Put the singles, emails, ads, store offers and the final pre-order cutoff on one calendar, so the album builds for listeners and buyers at the same time. Fans are most likely to buy music and merch while they are listening. I've run these campaigns for more than a decade, for The Band of Heathens, Todd Snider, KIMOCK, Hard Working Americans and Hayes & The Heathens.
Album Release Marketing
- Chapter 1 Album Rollout Strategy: Plan for Listening and Pre-Orders Put the singles, emails, ads, store offers and the final pre-order cutoff on one calendar, so the album builds for listeners and buyers at the same time. Here are the real schedules behind it.
- Chapter 2 Comment-to-Subscribe for Musicians: Build Your Email List Before the First Single Before announcing the first single, invite fans who already engage with the artist to join the email list. A teaser post and a short DM flow give you a way to contact them directly when the news is ready.
- Chapter 3 Smart Link Pages for Musicians: Build Them on Your Own Site and Sell the Merch I build release pages on the artist's own website, with the video, the store, every listen link, a signup and the merch in one place. Here is the layout we built for Todd Snider.
- Chapter 4 How I Budget an Album Campaign How I budget an album campaign, one decision at a time: what each line is for, who it reaches, what fans can buy that week, how much goes where, how to measure it and when to move the money.
- Chapter 5 Pre-Order Bundle Ideas: Name Your Tiers and Sell the Ship Date Real pre-order tiers and shipping cutoffs from album campaigns we ran, and how to build bundles that give fans a clear reason to spend more.
- Chapter 6 The Last Chance to Pre-Order Email: How Musicians Sell the Most Records Before Release Day The last chance to pre-order email and the ads that run with it are the biggest sales push of a release. Then release day turns to listening. Here is how we set it up for Todd Snider.
- Chapter 7 Email Marketing for Musicians: Sound Like the Band A band's email should sound like the people making the music. Real list and store numbers from The Band of Heathens, the welcome email we used for Todd Snider, and the give, give, sell, sell rhythm I plan releases around.
- Chapter 8 How to Turn Spotify Listeners Into Followers A follow gives fans another way to hear your next release, because Spotify puts new music from artists they follow in their Release Radar. Here’s the follow campaign we ran for The Band of Heathens’ Stranger in 2020, the schedule, and the steps to copy.
- Chapter 9 Album Launch Marketing: How We Launched Hayes & The Heathens and Sold Out the Vinyl How we launched a co-headline album from Hayes Carll and The Band of Heathens: an artist-owned Shopify site, video ads, Spotify campaigns, and a limited vinyl that sold out.
- Chapter 10 How to Promote a Tour With Facebook Ads, Show by Show Run every show as its own campaign with its own budget and deadline. Here's how we budgeted shows from 2015 to 2024, and the 30/25/5-day schedule from KIMOCK's 2017 tour as an example to adapt.
- Chapter 11 What We Learned Building The Band of Heathens’ Patreon The case history of The Band of Heathens’ Patreon launch in 2021, what it does and doesn’t show, and the plan I’d propose to a band launching one now.
