Tips for promoting new single?

[Brighty]

Hi guys,
Wanted to get some thoughts from your good selves on this before we launch. So we have a new single due to be released very soon and I was wondering if y’all had any good tips on organic (ie. unpaid) promotion, or if we were to throw a liiiiiiittle cash at the process, where would you suggest it is best spent?

To provide some added context, we’ve released singles before with reasonable success organically, we just wanted to maximise our reach this time. We like to do all our own production and mastering where possible as our keyboardist has the skills there, my day job is in digital marketing so I’m well versed in the worlds of social media marketing etc, and we have a couple of designers in our ranks who have done some bespoke artwork and a [budget] video.

So that’s all covered, but I’d be very interested, in your experience of the music industry, where else we can go with this to get more ears on our shiz.

Much thanks

[faisal_pirate]

Hey @Brighty, whats your current roll out strategy? Once we know what you do, it will be easier to spot where we can optimise / maximise!

[Brighty]

Hi, sure, simple really - roll out across social media, hype build, launch, post-launch marketing, try where we can to place it with press, blogs, reviewers, but would like to know if people have had experience targeting these outlets

Try to hijack hashtags, and again if anyone has some failsafe, niche conversations to be a part of I’m all ears

That kind of thing

[Dan_Pirate]

Hey @Brighty - happy to help out with a few pointers! You mentioned that you roll-out across social media - are you using any paid formats currently or is it all organic? Also, what sort of budget would you be looking at for a paid campaign (if you don’t mind me asking!)

[Brighty]

Thanks mate I’m all ears. No we generally use organic and I’d prefer to stick to this unless there’s a really solid strategy for a paid campaign in front of me. Quite frankly I’ve worked too long in digital marketing to know that too many agencies promise the world in paid campaigns and can’t deliver. My bar is pretty high on that front and thus far I’ve not been convinced by anyone offering these kinds of services. Budget would have to depend on what’s on offer, it’s not really worth doing unless someone can guarantee they can target it correctly.

Totally open to exploring any paid campaign sources that can actually move some mountains for you. But to be honest my query was more geared towards organic tips and tricks, any pointers on who are good potential press or online outlets to look at, are these kinds of conversations happening in places I don’t know about? Is there a particular online go-to blog/podcast/radio station that’s particularly fortuitous for getting wider attention for these kinds of releases, any up and coming labels that are open to considering new stuff etc etc

Cheers!

[Dan_Pirate]

Hey @Brighty, I hear you on the marketing front. A lot of people promise the world with paid campaigns but often it requires some serious money to really shift the dial on streaming numbers. Having said that, organic social is such a tough ask these days as platforms shift to a pay-for-play model. There’s no quick or easy win!

In terms of getting an audience for your single, playlists (particularly on Spotify) can be super powerful if you’re lucky enough to be featured on one with decent reach and influence.

Below is a bit of a brain-dump on how you might approach a playlist campaign:

• Do some desktop research and have a look at existing playlists for your particular genre. This doesn’t necessarily mean looking at blockbuster Spotify-owned playlists (although this can be a useful exercise), but rather, have a look at user playlists that have built a large audience.
• Often, these playlists will include contact details for submissions. Although it can be difficult to scale, I’d always approach these with a personal touch. Avoid doing mass mail-outs as you’re more likely to be ignored (keep in mind a lot of the popular ones will get hundreds of requests each week). Make them care about your release and tell them why you love their curation - try to stand out from the noise.
• If you can get picked up by a handful of buzzy playlists, you’re in with a chance of the algorithm starting to notice your song and serving it in other playlists / song radios / related artists etc.
• Sites like https://www.submithub.com/ can be really useful in helping you find playlists on YouTube, Spotify etc. But keep in mind, the approval rate on popular playlists is often very low. So prepare yourself for some serious rejection. But keep at it! All it takes is one playlists to pick it up and you can start to find an audience pretty quickly.
• Also, if you think you have a good ear for your particular genre of music, you should consider starting your own playlist. This can be a great way to connect with other artists (tag them in your social posts when you add their music) and can become mutually beneficial if they start adding you to their playlists. I’ve seen artists do this really effectively. You can also start to drop your new singles into popular playlists you’ve curated - full circle!
• There’s no shortage of interesting radio stations out there at a community level supporting local artists. What sort of genre would you consider yourself? That might help us identify some potential candidates.
• I would also really look into Reddit - there’s some popular subreddits for niche genres and a lot of playlist submissions happen via that platform. Again, make sure you approach with a personal touch.
• This last point can be difficult for independent artists - but in terms of your release schedule, it’s better to try and get a constant drip of music out to streaming platforms rather than short bursts followed by months of no activity. It’s all about feeding the algorithm and keeping your audience engaged.

@Stish is a great resource for this sort of thing and has developed a lot of these practices over time. I’m actually working on a series with him that looks at some useful tips for marketing your music online. Keep an eye out for that in the next month.

I hope some of the above was useful. There’s plenty of content tips I could provide too but it sounds like you’re all over it. Have you had any luck with playlists previously?

[Brighty]

Brain dump heartily appreciated! Mate that’s all perfect exactly the kind of info I was after thank you so much , I shall do some playlist / reddit digging!

For ref, our genre is primarily blues / blues funk - but we go into rock n roll, hard rock, punk, soul and hip hop so there is the opportunity there to kind of ‘repackage’ our offering depending on the audience. Totally hear you on the personal touch point, always the best approach

[Brighty]

We’ve been on a few playlists before, most fruitful one was for Kendal Calling ahead of our set there last summer, but I must admit I haven’t pursued the playlist avenue hard enough, I will now though thank you

[artyfact]

Nice thread guys. I’ve been asking this exact same question too lately. Have tried a few things and not much has worked. Had a nice experience with soundcamps.com recently for one of my singles, which got it posted on 13 spotify playlists and streamed over 2800 times in 14 days for £253. Now it didn’t trigger the Spotify algorithmic playlists unfortunately so depends what your budget is and whether you feel that’s expensive or not. I’ll probably be aiming to do this about once a month at the moment.

If anyone has any better ways of spending that amount of budget on promo, please shout.

[artyfact]

Saw a new one which sounds promising this morning groover.co - have signed up, will let you know if it’s any good in about a week or so I guess. Fingers crossed.

[Brighty]

Awesome cheers mate yeah that would be stellar, eager to know more

[Dan_Pirate]

Sounds interesting! Let us know how you get on for sure.

[artyfact]

Well Groover turned out to be a complete waste of money for me so far. Think it’s a bit early on for them and they probably need a wider range of playlist curators or something. None of them agreed to add my song to their list most stating “its great and well put together but not a good fit for my playlist.

So far SoundCampaigns has been the best for me. Will keep trying others. If anyone else finds a good affordable way to fet your song out there on Spotify and/or Apple and/or Soundcloud playlists - please add those suggestions below

Ta!

[Dan_Pirate]

Thanks for the update @artyfact! I’ve heard some mixed feedback on these playlist services - interested to hear how it’s working for you.

What release are you pushing at the moment?

[Brighty]

We’ve just released our single so I’m going to check out Sound Campaigns, cheers mate

[Pirate_Gareth]

Just had an idea how about we set up a playlist section of community where all contributors to the community set up playlists and add other community members to their playlists?..Start working the Spotify algorithm in The Communities favour so to speak.

[KnockDownGinger]

Thats a great idea, will definitely bring the community closer together as well. Could also create a monthly pirate mix, mixing in all songs submitted for the month and which could possibly go on the website.

[Brighty]

Like this idea a lot @Pirate_Gareth

[Ambz_Pirate]

No relation, but music marketer Amber Horsburgh has a fantastic blog around this very subject - super knowledgeable about personal branding. And for a nerdy data driven deep-dive into releases (e.g. looking at timings, day of week) you can’t beat Water & Music.

[Ambz_Pirate]

Also to add, I’ve been binging on Reddit’s Public Access Network. Hard with 'rona times but I’ve discovered some great bands + DJs who just live stream their jamming sessions. (And watching the gal who spent an hour sorting M&Ms by colour while blazed but that’s another story…)