💡✍️ADN #181: How to have a head start on your release planning

Releasing a new single comes with two guarantees.

1. All releases have a list of must do’s.

2. No two releases are alike.

It’s easy to keep a short list in your head of must do’s for your next release.

“Art.”

“Master.”

“Upload for release.”

“Spotify pitch.”

“Pre-save.”

“Film content.”

The art gets done, the song gets uploaded, the track gets pitched, pre-save is announced, and some content is shot, but it usually isn’t tied to any real timeline other than whenever the artist gets around to it.

And the rest of the plan?

There isn’t one.

Bottom line… Most artists wing it.

They know there are things to do, and they kind of know what they are, but they haven’t put any method to the madness.

They’ve released a song before and it went okay, not great, but nothing went too wrong, so they don’t worry about the next one until its already been time to worry about it, and then they get it uploaded and pitched just in time again for it to go okay, not great, but nothing goes too wrong (again).

In what other industry can someone wing it and keep their gig?

In the music industry an artist can wing it forever if they want to.

They might get lucky once or twice if they have a great song or a memorable moment, but most of their time will be spent thinking that things could be going better.

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Whenever we release a song, an EP, or an album, we sit down and determine what tools we are going to use to elevate our campaign and which ones we aren’t going to use out of the gate.

Music video?

Yes or no?

Physical release?

Yes or no?

PR?

Sync pitching?

Marketing budget?

Yes or no?

Then, we plug those answers into a calendar with our non-negotiable to-do’s (art, master, upload, pitch, pre-save, content, etc.) for each release.

That calendar becomes our bible.

If we want to have a music video day and date with our release, we need to be filming it 5–6 weeks ahead of time, and if we want to pitch it for a premiere with a press outlet we will need it in hand two weeks before the release (or 3–4 weeks after it is filmed).

If uploading a single 5 weeks out gives us the best chance to pitch DSP editors 2–3 times before our release then we need to have art, our master, and all of our credits ready to upload at least 5 weeks and 1 day before our planned release.

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We’ve built a free release planning tool to help artists with the repeatable tasks that come with every release.

You can watch a quick video walkthrough here.

Feel free to use it as much as you want and share it with anyone that you want.

If you like it, we also have built a fully customizable release planner pro version that is only $9 a month.

You can watch a quick video walkthrough here.

We aim to build the tools we wish existed for artists.

The Release Planner and Release Planner Pro are two of our first.

We have more coming soon.

Have a great week,

Neil