The music industry is full of mystery. From the complexities of
royalty calculations to the fundamental theory behind algorithmic music
discovery, there is so much we simply don’t understand or can’t put our finger
on. And the so-called experts often speak in anecdotes–highlighting success
stories that are often exceptions to the rule–leaving curious indie artists
more speculative than before their inquiry
Active indie artists spend hours surfing the web looking for
“answers.” You read blogs–such as this one–and browse the headlines of the most
relevant trades to try to figure it all out.
You
attend networking events and engage in forums; trading old information for new
ones. You’re determined, eager and anxious to get it right and to charge
forward to the next level of your career. Besides, you’ve spent hundreds of
dollars–if not thousands–trying to get it right before.
So here you are. You’ve written and recorded a new record. You
believe it’s good; great even. And maybe you’ve tested it a bit with friends or
at gigs and the feedback has been positive.
You’re
excited; this is the one that can get the momentum building in your career!
You don’t have a major label budget so you have one shot to get
it right. But you don’t know where to start, because one of those great music
industry mysteries is the formula–the secret sauce–to successfully releasing a
new single.
The truth is, there is no formula.
If there was a formula, major record labels wouldn’t be losing
revenue by the millions. If there was a formula, the term “unexpected hit”
wouldn’t exist in music industry lingo.
As disappointing as that may sound, there are some basic
principles you can apply to your single release in an attempt to generate
exposure and potentially sell records.
The ten steps below are my personal recommendations to help you
with your planning. This is not in exhaustive list; nor is it the perfect set
of steps for every artist of every musical genre.
I welcome readers to contribute to this discussion; to chime in
on what has and has not worked for you in the past. And I welcome my colleagues
to add additional steps or elaborate on any of the ten below.
Before you read, let me set the tone. I wrote these ten steps
with the assumption that you are an indie artist or band that is unsigned.
Although this information can apply to an artist/band signed to an indie label,
the idea here is that you are completely DIY with no label support of any kind.
1.
Create Great Music.
Let’s
be honest here indie artists; consumers aren’t stupid. They may not be music
connoisseurs, but they certainly have musical tastes and an absurd amount of
music discovery apps and website options to chose from. However,
studies show that music discovery continues to be dominated by the radio.
And we all know major recording artists dominate radio airplay–thanks to
promotion departments with big budgets. But we also know that independent
artists are selling records and
indie artists are winning GRAMMY Awards.
This is because their music is cutting through the clutter. Not because a shit
load of blogs write about it, but because it’s great music that incites a
response. Bad music is shit. Good music is tolerable. Great music incites
response; and the response is repeat streams, evangelical shares and downloads.
2. Do
Your Due Diligence.
Before
you begin to promote your great music, you need to secure and protect your
rights so you don’t put yourself in a shitty situation later
on. There’s some legal work you need to do before going all gung-ho
on your release campaign. If you have an attorney, great. If not, there are a
number of websites with templates to cover this stuff. Basically, you need to
have agreements signed between you and your collaborators–split sheet, producer
agreement, collaboration agreement, side artist agreement, etc.–that details
how copyright and publishing ownership will be split as well as sales revenue.
3. Set
A Release Date & Schedule Distribution.
One of
the challenges indie artists face in building a release campaign is not giving
themselves a sufficient amount of lead time to layout and execute the details
of a plan. You need time to do all of the work involved with a release.
Sometimes, you’re so excited about your new record that you post it up
prematurely. This is fine if you have no intent to commercially release the
record. However, if you do want to generate sales–and your fan base has not
historically been quick buyers of your music–then you need time to start
generating buzz and momentum. Most major labels spend no less than 8 to 16
weeks planning towards the release of a single. Sometimes they push the release
date back if they have not reached certain goals by specific weeks (although this mostly happens
for albums, and not singles). You should consider giving yourself no
less than 6-12 weeks from the start of activating your campaign. Also, the
release date you select can also be a factor in the success or failure of your
release. Some parts of the year there are a lot of major artist releases.
Therefore, radio play, blog features, press/media coverage is focused on these
major releases. Holiday season (October-December) and Spring are two of the
biggest seasons for major releases. However, there is discrepancy in the music
industry on when is the “best” time for indie artists to release music. Some
say that the Summer is solid, and
that’s because of the major label hiatus (execs going on vacation) and the
increase in music events such as summer concert series, indie music festivals,
etc. While I agree that the summer months are much better than Holiday season
in general, it’s a whole different story if you’re releasing a Holiday themed
song. The bottom line is, selecting a release date is part smart and part
timely. Once you’ve determined when you want to release, you need to schedule
the distribution. If you plan to release a digital single only, you can
use a service such as TuneCore to
distribute your single to iTunes, MySpace Music, Rhapsody, Spotify, Rdio and
many others. If you plan to release a physical CD and digital, you may consider CDBaby.
4.
Register Your Works.
Once
you’ve scheduled your distribution–if you haven’t already done so–you’re going
to want to register your song with your performance rights organization aka PRO
(ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC), as well as with the US Copyright Office, as well as with SoundExchange who pays the artists when songs
are played on digital mediums. Additionally, if you’re really confident
about how amazingly great your record is and you expect–or at least, hope–to
earn a respectable number of digital sales, you should consider setting yourself
up to be eligible to earn a placement on one or more Billboard charts. To be eligible, you should both register the ISRC of
your song and register the title with Nielsen SoundScan. And lastly, if you’re super confident
in your great song, you should read up on how to get your song certified as a Gold or Platinum selling single
by the RIAA as well as how to be eligible to win aGRAMMY Award.
5. Set
Reasonable Goals.
Now
that all the “administrative work” is complete, it’s time to roll up your
sleeves, develop a plan and get to work. A good plan needs concrete goals. One
of the ways to measure the effectiveness of a plan is to determine if you’ve
reached or exceeded your initial goals. Too often, indie artists create music,
throw it up on the Internet and are disappointed with the outcome. But, you may
be selling yourself short by not setting reasonable goals in advance. In fact,
you may have exceeded what the music ecosystem has determined as your
demand/worth based on yourexisting support system.
As an indie artist–even with no fan base–there are reasonable goals that you
can set that have nothing to do with record sales. Your goal may be to earn X
number of video views, or X number of music streams, or X number of shares, or
X number of downloads (including free downloads).
6.
Marketing & Promotion Planning.
Once
you’ve set your goals, you need to think about how you plan to reach and exceed
those goals. There are a number of approaches. I am a huge proponent of
integrated marketing approaches. That is, tactics that overlap and contribute
towards the impact of two or more goals. For example, if you have a video on
YouTube, at the end of the video should be a download link for the song that
was just played (use YouTube’s video editing features to embed links in
videos). If you print up flyers and posters to promote upcoming gigs, include
your social media links. To reach a goal for shares of a song; consider
creating a “Share And Win” campaign on social media. The basic premise is that
by sharing your song or flyer, the action represents an entry for the chance to
win something such as a pre-release or tickets to an upcoming gig. You might
consider gift cards to a retail store like Target–yes, completely irrelevant to
your music but incredibly relevant to the listener’s lifestyle–because the goal
is to offer the most compelling incentive to reach your goal (a Target gift
card may be more compelling than a free download of your music). A
cool way to promote your upcoming release is by giving away a previous release
or a record you do not intend to release. Check out SocialUnlock, which is a platform that lets you setup a
campaign to give away music in exchange for social interactions (such as
“Likes” and Shares). Also, look into securing radio airplay on a number of the indie radio sites.
You want your song on air no less than 4 weeks before the release. Also, check
out IndiePowerfor resources.
7. Line
Up A Few Gigs.
When
releasing new music, it’s helpful to perform the music in front of an audience
prior to release. If the music is as great as you think, they’ll respond. If
the response is not what you expect, you’ll have some food for thought in terms
of continuing the journey towards a commercial release. SonicBids and Indie On The Move are
good resources to find gigs. Reaching out to local coffee shops, bars
& nightclubs, small concert halls with indie nights (aka “pay for play”)
are also good ways to set up gigs. You also might be able to secure gigs by
directly contacting medium sized tour management companies and booking agencies
and talking your way into opening up for a bigger act that’s coming to your
city. You should also consider doing presales of your single at these events. A
savvy way to do it is to bundle your single with a ticket sale. When attendees
purchase a ticket, they are also purchasing your $.99 single. Check out this article by ASCAP for some tips on presale.
8. Seek
And Secure Publicity.
There
are an insane number of music blogs generating exposure for new music every
day; connecting music lovers with indie artists. Here is a list of over 100 hundred of
them. There are three basic types of publicity you want to secure
and it’s a good idea to make this part of your goals. First, you want music reviews.
If your music is great, the reviews will be amazing. If the reviews are
negative, then you might have a rude awakening that will help you evaluate your
music. Secondly, you want interviews. Often, music bloggers will simply send
you a list of questions via email that you respond to and send back with a
biography and discography and they take it from there. The third kind of
publicity is features. Ideally, you want to be featured on the main page of the
website/blog. Normally, the feature will include a photo and link to a post
(either a review or interview). Most websites/blogs have a contact page. Find
that page to submit your press release (oh yeah, you should probably write a press release)
or click on the author of any given music post to locate the information of a
specific writer. Another form of publicity is radio interviews. While it is
incredibly difficult to get an interview with a mainstream radio station, it is
not that difficult to get an interview with an independent or lesser known
radio station. There are a number of independent terrestrial radio stations in
and around major markets. Do some research and give them a call about setting up
an interview. Also, many of the djs on mainstream radio stations have their own
Internet radio shows. Reach out to them to see if you can set up an in-studio
interview at their Internet radio show. The idea is to capture your interview
on video and to post it on YouTube. Another publicity boaster is a Wikipedia
page for your band. Hypebot explains how to get your band on
Wikiepedia.
9.
Review And Adjust.
I know
you may think this Step 9 is a cop out to providing some useful information,
but the reality is reviewing and adjusting efforts in the remaining weeks or
days before a release can be the difference between no sales and many sales.
Have you reached your goals with two weeks left until the release? Have you
sold any presales? Have you run out of energy and ideas? If so, read “Countdown To Maximum Exposure”
by CD Baby.
10.
Throw An Effing Party!
You’ve worked your butt off. Celebrate with a single release
party. You might offer fans a ticket to this single release party as part of
the bundle when you’re gigging to raise awareness of your release. For example,
Admission/Single/Future Admission For Single Release Party…all for $10. Pretty
good deal.
—-
Author
bio: Dae
Bogan is a serial entrepreneur, professor, startup advisor, and industry
speaker at DaeBoganMusic.com. Featured in YFS (Young Fabulous &
Self-Employed) magazine, Dae has founded and operated a music publishing
company, independent record label, artist management company, event production
company, and two music tech startups. Prior to consulting and collaborating
with some of the biggest music companies in the world, including Universal
Music Group and Live Nation, Dae was Vice President of Marketing at Shiekh
Shoes where he launched Shiekh Music and oversaw all in-store and digital music
retail, artist sponsorships, musical events, and an independent artist support
program. Dae is currently the Professor of Entertainment Marketing at Emerson
College in Los Angeles and advisor to several music tech startups including
Floshare, Tuneport, Sonabos, Requext, Language Zen, iQnect Music, and Manglers.
For more information and industry insights, visit www.daeboganmusic.com.
The music industry is full of mystery. From the complexities of
royalty calculations to the fundamental theory behind algorithmic music
discovery, there is so much we simply don’t understand or can’t put our finger
on. And the so-called experts often speak in anecdotes–highlighting success
stories that are often exceptions to the rule–leaving curious indie artists
more speculative than before their inquiry
Active indie artists spend hours surfing the web looking for
“answers.” You read blogs–such as this one–and browse the headlines of the most
relevant trades to try to figure it all out.
You
attend networking events and engage in forums; trading old information for new
ones. You’re determined, eager and anxious to get it right and to charge
forward to the next level of your career. Besides, you’ve spent hundreds of
dollars–if not thousands–trying to get it right before.
So here you are. You’ve written and recorded a new record. You
believe it’s good; great even. And maybe you’ve tested it a bit with friends or
at gigs and the feedback has been positive.
You’re
excited; this is the one that can get the momentum building in your career!
You don’t have a major label budget so you have one shot to get
it right. But you don’t know where to start, because one of those great music
industry mysteries is the formula–the secret sauce–to successfully releasing a
new single.
The truth is, there is no formula.
If there was a formula, major record labels wouldn’t be losing
revenue by the millions. If there was a formula, the term “unexpected hit”
wouldn’t exist in music industry lingo.
As disappointing as that may sound, there are some basic
principles you can apply to your single release in an attempt to generate
exposure and potentially sell records.
The ten steps below are my personal recommendations to help you
with your planning. This is not in exhaustive list; nor is it the perfect set
of steps for every artist of every musical genre.
I welcome readers to contribute to this discussion; to chime in
on what has and has not worked for you in the past. And I welcome my colleagues
to add additional steps or elaborate on any of the ten below.
Before you read, let me set the tone. I wrote these ten steps
with the assumption that you are an indie artist or band that is unsigned.
Although this information can apply to an artist/band signed to an indie label,
the idea here is that you are completely DIY with no label support of any kind.
1.
Create Great Music.
Let’s
be honest here indie artists; consumers aren’t stupid. They may not be music
connoisseurs, but they certainly have musical tastes and an absurd amount of
music discovery apps and website options to chose from. However,
studies show that music discovery continues to be dominated by the radio.
And we all know major recording artists dominate radio airplay–thanks to
promotion departments with big budgets. But we also know that independent
artists are selling records and
indie artists are winning GRAMMY Awards.
This is because their music is cutting through the clutter. Not because a shit
load of blogs write about it, but because it’s great music that incites a
response. Bad music is shit. Good music is tolerable. Great music incites
response; and the response is repeat streams, evangelical shares and downloads.
2. Do
Your Due Diligence.
Before
you begin to promote your great music, you need to secure and protect your
rights so you don’t put yourself in a shitty situation later
on. There’s some legal work you need to do before going all gung-ho
on your release campaign. If you have an attorney, great. If not, there are a
number of websites with templates to cover this stuff. Basically, you need to
have agreements signed between you and your collaborators–split sheet, producer
agreement, collaboration agreement, side artist agreement, etc.–that details
how copyright and publishing ownership will be split as well as sales revenue.
3. Set
A Release Date & Schedule Distribution.
One of
the challenges indie artists face in building a release campaign is not giving
themselves a sufficient amount of lead time to layout and execute the details
of a plan. You need time to do all of the work involved with a release.
Sometimes, you’re so excited about your new record that you post it up
prematurely. This is fine if you have no intent to commercially release the
record. However, if you do want to generate sales–and your fan base has not
historically been quick buyers of your music–then you need time to start
generating buzz and momentum. Most major labels spend no less than 8 to 16
weeks planning towards the release of a single. Sometimes they push the release
date back if they have not reached certain goals by specific weeks (although this mostly happens
for albums, and not singles). You should consider giving yourself no
less than 6-12 weeks from the start of activating your campaign. Also, the
release date you select can also be a factor in the success or failure of your
release. Some parts of the year there are a lot of major artist releases.
Therefore, radio play, blog features, press/media coverage is focused on these
major releases. Holiday season (October-December) and Spring are two of the
biggest seasons for major releases. However, there is discrepancy in the music
industry on when is the “best” time for indie artists to release music. Some
say that the Summer is solid, and
that’s because of the major label hiatus (execs going on vacation) and the
increase in music events such as summer concert series, indie music festivals,
etc. While I agree that the summer months are much better than Holiday season
in general, it’s a whole different story if you’re releasing a Holiday themed
song. The bottom line is, selecting a release date is part smart and part
timely. Once you’ve determined when you want to release, you need to schedule
the distribution. If you plan to release a digital single only, you can
use a service such as TuneCore to
distribute your single to iTunes, MySpace Music, Rhapsody, Spotify, Rdio and
many others. If you plan to release a physical CD and digital, you may consider CDBaby.
4.
Register Your Works.
Once
you’ve scheduled your distribution–if you haven’t already done so–you’re going
to want to register your song with your performance rights organization aka PRO
(ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC), as well as with the US Copyright Office, as well as with SoundExchange who pays the artists when songs
are played on digital mediums. Additionally, if you’re really confident
about how amazingly great your record is and you expect–or at least, hope–to
earn a respectable number of digital sales, you should consider setting yourself
up to be eligible to earn a placement on one or more Billboard charts. To be eligible, you should both register the ISRC of
your song and register the title with Nielsen SoundScan. And lastly, if you’re super confident
in your great song, you should read up on how to get your song certified as a Gold or Platinum selling single
by the RIAA as well as how to be eligible to win aGRAMMY Award.
5. Set
Reasonable Goals.
Now
that all the “administrative work” is complete, it’s time to roll up your
sleeves, develop a plan and get to work. A good plan needs concrete goals. One
of the ways to measure the effectiveness of a plan is to determine if you’ve
reached or exceeded your initial goals. Too often, indie artists create music,
throw it up on the Internet and are disappointed with the outcome. But, you may
be selling yourself short by not setting reasonable goals in advance. In fact,
you may have exceeded what the music ecosystem has determined as your
demand/worth based on yourexisting support system.
As an indie artist–even with no fan base–there are reasonable goals that you
can set that have nothing to do with record sales. Your goal may be to earn X
number of video views, or X number of music streams, or X number of shares, or
X number of downloads (including free downloads).
6.
Marketing & Promotion Planning.
Once
you’ve set your goals, you need to think about how you plan to reach and exceed
those goals. There are a number of approaches. I am a huge proponent of
integrated marketing approaches. That is, tactics that overlap and contribute
towards the impact of two or more goals. For example, if you have a video on
YouTube, at the end of the video should be a download link for the song that
was just played (use YouTube’s video editing features to embed links in
videos). If you print up flyers and posters to promote upcoming gigs, include
your social media links. To reach a goal for shares of a song; consider
creating a “Share And Win” campaign on social media. The basic premise is that
by sharing your song or flyer, the action represents an entry for the chance to
win something such as a pre-release or tickets to an upcoming gig. You might
consider gift cards to a retail store like Target–yes, completely irrelevant to
your music but incredibly relevant to the listener’s lifestyle–because the goal
is to offer the most compelling incentive to reach your goal (a Target gift
card may be more compelling than a free download of your music). A
cool way to promote your upcoming release is by giving away a previous release
or a record you do not intend to release. Check out SocialUnlock, which is a platform that lets you setup a
campaign to give away music in exchange for social interactions (such as
“Likes” and Shares). Also, look into securing radio airplay on a number of the indie radio sites.
You want your song on air no less than 4 weeks before the release. Also, check
out IndiePowerfor resources.
7. Line
Up A Few Gigs.
When
releasing new music, it’s helpful to perform the music in front of an audience
prior to release. If the music is as great as you think, they’ll respond. If
the response is not what you expect, you’ll have some food for thought in terms
of continuing the journey towards a commercial release. SonicBids and Indie On The Move are
good resources to find gigs. Reaching out to local coffee shops, bars
& nightclubs, small concert halls with indie nights (aka “pay for play”)
are also good ways to set up gigs. You also might be able to secure gigs by
directly contacting medium sized tour management companies and booking agencies
and talking your way into opening up for a bigger act that’s coming to your
city. You should also consider doing presales of your single at these events. A
savvy way to do it is to bundle your single with a ticket sale. When attendees
purchase a ticket, they are also purchasing your $.99 single. Check out this article by ASCAP for some tips on presale.
8. Seek
And Secure Publicity.
There
are an insane number of music blogs generating exposure for new music every
day; connecting music lovers with indie artists. Here is a list of over 100 hundred of
them. There are three basic types of publicity you want to secure
and it’s a good idea to make this part of your goals. First, you want music reviews.
If your music is great, the reviews will be amazing. If the reviews are
negative, then you might have a rude awakening that will help you evaluate your
music. Secondly, you want interviews. Often, music bloggers will simply send
you a list of questions via email that you respond to and send back with a
biography and discography and they take it from there. The third kind of
publicity is features. Ideally, you want to be featured on the main page of the
website/blog. Normally, the feature will include a photo and link to a post
(either a review or interview). Most websites/blogs have a contact page. Find
that page to submit your press release (oh yeah, you should probably write a press release)
or click on the author of any given music post to locate the information of a
specific writer. Another form of publicity is radio interviews. While it is
incredibly difficult to get an interview with a mainstream radio station, it is
not that difficult to get an interview with an independent or lesser known
radio station. There are a number of independent terrestrial radio stations in
and around major markets. Do some research and give them a call about setting up
an interview. Also, many of the djs on mainstream radio stations have their own
Internet radio shows. Reach out to them to see if you can set up an in-studio
interview at their Internet radio show. The idea is to capture your interview
on video and to post it on YouTube. Another publicity boaster is a Wikipedia
page for your band. Hypebot explains how to get your band on
Wikiepedia.
9.
Review And Adjust.
I know
you may think this Step 9 is a cop out to providing some useful information,
but the reality is reviewing and adjusting efforts in the remaining weeks or
days before a release can be the difference between no sales and many sales.
Have you reached your goals with two weeks left until the release? Have you
sold any presales? Have you run out of energy and ideas? If so, read “Countdown To Maximum Exposure”
by CD Baby.
10.
Throw An Effing Party!
You’ve worked your butt off. Celebrate with a single release
party. You might offer fans a ticket to this single release party as part of
the bundle when you’re gigging to raise awareness of your release. For example,
Admission/Single/Future Admission For Single Release Party…all for $10. Pretty
good deal.
—-
Author
bio: Dae
Bogan is a serial entrepreneur, professor, startup advisor, and industry
speaker at DaeBoganMusic.com. Featured in YFS (Young Fabulous &
Self-Employed) magazine, Dae has founded and operated a music publishing
company, independent record label, artist management company, event production
company, and two music tech startups. Prior to consulting and collaborating
with some of the biggest music companies in the world, including Universal
Music Group and Live Nation, Dae was Vice President of Marketing at Shiekh
Shoes where he launched Shiekh Music and oversaw all in-store and digital music
retail, artist sponsorships, musical events, and an independent artist support
program. Dae is currently the Professor of Entertainment Marketing at Emerson
College in Los Angeles and advisor to several music tech startups including
Floshare, Tuneport, Sonabos, Requext, Language Zen, iQnect Music, and Manglers.
For more information and industry insights, visit www.daeboganmusic.com.
