On the surface, the goal of your music promotion seems pretty straightforward.
You want to grow your following enough to bring your music to a huge audience.
But treating your endgame goal as a benchmark for success when you’re starting out is a huge mistake.
You’re only setting yourself up for disappointment if your music promotion goals don’t fit the scale of your project.
You’re only setting yourself up for disappointment if your music promotion goals don’t fit the scale of your project.
The most important thing you can do for effective promotion is set realistic goals that build on each other to give you a clear path to growth.
Here’s how to set meaningful goals in music promotion in 5 steps.
1. Outline your key channels
Everyone knows they want to see growth. But they don’t always know where they should be looking.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the different places to promote your music you may need to pause and take a step back.
Music promotion can be time consuming and expensive. You’ll see much better results if you find the channels that matter most and focus your efforts there.
Unfortunately, the most meaningful channels can vary for different genres, styles or communities. There’s no easy answers.
The best way to identify where to put your promotion muscle is to find out where successful artists in your niche are doing well.
The best way to identify where to put your promotion muscle is to find out where successful artists in your niche are doing well.
Try to pay attention to artists just above your level—not to copy their techniques, just to get an idea of what moving forward would look like.
A realistic and significant success might be less ambitious than you think!
2. Find the metrics that matter most
Once you know which channels to look at it’s time to decide which numbers on them actually matter.
On Spotify alone there are multiple ways users can show engagement with your music.
Number of streams might seem like the clear winner, but Followers and Monthly Listeners also have a big impact!
Your goals may change depending on which of those numbers makes more sense to target.
Your goals may change depending on which numbers make more sense to target.
Of course, none of that matters if your main focus is a different platform.
Try to spend some time getting familiar with the mechanics of the channels you’re targeting. That will put you in contact with all the important metics.
When you know where to look and what to look for you’ll have a much better idea of what a realistic goal is for promotion on that channel.
3. Track your progress
Explosive growth or viral success is always possible, but it’s much rarer than the steady increase from giving your music promotion consistent attention.
In order to set your next goal you’ll need to track the progress you’ve already made. You can’t know where to go without seeing the overall trends in your development.
Use tools like streaming analytics in LANDR’s distribution dashboard to get insights.
Watch how your key metrics evolve over time and pay attention to how your initiatives make an impact.
Watch how your key metrics evolve over time and pay attention to how your initiatives make an impact.
This can give you some surprising insights into how to keep your music promotion on track.
4. Celebrate milestones
The best part of having clearly defined goals is that you get to celebrate success early—and often.
But it’s not just to pat yourself on the back. Noting down your milestones is how you evaluate your timelines.
If things aren’t growing as fast as you’re expecting, you can adjust your plans to make them more realistic.
For example, doubling your followers isn’t too difficult when you’ve still got a small audience—but it gets harder the more attention you get!
Soon, the scope of your milestones will shift together with your progress. That’s always worth celebrating!
5. Double down on what works
When you’ve seen what works where and how it affects the pace of your growth, you’ll know what initiatives to stick with and which to ditch.
With a handful of successful promotion techniques in your toolbox you’ll have a clear idea of what methods to spend more time on.
With a handful of successful promotion techniques in your toolbox you’ll have a clear idea of what methods to spend more time on.
This will give you the confidence to know when your promotion goals are realistic and achievable.
Did your YouTube subscribers grow when you started posting once per week? Great! Now you can plan for a similar increase when you boost your posting cadence even more.
Real results
Setting goals for your music promotion is one of the most important things you can do to move forward.
There’s no way to make strides with promotion if you don’t have an idea of where you hope to end up.
And if you set goals that don’t make sense, you’ll get discouraged even when you’re making meaningful progress on a scale that’s more relevant to where you are.
Use these tips to help yourself plan to win with your music promotion goals.