Promoting your music is an essential step to make yourself known and expand your audience. If you’re managing your promotion yourself, however, it can be very time-consuming if you don’t act methodically. Digital distribution offers a lot of possibilities, but you need to set the right goals to effectively promote your music and save time for other aspects of your career as an artist.

But how can you set realistic goals to promote your music? Read on and find out 👇

1. Choosing the right indicators

Before starting a promotion campaign, one of the essential steps is to set the indicators of success. These include, for example: 

• Listens on streaming platforms
• Articles in music media
• Social media followers
• Spotify playlist adds
• Concert date requests
• Proposals for collaboration with labels

All of these goals help promote your music, but require different actions. Setting the relevant indicators for your project has several advantages: 

• Plan the right actions: Promotion can be time-consuming if you start too many initiatives at the same time. It is therefore better to focus on certain aspects and direct your actions according to this. For example, if you want to target media, you can plan a promotion campaign with the Groover platform.
• Work gradually on your objectives: establish a plan of action covering several days or weeks, rather than doing everything at the same time. For example, if your goal is to increase your followers, try to do so at a steady pace. By asking 10 people to subscribe to your account every day, you’ll already have 300 followers in a month!
• See how far you’ve come: there is no limit to the numbers, and the comparison effect can be daunting. But if you follow the progress of your KPIs, you will be able to see your growth. You’ll also be able to celebrate wins, for example with a post or an event, when you reach a certain number of subscribers.

Instead of spreading yourself too thin, focus on things that will support your goals. If your goal is to be included in Spotify playlists, you know that sending your track to media outlets is a higher priority than creating content for your social networks.

Do you want to get added to playlists? 👇

2. Set goals for means, not just results

Now that you have an idea of objectives and indicators to define, you can go further by distinguishing between means objectives and result objectives. Understanding the difference between these two concepts can really help you in your promotional efforts:

• Result Objectives are focused on achieving a specific and measurable goal. The focus is on the end result to be achieved, regardless of the means used to achieve it. For example, “get 10 media mentions” is a result goal. The goal is considered to be met only when the number of mentions is reached.
• Means objectives refer to the commitment to mobilize all the means necessary to achieve an end, without guaranteeing the achievement of the end result. It is the effort and process that is emphasized, not the outcome per se. For example, “contacting 10 media outlets every day” is a means goal. We focus on the action of contacting 10 media outlets, and the goal is reached as soon as it is done. 

In a promotional campaign, we may tend to focus only on results objectives: the number of subscribers, the number of reads, the number of press coverage… It’s useful to set these types of objectives, but it’s also possible to combine them with means objectives.

If we take the example of press coverage: a result objective could be to get 10 articles on your new title. But you can also set a means objective. Instead of contacting as many media outlets as possible without a method, you establish a plan with regular actions that will help you gain visibility. For example, you can decide to contact 10 journalists each day via Groover for a week, and gradually assess how much impact that generates. With the power of regularity, you will inevitably get results in promoting your music. This way, at the end of each day, you easily check that your means goal is achieved. You will be able to refine your strategy, thanks in particular to the feedback that the media outlets send you on the Groover platform.

3. Focus on engagement rates and feedback on your work

Social media encourages you to focus on numbers: likes, followers, views, reposts, etc. However, these indicators do not fully reflect the quality of the exchanges with your audience. 

Beyond the absolute numbers, you can look at the relative numbers to evaluate your fan engagement. A high engagement rate means that your audience is not only a spectator, but also interacts with you and appreciates your content.

Note that the average engagement rate worldwide on Instagram is 6.82%. This makes it possible to relativize and avoid the effect of comparison with the largest accounts. For example, if you have 1000 followers and get 100 likes, your engagement rate is 10%: an above average result that shows that your followers are real fans!

You can extend this approach by looking at the qualitative feedback you receive: comments, private messages, media feedback via Groover, etc. Also pay close attention to what your loved ones and fans tell you when you meet them: it’s often face-to-face that you will get the most encouraging feedback! 

It is also advisable to group the feedback you receive. For example, create a folder where you save screenshots of messages: this will allow you not to lose track of them, see the progress of your project, and even give you a dose of motivation when you need it. It is even possible to share some of this feedback on your social networks, after obtaining the author’s agreement or by anonymizing. Seeing this, other people will surely send you feedback as well.

Promoting your music is essential for the success of your project, but it can be discouraging when you do not achieve your expected results. Acting methodically and with regular effort will allow you to hold out in the long run and get opportunities, sometimes unexpected! Be careful not to be overwhelmed by the logic of numbers, and remember to use the powerful tools at your disposal to make it easier for you to connect with the media and music professionals.

– Translated by Kole Wright –

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Get in touch with professionals and get your music out there 👇