
Tip #1: Create an Album Release Strategy Based on Your Fans and Personality
When sharing your music online, there are many ways to go about it. One of the best ways to start your release strategy is to base it on your career level. This encompasses your band’s personality, including your fanbase size, online presence, genre, and career focus.
If you’re an energetic band that hops from one live show to the next, you can devise a marketing campaign that uses social media to spread the word about your gig. You can invest in posters, videos, or even work with reputable influencers to promote your show.
Tip #2: Release Your Album Constantly
One decade ago, artists would drop albums once a year and all in one go. However, modern musicians find that shortening the cycle of release makes it easier to engage fans. Releasing every two months, for instance, allows listeners to keep track of your music without being bombarded by other singles in your album.
Splitting your album enables you to stay on top of your fans’ minds, which gives them more chances to catch interest, share, and purchase. Each release must have its mini-marketing campaign that includes utilizing your social media, website, email list, and other connections with influencers.
This is the best route for those who are just starting as a musician, as it allows you to build your online presence steadily. As for established bands, other strategies may be more suitable as releasing one song at a time may not generate enough revenue for your tour.
Tip #3: Entice Your Fans by Releasing an Exclusive Preview
It’s a common tactic for artists to showcase a preview of their album before the official release date, though you add a more exciting touch to the strategy by making the preview exclusive. For instance, hosting a live show and surprising the audience with a preview of your album is an effective way of driving traffic to your social media engagement. A bit of mystery makes for the best news to spread online, and when done right, it can pique the interest of more fans.
In Conclusion
Promoting your music is a trial and error process, so trust that your strategy will refine over time. Don’t forget that in this technologically advanced world, there are marketing tools you have right at your fingertips – so all you need is to grab the method that resonates with your music, fanbase, and style. To that end, the tips above should help you get started with a bang.
If you are looking for a music promotion company to help you promote your music effectively, get in touch with us to see how we can help.
Technology has now made it easy for artists to update their fans about their latest musical productions or personal ventures. Social media allows you to connect to a wide audience by sharing what you had for breakfast or lyrics to a new song you are producing.
Even an image of the backstage at a concert helps you forge deeper connections with your followers. However, the ease of sharing updates does not mean that you must share every minute of your life.
Don’t bombard them with information
If you put yourself into your fan’s situation for a while, you’ll feel overwhelmed with the amount of information you feed them daily. Instead of seeing essential updates about your music, you bombard them with an endless news cycle about your pet, new places you visited, and dating app notifications.
Posting everything on social to see which updates get the most interaction is a negative strategy because you combine exciting updates with random posts. As a result, your social media engagement decreases because of the oversharing dilutes a fan’s attention. Shrinking attention spans and the reduction of reach for organic posts makes oversharing a bad idea as well.
Refine your social media strategy
Most of your social media followers care about your music. Because of this, you should only post about new music, gig schedules, and future collaborations to get the utmost priority. Posting an image of the pizza that you will share with your band does not add value to your social media strategy.
Don’t abuse your freedom to post anything on social media. While there’s nothing wrong about engaging your audience in a conversation, sharing more updates than needed takes away your promotional power. Your fans will pay less attention if you provide mundane updates that are irrelevant to your music.
Prioritizing what’s important will help you get the most of each post. However, this doesn’t mean that you must discard sharing about the lighter side of your life. Instead, you can do one post of that nature for every two or three music-related updates. If you’re releasing a new album soon, focus your messaging to promote that and stay away from posts that are unrelated to the album.
Combining different types of posts will surely deliver stronger messages as well. A one-liner about your new single combined with a short video of the recording process will draw more visitors to your social media assets. The same approach will also work if you want to share funny or poignant updates.
Using Mail Merge will make it easier to share your music with a broader audience. Their software must provide stats and analytics about the recipient’s tendencies. Finally, their fans must have a platform to address their feedback. Contact a company that offers email music promotion and ask for a free trial of their platform if possible.
If you are looking for a music promotion company to help you promote your music effectively, get in touch with us to see how we can help.
As the era of Soundcloud and social media continues to remain as alive as ever, music promotion has taken on new, diverse forms. Targeted messages on Facebook and hard-pushed social media posts have since taken the place of passing out CDs, running bakes sales, and sneaking mixtapes into Happy Meals.
With technology continuously evolving, the need for innovating in the way music is promoted persists and presents a challenge that musicians must overcome. This is why musicians and managers need to look at the process from varying perspectives.
Mindsets for success
Incorporating a mandatory paradigm shift, believe it or not, is the secret for facilitating successful music promotion stints that can slingshot any artist from obscurity to stardom. Promoting music to achieve desirable outcomes entails looking at the process from a different lens in a while to get on with the times and minimize costly mistakes along the way.
If you’ve been looking for an opportunity to revamp your promotional strategy, here are a few fresh perspectives that you should keep in mind:
Music promotion is a skill
The number one reason for most promotional strategies getting little-to-no results (and even a few blocks or bad ratings along the way) is that the musicians treat the process like a task. Admittedly, a low number of YouTube views or Soundcloud plays may be discouraging and frustrating, but you’re deemed to get these types of results if you haven’t developed the necessary skills.
Comparing your results to that of a platinum-winning, record label-signed, multimillionaire artist makes zero sense, especially if you’re an unsigned artist that’s still learning the ropes. Music promotion, in essence, is a skill and not a task, which means that you’ll have to learn, practice, and master it with experience as your greatest teacher.
The “why” is much more important than the “how”
When the term “music promotion” comes to mind or is written in a list of meeting objectives, most musicians think of how they’re going to get a track out in the open. Well, here’s a news flash: you won’t be able to get your Instagram shoutouts and radio plays without first knowing why you want to promote your music in the first place.
Knowing why you want to promote your music will make it much easier to jump in the most valuable location of the entire promotional process: the customer’s state of mind. By knowing the exact reason for promoting your music, you can gain a bit more insight into who will be listening to your music and why they could possibly stay hooked. Once you understand that, you’ll be able to give your music a custom-fit feel for anyone that listens—making it much easier to capture a market effectively.
Every effective campaign is consistent
Consistency is the name of the game when it comes to achieving the best types of results during a music promotion campaign. By constructing your campaigns with consistency in mind, penetrating a listener’s subconscious becomes much easier in the long run. It is a goal that essentially leads to something called the “Last Song Syndrome” or LSS.
Achieving LSS will easily put your song on the map, possibly reaching the point that your music can be simply hummed by someone often enough to entice the curiosity of other potential listeners. Additionally, being consistent with every post, upload, share, music video, and shoutout will also help assure listeners that you’re an artist worth listening to.
Every musician—no matter how successful they maybe—will run into a speed bump in the music promotion strategy at one point or another. Should you find yourself stuck in a rut, then take these mindsets into consideration to get your music promotion strategy back on track!
Struggling to do all the work yourself? That’s what we’re here for! If you need help communicating your music updates to your followers, give Promo.ly a try! We are a music promo delivery system for artists, labels, and PR agencies, helping you maximize your current mailing list. We’re a music PR service that delivers music to your mailing list, get in touch to see how we can help today.
It’s frustrating to get a cold response from
audiences when you reach out about your music. Your tracks did not create a
ripple even if you’ve put in the effort and the sleepless nights to complete
them. You’re lucky to hear from a non-mainstream reporter who will promote your
music because he digs your sound so much. But as for the hundreds of people
you’ve sent your songs to? Nothing.
Getting attention is not easy, especially in
the crowded music industry. Aside from sounding like two or three other artists,
it’s the media who will help propel your identity to interested listeners.
There are ways to beat the odds of emerging from a populated pool. However,
remember that there are people who will not like your sound as you go
mainstream. On the flip side, there is an increase in listeners that love your
music as well.
What’s the story, morning glory?
We’re not talking about the Oasis album here.
Rather, you must learn how to convey your story compellingly. If you are
developing a bio, treat it as a sales piece that will entice journalists to
listen. You can find angles from your origins, musical influences, and song
lyrics. Include information, such as the number of albums released and notable
live performances as well. Connecting your songs to current events is good for
maintaining your relevance.
Match your image with your sound
First impressions count. Landing your
publicity photo or cover art can make a journalist listen to your music. Make
sure that the image you submit represents your music accurately. You need not
use illustrations reserved for rock bands if you are a rhythm and blues artist.
Hiring a professional photographer with an impressive portfolio of published
material can help you capture that picture-perfect shot.
Don’t know where to start? Look at similar
artists and see how their photos convey their music. You can also ask musicians
in your area for referrals on the best photographers within your location.
Landing this hire will set the vision for your brand and produce photos that
you will be proud to share.
Reach out to music blogs
Now that your story and your pictures are
ready, it’s time to make a pitch to people who will promote your music. Blogs
can be that avenue as long as you follow their submission guidelines. They may
not even pay attention to your message if you don’t follow their rules. Follow
them by heart, and you are starting in a good rhythm.
While submitting to hundreds of music blogs
can be stressful because of varying guidelines, some of their requirements do
overlap. Therefore, you can make a list of their guidelines and look for
patterns that will make the process more efficient. You will have to bear with
the small changes on the pitch for each blog. It’s a small sacrifice that can
pay huge dividends.
Do not forget to include a compelling reason
why they must cover you. Tell these writers what makes you different and what
creating music means to you. You can dig previous write-ups of these music
bloggers to find declarations that may lead them to like your sound. It’s not
advisable to reach out if you can’t persuade them to pay attention.
Introduce yourself via Spotify and social media
You cannot underestimate the power of music
streaming websites like Spotify in propelling your songs. Therefore, you must
upload your songs and complete your profile by sharing a cover image, updated
bio, and social media links. Increase the chances of getting discovered by
creating an Artist’s Pick playlist containing music by artists that may sound
like you. Share the link to the playlist on social media to funnel traffic to
your Spotify profile.
Include a link to your Spotify profile on your
newsletter and request for follows on your account. With more clicks to your
page, Spotify will take note of your increasing popularity and include you on
their Discover Weekly playlists. Running Facebook ads can help promote your
music, but it will be worthless if you don’t target the right market.
Your hard work does not end after releasing
your music. Promoting it the right way will help you ensure that your music is
heard, and your hard work and talent pay off. Follow the tips mentioned above,
and you’re on your way to reaching your music goals.
Struggling to do all the work yourself? That’s what we’re here for! If you need help communicating your music updates to your followers, give Promo.ly a try! We are a music promo delivery system for artists, labels, and PR agencies, helping you maximize your current mailing list. We’re a music PR service that delivers music to your mailing list, get in touch to see how we can help today.
If you’re a musician trying to make a name for
yourself, you know that hustle is just as big a part of the game as making good
music in the first place. After years of honing your craft, writing,
perfecting, and finally producing a body of work you are proud of and want to
share with the world, you have to switch from artist mode to business mode and
get down to the nitty-gritty of doing just that: sharing your work with the
world.
That’s where promotion comes in. Sure, you can wait around for a manager or label to do all the hard work for you. Or you can take promotion into your own hands, taking any means you can think of to get the word out there and to get people to give your music a chance. Naturally, in our day and age, one of the best venues for grassroots music promotion is the internet. You know: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. And one slightly less obvious option: Reddit.
Why Promote on Reddit?
For those who may not have gotten the memo about
the third most popular website on the internet, Reddit is a collection of
forums where users can submit content and vote content submitted by others up
or down, affecting how prominently it’s displayed. There are a few things that
make Reddit a good fit for internet music marketing.
First, it’s a highly democratic platform. On
Reddit, nobody has more followers or popularity than any other user (for the
most part), meaning that something you post has just as much a chance of being
seen as any other user’s content. It’s mostly the quality of your contribution
that decides how your content is received.
Further, as we alluded to earlier, Reddit is wildly popular, with over 300 million users, just as many as Twitter. Something going viral on Reddit has the potential to make – or break – a person’s career and, honestly, life in general. Viral Reddit posts have helped people find jobs, helped non-profits receive donations, helped get children’s medical treatment paid for, and have certainly brought massive attention to specific artists and media.
That means that if you can figure out how to play
the Reddit game right, you might find yourself suddenly the owner of a brand
new, huge audience.
How To Play The Reddit Game Right
If you follow these three golden rules of Reddit
music promotion, you’ll have a much higher chance of success.
1. Become a Member of the
Community
How would you feel if one day somebody showed up at your workplace or neighbourhood and started trying to tell everybody that they’re the hottest new thing in town? You don’t have to answer, we already know: you won’t like it. Nobody likes to be interrupted by a knock on the door from a salesman, and that’s exactly how it’ll feel if you just jump onto a brand-new subreddit and start trying to push your music.
Especially in smaller subreddits (which is where
you should go; we’ll get to that later), the forum members truly begin to feel
like a community. They start to remember each other’s usernames, tag each other
with nicknames, and build a sense of team identity. If you want these people to
seriously consider giving your music a shot, you have to first become one of
them. So go on the subreddit. Participate. Upvote and downvote (following
proper reddiquette, of course). Get to know the subreddit culture. And then you
can start to think about self-promotion.
2. Be Authentic
Redditors are a tough crowd. They can smell a
phony from a mile away. And they have a really low tolerance for
self-promotion. That doesn’t mean you won’t be able to do it successfully; just
that you’ll need to be smart about it. The last thing a redditor will respond
well to is a user whose post history is made up of nothing but self-promotion,
so it’s best to actually participate on Reddit, leaving comments and posts
about other things.
Redditors don’t want to see posts that sound corporate,
too polished, or overly calculated. They want to connect with something honest
and human. And they love a good story. So when you post, be real. Remember how
in college your professors told you not to write papers in “internet speak”?
Well, don’t write Reddit posts in “college speak.” You don’t want to sound out
of place.
And don’t try to fool anybody. None of that, “Hey
guys! I just came across this cool new band and I think you should check them
out!” stuff is going to work. Redditors are too smart for it. They’re like a
band of detectives. Approach with respect and just be authentic.
3. Start in Small Subreddits
One of the most important parts of making a
successful Reddit post is knowing which subreddits to post in. Going too big is
not going to be a successful strategy in this situation. There’s just too many
fish in those seas. For that reason, we recommend staying away from /r/funny,
/r/pics, /r/videos, and even /r/music. Your content will just get lost there.
Instead, your best bet is approaching smaller or
medium-sized subreddits. Don’t worry, posts in these subreddits can still go
viral and make it to the front page of Reddit if they’re good enough.
Here are the best subreddits for music marketing:
Music Promotion Subreddits
/r/musicpromotion – This subreddit is specifically made for promoting music, so you won’t get any ire here for trying to market yourself.
/r/shareyourmusic – Same story. A place made for you to put your work out there.
/r/mymusic – A good, fairly small subreddit to start in
/r/thisisourmusic – A medium-sized subreddit that welcomes music creators
/r/shamelessplug – A subreddit where creators of all kinds can plug their work
/r/promoteyourmusic – Just like the title says: a place to promote your music
/r/listentothis – A massive subreddit with a weekly thread for self-promotion
/r/popheads – A pretty big pop music subreddit. They’re fairly open to hearing new music but you could get lost in the mix
There You Go!
You have the music. We’ve given you the knowledge
of how to promote on Reddit. Now go forth and get famous. Just remember us
little people when you get there. Good luck!
One of the most common methods to advertise or
promote is through the internet. It may be cheap and convenient, but it is
highly competitive. Amid the thousands of people trying to get recognition,
what can you do to be seen or heard?
Here are some tips you can follow to increase
your chances of grabbing attention:
Personal Selling
Used when you can see customers face-to-face,
this method allows for direct influence. Especially if you’re influential,
charming, friendly, and talented, the ability to communicate your product
strengths with business contacts can have massive results. Inviting fans over a
local store and spending time with them or taking out a supervisor for a meal
are a few things you can do in personal selling.
Direct Marketing
Direct marketing means you skip any
‘middle-person,’ so to say, and directly communicate with the buyers
themselves. This method is only useful if you have an extensive collection of
names and people who respond positively to a one-on-one conversation. Sending
mails, texting, and other means of one-to-one communication are different forms
of direct marketing, and not many bands do this. You can start by calling your
fans and reminding them about an upcoming performance. With less competition
here, this method is very likely to work for you.
Radio Promotion
Getting radio stations to play your music can help make more fans for you and build relationships in the professional environment. Forming a relationship with the DJ will not only allow you to play your music on air, but you will be able to reach thousands of listeners as well. However, regular radio stations are harder to access. Start with local stations, get to know the DJ, and build connections. Soon enough, you will receive invitations for interviews, live performances on-air, even to hold a live show.
Sales Promotion
Through the use of discounts and special
offers, you can create a stimulated response from your intended audience.
Customers will be motivated to spend on your products, and you may have gained
more than if you never ran special offers. There are many ways to go about a
sales promotion. Having a charming salesperson showcase your products is one of
the most effective methods.
Sponsorships
Having a sponsor back you up does not only
supply you with financial support, but it also gives you a sense of legitimacy.
This way, your sponsor can promote you through their products, while you help
them at the same time through wearing their merchandise during special events.
At the same time, sponsors can hold their events such as giveaways that could
potentially attract more fans for your benefit. For someone looking for
sponsorship, you can start by heading out to small businesses in your town.
They can play your music in the store while you promote them in gigs and other
events.
Do not worry about gaining more customers or
fans. Follow the steps and increase your chances. If you work hard, success
will surely come your way.
Promoly is a music promotion platform for musicians. If you’re looking for a music PR service to deliver music to your mailing list, get in touch to see how we can help today.
