What Is Music PR?

Becoming a career musician is a complicated and ambitious move for any individual who wants to take the sounds they hear in their head and transpose it on to a worldwide stage. It takes the right demeanor, a lot of personal drive and even more luck. Even if your music is absolutely mind-blowing and deserving of the same accolades usually saved for acts filling up arenas and selling millions of t-shirts, no one is going to hear it unless it actually gets out there. This is where music pr comes into play.

Music PR firms are concerned with getting your music into the hands of music blogs, magazines, tastemakers, influencers and websites. They work with a long list of industry contacts developed over the years to get your music reviewed, profiled, or just generally talked about in a critical sense. If you read any review on a well-established music website, chances are they didn’t discover that album on their own. It was handed to them by a music PR rep.

Music PR is a form of strategic promotion of an artist’s music. PR firms often work in campaigns that coincide with the release of new music so it makes as big a splash as possible. This is achieved by working with different media outlets, tastemakers and gatekeepers in order to find a suitable and sizable audience for the artist’s music.

However, you cannot draw a straight line from money spent on a PR firm’s services and success for you and your music. Even if you do manage to secure a few tasty features in the press, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to pay off instantly, or at all.

What good PR will do, however, is get you in the scope of the people and groups that can take your career the next step. These include festival organizers, show promoters, Spotify curators, etc. At the risk of sounding reductive, you supply the music, and they get the buzz going.

Good PR firms will unveil a detailed strategy of how they’re going to promote your music. They will identify who you are as an artist, what kind of music you’re making and will be able to pinpoint your target market. It is incredibly important to find a firm that sees eye to eye with you, as they will bring the best results.

Before getting involved with a PR firm, there are some things you must understand about the nature of their work.

What Do Music PR People Do?

Music PR people are tireless networkers. They accumulate a vast list of industry contacts who they can call upon to get the artists on their roster the exposure they need to succeed. They pitch their clients to music magazines, blogs, promoters, festival organizers, etc. They are concerned with getting the artist out there as much as possible, because that generates revenue for them as well. PR people have an intimate knowledge of the music industry and are able to get the artists on their roster the right type of promotion that will bring them success.

Finding A Music PR Firm

In order to find a good music PR firm, and one that is right for you, you must first understand your position in the larger world of contemporary music. By this, I mean figure out how you fit into current music trends, and what kind of success you think is readily available to you at this point. For example, if you’re still thrashing out in your parent’s basement, you should realize early on that you won’t be catapulted into international stardom. Think realistically and don’t expect miracles.

There are a lot of different firms out there and they all specialize in different areas of PR. Some firms are great for getting more plays on Spotify, while some are better geared towards getting artists on festival circuits. It’s all a matter of where these firm’s contacts are situated in the music world. PR is a network driven industry. Most likely, a firm will be up front with you, as to their strengths and their reach. This is because at the end of the day, your success is their success as well. They want to do right by you as that will reflect positively on them.

The main goal here is to find a firm whose list of contacts and specialties align best with where you want to see yourself featured. When you find a firm who has a similar vision as you, it will feel right. Trust your gut.

Music PR Is A Speculative Business

This can be a hard one to swallow, but music PR firms do not promise results. It’s not as easy as saying Firm A will get me on Magazine B, so I will pay their fee and this will be delivered. PR is speculative, meaning all a firm can do for you is tell you who they’re going to talk to, what their strategy is and how much time they’re going to put into it. The results will mostly come down a plethora of factors, but mostly luck, and, of course, how good your music is.

What this means is that you might employ a firm for a 8 week rollout strategy leading up to your album release. Maybe it costs you a lot. Whatever the case, it is a gamble and should never be seen as a sure thing. The best you can hope for is that the firm will do their due diligence and follow through with the promises that they have made concerning who they talk to and how they promote your music. It’s a game of persuasion and if at the end of the day their contacts aren’t interested in what they’re selling, it’s a no-go.

What Can You Do?

Another trap a lot of artists fall into is they think that hiring a muisc PR firm means they get to take a load off. While you might not need to worry so much about sending endless emails to disinterested blogs, you better be using all that free time to be working on your music.

Even if you have an album ready to go out and your PR team is working hard to promote it, keep your nose to the grindstone and keep creating. Keep playing shows (if possible). Interact with fans, make yourself interesting, and engage on a human level.

Think of your PR team like an advertising agency. Their role is to promote your product as best they can. To culture a market around your brand. Your role, as the artist, is to create as good a product as you possibly can. It’s a bit of a lifeless way of looking at music as a creative endeavor, but, like most things, music is a business, so you must, at least, treat it as such. If your PR team is out peddling a subpar album, even if they’re real hot shots, your results are going to pale in comparison to what could be with an absolute barn burner of an album.

As mentioned before, make your whole brand a viable product. People connect with music even more when it is created by a tangible person. For example, while Billie Eilish’s music continues to top the charts, it’s her personality that has given her such staying power in the public eye. Be someone that people want to know while still being unique. This isn’t something that can be taught so much as it is something that is either in you, or not so much. Whatever the case, don’t be afraid to be your own person and broadcast it to the world.

When Should You Hire A Music PR Firm?

Muisc PR firms are not miracle workers, so you must be sure that hiring one is truly in your best interest. You must be confident that your career is ready for the help of a PR firm.

Firstly, are you 100% confident in the album, or project you are promoting? If you are having doubts about your material, this may not be the right time to hire a costly PR firm. If it needs fleshing out, better production, or maybe it’s just not the strongest set of material you’re capable of perhaps it is best that you hold off.

You should also be absolutely sure that you are prepared to make that next step in your career. If the PR campaign pays off and all of a sudden you have doors that are being opened for you, make sure you are ready for that commitment. This means being available for interviews, appearances, playing shows (either live or on the internet) and, of course, creating more material. Once the wheels are in motion, it’s your duty to keep up with them. Chances are you are going to quickly drop off people’s radar if you don’t follow up with something good. It’s a highly competitive industry and there are dozens of artists waiting in the wings to take your place.

Also, know what you want to gain from the arrangement. Don’t go into a firm thinking they’re going to do all the thinking for you. It’s a two-way street and you must know, at least to some degree, what you want to accomplish. Do your homework and find out what are some viable media outlets you can see yourself appearing in.

Finally, make sure that a PR campaign isn’t going to bankrupt you. This can be catastrophic not only to your music, but your life as well. Also, it’s a pretty good indicator that you are not ready to hire a PR firm, as they will be most effective when you have a bit of success already. Growing a band’s fame is a lot easier than creating it out of nothing.

Conclusion

Never look at hiring a music PR firm as a way of skipping the queue. It’s never going to catapult you into a different realm of fame. Sure, it will help and even be integral to your success, but it’s not going to happen overnight. Also, it’s going to mean a lot of work on your part. Hiring a music PR firm isn’t like injecting a dose of steroids into your career. As an artist, you must be sure that your music, your career and your life is going to benefit from such an endeavor. Most firms will be quite honest with you if they feel that you are ill prepared, but still there are some places out there that just want to take your money. Think it over, and proceed with caution.

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