An EDM promo list is basically a list of producer/DJ e-mails that record labels will send tracks out to as a part of their promo plan.
Regardless of whether you’re releasing your track through a label, or just self-distributing, it’s important to build a promo list yourself. Promo lists premier your best tracks, show’s producers you’re active, and allows for your tracks to be played out to crowds you thought unreachable.
How do you build an EDM promo list, and who do you send it to?
First, let’s discuss how to go about creating a promo list.
Creating Your EDM Promo List
If you’re new to this part of the game, then I’m sure you’re curious about how to build an EDM promo list.
The best place to start is where you’re more than likely lingering right this very moment, Facebook and Instagram. If you’re heavily involved with production, you’ve probably either followed, or added multiple producers to your Facebook friends list.
Hopefully, you’ve been building a relationship with them. If the relationship is already established, simply say, “hey there, I’m building a promo list to send out my tracks to before they’re released. Can I get your e-mail to add you to the list?”
If a relationship has not been established, it’s time to get introduced to the person.
Just like we discussed in the networking blog, you want to follow the same tactics online. In case you didn’t read that one, let me sum it up for you.
You don’t want to immediately pop up in their inbox asking for an e-mail. That’s a sure way of getting ignored and not getting that golden e-mail.
Instead, start liking their stuff, sharing it, commenting on it, engaging, and starting conversations on the posts that interest you the most.
Once you’ve done this for a few weeks, watch for any recent posts that really grab you. Now take the time to jump in their inbox and strike up a conversation about said post.
Keep that up for another few weeks, by that point you should have already established a relationship and they should be responding to you pretty frequently.
The goal here is to first get them used to seeing your name pop up on their newsfeed, through their own posts. Then when you actually DM them, they don’t get freaked out by a random name they’ve never seen before.
Red flags fly higher when you’re asking for personal information.
The second goal is to establish a relationship before you ever ask for anything.
If that foundation has already been built for 6 weeks, it’s pretty easy to call in one small favor, like asking for an e-mail.
Do this with as many producers/DJ’s as you possibly can on Facebook, Instagram, and even offline. By this point, you should have created a pretty decent looking EDM promo list.
Now the question is, who do we send this to?
Who to Send Your EDM Promo List To
As you create your EDM promo list, it’s important to stay organized with something like a spreadsheet. Include names, last names, artist names, and the genre that the artist plays. Unsure of what this information is?
Just ask!
Knowing what genre they play is KEY to your EDM promo list. You don’t want a massive list of producers who only play Dubstep, if all you’re releasing is Tech House, and vice versa.
The object is to get these producers/DJ’s to play your tracks.
If you stay organized and know which producers play which genere’s, then you can organize which tracks you’re going to send to which producers. This pretty much guarantees that they don’t get annoyed by e-mails with tracks they will never play.
They enjoy the tracks you do send since they are catered to them, and all is well… Right? Wrong.
There’s a small piece of information I’m leaving out, and that’s about HOW to send out your tracks to your promo list.
Sending Tracks to Your EDM Promo List
The way you send your tracks out to your promo list might be the most important part of this entire process. If you’re thinking that you’re going to individually e-mail each producer, you’ve got another thing coming to you.
That’s 1. A HUGE waste of your time, and 2. The most tedious task you could possibly take on yourself.
I’m sure you’re thinking, “ok I’ll just copy and paste all their names in my e-mail, or BCC everyone…” NO!!! That’s the worst thing you could possibly do.
If someone see that they are a part of a mass e-mail like that through a “personal” e-mail, they will immediately want themselves removed from your list, and it could potentially break their trust with you.
On top of that fact, most e-mail services will flag this as a spam tactic, which means almost no one will see your e-mail as it fades away in their spam box.
What SHOULD you do?
The first step is to get signed up with an e-mail marketing service. Most of these have free versions for you to sign up and stay free for up to a certain amount of e-mails that you enter in.
You can create customized e-mails for your list of names, producers, and styling of your releases!
It’s the perfect software for the job. Plus, the e-mail doesn’t get flagged as spam, instead it gets flagged as promotion and ends up in their promotion inbox.
If any of you are gmail users, then you’ve seen this little box before.
The best e-mail marketing service in my opinion is Mailchimp. This is what I personally use, and I think their free service is incredible to start off with!
However, there are other services like Constant Contact, and I believe Zoho CRM has an e-mail marketing service for use!
Do a little bit more research into some e-mail marketing services and how to go about using them. You’ll soon learn that you’ll be able to use them for so much more than just your EDM promo list.
It’s important to note that you told the producer’s whose e-mails you collected that this will be used to send out your tracks for promo, so keep it that way.
Do NOT start sending them marketing stuff that is not directly related to you sending them your track to download for free.
This would technically be a violation of what they agreed upon, and thus breaking their trust with you. If you want to put them in a sub-label for e-mail marketing for different services you provide, merch, or anything else, you’d best ask if you can put them in that list, or try to get them to sign-up a different way.
On that note, I’ll leave you to get started on creating your EDM promo list, and start sending it out to the right people!
If you feel like learning a bit more on this topic, I suggest you check out these two episodes of my podcast, Electronic Dance Money!
Electronic Dance Money Episode 021 – EDM Promo Lists & The Key to E-mail Marketing Part 1
Electronic Dance Money Episode 022 – EDM Promo Lists & The Key to E-mail Marketing Part 2