10 Essential Tips for a Successful Release

You've just finished a great song, ep or album, and now you want to share it with the world. But wait, you need to make sure you're organized and fully prepped to maximize this release…

Here are 10 essential tips our Mmgt team gathered to help you have a successful release!

1) Find the story in your project
Prepare with intention. It's important anytime you release new music to consider what message you mean to relay, so you can make the most impact with your new music. Take time to think about the song and your performance of it to develop speaking points. How do you describe the music? The song? How was it written or why did you choose it? How was it recorded? What does it mean to you to release it to the world? It's easy to lose sight of some of these things, or perhaps to not even have thought about them yet - as every recording comes about a different way. Some releases have bigger messages than others - and that is okay, too.

2) Set goals and budget
Make sure your goals are S.M.A.R.T ones. What are you hoping to achieve with this release? What are the metrics you will look at to determine if your release is successful? How do your immediate tactical objectives align with your larger career goals? Identify a realistic budget you are able to spend to attain the goals you set out. Thinking about your budget this way will help you avoid wishing you hadn't spent so much later - or realize your project needs a bigger budget than you were thinking before it's too late.

3) Map out a timeline with room for success
Make sure the timing you design is realistic, that your release date aligns with your tour and other opportunities you'll have to promote, and that your team has enough time to do their jobs well, too. We all get excited about things we are doing, and the challenge we face most in music is not allowing ourselves the time we need to execute completely. It's good to remember that time is one of the facets we have control over when planning a release.

4) Partner with people who can deliver on your goals
When you release new music, you are building a coalition around your work so people will help you get the word out - both within the industry and your listening audience. You will work with some folks directly and some indirectly - for example, you will be in contact with the aggregator who will distribute your music to digital service providers (DSPs). Others are community influencers you hope will support your release. It's important to consider skills, experience, contacts and bandwidth of people on your team, and help them help you. It is best not to assume folks know what you’re doing - it’s okay if you tell them again!

5) Develop your marketing and promotion plan
A marketing plan is more than just a media plan. Marketing includes decisions you make about the 4 Ps (product, price, promotion and place). An effective release marketing plan will need to incorporate the way you intend to approach distribution, communications, advertising, promotion, publicity, media, and community outreach efforts. Whether you are doing all those things, and whether you are working with partners to help you or not, make sure you have a clear sense of who is doing what when, how much it will cost, and how you will measure its effectiveness.

6) Create assets that will further your career
When releasing new music, it's important to think not only of what impact this release will have right now, but what role plays in your body of work, as you enunciate to the world what you're all about. Each release creates an impression, and offers audiences and industry another clue for people to understand your identity. Make sure each image, video and recording you release fits with your vision of who you want to be as an artist. Often images are the first things people see before they hear your music, and people are easily influenced by visual aesthetics when forming first impressions.

7) Organize for yourself and others
Tasks like organizing your assets, credits, liner notes, lyrics and meta-data - and making sure your works are registered properly for royalty collection - are more important now than ever in a digital music age. To advance promote your release, you'll want to make a private press kit web-page and/or assets dropbox folder you can share discreetly with folks you need to communicate with before the release is publicly available. You'll want to outreach to secure any mechanical licenses with songwriters involved in the works you are releasing with plenty of advance notice - you can find publishing info in Songfile, MLC or by searching PRO repertoire databases. The more organized and clear you are gathering the information you know, the easier it will be for everyone else to understand your project and see how they can help you.

8) The best promotion is personal
The reason we hire people we trust in publicity, radio promotion and social media roles is because the music industry is a people-business. When we hear about things from people we know, we are more inclined to take time to listen, understand, and share with others. So whether or not you can afford to hire folks in these roles, it is best to take a community outreach approach to promotion. While it may be tempting to buy a media list to reach press in a big sweeping announcement, often your best bet is to write to people you know. If you don't get response right away, keep trying. Building relationships takes time, but if you are consistent and respectful, and you keep making great music, things will come together. Make sure when you make your timeline, you build in enough time to do as much outreach as you can to promote your release.

9) Keep your coalition updated
Throughout the process of planning your release, you'll update people you know care about your music and career. Once things heat up and get cooking, it gets harder and harder to do this. If you can, keep a list. A list of people you hope to keep updated as you go. And every once in a while, look at your list and ask yourself - when was the last time I updated them? If there are people on your list who need to be updated weekly or monthly, it might be a good idea to set up a standing meeting with them, so you don't forget to tell them what's going on.

10) Celebrate!
It's important to celebrate all achievements large and small. A life in music is all about the journey, and experiencing the scenery as you travel with fellow musicians, creators, and helpers. Remember to look up at the sky and celebrate all you're doing, for it is meaningful and important!