How To Do Your PR on a Budget
Here at IndustryMe we look at how you can do your own PR without spending too much money, this piece will also give readers an insight on what PR is and how useful it can be to musicians.
What is PR and how useful is it?
PR (public relations) is a form of promotion for the musician’s music, tours, and brands through the media to gain the attention of the public. A music PR specialist would help a musician gain recognition through interviews, album reviews, press releases, tour announcements, and many more.
Music PR can be extremely useful artists as it can help them gain exposure both online and offline as well as generate more streams and downloads and can even bring in new fans that may have never heard of a certain bands music before, more fans mean more income through merch and ticket sales.
Knowing your audience is key when working in PR because you will need to appeal to them if you want campaigns and promotions to be a success. For example, if you’re promoting a heavy metal band it would be useful to look at other bands and target their fans to get them to listen and view your content.
Music PR specialists liaise with both the labels, artists, and the media to try and get profiles of musicians, reviews of albums and shows to help sell the artist/band to the public to help form opinions on them and people can then decide whether they like/dislike them.
How does it work?
The way music PR specialists promote musicians can be done in many ways not just by written pieces but also through the use of social media with videos and images to be more creative and to draw people in, showing a video of a band playing live could get people talking and spreading it by sharing and word of mouth. Radio is another great way of promotion as radio airtime can help attract the percentage of people who listen to it, it can make people think I like that song who’s it by and it will make them want to search them and want to play it on repeat.
Tips On How To Do Your Own PR
- Get your music on various channels
To help generate public interest in your music your best bet is to make your music available on as many channels as possible. Music journalists have their own format and platform they prefer to use to discover and explore new artists. Ensuring your songs are on different platforms will guarantee your chance of reaching more writers.
- Create an EPK (electronic press kit) and get a professional or friend to check it over
Your music PR strategy should set the story around you or your band to help communicate it to the media. In order to do this, you will need to build an electronic press kit that should include your photos, biography, featured music, social media links, and anything else you think is necessary to know about you. This is an important piece of kit to have because when writers contact you for information you can be the source.
The biography is the most important part of the electronic press kit so be sure it is to a high standard and has loads of useful information in it. Getting a professional to write your bio or look over your press kit before you send anything out is a good idea but if you’re planning on going full DIY then make sure you get a second and third opinion from people you know in order to get everything right. - Create a professional email/social media account
If you would like people to get in touch with you in regard to press related enquiries or interview requests then be sure to have a professional email address. People will be put off by an unprofessional email address.
This also goes for social media handles and pages, it is important to have a name that is simple and to the point such as jademorrismusic. - Be active on socials
It is important to build a presence with your fans on the likes of Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook as just getting your music out there on all channels isn’t enough. Create catchy posts about your music that will draw people in with photos or videos to a preview of it as this will help get people excited for the new release, interact directly with your fans by posting things that require them to answer such as what are your thoughts on the new single and advertise competitions for fans to get involved with or more send messages to fans every now and again they would love to hear from you and these are ways of building a rapport with people can help to build and shape your brand.
- Get professional artwork for your music
Album/single covers help reviewers and listeners identify and remember their music easily as it helps people to differentiate the music. Having images that reflect your music can be a good way of marketing it online, if your music is heavy using dark bold colours and images that symbolise this can help people understand that this is the music you create, for some, it can have a story behind it which makes it even more personal and original to them. - Build up your database
Having your own database of media contacts is your biggest resource in the industry as this is where you build relations and reputations with people. Increasing your network can be very useful and having knowledge on each contact can come in handy as whether you need someone for press or for photography each person can be helpful.
- Use data to look at performance
Using data analytics as a foundation can help guide you when it comes to making decisions, it is important to focus your work where it will have an impact. Sounscharts is a platform that shows us artists’ data across the music industry and turns it into tailored insights for music professionals.
Analysing data is also helpful if you have set yourself goals and deadlines to meet, looking at success rates and unsuccessful tasks can help when it comes to reflecting on projects and campaigns so you know how to improve or continue succeeding for the next time.
Music analytics tool – Soundcharts.com