Release Strategy: Planning a Successful Drop

A great song with a bad release strategy is a wasted opportunity. The most successful independent releases are planned 6 to 8 weeks in advance, with a clear timeline of promotional activities designed to build momentum. Think of a release like a film premiere: you would never just quietly put a film in cinemas and hope people notice. You need a campaign.

Start with your release date and work backwards. Six weeks out, your track should be mixed, mastered, and uploaded to your distributor with artwork ready. This is also when you submit to Spotify editorial playlists. Four weeks out, begin teasing the release on social media — short clips, behind-the-scenes content, lyrics, and countdowns. Three weeks out, set up a pre-save link and start driving traffic to it from all your channels.

Two weeks before release, send the track to playlist curators, bloggers, and press contacts. Use a press release or one-sheet that includes a streaming link (or private link), high-resolution photos, a brief biography, and a description of the track. Keep your pitch concise — curators receive hundreds of submissions and will not read a novel. One paragraph about the song, one about you, relevant links. That is it.