Successfully Release Your New Music

Independent artists need to run their music career like a small business. Each release, is a new product drop. The way an artist promotes and hypes up that single or album, makes a huge difference to successfully release your new music. There are a lot of steps that go in to creating an effective music marketing schedule for an independent musician. The plan needs to be strategically laid out, consistent execution, and thorough. Artists need to be able to grow and adapt to an ever-changing music industry. Grow with the new trends and utilize them to your benefit.

We have created an indie artist’s playbook to help you successfully release your new music. This plan schedules out the social media and email marketing that should be done. It starts 2-3 months before you even drop your new music release. The playbook has 3 main phases, Pre-Release, Release and Post-Release. Each phase details out the finer points to make the most of each part of your plan.

The 3 Phase Indie Artist’s Playbook To Successfully Release Your New Music

Pre-Release Phase: Prepare & Tease Your Music!

To start, you need to create a plan for your new music release. Prepare your promotional material and content to promote. What is the overall theme or vibe of your song? Match that to the promotional material you’re creating and planning. Basically, the first phase is to tease your new release. Hype it up!

It’s very important to get your fans to pre-save your new music on Spotify or wherever you’re releasing it. This ensures that when your big day arrives, they will be immediately notified and your numbers will be big right away.

1. | 2-3 Months Before Release:

• Establish goals for the release (e.g., number of streams, downloads, engagement metrics).
• Create a content calendar outlining key milestones leading up to the release date.
• Release dates, schedule social and email marketing.
• Download forms to professionally lay out your plans here »
• Begin teasing the release on social media platforms with behind-the-scenes content, lyric snippets, or teaser videos.
• At least use Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter) and TikTok.
• Most independent artist success stories come from going viral on TikTok these days!
• Post every few days. Hype yourself up!
• Schedule posts ahead of time with SocialBee
• Start adding email addresses to your mailing list through website sign-ups, giveaways, or fan interactions.
• Use an email marketing platform such as Brevo ».
• Can create Facebook ads to collect emails too.
• Plan and schedule professional photo/video shoots for promotional materials.
• Could be as simple as a friend recording a video of you lip syncing a clip of your new song. Just make it look professional.
• Create album or single art. Can use apps like Canva for this.
• Reach out to potential collaborators, influencers, or bloggers for promotional partnerships.
• Find influencers with SocialBee
• Create your press release, this will be pushed to promoters.
• Write up the content, include pre-save links, a photo.

Optimize Your Social Media Marketing Now »

2. | 1 Month Before Music Release:

• Release the official announcement or press release of the upcoming release across all social media platforms.
• Use SocialBee to schedule posts across all of your pages from one place.
• Share teaser clips or shorts of music videos and music artwork.
• Launch pre-save/pre-order campaigns on streaming platforms.
• Continue building anticipation through engaging content such as countdown posts or fan Q&A sessions.
• Behind the scenes clips of you in the studio making the new music release.
• Reach out to music magazines like ours for interviews to talk about it and create back links to your pre-save links.
• Create merch branded with artwork and photos from your new release.
• You can do that easily using Printify »
• You can also use Printify to sell your merch to your fans.
• Send out the first email to your mailing list announcing the upcoming release and offering exclusive content or early access.
• Send out another email promoting your new release ever few days, make each one a little unique though. Include new info on what the song or album is about. Push your music release art.

Create & Sell Your Merch with Printify »

Release Phase: It’s Go Time! Successfully Release Your New Release.

1. | Release Week Promotion:

• Launch the single/album along with accompanying music videos, lyric videos or visualizers.
• Make sure your song is available on social networks like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok so it can be added to posts and videos by promoters / fans.
• Share release day announcements across all social media channels, encouraging fans to listen, share, and engage.
• Have a release party! Can be big or small, could just be live streaming from your home studio.
• Do a live show if you’re a performer. Create way to create content to share on your socials.
• Utilize Instagram/Facebook Stories, X (Twitter) posts, and TikTok to provide real-time updates and interact with fans.
• Create ads on social media, you will need to invest in some promotion here to generate more buzz.
• Encourage fans to tag you in their posts and share their reactions using a designated hashtag.
• Send out an email announcing the release, including links to streaming platforms and any exclusive content.

2. | Post-Release Promotion:

• Continue promoting the release on social media platforms with highlights, quotes, or fan reviews.
• Share links to press you receive, tagging and thanking them.
• Collaborate with influencers or fellow musicians for shoutouts, reviews, or features on their platforms. Find influencers here »
• Engage with fans by responding to comments, messages, and mentions promptly.
• Send out a follow-up email thanking fans for their support, sharing any milestones achieved, and providing updates on future projects or events.
• Show successful streaming numbers on Spotify. Link to playlists you were added to.
• Push merch relating to your new release.

Try Brevo for FREE to Level Up Your Email Marketing »

1 Month After-Release Promotion: Continue To Hype Up Your New Hit!

1. | Social Media & Streaming Strategy:

• Maintain a consistent posting schedule across all platforms (every few days at least!), sharing a mix of promotional content, behind-the-scenes glimpses, fan interactions, and performances.
• Utilize a variety of content formats, including photos, videos, stories, reels, and live streams to keep engagement high.
• Analyze engagement metrics regularly to identify top-performing content and adjust your strategy accordingly.
• Study analytics to see what works with your fan base. What sources should you further invest time and money in.
• If you used SocialBee you can analyze analytics from your account there.
• Create remixes, or launch acoustic versions of your music.
• Promoting these, will further promote the original release.
• Create deluxe editions of your new album with bonus tracks.
• Push shorts on YouTube that link to your music videos.

2. | Mailing List Email Marketing:

• Send out regular emails to your mailing list subscribers, including updates on new releases, upcoming shows, exclusive content, and fan-focused thank you messages.
• Personalize emails whenever possible to make subscribers feel valued and connected to your journey as an artist.
• When adding new subscribers, include a box for their name so you can personalize emails with their name.
• Segment your email list based on subscriber preferences, location, or engagement level to tailor content and offers effectively.
• Look in your email marketing analytics, which emails do they open / click most?
• Use your new release to continue building your emailing list, this will help your next release to be even bigger!
• Do all of this and more using Brevo. It’s what we use, and you can join for free.

3. | Engagement and Community Building:

• Actively engage with your audience on social media by responding to comments, direct messages, and mentions.
• Host live Q&A sessions, listening parties, or virtual concerts to foster a sense of community among your fans.
• Encourage user-generated content by running contests, challenges, or collaborations that involve your music.
• Open verse challenges, encourage fans to use songs for dances on TikTok, collaborate with other artists to cover your new music.

4. | Evaluate and Adapt:

• Regularly review your marketing efforts and analyze key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess what’s working and what can be improved.
• This will help you to continually improve your marketing strategy, each release will be bigger and better!
• Stay updated on trends and changes in social media algorithms to refine your strategy and maximize reach.
• Experiment with new promotional tactics, platforms, or partnerships to keep your marketing approach fresh and effective.

Following this 3 phase release schedule, your new song will be a big hit! Stick to the music marketing schedule laid out. Engage with your fans on social media and through your mailing lists to build your fanbase. Increase your web presence and visibility. Set out achievable goals, and meet them. This all will add up to successfully release your new music!

Benefits Of Building A Plan For Your Music Release

Plan to succeed, or you’re planning to fail. Nothing is guaranteed in life, but when you put work in to your marketing plan, odds are it will increase your success. Just winging it and going in to your new release without any schedule in mind, often won’t work out in the end. Look at every successful artist out there, what are they doing? Look at how they promote their new releases. The promotion happens well before the release, cranks up at release time and continues well after. Emulate those artists that you want to be like. Eventually, you’ll be the artists others are looking up to.

“Success doesn’t just happen. You have to be intentional about it and plan for it.” – Dolly Parton

Regardless Of Your Results, Stay Positive!

Sticking to this plan helps increase your odds of success. But nothing in life is guaranteed. If your release doesn’t end up being the hit you expected, don’t let that get you down. Maybe it wasn’t the right time, maybe it’ll be a hit later on. Regardless of your results, learn from it and stay positive! This release campaign will bring in very important analytics to utilize in your next release. It will bring new fans, fan is important! You’ll gain social media followers, streams and contacts on your mailing list. Every bit of this is fuel for what’s next.

Success takes a lot of work, not every artist is going to go viral right away or with every release. It can take years, it’s a grind. Keep at it, keep grinding. Analylize and adapt. Find what works for you as an artist. Keep growing and you’ll meet your goals in time. If you need any help with promotion, we’re here for you. Send us a message and let’s chat about what you may need help with.

Let Us Know Your Success Story

If you found success, reach out to us and tell us about it! We love pushing success stories here from independent artists. We would like to share your success and tips to other artists so they can learn from it and be inspired. Perhaps your story will be the next feature in our magazine and inspire the next big successful music release.

Find more promotional music tips that we’ve written up here »