6 Tips For A Successful Album Release

This article appeared first on Reberb Nation.

You’ve put in the work, slogged through all the rewrites, did all your mastering, and now it’s album release time. You have a show booked within the next month, so logic states you should make it the record release show and your official release date. Not so fast. If you’re looking for more exposure on your music beyond the traditional friends and family who come to every show, you need to be strategic. Your band is your business, and like any successful business you need to create a plan for your album launch. If you’ve invested your time and money into the recording, don’t you want to make sure it’s heard by as many people as possible?

Below are considerations we make for every album launch to insure the greatest likelihood of success, and they form a blueprint any artist can follow.

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SoundOut, TuneCore Track Smarts, ReverbNation Crowd Review, AudioKite, and Music Xray Compared

This is the story of a mediocre song. An objectively mediocre song. My song. Curse you, data!

If you’re looking for unbiased feedback on your latest track, you’ve got five options. Well, five-ish.

There’s SoundOut, which I wrote about way back in 2010.

Then there’s ReverbNation Crowd Review and TuneCore Track Smarts, both of which are powered by SoundOut.

Are all three SoundOut services the same? We’ll find out.

I reviewed AudioKite earlier this year, gushingly. A new and improved version launched just this month.

Finally, Music Xray offers a diagnostics feature, which presents your track to 5 music professionals and 20 potential fans.

Which is right for you?

Time for a good old-fashioned market research shootout!

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Can't Buy Me 'Likes'

I’ve become very fond of Craigslist.

Searching for players, gigs, and gear, somewhere between my first cup of coffee and a cleaner pair of underwear, I feel like I’m going to need a pair of bunny slippers and a robe this winter in order to fully realize my out of work potential.

I stay in the musician section for the most part, but even those ads are littered with nerds, real-estate agents and date rape enthusiasts. It’s a great place to be if you’re a “serious”, “drug free”,  22 year old female vocalist with your own equipment. And it’s as close as I’m ever going to get to Reality TV.

The searching, however, has paid off.

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Musician's Arsenal: Killer Apps, Tools & Sites - ReverbNation Mobile Apps

Keeping in line with our recent mobile theme, I wanted to present another mobile option to you this week. Last week we talked about Mobile Roadie’s free mobile ready website option. Mobile Roadie is also quite adept at making mobile apps. And while they are a leader in app creation platforms for musician’s to consider, their price points can be prohibitive for many independent artists. But have no fear, ReverbNation has been creating free/inexpensive solutions for independent musician’s since their inception. Here again they have come up with an affordable solution for mobile app creation. And ReverbNation can get you up and running with a customized app in 6 quick steps.

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5 Critical Things To Add To Your Monthly Newsletter

So – as you know I am a newsletter evangelist!

I believe it is the NUMBER ONE thing that will help you create a career in the music industry; communicating with your fan base regularly and consistently. 

If you do not already have a schedule mapped out for sending your newsletters – get your calendar out NOW and pencil in 12 dates – 1X per month (I suggest you send your newsletter 2X per month but start with once a month and grow from there). 

Studies show that the best days to send newsletters (for the highest open rates) are Wednesdays and Thursday so make sure to send them out mid week.

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What Artists Should Know About ReverbNation's Promote It

Running a Facebook ad campaign is confusing. You bid for ad placement, but the price you pay bears little relation to your bid. What’s the difference between reach and social reach, connections and clicks, CPC and CPM? More importantly, is there any way to tell how many people played, downloaded, and shared your song, or signed up for your mailing list? (answer: no, there’s not)

ReverbNation’s new Promote It tool addresses those shortcomings, and then some. You pick a song, photo, and budget, and it automatically generates dozens of optimized Facebook ads based on past Promote It campaigns, and continually optimizes your campaign based on the performance of those ads. New fans click through to customized landing pages that track not just clicks and likes, but plays, downloads, shares, wall posts, and mailing list signups. As I’m quoted as saying in the press release, “It’s the ultimate ‘set it and forget it’ fan-making machine!” I was invited to try it out and provide feedback during the beta period, and I’m flattered that some of my suggestions made it into the final product. So far I’ve run six campaigns. Let’s walk through the creation and performance of my latest and most successful one.

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The Indie Maximum 100 Goes To Texas ...Industry Experts & Musicians Dish Out Their Best SXSW Tips

As a follow up to last week’s The SXSW Survival Guide, I’ve decided to take some of the best tips from some of the experts of today’s music industry and provide them for you here! I took the time to talk to some of the contributors from our 2009 Indie Maximum Exposure list to see what they had to say.

Over the next several days, I will be posting all-new tips that you can use to maximize your South by Southwest experience.

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My first ReverbNation street team mission

I love ReverbNation. I could write a dozen articles on the various tools they provide for artists. For now I’ll focus on one I just tried for the first time: Street Team Missions.

Whenever a fan subscribes to your mailing list, they’re given the option to join your street team. You create missions to direct your team’s promotional efforts on your behalf, and they compete against each other for rewards of your choosing. ReverbNation manages the whole thing automatically by measuring plays, widget clicks, banner impressions, and mailing list signups. Sound too good to be true? I thought so at first, so I joined several other artists’ missions to get a closer look.

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