13 tips for promoting an album or EP release
The release date of your album or EP is approaching and you wish to know how to promote it most effectively? If you follow these 12 tips, you should be able to avoid a few rookie mistakes.
Choose a relevant date
Establish a schedule
Establish a communication strategy
Establish a budget
Do not send too early to the media
Don't neglect any media
Think about playlists
Telling the story of creation (storytelling)
Teaser with your audience
Use social networks
Consider pre-orders
Organize a release party
Distribute your CDs in physical to stores
We repeat, these tips will not necessarily bring you the glory, but they will allow you to avoid the pitfalls.
How to choose the release date?
Overall there are several periods to avoid. First of all in August, because everyone has their minds elsewhere, social networks are deserted, and journalists are on vacation. In short, few people will lend an ear to your little baby.
September is also complicated because there are many releases this month, and not necessarily only in music. There are a lot of novelties in all areas and so it becomes quite complicated to find your place.
Christmas is tense too, for the same reasons as September. The whole industry is positioned to sell its products, and you do not have the financial clout to compete.
But then when to publish his album? Well in all the months that remain!
Plan to rule better
An album release should not be done in a hurry, it should be anticipated. First of all, the product must be finished. Then the physical formats must be received. Finally, they must be posted on digital platforms. All of this needs to be flattened out on a calendar to find the perfect day.
An established communication strategy
Once your release date has been defined, all you have to do is build your communication strategy. Are you going to opt for pre-orders? Are you going to organize a release party? When to thank donors if there has been crowdfunding?
Here are some benchmarks to put on your calendar:
Date of teasing
Date of dispatch of the press kit
Media relaunch
How much will that cost ?
You can spend $ 0 on your music promotion, but it will take time and make some concessions. But you can also decide to devote a small budget to it.
This budget will be invested in promotional platforms (Groover for example), in advertising on social networks, or in the organization of the release party.
It can also be used to finance a press attaché for example. Everything will depend on your communication strategy.
When to send the album to the media?
One answer, neither too early nor too late. The ideal is to send it 15 days before the release, as soon as the Spotify links are available. It's a detail, but it's still more practical to add the tracks to a playlist.
For the record, we received a title some time ago that was not bad and that we wanted to put in discovery playlists. Only problem, the title did not come out until 2 months later! Result, we declined ...
For which media?
Several media may be interested in the release of your album:
Local FM radios
Webzines
Internet radios
Local TV
Local newspapers
Contacts in the press are made a lot through the network. In Rouen, one of the press officers was in a relationship with a journalist. As a result, there was an article every time the band played in any bar!
The most effective is to build a small journalist file. For that a very simple technique: look in the first page of the newspaper, you will often see interesting e-mail addresses there.
For webradios, we can only advise you WebradioRank. For € 19.99, you will then have lifetime access to contact hundreds of internet radios.
For webzines, the most effective is to search the site in the contact section.
The big national media will only be interested in you once you get enough coverage locally.
Playlists, the new El Dorado
With the emergence of broadcasting platforms, a new medium appeared, playlists. The best known are followed by thousands of people, and the impact is often significant for the artists selected. These playlists are often the work of traditional media. It will therefore be necessary to go through the same channels to appear there.
There are three big sites that deal with making playlists: Topsify, Filtr, and Digster. There are contact forms on all 3 sites. You will first need to identify the playlists in which you want to appear.
How to interest the media thanks to storytelling ?
The release of an album will only be an event for your band and your audience. The specialized media receive them all day long, and it will be necessary to stand out. At TST Radio, we receive between 600 and 800 emails per month of musical proposals.
So obviously, if the album has a cool story or a different angle, we'll be more sensitive to it.
Know how to summarize in a few words the history of the project, its content and its originality. Be concise in your email, but more specific in your press kit. Who knows, an article could result from it?
How to tease the release of my EP?
As said above, the real event of the release will be for those who follow you. To do this, you have to make their mouths water.
Already during the recording, it is fashionable to share photos, to show that the project is progressing little by little. A lot of people are interested in Behind the Scenes of Creation, and it will give you more memories!
Once your songs are ready, you can teaser by revealing extracts, even if it means releasing the single in advance to announce the release of the album!
Use your social networks
The aforementioned teasing will mainly work on your various social networks, like Facebook or Instagram, which are the most powerful at the moment.
We are not going to dwell too much on the subject, and we will let you consult the article concerning Facebook and the one concerning Instagram.
How do pre-orders work?
The pre-order system is a tool that allows a product to be sold upstream of its release.
Using this system is therefore very effective in a teasing strategy. People who have pre-ordered it will be all the more happy to have the finished product when it is released. In addition, it allows you to gauge roughly how the sales will go, and if it is possible to plan a restocking!
Why organize a release party?
The release party is a concert where you will present your songs to the public for the first time. It is each time a friendly moment when the entourage of the group will meet around the release of the album or the EP. Think of it as such, a buddy reunion, which will bring your community together.
The concert will surely cost you money (hall rental, organ ...), but you will be able to make profitable with the sale of album.
More generally, never forget the merch during your upcoming concerts, this is where the majority of sales are made.
Don't forget the physical sale!
We tend to forget it, but there are still people who buy their CD in physics in the bins!
You should therefore not forget to distribute your pancakes in local stores. If you don't know how, we'll explain everything to you in this dedicated article.
We hope these 13 tips have helped you see things more clearly! If you need more advice, don't hesitate to take a look at our musicians blog!
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