Article by: Carley Varley & Philip Garcia
VQS Advice Blog | Cover Image by Alexander Shatov
Learn How to Create a Stunning Music Release Today!
How do you grow your audience with your music online?
Releasing music is a fantastic way to get your music heard by your fans and new listeners! Congratulations for reading this far. If you want to be remembered by your art and music, and want to know where to start…
Here are our top tips to help you with your next single release!
- Table of Contents
1. What’s the Big Deal About The Art Work? - 2. How Do You Keep Your Listeners Excited?
- 3. How Do You Pitch Your Song Weeks Ahead?
- 4. How Do You Get Your Music Featured?
- 5. How Do You Create A Hype After Your Music Release?
1. What’s the Big Deal About The Art Work?
Your art will be the first thing people see attached to your music.
Having your image and standing out is very important so make sure that you get photographs professionally taken or have professionally designed artwork.
- Plan your art/cover image
- Find Your Own Identity
- Create an Over-all Look
- Go for the Design that Fits You
It is also important to have a theme
this way people link it to your music and your image.
For example, my EP was called ‘Captured Memories’ as I was always taking polaroids, I wore a rainbow jumper and that was my image. It linked well with me because I’m colorful and my music is very upbeat and so people attached the image to my songs. It is a very important aspect of releasing music, so make sure you know what you want and make it happen.
127: How to be a Successful Indie Artist – VQS Studio Podcast
2. How Do You Keep Your Listeners Excited?
A pre-release campaign is very vital to releasing music.
If you submit your music through a distributor, they should give you a pre-release link so that your fans can pre-order your single/EP. This is helpful because its guaranteed listens upon release day.
People sign up to pre-order your music and
they’ll get an email link to it as soon as it is out.
This also gives you an idea of numbers, so you can see who is listening and pre-ordering your music. You should start a pre-release campaign 2-4 weeks before the actual release, even sooner if you get your music back and plan on releasing it months later.
Get your music pre-exposure, start with a bang! This builds up hype for your music and gets everyone excited to hear it.
Free mindset and productivity tools for creators
Subscribe to our VQS advice blog
3. How Do You Pitch Your Song Weeks Ahead?
Pitch your song to Spotify 6 weeks before release!
This tip is for those who want to upload to Spotify. To get playlisted, you stand a better chance if you upload 6 weeks before release day, this way Spotify has time to listen to your song and playlist it if they like it.
You have a higher chance the more time you give Spotify to listen to your track, so keep uploading music and plan your music well upon release.
Being Spotify playlisted is a huge achievement for any artist,
being put on playlists with other artists is amazing! 😍😍😍
4. How Do You Get Your Music Featured?
Radios and Blogs are a great way to get your music heard by more people!
Widening your audience is a key part of releasing music and that’s why radio play and blog features are so important. People tune into radio stations and they read blogs to check out upcoming artists. So if you are featured on music blogs it looks great for you, and new fans will find you. 🤗
Where do you find the right connections? 🤔
Submit Hub is a fantastic resource. The best way of knowing who to contact is to type in ‘music blogs’ on Google, have a look, really do your research and get in touch with blogs that play your style of music. Contact your local radio stations, they love playing independent artist’s music and love supporting artists in their own town.
Submit your music
Get featured in our VQS Music Release Blog
5. How Do You Create A Hype After Your Music Release?
Do a post-promotion campaign!
Lastly, the best thing to do to increase your chances of listens/streams is to do a post-promotion campaign. This reminds people that your music is out and it’s a great way to think of fun things to promote your music.
For example, I have a single called ‘Going Under’ and how I’m promoting it is using lots of visual water posts, pictures and talking about the meaning of the song.
Post promotion is vital to keep plugging your music and giving it more legs.
Try this to help spread your music further.
- An acoustic version
- A remix or a live show of your music
- Music videos and lyric videos
Summary:
- 1. What’s the Big Deal About The Art Work?
- 2. How Do You Keep Your Listeners Excited?
- 3. How Do You Pitch Your Song Weeks Ahead?
- 4. How Do You Get Your Music Featured?
- 5. How Do You Create A Hype After Your Music Release?
Thank you so much for reading today’s blog post. I hope you find these tips incredibly helpful and that they help your single release.
Article by: Carley Varley & Philip Garcia
VQS ADVICE BLOG | MINDSET TOOLS FOR CREATORS
