In the music business, the distribution of your release is just as important as the release itself. Use a mixture of a distribution service as well as a personalized list of contacts that you can build up for each city as well as national contacts.
Using Send2press.com, a news and press release distribution service, is one of the best things you can do for your releases. They offer a wide array of options and numerous pricing levels for everything from writing to editing as well as distribution and optimization of your releases. There’s no better service and no better way to put out your press releases.
Whether you use Send2Press or another distribution channel, use a reputable source to move your releases and announcements to dramatically extend the reach of the release. You also send out the release yourself, but by linking that release from a real newswire or a popular site where the release has been posted to, it brings up your credibility and professionalism and gets more reads and conversions.
Add photos, video, and audio to release material
In certain packages you can add photos, videos, and even audios to help bring more interest to your release. By creating special audio samples of songs (short samples, not full tracks) as well as new pictures tying into the event, venue, and video, you build up and reinforce your press release and all the promotion behind it. If you’re able to add a link, a picture, a video, do it, do it now! (Cue the Schwarzenegger voice.)
Send to the right audience
While sending out a press release or announcement to music reviewers, event calendars, entertainment editors, and music critics is the primary audience to focus on, also approach genres and people outside of music and entertainment who still tie into and relate to you vicariously as well.
For example, if you’re into fashion, make sure your distribution service sends that information to fashion magazines and fashion editors. If animal rescue is your thing, be sure to include a number of animal shelters and rescue groups in your press releases, as well.
If you have a song with a science fiction feel to it, send that release to some sci-fi blogs, magazines, or websites. By thinking on a wider level outside of the normal music channels, you build the visibility to make that release and its distribution hit a much wider audience.
Don’t overdo it, though. Sending a release to a place that has nothing to do with you, your event, or your release, as well as distributing to places that specifically tell you not to send releases will get you blocked and hurt future opportunities.
Personalize your emails
After the distribution service sends out your release, use a link from them to send out direct releases to the people and contacts you have compiled in the industry. Personalize the release to the individual or company you’re sending it to, and don’t mass email every one.
For example, if you send a copy of the release to a local entertainment magazine about an event at a venue they covered before, start with a Subject line that shows the email is personalized — For consideration of a live show review from Neato Music Mag at Mulligans on July 3rd, 2015.
Don’t just send an email to the first contact you find from a magazine or website. Dig deeper to find out who you should send those releases to.
Many websites have specific contact email addresses or contact points for news, releases, and information. Discuss in the opener how you love an article about another band from an article they have previously, go on to tell them you are playing there and when, then add your short bio and call to action. Then give them a link to the press release for the event.
Offering drink tickets or merchandise items to an editor or a reporter is a good way to ensure a media presence. Offering a drink or a T-shirt to a reviewer might encourage them to show up and write a worthy review.
Always add the press release link in your personal emails as well as online. You can add the headline or a section, but always send a link. It showcases a higher level of professionalism and online it keeps you from creating duplicate content on numerous sites.
Not everyone is going to read it
Just because you send it doesn’t mean anyone reads it. Services like Send2Press can send out thousands of releases to numerous media, networks, people, and companies, but that doesn’t mean everyone sees them.
This goes back to making that headline and information really catchy to get someone to open that email and read your information. They can then follow up with you or advertise the release through their channels.
By understanding that not everyone reads it and working with a distribution company as well as a press release writer, you can hone each release that much more effectively and get it opened and read more often.
Press those releases every few months
Put out press releases every couple months on a smaller level. Not every release has to be a massive high-costing, sent-to-the-world-style release, though having at least one or two a year keeps your name out there and the optimization for your name and your information high.
Smaller or localized monthly releases about a certain gig — and again, not every gig — help to keep you moving across the newswires and punch up your presence and awareness.