4 Steps of Effective Mixtape Promotion

Every project we release is instantly posted to thousands of websites across the internet. There are not many secrets or shortcuts to effective promotion, as is the reality of most businesses. If you want to get your mixtape out there effectively to reach the widest audience you will have to invest work, time, and money; as well as have a product that will convert fans once they are reached.
We break down our promotional campaigns into 4 parts.

1. Social Tools
2. Email Blasts
3. Social Network Posts
4. Press Release & PR Campaign

Social Tools – Our site and many other sites are developed with specific social tools to help share the content most effectively. Coast 2 Coast Mixtapes is equipped with the obvious “Share” features via Facebook, Twitter, Google+; but it is also important to take it a step further with sites that offer special API integration. When a user downloads a mixtape on our website they automatically post a link to the mixtape on their Facebook, offering significant viral action for all our mixtapes. We also feature a Facebook Comment API where every user who comments on a mixtape creates a post to their facebook with a link to the mixtape. All of these tools create a viral action for mixtapes that pick up buzz, and allows an artist to really take advantage of even a small network of core fans.

Email Blasts – We have had several posts on this blog about email blast services (see Top 5 Urban Email Blasts) and all are effictive at expanding the reach of any artist. If your goal is to reach as many people as possible, then by default you must know that you need to hire every email blast company on the planet to reach the highest possible audience. At Coast 2 Coast we make the job easy for you by having relationships and every effective email blast company mentioned in our posts on payroll, saving you money and time by dealing in bulk and handling everything for you. I would encourage every artist to seek additional sources of email blasts, but do so acknowleding your total budget at all times, as many offer a superior CPM (Cost Per Impression) rate.

Social Network Posts – We are all aware that social networks are the lifeline of promotion for any company, specifically regarding music and mixtapes. This is always the go to for every artist but you need to be sure you are again posting to the largest addressable audience to get the maximum exposure for your project. At Coast 2 Coast we provide access to our social networks with every mixtape promotion package, but be sure you and all of your team are doing the same to post daily to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and all other networks possible. Again if you followed the first step and are sending a link to a properly programmed website every person that you get to click could create thousands of views down the road as the social integration creates posts to reach their friends, and then their friends, and then the mixtape is viral. If you do not push a link that is properly connected as Coast 2 Coast Mixtapes is then you are losing before you start, so be sure every last click you are able to garner is pushed towards an effective landing page to convert users into your own viral street team.

Press Release & PR Campaign – Every piece of content created by a musician should have some kind of press release and press push behind it, whether it be an email blast to a few blogs to a full professional Press Release distributed through the AP (Associated Press) wires to millions of new outlets. This again is key to turning your mixtape viral as every additional site and source you can get to post your project and get clicks can potentially create thousands of viral clicks, that is again if you followed Step 1 and work with a site that has the proper social tools. Also many times people or artists discount the power of a traditional press release, these are key to reaching the outlets such as traditional magazines (Billboard, etc.) to gain publicity for a project. These traditional users are not often opt in users to the various email blast services, so a traditional press release is needed to reach them. Also local news should not be overlooked, but you should approach them with a solid Press Release written for your project and a personal email or letter offering any help you can to get your story published.

The Bottom Line

This is all great advice to keep in mind when pushing a project, but the bottom line at the end of this story is that content is king. In this day and age if your content (mixtape) is not up to par it will instantly be washed out to the bottom of the thousands of inferior mixtapes released every day. So the first step before any of the promotion is to make sure your project is the best it can be, then take the time to effectively promote it. The harder you work on the product the easier it is for our promotional system to work and get your project the viral exposure needed to blow up an artist instantly in today’s online world!