With not much of an opportunity to go outside and make connections in real life, internet use has been at an all time high. This shift caused many changes to adapt to for every industry, but especially the music industry and independent musicians. Without live performances and events, promotion has been limited to mostly just virtual opportunities. The most popular opportunities being playlist placement, blog features, and influencer campaigns. Typically each of these requires you to pitch music to someone who is receiving numerous requests for similar opportunities.
You must contact curators, writers, and influencers in a certain way so that they are willing to work with you. While I can’t tell you exactly which messages work due to each person having their own preferences, I’m going to go over the Do’s and Don’ts of sending pitches to these people.
This article will be going over what you SHOULDN’T do when pitching your music. To read what you SHOULD do, head over to this article featured here below.
How Artists SHOULDN’T Pitch Music to Bloggers, Curators, and Influencers
#1 Don’t Send a Generic Message with out any Personal Touch
Don’t send a message without adding a personal touch. All of these types of people likely get sent pitches on a daily basis. Even just replying to people can take a lot of effort. Without a personal touch you’re likely to be looked right past without even getting a reply. Sending a message without a personal touch can make it seem like spam or a copy & paste message. It can also be viewed as disrespectful. By not personalizing the message it shows that you didn’t do any research on the person before asking for a favor.
#2 Never Send a Message Without Saying “Hi” or “Hello” or some type of friendly greeting.
Saying “hi” or “hey” first goes a long way, and even further if you ask how they are doing. If you jump straight into the message without a greeting, it may seem as if you don’t care about the person other than asking for a favor. By greeting them and including their name, you will be seen as more personable. This will be easier for them to form a positive judgement on you and starts the conversation off on a positive and friendly note.
#3 Don’t Spam Links or Videos
Spamming links may seem like an obvious thing to not do, but surprisingly it happens often. There should be absolutely no reason ever that you should spam someone with links or videos, unless they specifically ask. This is disrespectful and will get you nowhere. No one has time to go through all of these links. You are most likely wasting your time and making yourself look bad if you do this.
Your first message should never include more than one link. In most cases you should ask before sending any links. An exception would be sending one link directly to your music.
#4 Don’t Use Bad Grammar
Proofread your messages before you hit send! Everyone makes grammatical errors but instead of letting it pass as human error, you need to proofread your message over and over until you see no grammatical errors left. Having errors in a message shows that you were careless when crafting it and didn’t care to take the time to fix it. It also shows that you are unprofessional. This may cause the person to leave you on read or not want to work with you.
If you make minor mistakes every once in awhile, don’t beat yourself up over it because it happens. But just make sure to do your best to use perfect grammar. If you need help, check out Grammarly.
This especially goes for names. Spelling someone’s name correctly is extremely important and can make or break you getting a reply.
#5 Don’t Come Unprepared
Don’t pitch to a writer, curator, or influencer without coming prepared. An example would be asking an artist to cover your new release but not providing them with a press release or any information on it. All professional artists have press releases written about their releases. This makes it easier and more likely for people to feature you. If you are pitching yourself to get featured, you should come prepared as if you are a professional artist.
With curators this would mean being prepared with links to your music. I don’t just mean one link to Spotify. You should utilize a link tree that has options to stream on the most popular streaming platforms. Your distributor likely can provide this link or you can utilize Linktree.
When pitching to an influencer, come to them with an idea for a trend or campaign. If you don’t have an idea, make sure to offer them something extra for coming up with an idea of their own.
#6 Don’t Ask for a Favor Before Following
Don’t ask the person you’re pitching to for something without even following them. If you don’t follow them it shows that you aren’t actually interested in their work. It shows that you just want help without caring about who it’s from. This can be seen as disrespectful and get you left on read.
If you’re asking someone to feature you, you should show a genuine interest in their work. Don’t make them feel like just another person being pitched the same thing to. Make it seem like they are the only person you’re asking of this favor (even if they aren’t).
#7 Don’t Expect them to Cover you for Free
Don’t expect anyone to cover you for free. These type of people are likely writing, curating, or creating content daily. You shouldn’t expect them to be willing take the time to feature you for absolutely nothing in return. Especially with writers and influencers. They likely are already assigned stuff to write every week or have content already planned and don’t have much capacity to take on more.
Content creation takes a lot of time so make sure to offer some form of compensation for their time and efforts. If you don’t, don’t expect to get featured so easily. Most writers, influencers, and curators either feature who their bosses tell them to or choose based on who they find themselves and genuinely enjoy.
Getting your music featured shouldn’t have to be so hard and time consuming! If you pitch your music without utilizing these tips, you will likely have a low success rate and your time will go to waste. The more effort you put into each individual message, the higher success rate you will have. Focus on building connections rather than just straight up asking for something.
Don’t forget to head over to this article to learn what you SHOULD do when pitching your music!
If you are still having trouble pitching your music and getting featured, shoot us an email at info@respectmyregion.com or reach out to the writer directly on Instagram at @hannahlistensto. Or view our marketing page to see what services we offer that could help your music get more exposure.
More Cannabis & Music Content
10 STRATEGIES FOR YOUR NEXT MUSIC RELEASE
5 EASY WAYS TO GAIN FANS DAILY
HOW TO GET YOUR MUSIC ON SPOTIFY PLAYLISTS
10 ESSENTIAL APPS AND WEBSITES FOR MUSIC ARTISTS
LEARN HOW TO MONETIZE YOUR TALENT DURING COVID-19
