You have put your heart and soul into a new song/music and you are very excited about it. However, other new music artists also have the same (or more) excitement as you but not everyone becomes successful to get a good audience for their release. The prominent reason that makes or breaks the end results is “STRATEGY”. In the absence of a good strategy, even a top-level song/music will fail miserably. So this article on promoting a single release has listed all the methods that you can adopt to get the results that any artist strives for.
Be Prepared First
Before even looking at the methods to promote a single release, you must do a little homework. The two basic things you must do are questions and visuals.
A) Questions
Be ready with answers for the most basic questions of who, what, how, why. This is important because you will be requiring answers to these questions during promoting your single.
a) Who – Who is the creator? This should answer the artist’s background, experience, interests. Who is the intended audience? This will answer who is the target audience.
b) What – What is the main theme of the song and what is it about? What is different or new (if any) it has for the target audience? What was the idea behind its creation?
c) How – How can people find, buy, share the single release? How can people know more about it?
d) Why – Why should people listen to it? Why is it important for you?
B) Visuals
Make logo and all artwork related to your personality and your music ready. You don’t have to worry if you don’t have good skills in it as you can get it for cheap from freelance sites or can get it done yourself with a full-fledged platform like canva.
Working Methods: The Real Core
So now let us dedicate our focus towards the core working methods that you can utilize to promote the single release.
1) Website
If you are an artist with the name “Justin Fiber”, it would look unprofessional to use an email like justin.fiber@hotmail.com and to have your details on the website justinfiber.weebly.com. Having an email like Contact@JustinFiber.com and a website like JustinFiber.com not only looks professional but also attractive and relevant. With 100’s of detailed YouTube videos on creating and installing a website, you can learn and do the setup yourself in 1-2 days and within $20-$30 (and $5 to $10 monthly). It is a one-time process but it will be many times worth the effort.
Once you have the website completed, you can use the details of your website on many platforms like music sites, forums, press releases, blog networks, ads, etc.
2) Press Releases
A press release is a very powerful tool to make announcements related to your single release. By utilizing a press release, your new song/music announcement can reach to 100’s of sites and 1000’s of people within 24-48 hours. Depending upon the quality of the PR service provider, the results can vary but press releases are one of the most powerful mediums utilized by many music agencies to promote their clients. You can do it yourself without utilizing any third party. To get started you can take the help of this ready made music press release template and tips.
3) Videos
Videos are a powerful and simple way to get attention. You can create videos related to your music and can get it posted not only from your account but also from accounts of all such friends who have a good amount of subscribers. There are many video sharing services too that can send out your video to a number of platforms like YouTube, Dailymotion, Metacafe and many more.
4) YouTube Influencers
There are many popular music channels on YouTube with lakhs of subscribers. Though it is not feasible to approach the channels owned by big music companies owing to their high charges and fewer chances of approval, there are many big channels owned by individuals that can happily post your music-related video on their channel for a considerably small fee. As soon as your video gets posted on such channels, all the subscribers of that channels will get notified and the views generated will be huge. This can then trigger the flow of consistent organic views due to shares and recommendations.
5) YouTube Ads
YouTube ads are very cheap compared to many other platforms and they come with plenty of targeting options. For the cost of 4-5 cents per view, you can generate 1000’s of views soon depending on your budget and targeting. With many Youtube ad tutorials out there, you can easily do it yourself or if you want to avoid doing it yourself, you can take the help of any ad marketing agency.
6) Show Off on a Show
If there is a forthcoming show in your area, you can talk to the host company organizing the show and can get your new song/music announced publicly. You can also contribute towards sponsoring the show and can get attention.
7) FB Groups
Move over to Facebook and search for music-related groups, fan groups of music artists and music companies. Join these groups and then ask the group moderator to pin your music/song for a week/month as you desire in exchange for an agreed amount. Pinned announcements from the group go as notifications to group members and they also see it pinned at the top of the group page. So it generates a good number of views quickly if the group is big enough.
8) T-Shirt Marketing
Get your music URL or any other message (website etc) printed on some T-shirts and distribute these T-Shirts to people who work in crowded spaces (malls, public places, famous food courts) in your locality. Another method is to reward people with customized T-Shirts who share your music/song across big sites, social media, etc.
9) Banner on Music Sites
You can create banner ads and can get them across big music sites that get millions of monthly impressions. Sites like BuySellAds.com have a good inventory of sites from different niches. You can visit that site and choose the relevant ones related to your niche and can get your banner ads running on them.
10) Instagram
Instagram is a big platform with an audience of billions. You can find many music-related influencers who can post your message and links for costs ranging from $30 to three-four figures. To get the ball rolling, you can select a few low charging influencers and then if the music/single is good, it will start getting organic flow.
11) Other Artists
Many mid-level popular artists that have their website and social media can become your marketing medium too. You can approach such artists and can come to a deal for posting your single across their digital properties. With a music-ready audience, it can kickstart good marketing for your music.
12) Radio Stations
Many local radio stations charge low fees for a short ad announcement. You can contact such radio stations to get your new single announced. Another method is to use freelancers that have access to radio station advertising and utilize them for getting the word out. You can find such freelancers on Fiverr.
13) Billboard Advertising
Though billboard advertising is a costly affair, you can instead utilize billboards which is a new concept in billboard advertising that charges a very nominal price for showing your message across digital billboards. You can choose location, region and can start advertising across as many digital billboards as you like.
14) SoundCloud Artists
Soundcloud is a very popular music streaming and showcasing site. You can find the email address and contact details of many music artists there. You can connect with them and get your music promoted to their subscribers for a pre-agreed price.
15) Reward Contest
There are many softwares that can be utilized to make your campaign go viral. They have the option to incentivize sharing in exchange for a reward offer due to which a person can refer some number of their friends to participate in the contest, the newly-referred friends will, in turn, repeat the process with their friends and so on. This entire process develops a chain reaction due to which your campaign can be seen by thousands or lakhs of people. The software can then automatically choose a few winners (as set by you) and this way you can gain a big audience.
16) Podcaster Tie-Ups
You can also tie up with famous music industry-related podcasters who can announce your message between their podcasts. Apart from this, there are also podcast advertising sites where you can directly select the podcasts where you want the message to be announced.
17) Music Journalists
Find contacts of popular editors and journalists that cover music-related news and events. Reach out to them for getting coverage of your music on their portals.
18) Music Forum
Join music and entertainment forums and provide links to your music/song in various discussions. You can also talk to the forum administrator to send out a message to members regarding your music. Also, you can also buy ad space on such relevant forums.
19) Reddit Groups
Reddit has many music-oriented subreddits. You can provide links to your music and can ask for views of the members of that subreddit. You can do the same in many more subreddits while being careful of the rules and regulations of the individual subreddits.
20) Offline Advertising
Offline marketing methods like newspaper ads, flyers, banners, etc have their own set of advantages for generating awareness. However, due to their untargeted nature, you must use them only if you have a big budget for advertising your single release.
21) Music Blogs
You can search for music-oriented blogs in Google and can reach out to the owners of these blogs for asking guest posts and other advertising options on their blog. This can not only generate direct traffic to your music but can also help to get valuable and relevant backlinks to your official website.
22) FB Ads
By using ads on Facebook, you can target an audience who are music lovers and can get the initial publicity rolling for a small budget, if the music is good enough, you can get organic shares and growth following it.
23) Local Shop Merchandise
A cheap offline marketing method is to create polybags with your ad printed on them and distribute them across stores that are mostly visited by youths. With each sale arising in these stores, you stand a chance to reach new people.
24) Play Promotion on Music Sites
Sites like Soundcloud and Bandcamp have many songs listed by musicians and artists. You can get your single release more attention by using many freelancing services that ensure more plays and views to your music on these sites.
25) TikTok Short Videos tie-up
Short videos on platforms like TikTok have become immensely popular among youths. You can tie up with big influencers on these platforms to get your music announced and shared.
26) App Advertising
Many apps that cater to youth have paid advertising options. You can either approach the app developers or can use a third-party app advertising site to get more audience to your app.
We hope that you find these ideas useful. If you have more ideas and tips or have any doubts, you can share them in the comments section.
