7 Brilliant Single Release Strategies For Musicians In 2023

With the intention of serving as a guide and inspiration in your next steps as an independent musician, below you will find 7 key tips and strategies to help launch your next single.

If it’s one thing that fans love to see — it’s some behind the scenes footage from their favorite artists. It’s always a good promotional rule of thumb to give your audience something they’ve not yet seen before, especially if you are a newer musician who has never before published any major content on social media. 

By showing the creative process behind the song you are releasing, it will bring your fans closer to you and make them feel more connected to the song itself. This connection will only continue to grow among your fans and keep their attention and interest for any future projects as well. 

If you are already in the recording studio creating music, you might as well grab some camera footage of the process to make for an awesome promo video to use down the road — it’s essentially killing two birds with one stone. Your creative process shown in the studio is unique to you only and captures your artistry in a genuine and effortless way. 

Once you collect the footage, you’ll want to put it together in an eye-catching format. There are a ton of free or low cost apps that you can use to create and edit high quality videos yourself. Or if you would rather hire a professional, Fiverr offers freelance video editors who can provide almost any style of reel for almost any budget. 

Once you have the video, the next step is to post it on your social networks. The best platforms to do this are of course through Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, but don’t limit to just those.

As we’ve mentioned time and time again, the internet is your best friend when it comes to promoting your music and organizing your release strategy. If you really want your song to reach the masses, you need to make it available on every single platform possible. 

This is where distribution companies such as Tunecore, Distrokid, CDbaby, and many others come into play. Distributors get your music placed on platforms like Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, iTunes, Google Play, Deezer, Amazon Prime Music, Tidal — and the list goes on. They simplify the process of uploading your music to these sites and allow it to be done all it one place. 

This way, you can go ahead and schedule your release date so you have a set timeframe to promote and push your marketing strategy ahead of time. Bandcamp and Soundcloud are both user-generated, so you’ll have to do those ones manually. But the largest audio streaming service right now, in both catalog size and number of users, is Spotify. So put some extra effort into your Spotify distribution if possible, and make sure to create a Spotify For Artists account to stay on top of your analytics. 

You will also want to take advantage of your distributor's additional promotion features. Some companies allow you to submit your songs for playlist consideration on Spotify. This way, you are guaranteed to be featured on Release Radar for your current fans to see. You also better your chances of your track being featured on various other playlists depending on the distribution company you use. 

Your song probably sounds great, but a person’s eyes will be the first to notice it. The name of the song, the cover artwork, the promo video, or the graphics you release along with song are just as important as the actual song itself. There have been plenty of instances where I’ve personally been drawn into listening and liking a song because of the visual marketing aspect behind it, even if the actual song wasn’t so great.

If you have any type of budget, it’s highly recommended that you hire a professional graphic designer to create eye-catching cover artwork for the single. When your cover art looks good, it will entince people to click on the song and listen to it. There’s also been times where I’ve clicked on a song to listen just because I liked the song title. So, ensure your single is represented well by these specific visual aspects. 

It’s also a good idea to do an artist or band photoshoot every time your drop a new project. Before you begin touching on your single release plan, you can go ahead and build some buzz around your name by posting high-quality, good looking images of you or your band. Include captions insinuating you are working on a new project and tell your fans to be on the look out. This will show that you are making artistic moves and have your audience eager to find out more about what you’re working on. 

Pro Tip: Fiverr is your best bet for finding low budget and high quality freelancers who can provide you with cover artwork, promotional materials, graphic design, video editing, and more.

You may not be very familiar with this term, but this is basically a fancy term meaning releasing multiple records in a strategic timeline. The way music is released and consumed has changed tremendously over the past two decades. Artists rarely drop an entire album in one day but instead opt to release several singles from the same album over a particular timeframe in order to create anticipation and generate more buzz around the project. 

The way the cascade of singles works is very simple. First you release a single and leave it streaming for a few weeks to a month, then you release a second single along with the first and then a third along with the other two, and so on. The reason for releasing them like that and not all at once is because it increases your overall traffic to your platforms. It boils down to simple math, the visibility of each song will be multiplied each time you drop another one, as people are more likely to re-listen to the compilation each time a new one is released. 

If you drop 4 singles all together, the listener will go to your page once to listen to them all together. But if you release multiple songs on different days, the listener will be redirected your page each time a new song is dropped. A cascade of singles has its many advantages and works very well along with algorithms on Spotify, Apple Music, or similar platforms. This single release strategy will never fail to increase your plays and streams.  

We’ve explained in previous articles the importance of artists and bands having a press kit. When it comes to single releases, press kits are equally as important. Create an online page or a shareable folder that includes all materials people would need to feature you such as…

• MP3s

• Your Contact Information

• Artist Bio

• Flyer

• Press Release

• Promo images and song artwork

Once you create your press pack, you will want to send it out to as many media outlets as possible such as music blogs, YouTube channels, influencers, local music critics, music magazines, local and state newspapers, local DJs, local radio stations, college radio stations, etc.

It is always a good idea when preparing to send out a press pack to make a list of 20-30 contacts you would like to reach out to. Make sure when you are creating this list that you include only relevant publications that would relate to your music and would be likely to share your content. 

Each different outlet should include a personalized messaged in relation to that specific outlet. Along with the press kit, write out a message explaining why their audience would be interested in hearing the song. To take this a step further, you should even offer to do an interview or live performance. 

Don’t forget to send your press kit and song out to other special interest media types who speak directly to your target audience. A special interest would be a genre, hobby, value, belief, etc. If your song is about a specific car, you could find a YouTube blogger who specializes in discussion about that same car, then send the track to him/her. If your song is Gospel music, don’t waste time sending it to outlets that do not play religious specific music. Instead, send your press kits and song to Christian blogs or podcasts whose are most likely to take interest in it.