5 Things Every Artist Should Know About Music Publicity

I was delighted to be interviewed by Manafest – Chris Greenwood – the founder of Smart Music Business about my latest book The Ultimate Guide to Music Publicity. It’s short and sweet and packed with great advice about public relations for musicians! We identified 5 things every artist should know about music publicity. Let us know what you think about this list!

1. Grow Your Email List

Grow your list was the ONE piece of advice I gave Chris 10 years ago when I was his publicist that has helped him become a self-sustaining artist. I have given this advice to hundreds or quite possibly thousands of musicians, but only a few have taken it as seriously as Chris has. This is an evergreen piece of advice that stands the test of time. All your other lists, and your social media, are circumstantial but email lists are forever.

2. What the PR Process Is Really Like

Doing good publicity has a lot to do with noticing what’s right in front of you. My book is about understanding the whole process of PR. It’s a method and a guide that steps you through what are you going to do today and how you’re going to build out a process for your publicity. It’s about what is right in front of your face. A lot of artists are obsessed with trying to get “big” immediately and are disappointed when they don’t obtain what they set out to get.

3. When You Think You Can Stop, The Work Is Just Beginning

It’s best to get advice from your peers and fellow artists that have done the same thing because they know exactly what you’re going through. Having your song premier doesn’t mean you’re done, in fact, you’re far from it. There’s always more to do and the 11 artists featured in the book share their stories about keeping the momentum.

4. What Is The Angle That Will Get You Noticed?

A lot of artists point out that having an angle such as faith or inspiration, or featured angles like social justice or a hyphenated career adds to your story. It’s not just all about music and “listen to my music”, it’s your story from a different angle. It’s fresh and it allows you to pitch yourself to different magazines and publications. Unless you have major clout or lots of numbers, you won’t get featured in a music magazine.

Maya Azucena started performing for charity events and became known for doing such and being an activist in the women empowerment movement. She eventually performed for a charity event for the United Nations.

5. The More Voices, The Better!

Get yourself a team that can constantly promote you. The more people pushing you and your music to multiple outlets at once, the more results you will get. A really good fan or virtual assistant can do a lot of work for you. You don’t have to hire a big fancy PR firm in order to get the results. We help our artists create marketing plans and continuously give them tasks to improve their results.

It’s about “who is actually going to make me a pre-save link, tiles for social media, etc.” whatever it is you need! If you like PR but hate graphic designing, get a graphic designer while you focus on PR. When you understand how to do it, it’s easier to hire someone else to do it.

We hope these 5 tips have been very beneficial for all your artists out there! For the full interview, click here.

If you haven’t already, purchase The Ultimate Guide to Music Publicity for even more tips and tricks! If you already have, please leave a review on Amazon!