Are you a new musician or a veteran looking to get back? It can feel impossible to get in touch with potential fans while competing with corporate marketing goliaths. But releasing music to public platforms is an essential part of growing your fan base, and pretty soon, you’re going to need to drop a track! Kallen Media has been lucky to work intimately with musicians, labels, and producers to help promote people’s art. So today, we’re explaining how to release music.

When we’re working with an artist, we like to break the process down into manageable steps. For a music release, we’re going first to set goals, identify and build audiences, and finally release the music! This blog will break down that entire process and teach you from the ground up how you can promote your music. We cover the beginning stages of planning, Different marketing channels you can use, and much more. But let’s start with deciding what your targets are.

Set goals

Concrete objectives make marketing so much easier, and this is true with music promotion as well. When planning a release, you first need goals; do you want to release an E.P. or a whole album? Will there be concerts? After you know those goals, you must identify your release budget. At this stage, you will have a solid foundation and understand what you are promoting and how much you can spend on advertising. The last step to a finalized plan is knowing what channels you can use to advertise. This final step is the most diverse stage of planning because you have an incredible number of options. Everyone loves music, so musicians have access to more marketing channels than most.

know your audience

After planning, you should at least know a basic description of the people you want to reach! But now you need to know if the plan you made is going to work. The easiest way to make sure your project is solid is by collecting data from the beginning. Tracking data is a massive part of the music industry, and even if you’re an independent artist, you’ll still need to follow as much information as possible! Fortunately, in the modern era, even the most minor content creators can get incredible access to information about your product and its fans! Apps like Spotify and sound cloud will give you information that, in the past, you would have to hire entire marketing teams to get! But once you know your plan is solid and tracking is in place, how do you drum up interest amongst your fanbase?

Our answer to that question is dropping singles! A single release is a time-honored way to start letting people know that they should keep an eye out for the album. There are a lot of different opinions on which songs you should use in a single, though. Some people think you should hold back some of the best for the album, while others insist on coming out with a splash and using their most engaging song. No matter what you use when you release, a single tracking becomes essential. Single releases are your first opportunity to get a concrete idea of the reception of all your hard work! And after that, you’ll finally be ready to release the whole thing.

Release your music!

Now that it’s time to release, you need to return to your plans and identify your platforms. Specific streaming services bring different advantages; blowing up on Spotify can lead to radio play, while sound cloud might expose you to a smaller but more dedicated audience. There are also platforms like Bandcamp that encourage fans to support artists without a go-between! a good rule is to try and get on as many platforms as possible!

So at this stage in the game, we have a plan for release, data validating that plan, a home for your music, and fans waiting for the date! But what if you want to ensure that your most dedicated fans review it and listen to it the second the album drops? Lately, some artists have started hosting pre-save campaigns. At a base level, these are like preordering music. Before your official release, you give people the chance to save the album, so the second it goes public, they are notified and get to listen right away. This preparation can skyrocket your content because algorithms will see it growing incredibly fast.