5 Things You Must Do BEFORE You Release Your Music
Hopefully by now you’ve heard this statistic: over 60,000 songs are uploaded to Spotify EVERY SINGLE DAY. If you’ve ever wondered why it’s so hard to get editorial playlist placements, the sheer number of songs being released every week is a big reason.
If you’re a Christian artist (and categorizing your music as Christian), your song is not competing directly with 1,800,000 songs (60,000 songs a day x 30 days) that also released the same month. However, chances are your song is probably competing with at least 6,000 - 10,000 other Christian songs that released the same month.
It’s more important than ever to be intentional with your release because you get one opportunity to release a song as a new song. So, here are 5 things you must do BEFORE you release your music:
Make sure your online presence gives the best first impression. Editors at various DSPs (Digital Service Providers) like Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music and Apple Music do look at your digital presence when considering your song for editorial playlists. Make sure you give the best first impression possible. Your online presence should reflect who you are as an artist. Within 60 seconds of looking at your website and/or Instagram, playlist curators should be able to have a clear understanding of your brand.
Create a compelling marketing plan. Some editors at DSPs like to see a marketing plan when you submit your song. Editors see hundreds of marketing plans every month - they can tell within seconds if you have a strong marketing plan around your music release or not. If you don’t have a compelling marketing plan, they may feel less compelled (yes, I’m using that word again on purpose) to add your song to editorial playlists.
Have a healthy ad budget. DSPs also pay attention to how you’re planning to push your audience to their streaming platform. Afterall, the editor’s top priority is getting as many people to use their streaming platform as possible. For example, if you’re pitching your song to Spotify, but you don’t plan on running any digital ads to send people to Spotify, you’re not giving them much reason to feature your song. Put yourself in their shoes - you would think about it the same way. It’s always a good idea to set aside budget to run ads that point people to streaming platform(s) that you’re pitching your songs to.
Pitch your song through Spotify For Artists and Amazon Music for Artists at least 4 week prior to your release date. When it comes to pitching for editorial playlists, the sooner you can submit your pitch, the better. Spotify has been the only one of the 4 biggest DSPs that provided an open pitch tool that any artist can use to pitch their song to editorial, until recently in Fall 2021 when Amazon Music also launched a similar tool. You should submit your pitch at least 4 weeks before your song comes out. It never hurts to give editors more time than that to review your song…remember, there are A LOT of songs releasing every single week!
Update all your profiles and links. Leading up to your release, you should be ready to essentially flip all your profile photos and links to your new music on release day. Make sure that if someone discovers you on a streaming platform, like Spotify, and then goes to your Instagram (for example), they see the same profile photo. Providing that consistency makes it easy for potential fans to immediately recognize that they found the right profile across all their favorite social media networks.
Of course, there are many other action items and strategies that we don’t have room to cover here in this blog post. But, if you’re ready to learn more, check out our Best Practices for Releasing Music online course and our New Release Checklist for Christian Artists.
-Wisdom Moon, Founder
If you want to work with a Christian music marketing team with over 30 years of combined industry experience and knowledge, reach out to us today. Our team has worked with and/or for many of the major Christian record labels, publishers, artists, music brands and managers.
