My Song Release Strategy for 2023

Introduction

In my previous post I wrote about the best time to release music (hour, day, and month). In this post I will break down my release strategy for 2023.

A strategy should be based on goals. What are mine? Here’s what I plan to accomplish in 2023:

1. Release first and second EP
   (Hence the release planning)
2. Play covers in cafe’s / bars 1-3x per week
   (Best way to practice the craft while making money from it). Incorporate some of my own songs in the sets to gauge interest
3. Do whatever else I need to do to make $1000 / mo from music
   This can include teaching songwriting, writing jingles / foley work, anything where I grow my craft while simultaneously making enough money to survive (which for me is $1k / mo, since I moved outside the US)

Considerations for Releasing Music (Have these things READY to maximize chance of success!)

• Schedule your tracks with your distributor (DistroKid for me) at least 10 weeks in advance
• Pitch music supervisors as early as possible (if your song fits a particular synch). Usually music supervisors need music way ahead of time (which is why it’s good to plan releases WAY in advance… many months even). If your release coincides with the release date of a film, that means more exposure, boosting your plays and ranking in the algorithm higher… ie. giving your song a better chance of becoming a hit / success
• Write down what playlists your song fits with (what genres, brands, influencers, and moods fit with your track?)
• Then share your track development plan with your distributor and ask them for help pitching to YouTube, Amazon, Deezer, Apple, etc. You pitch Spotify and Pandora directly through their platforms, and let your distributor do the rest of the work
• Pitch the playlists you choose 3-4 weeks out. When presenting your track development plan with your distributor, ask them for help pitching to playlist curators as well
• Coordinate with your launch partners, such as blogs, news services, brands, influencers, other artists, etc. Email them 2-3 weeks before the release to give them space to fit you into their schedule
• Come up with unique promotions for your top 3 DSPs (Digital Service Providers, eg. Spotify, Amazon Music, iTunes, Tidal, YouTube Music, etc). This could be email campaigns to your audience, ads, share contest, promoting on your Instagram, etc
• Prepare all necessary content and steps for release, such as:
  – Cover art submissions
  – Cover art and release date announcement
  – Track master
  – Lyrics
  – Teaser clip
  – Changing profile images to fit release on your social media
  – Edit your website to promote track release
  – Pre-order promotions
  – Countdown promotion
  – Share contests
  – Follow contest
  – Other contests
  – Graphics for the contests
  – Draft and schedule social media posts with a tool like SlackSocial (referral link).
  (I personally use them as they allow you 10 free posts a day. Best tool I’ve found so far. Always want to use free tools as much as you can… recurring costs are a killer)
  – Draft and schedule promotional emails for your audience
  – Lyric video release
  – Video teaser clip
  – Music video launch
  – Other video and audio content
  – Live event / gig / tour announcements
  – Album release
  – Schedule advertising (if you choose to go that route)
  – Etc.

Taking all the above into consideration… to be able to actually deliver on all that’s required for a killer release… ALWAYS HAVE 5 OR MORE TRACKS READY TO GO IN THE PIPELINE

• This will prevent you from having to scramble to compose new music, and potentially release a sub-par song
• Significantly reduces stress
• Gives you more breathing room to compose (unless you’re good at composing under pressure… something to potentially test)
• Gives you more time to plan ahead of time, to ensure your song will have as much success as possible
  – If you plan on releasing every 4-6 weeks, how are you going to notify bloggers 4 weeks in advance (if you don’t even have the mastered track), and work with your distributor 10+ weeks out?

On / near release date:

• Post teaser 3 days out and 1 day out (social media, email, all your channels)
• On launch day remind your fans to listen to track, as well as playlists, launch partners, etc… follow up with them to remind them of the release. Stay on top of social media and respond to all comments, inquiries, etc. Get your friends to share it, as well as any artists you know well to share it with their audiences
• Post up any physical promo’s, like stickers, flyers, street team stuff, etc. on launch date

After launch day (to keep buzz going):

• Post your music video, if you have one
• Remind your audience to listen to, favorite, share the track, and add it to their playlists
• Respond to all DMs and comments online
• Share any successes (like features, playlist placements, streaming milestones, chart positions) with your audience on social media

My Music Release Strategy for 2023

I plan to release a song every 6 weeks, more or less, while fitting it into the best months for releases. To not burn out, I’ll give myself the summer off from releases (which is coincidentally not a good time to release music, for the most part). I’m planning to release 2 EP’s, with 5 songs each, so I’ll be releasing 10 songs in 2023. Some of those tracks will be released simultaneously with the actual EP. I might also try to fit certain songs into vibes for certain times of the year.

Jan 13 2023 (Friday)

• 2nd Friday of the month… I want to give 2 weeks time for playlist curators and everyone I contact to consider my track. Near end of December I’m guessing not much curators / bloggers will be checking mail and considering new tracks. I’ll start contacting them first workday of the year (Monday, Jan 2 2023)
  

Feb 10 2023 (Friday)

• 2nd Friday of the month
• Gives myself a month time from previous release
• Fits deadline before Feb 15th (when promotion for SXSW starts), and also before Feb 14th, when everyone will be busy with Valentines Day

March 24 2023 (Friday)

• OPTIONAL: Not the best month due to SXSW. If you’re struggling to keep up, skip this month to give yourself breathing room
• About a week after SXSW ends
• Not the ideal month to release (a lot of noise from SXSW), but I still want to get a song in during these colder months, and keep momentum going

April 21 2023 (Friday)

• Further out in April, to further distance from SXSW noise (SXSW runs from March 10-19)
• Consider releasing your better (or more upbeat / party songs) in April / May, to fit the summer vibe
• People are starting to think about going to festivals and concerts for the summer, another reasons to release my better or more upbeat songs
  – (I’m guessing it would be good to be booked for some sort of concert or festival at this point, if possible)

May 19 2023 (Friday)

• About half of universities will be already out for summer break… not sure if this will be a good thing or bad thing
• University finals (in the US) are mostly end of April / beginning of May, or early June… so this day should avoid finals week (unless it’s the Friday of finals and people want to listen to new music after finishing their last final)
• May 26 (Friday) could be another good potential day
• Since this would be the 5th song released this year… not sure if I’d have enough material to release an EP (which should be 4-6 songs). I might take 2 or 3 already released songs, and package them with 2 or 3 previously unreleased songs on this day, maybe songs that weren’t good enough to be singles. Perhaps more avant-garde, niche, fun, or risky songs?

June, July, August (off-months)

• Not planning to release a track during these months, unless I want to try to get airplay on college radio stations…
  – Which I really should do, as an experiment (unless the quality is not up to par, and I would be burning bridges with those stations if so… something to consult my music industry friends about)
  – Note: I think this song should probably be a party song… since it’s a college station, and it would be summer. But also something to potentially consult an industry professional (or the actual stations about)
  – I will write a blog post about getting on college radio stations in the near future
• These 3 months would (ideally) be dedicated to rest, regrouping, and writing new material… actually living life (to have something to write about!). Leaving breathing room as the previous 5 months would most likely have been killer.

August 4 2023 or August 11 2023 (Friday)

• Not much competition in August, good time to release for smaller artists
• Also should still be a good month to get radio play on smaller college radio stations, and school typically doesn’t start until mid-to-late August
• College students still won’t be distracted with going back to school yet, and at the same time will most likely be tired of summer partying and spending more time at home, paying a bit more attention to new music

September 2 2023 (Friday)

• First day of school for UC system (University of California) is September 19th, for reference. Going to release before then to avoid distractions of going back to school and another distraction:
• CMJ Music Marathon will be somewhere around September 20th, so best to release music before then, to avoid getting lost in the noise
• Consider releasing a fun / party song, as college / university students will continue the party vibes till winter break
• In general, people will be going back to school at the end of August / beginning of September… so it’s a good time to be releasing music, if you want to get on the indie circuit

November 3 2023 (Friday)

• Last planned release of the year
• Consider releasing a smaller EP with this release? (Though it might be too much)

November, December

• I’ll use the rest of November and December to enjoy the holidays, compose, and start outreach for the next single release in January 2024

Conclusion

This is the release plan for 2023. At first glance it seems real ambitious, releasing on a more sparse schedule (quality over quantity) might be better – I’m not sure.

At the time of this writing (it’s September 2022) I’ll be using this as a plan and adjusting as necessary. I have a good amount of songs I want to use finished (as demos), but still need to:

• Get my branding down
• Record the tracks and work with a producer
• Produce all the necessary images and graphics to go along with the release

For now, this is the plan, all that’s left to do is to move towards it, bit-by-bit.