HOW DO I GET MY MUSIC HEARD?
Tips for Getting Your Music Heard
Here’s a great little talk that I had with Luke Rynne Cullen, who is the CEO and founder of music pitching company ‘TuneRelease’, where we discussed…
Where to start when promoting your music.
How to get your music on playlists and why they’re important.
The main reasons songs get rejected from playlists
How to get your music on blogs and why they’re important!
How to get your music on radio
How to write a good press release
How to stand out from the crowd
How to grow a fanbase
Dave: I’m here today to have a chat with Mr. Luke Rynne Cullen from a great new company called Tune Release. The nature of today's chat is really about getting your music heard. Tune Release’s area of expertise would be anything to do with the PR surrounding your release of your single or your album and everything from writing press releases to playlist submission, radio and press. I let Luke tell you a bit about himself and about Tune Release and then we're going to have a chat about a few different thing’s artists can do when they're releasing their music.
Luke: So essentially, I started off as a freelance violinist back in the day and then I started managing trinity orchestra. There I kind of got to grips with the real music industry in terms of doing festival bookings corporate bookings with likes of Heineken and Dropbox and stuff like that. I then went on to set up applaud.live, which was a bookings platform to target you know secure payments, festival opportunities for upcoming events to kind of streamline bookings for artists. Because they have a lot on their plate and it's very hard to do independently.
But then COVID hit, obviously the bookings market was at a standstill. So, after getting our nice little bookings with the BBC over in the UK and making inroads there we have to put a stop to it. So, we set up Tune Release in February this year. Essentially, was based on the fact that every meeting I’ve had with hundreds of musicians over coffee has been how do you get features for your business. I.e. how can I do that for myself as an artist? Same goes for getting radio play, Spotify playlists and essentially growing their fan base.
So, Tune Release was really weird and how quickly everything got set up. It went so well in terms of the team came together. So, we'd writers from golden plaque sold out magazine come and join us on a kind of you know basis of whatever work suits them. If they're interested in the genre, they can with a press release in a professional template that gets the artist I suppose the maximum amount of exposure and pictures as possible. We then back that up with using industry analytics in terms of who's playing what songs on the radio, can we track the success of the songs that we've submitted. And then can we see who's clicking through and downloading all the different files.
We give that over to the artists and the coverage tracker which allows them to see a really transparent kind of process going forward. Tune Release to date we've worked with about 25 artists so far. We've got RTE2 FM, Radio 1, BBC Radio north as well. We're now launching in the UK with a Hamish Monk who's worked with massive international booking agencies and PR firms like MN2S and stuff like that.
Dave: Brilliant. When I’m talking to artists or you know we finished a single here in the studio with someone. I asked the person you know what do you want, the first thing that nearly everyone says is you know they just want their music to be heard. I suppose my first question is you're an artist like that and you have a single. Where's the best place to start, you know you've done nothing yet you just have a song and nothing is and where do you start?
Luke: So, for discoverability, I’d always get set up on absolutely every platform you can. So, that includes the likes of get your YouTube channel up running, Instagram, Twitter Facebook. The new one is Tiktok, virality there is quite common. Reddit as well is a one that's not used so much for the music industry, but it's a sneaky kind of tool that a lot of people use. The great thing about reddit and tick tock is that virality. So, you can upload something very short snappy to the point and a lot of people might like it. Especially if you hit the right Reddit to use the right hashtags.
Our number one thing that when we were speaking to close artists who managed the likes of George Ezer and Jc Stewart said was, their talent skates bring in a lot of talent that don't have consistent social media handles. So, if you can make sure that your brand from the get-go is consistent across all the different platforms, that allows your fans to migrate from one platform to the next and continuously follow you across different mediums. Little things like that get a little artist logo put together as well just, so you keep your branding consistent. Get your imaging right as well, I think photography is very important.
If you want to be on the cover of Spotify playlist, you need to have your visuals really on point. If I’m scrolling through my news feed and I see an article about an artist. If that image is really grabbing in terms of its professionally done it's got great colors, I’m immediately going oh who's that that might be something interesting. And it just screams credibility as well. So, you might as well get yourself set up on absolutely every platform you can to be discovered.
Dave: It's something I’ve noticed with nearly every artist, the Spotify profile some of them don't have any profile picture. Some of them you know it might just be an album cover. But if you look at any of the artists that are hitting millions of streams on it. When you hit their Spotify artist page, you have that really great looking image at the top. So, it's not that hard for artists to go and check out a few the images of similar artists. You can do something similar; you can probably do with your phone or release with a photographer. But once you can show them this is what I want, because I think that's where people get cut out with pictures as they go to photographers.
And they don't really know what they want. Which is kind of the same as common to me looking for a production, when you don't know what you want, what you thought you get. Why we're talking about Spotify, the next big thing that people really want. And again, in terms of exposure is getting their music on playlists. What is the best way to do that?
Luke: The best thing you can do really is of course have your Spotify profile up to speed in terms of do you have a lengthy enough biography that really says credibility about you. Where you've performed, who you've performed with? Any accolades at all you can think of. The next step there will be put together a playlist of similar artists, so that if someone's interested, they can see what your music sounds like. The more playlists you're on the better, Spotify's algorithm will kick in and see what songs your song sounds like. And then you can be pushed onto the likes of release radar and sounds like other artists playlists.
Then can you find artists that are 18 months 24 months ahead of you even some of the bigger ones? If you go via desktop onto their Spotify profile, go to the discovered-on section. You'll see a list of playlists and ignore the Spotify ones for now and just see if you can find any independent curators. Some of them have links to where you can submit your music to. There's a number of different online portals for that. And then some just have their email listed. If not, reach out to them on Twitter, Instagram. Twitter is a phenomenal place to find Spotify curators the same with LinkedIn.
Then in terms of official channels when you're pitching your song make sure to hit your genres. Nail on the head you really need to know what your music should be playlisted with. If you're one of the Spotify curator team, you're getting 40,000 submissions a day across different regions. You want your job done for you. So, there's no point in you saying I’m a pop artist put me on a playlist. Can you identify specific playlists to list in your Spotify pitch and ask them to put you on them specific playlists. Especially for Irish artists, that's likes of alternative era and stuff like that.
Because then you are kind of doing the job for them, they're going to say oh I know where that playlist is copy and paste the song link add it to the playlist no bother. Whereas if it's a real broad general inquiry, put me on a playlist. Where, what region, what specific niche of that genre, what artists do you sound like and where should you be placed. It's a minefield. So, be to the point, be concise and be professional.
Dave: Fantastic, that's super advice. In your experience, what would be the main reasons that the songs get rejected from the playlist? Because I know you get the feedback back from the game.
Luke: The first 30 seconds of a song is the most important according to a huge number of playlist curators. If they don't feel the first 30 seconds grips a listener, they will not play listed. Some of the songs we get sent in would maybe have a minute and a half of an instrumental introduction, brilliant artistically. But I think your radio edit version of that is going to be much more suited to your Spotify playlist. Other things like being specific on the genre. If a song is in an instrumental genre, playlist is instrumental only don't send it with, even a small amount of vocals.
It's just not going to be playlisted probably wasting your money if you're doing any paid distribution to them channels. BPM, sometimes songs are fit for fitness playlists, sometimes they're fit towards moods. And can you find playlists with a similar BPM to the song that you've just produced. Other little nitty gritty things that artists sometimes do is, they don't send the specific Spotify link to their song. Especially if they're doing the promotion pre-release. Sometimes even the pre-save link will do because that will direct them to the Spotify link once it's released.
Send the release date along with your song if you are doing any pre-release stuff. If the song isn't professionally mixed and mastered. Again, you're competing with top tier artists for them playlist spots. You need to be able to win the battle in terms of musicality and performance of that song. Sometimes songs we get sent in that the vocals aren't tuned, so make sure you get the basics right. If you're sending a number of different Spotify links, it can be a bit overwhelming for a curator to say oh which song do you actually want me to playlist. So, don't send the full album make sure you have one or two songs that you really want to push and send them on.
Dave: In terms then of artists gaining traction in the music industry, are playlists important do they play a big role?
Luke: So, what we're seeing happen sometimes is you might get on one massive playlist and that's brilliant. It's the gram, Delegram playlist that you want. 15,000 listeners next week they change the playlist and your song is no longer on it and your monthly listeners does skydives to the bottom. That's not great. So, you need to use it kind of in tandem with other marketing channels. A lot of playlists have inactive followers, what we're trying to do at the moment is get that data on premium as in subscribed Spotify listeners that have been actively listening to playlists.
Once we get that out, I think they'll be invaluable. A lot of Spotify listeners are passive listeners in terms of playlists. I was looking at chart metric, it could be something artists could look into in terms of tracking their own success and conversion rates. Post Malone, I believe has a conversion rate of about 60% of a listener to someone that either saves the song added to their playlist or refers back to it. Whereas, a lot of independent artists might be hovering around the 10% mark. Anything over 10 is a good start.
It's something that can be worked upon I’d say aim for 30, 40% because then you've a song that has virality. I’d reference the likes of Lucy Mack Williams song that hit over a million there. So, something like that is just incredible, it's very unique it really sticks out. Playlists do help move the needle in terms of pushing the algorithm getting it going. But again, you could you could do paid marketing to get pre-saves. You can then do paid marketing to get people to follow your Spotify account. Because at least if they're following your account, you're popping up on their release radar and that's much more recurring than a playlist is.
I’ve rarely come across someone who's going to go onto the Spotify profile and unfollow an artist. That's a fairly rare occurrence in my opinion. So, playlists they're great for your initial momentum but I don't think you should put all your eggs in one basket in terms of just pursuing playlists.
Dave: Another avenue in terms of traction would be blogs. And I know you know it even ties into Spotify, because I know Spotify is great blogs and they use natural image processing. Because obviously their whole game is based around recommending music to people that like certain types of music. They want to recommend good new music that they think these people will like. So, ties in that way. But I suppose what would you take on blogs be, is it important for artists to be getting blogged about? Do people get much of a balance out of blogs
Luke: We can get you your premieres, your features in some very credible blogs. But I think what artists are not doing is they're maximizing the return on getting that placement. So, if a blog has 40,000 Facebook followers, Facebook is notorious now for not showing blog posts up on the follower’s news feeds. So, what you need to do as an artist is you need to get yourself your friends your family and your fans to start commenting, sharing, liking and engaging with that article. So, that the engagement metrics are through the roof. That way it will get recommended to a good significant portion of that 40,000-fan base and you can really maximize return on it.
Even a simple thank you comment that links back to your artist page is something small, but it's a lovely backlink. You know it's something someone looks through the comments and they go straight onto your page. They might leave a like. So, you're essentially trying as many ways as possible to open up different channels so that people can click onto your artist page. Like it, follow it. I think with blogs in terms of building up credibility it is important to say, yes I was featured by Hot Press Golden Plaque, Joe that, i.e. these are all magazines that there's a lot of competition to get features on them. Listing that in your Spotify bio anything like that does increase your credibility.
Then in terms of content, I do think blogs are a nice piece of content. If you're regularly being featured on different blogs, you can kind of do the quantity rather than quality at times in some specific tactics. In terms of if you're having a blog feature a week that's brilliant momentum it's kind of that snowball effect. If I’m a passive listener I might be a warm follower of you. But the fourth or fifth article I’m going to be like oh jenny mac this is getting a load of attraction. I just need to listen to the song. You know that fear of missing out that so many people go on about.
Then lastly a little tactic I sometimes tell people to do is target the followers of the outlet publications Facebook page. So, if you're doing Facebook ads or Instagram ads, go on to your ad’s manager type in the Hot Press magazine, for example. Target them and then use artists that are bigger than you and use that to narrow down on the audience. That way if I see a sponsored post and it has a hot press article and it says this artist sounds like an artist that I already like. Immediately, it's kind of that warm introduction that I wanted to hear about the new artist. Because everyone wants to hear new music but they want to hear new music that's relevant to them from a source that they believe is credible.
Dave: Still the main way that people discover music is recommendations from a friend. So, it almost falls into that category.
Luke: It does, yeah.
Dave: Big question. How do you get your music on the radio?
Luke: So, radio they're very busy. I was talking to Keane and RTE and he gets about 600 submissions a week. By no means what I think his show will be getting the most because his email is hard to find. So, and he said he's a backlog of 12,000 tracks in folders. So, best of luck to him best of luck to artists that are trying to get the radio play, it's difficult. Make sure you send all the file types you can. So, that's your mp3, your Wav file. Some are working from home at the moment. Many are on holidays at the moment during august, even if it's the staycations.
So, if you're getting the out of office email response make sure you follow up with them once they're back in the office. Because they'll definitely be very difficult for them to go through the backlog of emails they'll get in the full month of august. Do three to five bullet points they're not going to read your full press release not in a million years. Three to five bullet points, essentially covering uh where you've been featured, who testimonials quotes are brilliant for that. If you have any kind of industry taste makers other radio presenters, editors and magazines that said brilliant things about you include that where you're based. Especially, if it's regional radio that they love supporting their own local acts. But they are approachable.
Twitter is the best place you can direct message a radio presenter. Most of the DMs are open. Some of them even have their emails listed on their bio’s. Instagram would be your next best option and then the radio website itself has a whole host of information. What I will say is, try and be specific to your genre. Radio presenters are quite tired of getting music that's not relevant whatsoever to them. I think that's where kind of PR services do come in, they have a genre specific list of radio presenters, they'll target based on the genre your song fits into something, that needs to be developed over time.
Dave: A big thing for me there that I see with so many artists is that, they do need to manage their mindset when it comes to radio submissions. Because people do get quite down when they haven't got played on radio. You know some people it works out great for them and they end up on every station. But sometimes particularly when you're a new artist and they haven't seen you before and that's what I found is that there is a little bit of a persistence game. If it's your first single, it's going to be hard. But if they've seen you pop up three or four times and they're much more likely to open up that email.
Luke: I agree yeah. Because we've produces the NRT2 FM turning around to us and saying, not yet. And by not yet for say a specific track that means they're just waiting for a bit more credibility to go and happen. So, a great way to kind of jump on that opportunity is to do a follow-up email. And for startups, it's kind of like an investor update. You're telling them look you're missing out have you featured in XYZ publications. These other radio stations have played the track and you're just showing increased growth traction in the marketplace. And they want to be on trend they don't want to be late to the party. If they like the music, they should play it.
Dave: In terms of writing a press release for bands artists who aren't used to writing a press release, it can be a daunting thing. You have any tips for writing a press release for general press?
Luke: Definitely. So, usually keep it fairly concise. 4 to 6 paragraphs max maybe 250 to 450 words, have hyperlinks to all your files, socials. And ensure that you have links to previous press that you've received. Any industry quotes testimonials that kind of thing just to build up again your credibility. So, much about the music industry is just building a name building a brand. Use little tools like Grammarly, Google Docs. Microsoft word, just make sure your grammar's correct because a lot of blogs and stuff will just copy and paste your article or edit it a little bit. The less amount of work you're giving them to do the happier they're going to be.
Then have a call to action at the end of it. So, what do you want to gain from this, so a big issue we make might have with an artist that isn't very specific. Their target is I want radio play, I want Spotify streams, I want SoundCloud streams, I want YouTube views. That's so many different call to actions. It's much better if you continuously just do miniature sprints, I’d call it, where if you're releasing a song on Spotify let's just focus on Spotify streams. So, that's going to be your hyperlink at the end of the article. Make sure to stream the track here or pre-save it if you're doing a pre-save campaign.
Likewise, if you're doing a new YouTube video and you could even do that a couple of weeks after the initial release or before if you want to build hype in advance of the official release. Make sure that you're linking to the YouTube video. And that way you're really focused on it, you can see how many people you're converting via different publications and features.
Dave: The call to action. This doesn't just apply to press releases; this should apply to almost anything that you're putting up content-wise. Within reason if you're on Facebook or Instagram you know and you're putting up a bit of content. Don't be afraid to have a call to action at the end that directs them to, like you say what whatever you're trying to grow. Whether it's your YouTube channel Facebook or whether it's a fan loyalty scheme that's you’re doing. Anything like that don't, I think people meet they miss a big opportunity to tell people about that when they're doing content. People rarely mention it, so it's a really good. What would help artists to stand out from the crowd?
Luke: What I find is, there's a lot of artists that are extremely good at their visuals. So, you've like David Kannan who has this kind of peaky blinders look and that aesthetic works for him. It's quite unique. Hozier you've got this creative kind of artistic kind of vibe going. Billy Eilish, you've got the real flamboyant colors the sneakers which are big over in America and then the music as well. So, I think Billy Eilish really got successful because of the visuals in her music videos. Like having back pain just blood streaming down your face is definitely going to stand out and make someone go what is happening. Let's click through that.
So, what I think standing out from the crowd is, if you're on your news feed imagine yourself as a normal punter you know going through your news feed, what are you going to click on. You're going to click on something that really sticks out is not ordinary. Loads of different colors and then sound wise again David Kannan has a kind of spoken word element to his music. That's quite unique in today's market. You know there's a lot of different things artists can do. In terms of our own clients, we've had like Jory who have asked a mix of electronic music.
That's so different and it's got elements of sci-fi in it and he's mixing the likes of 4K video. Which is a new software technology, you know that's now on YouTube. You could have 4k video in a headline and someone's like, oh I wonder what the difference is between 1080p and 4K. Immediately that's not a musical standout point, that's just you know a technical thing and it's something unique. So, gather as many different things as you can to just have that unique selling point. But still be personal. Like if you're doing an interview at the end of the day it's you at the end of the mic. You'd only come across as fake, you'd only be doing things for the sake of it just to get extra views.
At the end of the day, it's always the authentic person that seems to come across and do the best long term.
Dave: Yeah, and it's such an important point and even I suppose from a production point of view as well. It is quite common that an artist will be looking at what other people are doing and wouldn't kind of stay true to what they're actually good at. But they might be trying to just sound like something else whereas I would just generally speaking try and push people not to be afraid to be themselves musically.
Luke: We've had artists send in music that's actually overproduced to the point where I think the vocals, they're losing that authentic vibe that I love. And you give them that little bit of feedback and they come back to you with a more acoustic vocal with say guitar instead of a synthetic piano. You're there going whoa I can feel the emotion in it immediately. So yeah, I think they have to be careful musical wise as well in terms of what they're putting out.
Dave: What would you think is the best strategy for artists to actually grow a fan base? Again, it's growing a fan base is something I’m passionate about for the artists to do. Because I think when people release music, very often they just release to their friends. It can become a little bit of a vanity project and versus something where they're actually focusing on building a fan base for you know people that are actually going to listen to the music and buy your merchandise and you know in terms of actually growing a business. If that's what you want to do. But would you have any kind of good strategies for growing a fanbase?
Luke: Well, in terms of even branding the companies and stuff, a key thing that's resonated with me is give first and then ask later. So, if you can provide value in terms of your song content if it's just really brilliant music and making sure that someone listens to that first before asking them to do anything. That's great. A lot of artists we're working with are doing merch giveaways to kind of industry taste makers. It's a nice way to get on someone's good side. They're going oh wow this person went the extra mile. They're really genuine, that was a heartfelt message.
Consistency, there's very few one-hit wonders that came from nothing. I think you have to be consistent you have to learn the trade. It's an industry, it's a huge amount of skill sets so you have to be a jack of all trades in terms of what you'll come out with at the end of the day. You can always keep your ear to the ground in terms of what could potentially go viral. So, there's a lot of independent subreddits on Reddit. I believe there was a poster Read Jose supposedly went viral on Reddit. You have the more recent the likes of Robert Grace who and goes there abouts his 15th video I got a lot of traction on Tiktok. Now he's working with the likes of Sony and stuff.
So, that's phenomenal growth, but he's put in the errors. He's tested essentially the market with different sounds, covers, seeing what works what doesn't work. That's the thing. It's all one big experiment really, like with the likes of Tiktck put out 15 second videos, see which ones get the most traction. Then do a 30 second video on the ones that do the most traction. Then do the longest video you can on YouTube. There’re other things where you can if you go on incognito mode on YouTube you can go and type in what's the most covered song or what are people searching for.
You just put in the search box the start of a search and the most trending ones pop up as suggested, little tricks like that. A newsletter is phenomenal. It's something we've started to do. So, for releasing a video, you need to get that initial traction going. So, if you can get to 300 people to click through onto something get that initial views up, they might share it as well that would be brilliant. If you can create peer groups where you have like a maybe a Patreon something where your diehard fans are giving you feedback on stuff you may not have brought to the studio yet, or haven't put the errors in yourself yet to record.
You can get them involved in the songwriting process. I’ve noticed myself, if I feel like I’ve helped enter the business or an artist I’m going to share their stuff way more than if they haven't come to me for help. I’m kind of this cold lead essentially. So, you have to warm people up to yourself and get them kind of involved, make a little army if you want to call it that. Oh yeah, a big one is collaborating with other artists.
I think artists holding each other up and giving each other that extra nudge goes a huge way. If you can find an artist 18 months 20, 24 months ahead of you and you can kind of see this yellow brick road of how they've progressed, you can skip the things that they might have wasted their time on and just see what actually grew their fan base. I hate to say the word exponentially but it does happen it's rare. But I think consistency increases your chances of that exponential growth. Do interviews with youtubers, podcast hosts that's the new thing really. It's that personal content that makes me want to buy a ticket to your gig, it's not your music.
There's a lot of music I listen to and I probably won't buy a ticket, but then if I’ve heard an interview of them, I will buy a ticket. Because I feel like I know that person, there's a bit of a connection. So, try do some content in terms of how did you write the song, how did you produce the song, who have you worked with. Involve them in the process, make it a journey it's a story at the end of the day. If you become a brilliant storyteller, you'll have no problem building a fan base.
Dave: That's a really valid point in terms of what people actually connect with the listeners connect with that you touched on there. I probably say to somebody every week, but it's the relationship with the person that they'll actually buy into. Like you said they're rather than the music having you know a really well produced song.
Luke: Yeah.
Dave: Its actually the bottom line. it's the bare minimum that you need. And everything after that is it is nurturing and that relationship with people. That's what people want with the artist it's the relationship with the person.
Luke: It is yeah, always yeah.
Dave: Listen that's absolutely brilliant Luke, some fantastic pearls of wisdom there. I'm sure it will be very useful to the artists watching this and bring great value to them. So, look I’m going to leave it at that. Again, thanks a million for your time um absolutely fantastic. For people watching in, please do check out Luke’s company & tunerelease.com. We will chat to you all soon again. Thanks a million.
Luke: Thanks Dave, cheers.