They are disheartened when they don’t see results and annoyed that blogs don’t pick their music. However, this can work when the musician is well-known with a vast audience with media relationships already established. For example, when Daft Punk unleashed Random Access Memories, their music pr publicists kept it as secret and announced right before the release date. Daft Punk can get away with this because of their stature, their audience size and because every EDM blog and magazine would feature their content. Although Daft Punk’s publicists only announced the album a few days before release it was executed extremely well. I’m sure it took months of planning.

5 mistakes musicians make when promoting music

Not having a plan

You must have a plan when promoting music. I’m talking about a music PR plan that is eight to ten weeks long and will have a strategy from start to finish. Beforehand, you must work out who you would like to receive your music and then you need to work out how you will deliver your music to those people. What are you trying to achieve when promoting music?

I suggest you look at your release date and then work out who you would like to support the music. For example, if your release date in 8 weeks you need to work out how you will gain YouTube, Spotify and magazine coverage. This takes time and needs a solid strategy in place to accomplish it.

Getting itchy

Now we’ve all been guilty of this one. When you have a release planned, you want everybody to hear it and keeping it contained can be difficult. If you’ve written a good piece of music or you are a record label and signed a good piece of music, don’t show the world months before the release date. You need to keep it locked away until it is the right moment. Or if you’re in contact with some top end DJs give the music to a handful of them and ask them to test it to gauge the reaction of the audience.

Sending music to everybody

Now my experience this is where every single young independent label goes wrong. They schedule the release, created a mailing list and before you know it they blast it off to 1,000 contacts. This is where things get a little messy and their music PR becomes ineffective. They can’t remember who they sent it to and now not sure who’s listened to it or going to feature it.

To resolve this issue, you must segment the mailing list. What this means is you have to split your mailing list into manageable chunks. If you’ve got a contact list of 1000 DJs, blogs and journalists, divide them up into categories. Once segmented it can be used to your advantage. This will assist you in the long run and keep you organised throughout the promotional period. Using software like Promo.ly will help streamline this and capture excellent results.

Forgetting to include important details

When I used to run a blog, record labels would forget to include vital information. This made my job difficult, and I was forever chasing the person who sent it. Top end blogs receive hundreds of emails per day all of which ask for features. If you forget to include the release date, artist name, album name or forgetting to include any information at all will slim down your chance of gaining features. You need to make it easy, and it should be a simple transaction. You should be able to send your music to the blogger without the blogger asking several basic questions about the release. I know this sounds basic, but it happens time and time again.

Sending the same music to multiple YouTube channels.

When seeking premieres on YouTube don’t send all the top channels the same music at the same time. Most channels would like an exclusive and won’t feature your music if another channel already has it. As I mentioned earlier, this needs to be in your plan. Start by making a list of your top 5 YouTube channels where you could see your music fitting with their audience. Start with your number one channel and contact them directly. If you don’t achieve a response or they decline the track, send it to your number 2 channel and so on. By working in the linear approach it will solve many disagreements and grant you a higher chance of getting featured.

To summarise: With music PR you need to plan and segment your mailing list accordingly. It’s crucial and shouldn’t take long to come up with a strategy. Don’t send your music to everybody at the same time and send your music over several days to your different segments. Using applications like Promo.ly will keep you music PR organised and on track. Ensure you incorporate all the relevant details like artwork, release date, artist name, album name and press release. Having a strategy during your promotional period will help attain further results.