You’ve got a dope new music video in the works. Now, all you have to do is post it on the web and let the views roll in… right? Not exactly. Having a detailed music video release strategy will boost your chances of success exponentially. Here’s how to create one.
How to Develop a Music Video Release Strategy
Before you dive in, what’s your end goal?
Yeah, you want your music video to be successful, but what dictates success for you? Releasing a music video is just one part of your overall release schedule. Because of this, you need to analyze where it fits into the bigger picture.
Do you want the music video to promote your upcoming tour? Do you want it to promote your latest album and drive more streams? Are you trying to promote your back catalogue? It’s up to you to allocate its purpose before you start planning your strategy in order to analyze its progress and see it succeed.
Choosing a song
You definitely shouldn’t be blindly choosing a song to create a music video for. Delve into how each of your songs are performing and consider choosing one with the most engagement. Utilize analytics tools via Spotify for Artists, Apple Music for Artists, Amazon Music for Artists, SoundCloud Pro, etc. to see exactly which songs are getting the most traction and go from there.
Fans are more likely to tune in to a music video for a song they already have an emotional attachment to rather than a random new release. (Unless you’re Beyoncé… then anything is fair game.)
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Learn more…
How to Promote Your Music Video in 7 Easy Steps
Advertising Your Latest Release Online
How to Prepare for Video Distribution
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Do your research
There’s no substitute for some good ole hardcore research. Take a deep dive into your analytics to find out which videos are getting the most subscriber conversions per view. Then, look for patterns among them, such as subject, delivery, or editing style. Replicate those tactics from the top-performing videos to create more videos like that.
As they say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Hype it up
The initial impact of your video is key to it being picked up by YouTube’s algorithm and gaining more views in the long run. The better it does within the first few days, the more traction it’ll get later on.
Luckily, there are a ton of creative ways to build anticipation for your upcoming music video:
- Shoot behind the scenes footage to share before the video goes live and tease your fans with unreleased screenshots.
- Post cryptic messages on your socials to keep everyone guessing. // Promote the release date way in advance and keep giving your fans more details as the date gets closer.
Get creative with it! Keep them on the edge of their seats waiting for what’s to come, and when the release day finally arrives, they’ll be ready to tune in.
Add End Screens to Promote Your Videos, Channel, or Website
End screens are those interactive graphics at the end of YouTube videos that link to other videos, playlists, channels, or web pages. You can use these to prompt someone to subscribe to your channel or to hit up your Spotify or SoundCloud profiles.
- As the feature name suggests, you can add end screens only in the last 20 seconds of your video, so it’s up to you to plan where the end screens will appear.
- One option is to frame the subject of your video in such a way that you have room for end screens. For example, in the last 20 seconds of your music video where the viewer is still engaged, your end screen can frame that section of the video to keep them intrigued before it ends.
You can do this with the help of YouTube Cards. — Click here to learn how.
Share away
When it comes to promoting music video content, it’s important to recognize the ways in which promotion exists past the YouTube “Share” button at the bottom of your video. Sharing the link on socials is great, but it’s not your only option. — Here are the Top 4 Ways to Share your Music Video to help guide you along.
Utilize a Distributor
With Symphonic, we can deliver your music video for you to major platforms like VEVO, Tidal, Apple Music, and more. All you have to do is upload once, and we’ll deliver it everywhere starting at $95 per video.
To learn more about this service, click here.
Advertising
In order to set up your video as a paid Ad on YouTube, you must have a Google Adwords account. From there, you can easily target your video to reach additional audiences that are similar to your fanbase.
Paid YouTube Ads are one of the best ways to quickly start racking up those YouTube views and make sure the right demographics are seeing your music video. // Learn more about YouTube Ads for musicians here.
YouTube Premieres
If you don’t already have a big media outlet premiering your music video for you, do it yourself with YouTube Premieres. YouTube Premieres are a mix between traditional YouTube videos and a live stream. Like a regular YouTube video, you pre-record your video. Then, similarly to a live stream, you play the recording live with a live chat and live donations. It’s essentially a YouTube based TV show with a set air time and no more spoilers.
With this feature, you can announce what time your Premiere will go live and it’ll show an announcement for your video in your audience’s feed before it goes live, giving them plenty of time to prepare to watch your content.
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Sharpen your YouTube skills….
How to Execute the Perfect YouTube Premiere
Does Your Music Qualify for YouTube’s Content ID?
5 Ways Musicians Earn Money on YouTube
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In Conclusion…
Creating that amazing music video is only the first step. Now, it’s time to create a great strategy to push it to its full potential. With these tips, you’re already on the right track.
In an era where video accounts for 47% of on-demand music consumption globally, music video is a must-have for musicians looking to elevate engagement with their music, expand their reach, and profit from their work. Luckily, we’ve partnered with Rotor Videos to bring artists high quality music videos at super affordable rates. — Click here to get started.
