Music promotion is the crucial step that follows the production of your music and its distribution on streaming platforms. Music promotion starts when your track/EP/album is ready, and its release strategy is prepared. There are great tools to help you in this crucial stage of music promotion- including Groover, which allows you to contact the best media platforms, labels, and music industry professionals with the guarantee of a response within 7 days.
But one question remains, the one that many musicians and music professionals ask themselves:
What kind of budget should you prepare when promoting your music?
The important thing here is to think in the short, medium and long term. Developing a solid strategy and knowing in advance what budget you will be able to work with in the promotion of your music is essential to avoiding getting stuck. We especially advise you to create a simple promotional calendar stretching from one month before the release of your music to a few weeks following its release date. Writing the steps of your music promotion as well as the budget allocated to each of these steps maximizes your chances of getting the visibility your music deserves.
How do you promote your music online?
How do you keep your music alive in the face of the 100,000 new releases on Spotify every day?
In this article, we will give you tips to help you prioritize your music promotion strategy and use the most effective tools according to your budget.
1. Social Media Strategy
Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Twitter, and more… To stand out from the crowd, artists must be present on every platform it would makes sense for them to be on, aka ones that focus on audio/visual content or written text. Competition is tough, and these platforms are evolving fast. You have to follow, be followed, understand the trends – all while remaining authentically yourself.
Here are two music promotion techniques that can help you boost your visibility on the internet: advertising on social networks, and influencers.
| Read more: Instagram for Musicians: How to gain new followers
A. Promote your music with sponsored posts: Facebook Ads and Google Ads
- Facebook / Instagram Ads
Facebook Ads allows you to create ads on Facebook AND Instagram. It’s not so much a question of budget and more a question of targeting. You can quickly reach thousands of people and keep them interested if you aim correctly! The priority in terms of promotion via Facebook Ads is therefore to define your objectives. Do you want new followers on your social media profiles? Or maybe boost the number of streams on your songs? Having a clear initial objective will help your strategy when you are choosing what demographic your ads should be targeting.
Rather than sponsoring the already existing posts on your page, earn as much as possible about the Business Manager: Facebook’s platform that allows you to create an infinite number of advertising content and formats adapted to both Facebook and Instagram. Also note that the visual quality of your content is crucial – the time spent on editing thought-through graphics and clips will be instrumental in retaining viewers attention when they first come across your ad.
To know how to create sponsored content step by step, we suggest you read our Guide to promote your music on Facebook and Instagram Ads.
💡 Even with a total budget of $50-100 for a single, it’s possible to get great results with careful targeting and quality content.
💡If you have determined your target, a budget of only $2/day for a well-targeted Instagram story can get you started.
💡For an Instagram post, it is better to sponsor videos rather than photos.
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Google Ads
Google Ads works on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis. This means that you are only charged for your advertising when someone clicks on it. You can set a daily expense limit that caps out costs at a predetermined amount so as not to exceed your budget . The more relevant your content seems to the algorithm, the better positioned you are on Google and Youtube, and the less you pay. That’s why it is important to define your target viewers.
💡 For artists, the focus of your Google Ads should mainly be on Youtube, which offers the most interesting results to increase your audience. You can highlight your clip directly with an in-stream placement (placed before another video, for example) or in the search results on Youtube to gain an automatic extra few views. This is a technique used by all well-established labels.
💡 You have the ability to target other Youtube channels, specific videos, etc. in a very precise way. It is important to target with precision and run some tests in order to maximize the chances that the preview of your clip is shown to the right audience, hopefully prompting them to engage with it (like, comment, subscribe) and can become a fan.
💡 You can start with a few tens of dollars, and raise your budget to $200 spread out over 1-2 weeks for a single/video clip.
💡 Google Ads also makes it possible to highlight content in search engines and via banners on other websites, but the interest remains limited for highlighting a track or clip.
B. Get put in the spotlight by influencers
- Media and blogs
FREE PROMOTION- It is common for artists to contact zines, blogs and media outlets for a spotlight in an article or video. Feel free to contact them for your music promotion too! If you don’t get an answer after a week, don’t hesitate to contact them again personally. It’s very likely that your email got buried in the many messages they receive, so don’t be offended if you don’t get a response on the first try. With a well structured, clear, and respectful message, you will get results.
Be careful with your messages! The outreach/community managers for media outlets and radio stations are real people who have personal preferences and a passion for music themselves. Take interest in their music taste, perhaps by taking a look at their content they have posted before contacting them all systematically and generically. Try to personalize your messages to the individuals you are sending them to.
☝️ Don’t forget to attach your Press Kit to your message! You can keep a close eye on the coverage you receive and follow up with it. Everything is explained here in our article on the subject.
- Playlists
FREE PROMOTION – Once the distribution phase of your song is complete, you can pitch your song to playlist curators thanks to Spotify for Artists.
☝️ Pitch your music to playlist curators a few weeks ahead of release day!
| Read also: How to release music the best way
There are three types of playlists:
🎶 Editorial playlists: an artist can submit his or her new track to the Spotify editorial team using Spotify for Artists.
🎶 Algorithmic playlists: playlists generated by Spotify’s algorithms.
🎶 User-generated playlists: playlists from users of Spotify – just like you and me – who have managed to grow a following that listens to their playlists. Here is a foolproof technique for contacting them here 👈
- Get put in the spotlight by a well-known artist
Why not propose a collaboration to an artist who is better known than you? Or ask them to share your music? Above all, make sure that your music is of high quality! Then, once again, spend time writing your pitch and try to answer this question: why would this artist want to give me a boost? If you manage to answer it, then you have nothing to lose by explaining directly to the artist why it would be great to accept it and what it would mean to both you and them.
- Influencers on TikTok, Insta, Youtube, etc.
Seek out influencers who correspond to your musical style and who can help you reach your target. Someone with a following who dances to your music, talks about your music and/or reposts a music video will undoubtedtly bring fresh ears to your music.
If they really enjoy what you do, some may accept for free, but most (even the “micro” influencers) already have a price tag. Ask for their rates and see what’s possible given your budget.
Example: for an Instagram or TikTok influencer who has 50k subscribers max, they usually charge at least $200 for a story.
2. Press relations
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Contact database
FREE PROMOTION – Create a well-organized file with all the contacts you have that you can continuously add to: blogs, playlist curators, artists, and other actors who can help you promote your music. That way, when you release your music and it’s time to move into the promotional phase, you can contact them all.
☝️ Put little notes next to each person to remind you of details about who they are, how you met them, and what you can ask them. This will help you write a personalized message, be effective and maximize your chances of a positive response.
☝️ If you can afford it, you can also hire a PR expert to advise you on how to present your release announcements and following posts to professionals as well as the public!
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Newsletters
FREE PROMOTION- Newsletters are a perfectly free tool that have proven their effectiveness in terms of music promotion. Email remains a surprisingly powerful means of keeping listeners up to date with artist news. It is the only form of mass communication that has no text limit (unlike Twitter/X), and everyone has it. All you must do is keep recipients reading once you’ve initially grabbed their attention. You can share news about the release of your songs, your past and future concerts, press coverage, your new collaborators, etc… Newsletters can also help you reach a wider audience and/or satisfy your most fervent fans with bonus content or access to exclusive deals and tickets before everyone else.
💡 Our special tip: prepare a contact list and start with a simple newsletter format using tools like Mailchimp or Sendinblue. You’ll be able to track who opened your email and clicked on the link to listen to your song. You can find out more on how to send great newsletters in our article.
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Radio stations
FREE PROMOTION – The radio has always been the most effective way for music to be propogated to the masses! Lots of people still listen to the radio in the car, or use Shazam to figure out what song is playing when they’re in public. These remain very common practices that are among the biggest channels of music discovery even today. Contact the radio stations that play your style of music and see what’s possible.
💡 Groover allows you to target the radio stations that best match your music style and guarantees a response within 7 days.
Music promotion- Example of positive feedback on Groover
3. Music promotion using Groover
We recognize that pushing our platform does not come off as a genuine piece of advice, but rather a self-promo strategy of our own. However, when an artist is working with a smaller budget, it’s important to direct funds to the channels that you know you will get something out of. When this doesn’t work with more general promotional strategies, it can be extremely discouraging. We truly believe you will get more value out of spending a couple dollars on a service that will only include your music in playlists and on radio stations where you know it fits, rather than spending for a placement that may not cater to the audience its meant for. For this reason, spending a couple Grooviz on a campaign for your song may really be cheaper and more effective than a bigger budget on a less specific pitch.
Groover connects artists who want to promote their music with the best media outlets, radio stations, and labels looking for emerging talent. On the platform, artists can send their music directly to a selection of industry professionals of their choice and get guaranteed feedback within 7 days with a potential for a feature, a placement, a meeting and/or a signature.
The media (playlists, blogs, social network influencers, etc.), radios and labels are carefully selected.
1000+ media, radios, labels and music professionals active on Groover
💡 To maximize your chances of a positive response, we strongly recommend that you contact at least 20 professionals, knowing that the quality of the results obtained increases with the number of influencers contacted. The average campaign is around 30 contacts, and many very successful campaigns exceed 100 contacts.
💡 Don’t hesitate to contact us to help direct you to the best people you should personally be getting in touch with. Targeting is the key to good music promotion, for fans and pros alike.
To learn more, check out these topics to guide you:
| When should I send my music on Groover?
| What budget should I invest on my Groover campaign?
4. Total budget for your Music Promotion Campaign
Here’s an ideas of what a schedule might look like according to your budget for your musical promotion:
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For a music promotion budget of $100
– This budget corresponds to a single release –
💡 We advise you to distribute your Ads budget per day.
For example: for Facebook & Instagram Ads, we suggest you put a budget of $15 on the day of the release over a period of 3 days. More specifically, you will be able to tell Facebook Ads that you want to sponsor your content on Facebook & Instagram at $5 per day for 3 days. Then repeat this process on T+3 by changing the content you’re promoting – a new clip of your music for example.
As a reminder, Google Ads is particularly useful to boost your music on Youtube if it is accompanied by a visual/clip – which is highly recommended for a successful release.
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For a music promotion budget of $500
– This budget corresponds to the release of a single or an EP –
💡 On Groover, with the Mariah pack at $94 for 110 Grooviz, you can contact 10 magazines and radio stations (20 Grooviz) before the release to initiate contact, then 45 blogs, radios, and playlists on your release day.
Conclusion
Releasing and promoting your music online is a process that must be carefully prepared in advance. Even if you don’t have a large budget, there are plenty of ways to get your music out there. Remember to target music professionals and your potential fans with precision – you will gain visibility while optimizing your budget. 😉
– Article translated by Mackenzie Leighton –
To contact the best media, radios and labels, check out Groover✨
