When you release a song, having it played by other artists can be really useful to expand your reach, bring you more royalties and also connect you with other artists. However, you must do a couple of things to be able to be supported by other artists:
4 THOUGHTS FROM ME
1. You have to build your own promo list. If you want to get your music promoted by other artists, it’s insanely important to build your own artist promo list, and you can learn how to do it in this post. First, the more you get these artists’ support through your own emails, the less you’ll depend on labels in the future to keep getting support, which is REALLY important. Second, it will also give you the opportunity to start building relationships with these major artists, which could lead to a collab, signing on their label, etc. To start building your promo list, head over to 1001tracklists and look for songs you really like in your genre, and list the DJs who are supporting these tracks. After that, you have to look for the emails from these DJs, which you can do by: searching on their Facebook/Instagram’s displayed info; googling “[artist name] promo email”; asking friends who’ve been supported for a promo email; asking the artists directly via Instagram (recently got the emails from Cassian, Mees Salome, Sultan & Shepard, Marsh, Yotto, Cristoph this way)
2. You gotta do your research and choose labels that have a good history of support. In addition to having your own list, you have to prioritize labels that have a lot of support on their releases, especially from the DJs that you’re looking to get supported by. For example, let’s say you want to have your song supported on Above & Beyond’s Group Therapy (ABGT) but the label you’re aiming for has never had a song supported on ABGT. Now consider label B, which has 60% of its tracks supported on ABGT. Then, I’d prioritize this Label B over A because it aligns better with what I’m looking for. But, how can you know this? Again, you can search on 1001tracklists for your desired label and check all their previous releases and which artists supported each song. After doing your research, choose the label that has been supported the most by the DJs that you most value as this will increase your chances of being supported as well.
3. You have to network and meet more people in the industry. Another way to get your song supported by major artists is doing collaborations with established acts and ‘inheriting’ their support as well. For example, if you have a friend who always has tracks supported on Podcast A by DJ XXX, consider (1) asking this friend for DJ XXX’s promo email so you can send your tune to Dj XXX by yourself. Second, you can also ask your friend for a collab since releasing a song with an artist that is constantly being supported by DJ XXX will give you better chances of being supported than if you’re sending alone. But, that is only possible if you network a lot and meet a lot of artists in the industry, something you can do by joining our Discord Channel.
4. You gotta keep yourself updated and only send promos to DJs that play the genre you’re producing. Let’s say an year has passed after you’ve first built your promo list, are these DJs you first listed still playing your genre? Second, are you still producing the same genre? If you keep on sending irrelevant promos to DJs, you’ll likely end up in their spam box, so checking if what you’re sending to these DJs is still what they are playing is crucial. The same applies if you’re sending them a song that is not 100% done or even that it’s not your best in quality. In different words, why would you send a pen to an artist who only draws with pencils, or why would you send a half-finished pencil as a sample to an artist that only uses finished pencils to draw? Therefore, make sure to only send promos to DJs that you believe might play what you’re producing, or you possibly can end up as spam.
1 QUESTION FOR YOU
Why do you need DJ Support as an artist?
1. Spotify Syncs: When major podcasts play your songs, they normally also upload a mix cut of your song to Spotify, which means more royalties to you as they need to pay to your label, or distributor, to be able to upload your song in their compilation.
2. Recognition: Having your song supported by the major acts in the scene, as signing with a major label, can be a way to recognize that you’re a ‘respected producer’, which could be really useful when pitching for vocalists, labels, etc.
3. Expanding your reach: One play on ABGT can give you 60k plays in a week and normally comes with more followers as well. In other words, one play on ABGT can take your music to more people than you possibly could have alone.
