When it comes to the wide scope and depth of the music industry it can be quite difficult to get your head around the ins and outs of music promotion (PR) as an independent musician. There are always options to hire a publicist or a radio plugger but these options are quite expensive and a lot of musicians can’t afford this option. So, with that in mind, here is a list of our top 5 indie musician PR tips, inclusive of some good places to start promoting to.

 

  1. Create a spreadsheet contact list of blogs, media companies and radio stations to promote to.  – This is very important because once you have contacted them you can keep track of dates contacted, and their contact details etc. This way you will know when to do a follow up call. This is also a good way to keep track of the companies that do promote your music so you can hit them up again for future releases.

 

2. Keep up to date with your branding – Prior to you your PR campaign you will need to make sure everything is nice and fresh. Update your bio, keep up with regular social media updates for your fans, get some new press photos done, make all your social media pages and website look great, get a film clip done etc. This includes updating pages like Spotify, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Soundcloud and your website.

 

3. Utilise PR services that are free or low cost – There are many great services to utilise when running your own PR campaign. These may be things like AMRAP who distribute your new single to local radio stations all around Australia for free! Totally worth creating a profile with them. If you are outside Australia there may be an equivalent company to this in your country and would be worth looking up. Others services include places like Groover.co or MusoSoup. These are online PR companies where you can upload your music, press release and details about the song and you pitch the track to many different blogs, radio stations, labels, managers etc around the globe. Groover.co in particular is very good as it is only 2 Euro per submission, you can choose who you want to promote to and you can see which genres of music each company playlists. Spotify For Artists is another essential platform to utilise. This is where you can promote your upcoming release to the playlist curators at Spotify and you have a chance of getting onto some huge playlists this way.

 

4. Start your campaign 1 month prior to release and continue promoting 1 month after release – As with many things in this world, good things take time. You’ll need to start a month early if you want to have a chance of getting some good traction with your music. There are many things to do when starting out, e.g. writing your press release (for press release writing tips head here), submitting all information to your digital distribution company and AMRAP, getting new press photos done, updating social media pages etc. This will give you time to do what is required to promote to the right places in time. For example, if you are going to promote to Spotify’s playlist curators on Spotify For Artists then you will need to submit your song to your digital distribution company at least 3 weeks prior to your release date. This allows time for it to show up on your Spotify for artists page before it has been released and gives them time to look through their submissions.

 

 5. Advertise your latest release! – This is another crucial step in getting your latest release some traction. You can start advertising a couple of weeks before your release date. As soon as your digital distributor (e.g. CDBaby, Gyrostream etc.) have sent you a pre save link that is the time to start a pre save campaign. Facebook business is good place to start with advertising this. For great tips to do this head here. You can do it quite cheaply and make sure it’s targeted to an audience that is already into your genre of music. Using a video ad is a good way to go and having a 30 second teaser of your song will help also. Once released, start advertising that the single is out and make it easy for people to click on the ad and be directed straight to your track on Spotify.

 

 

 That’s our top 5 indie music PR tips. We hope this helps you on your music release journey! Don’t stop researching here as this is only 5 tips.

To find more great tips on independent music release head here.

Thank’s so much for reading our blog. If you’d like to songwriting class or a recording session or have your songs mixed and mastered by Simon Paparo please email: simon@fourdoorsstudios.com.au

 

To hear a list of songs we have mixed at Four Doors Studios click here.

 

To learn more about the services offered by Simon Paparo at Four Doors Studios click here.