Guide To Radio Promotion - Radio Promotion Basics

by The Music Connect, Radio is becoming more and more important in an artists career, but steady radio play is becoming harder and harder to obtain. The best way for an artist to get radio play that people are listening to is satellite radio via XM or Sirius. This form of radio is more supportive and accepting of independent and unsigned artists. When starting your radio campaign most artists should start at a local level by contacting there local stations and see if they have a show for local artists, which many stations do. Make sure you post the station's request information on your website and have all of your fans request this song. This will get the stations attention. Even if they were not going to play your music, they may now take a second look after they see you have a fan base in the area.

The new step in your promotion of your song towards radio is pressing up copies of the single. There are many places that will

 thermal print your CDs and put them in jewel cases. You should not pay more then 55 cents a unit for this.

The next step is sending this song to your local radio stations again, all of the stations pertaining to your genre in your region, XM and Sirius, as well as any internet radio stations.

Radio promotion can be very time consuming and frustrating, and for many artists, a waste of time. You have to know when it is right to take your band to the next level by pursuing radio plays. This should come at a time when you have a fan base and have done a consistent amount of shows in your region. The radio play should accompany an album release. If it doesn't, many stations will not even think about playing your song unless you have a release coming out that has distribution where the radio station's signals reach.

Once you do start receiving some radio play contact the stations to see if you can do a "phoner" (an interview on their station via phone). Many of these phoner interviews are recorded and played on air at a later date, while a few are actually live.

Many artists wonder whom to contact at the radio station. The person you should be directing all of your music and information to is the program director. You should also give your music to popular DJs at the station you are targeting as they do have a very small bit of input on what is added to rotation, and some might help by giving your album a mention during their show.

You can employ a radio promotions company, but this will not be cheap. I do not recommend hiring a radio promotions company for an unsigned artist or an independent artist with a small budget because the failure rate of these campaigns is very high and many singles. And, artists are broken on radio with little or no money invested at all. Wait until you get a substantial budget to use a company that promotes to radio.

Before you start your radio campaign you should have the following checklist with all of the boxes checked:

* A budget of at least $1,000 USD for printing of CDs, mailing, mailing supplies, and other costs you may incur.

* A fanbase of many people who check your website and buy your CDs regularly. If no one at all is buying your CDs, then what makes you think they want to hear you on the radio?

* A song of yours that many people have listened to and they all feel it has the potential to become a hit. Even run it by your local radio station to get their feedback.

* Make sure you have a release, tour, or many shows coming up so the promotion on radio is worth it. So many artists attack radio with everything they have trying to get a major deal, and it doesn't work out and the money they spent is not recouped. Don't always shoot for a record deal. Work on selling your albums and growing a fanbase and the fame and money will come.

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