CAMPAIGN WALK-THROUGH

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Forming in June 2023 the independent UK Rock band approached us with a truly fantastic unreleased single on a private link, but they had no brand, no image, no socials, zero fans, nothing to monetise and absolutely no idea how to get this to the right market.

The were truly as 'ground zero' as they come...

Below is a step-by-step walkthrough of the actual approach our team took to launch their artist project and debut single.

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taking control got featured on all new rock from loud liars

PRE-RELEASE

STEP 1 'THE MASTERPLAN'

After the bands submission of their unreleased, planned debut single 'Taking Control' and the approval of our team, we formulated a step by step 'fool proof' plan that carefully addressed each element of their project from branding, image, artwork and logo to social platforms, to content, to audience identification and digital advertising.

We identified the specific contacts that we would need to utilise along with the strategies that we would need to implement across the board to achieve the bands overall goals.

STEP 2 'WHO EVEN ARE YOU?'

Our team knew from the sound of their music and our own personal research that we needed to reach fans of bands such as Hot Milk, Don Broco, BMTH, Fall Out Boy and other modern ROCK and Alternative lovers, but without an aesthetic to fit that mould, the task would have been impossible.

Therefore, our solution to this was to design the bands image from scratch including their outfits and logo and organise a photo shoot with one of our personal photographer contacts.

The result were just what we were hoping for!

STEP 3 'CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT'

Now that we had a brand, an image and a sense of direction in regard to who we wanted to reach, our next step in the plan was the all important content.

We planned and developed a 'fool proof' content strategy for the band and sent them out with their iPhones along with a wish list of what we wanted to see.

The brief was 40 videos of them performing just the chorus of their single 'Taking Control' in their now branded 'band outfits' across multiple locations / environments with a 'live band setup' which our team could then edit, tailor and utilise as part of our social media strategy for platforms such as TIKTOK and Instagram.

STEP 4 'TIKTOK ROADMAP'

Once the content was delivered, our team got work on the bands TIKTOK profile utilising our extensive knowledge of both the platform itself and of the ads dashboard, implementing a mixture of both organic and paid content.

We paid specific attention to desired target audience, posting style, hashtags, copy and the tone of the content.

Using our bespoke TIKTOK roadmap, the bands TIKTOK grew from 0 to 3700 followers in just three weeks and shortly after, we had our first breakout video which achieved over 90,000 views, 5,849 likes and 903 comments all from extremely targeted UK Rock fans.

*Their TIKTOK @loudliars is now at over 10,000 followers and continues to grow daily*

STEP 5 'PRE-SAVES'

As a result of the excitement and engagement across their Instagram and TIKTOK socials, we were able to drive this targeted traffic from direct 'fan to band' conversation towards a custom pre-save link for the new single, whereby we generated just over 425 pre-saves.

Consumers (Rock & Alt fans) were literally going crazy over the bands image and a 15 second snippet of track that at this point hadn't even been released.

They literally had no music on streaming platforms.

By this point in time, we had only had one week to go before the debut release, and we had already gained over 6000 TIKTOK followers and 530 IG followers who were engaged and excited.

STEP 6 'RELEASE DAY

On Friday 15th September Loud Liars debut single 'Taking Control' was released via SoundOn on all digital platforms.

Our team had put together pitches for Spotify's editorial team in advance and submitted these personally.

To our absolute delight the track landed the prestigious 'All New Rock' Spotify editorial playlist right out of the gate and was selected for multiple Topsify & Digstr (WMG & Universal) playlists as a result of our team’s personal pitches to the curators.

This is exactly what we had all hoped for!

STEP 1

STEP 1 'THE MASTERPLAN'

We identified the specific contacts that we would need to utilise along with the strategies that we would need to implement across the board to achieve the bands overall goals.

STEP 2

STEP 2 'WHO EVEN ARE YOU?'

Therefore, our solution to this was to design the bands image from scratch including their outfits and logo and organise a photo shoot with one of our personal photographer contacts.

The result were just what we were hoping for!

STEP 3

STEP 3 'CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT'

Now that we had a brand, an image and a sense of direction in regard to who we wanted to reach, our next step in the plan was the all important content.

We planned and developed a 'fool proof' content strategy for the band and sent them out with their iPhones along with a wish list of what we wanted to see.

STEP 4

STEP 4 'TIKTOK ROADMAP'

We paid specific attention to desired target audience, posting style, hashtags, copy and the tone of the content.

*Their TIKTOK @loudliars is now at over 10,000 followers and continues to grow daily*

STEP 5

STEP 5 'PRE-SAVES'

Consumers (Rock & Alt fans) were literally going crazy over the bands image and a 15 second snippet of track that at this point hadn't even been released.

They literally had no music on streaming platforms.

By this point in time, we had only had one week to go before the debut release, and we had already gained over 6000 TIKTOK followers and 530 IG followers who were engaged and excited.

STEP 6

STEP 6 'RELEASE DAY

On Friday 15th September Loud Liars debut single 'Taking Control' was released via SoundOn on all digital platforms.

Our team had put together pitches for Spotify's editorial team in advance and submitted these personally.

This is exactly what we had all hoped for!

POST-RELEASE

STEP 7 'LET’S GET DIGITAL'

From day one of the release going live on DSP's (Spotify, Apple Music etc) our team set up a specific set of targeted ads via Instagram, Facebook and TIKTOK targeting fans of Rock & Alt music and lookalike audiences, along with custom audiences of previous engagers (re-targeting).

Using a combination of the META and TIKTOK for business dashboards to both run and test our advertising, target consumers were directed to the release via a smart landing page URL and we continued to monitor and optimise our campaigns based on the winning creative content and specific data metrics such as CPC, CTR and most importantly engagement rate.

After all, the data doesn't lie!

STEP 8 'ALGORITHMIC SUCCESS'

As a result of the bands continual actioning and execution of our TIKTOK plan, combined with our digital advertising strategies, Spotify studio ads, direct traffic methods and a dashing of carefully selected traditional playlist placements, we managed to trigger three algorithmic playlists.

During week 1 the band had over 40 people listening at any one time and by week three of the release they had grown from 0 to over 15,250 monthly listeners and 450 new Spotify followers.

Totals (all time) to date for this release include:

78,298 streams

1,259 total playlist ads

with 19,393 streams from 'Discover Weekly', 13,635 from 'Release Radar and 13,357 from 'Radio'.

Since its release, the track is still growing daily as a result of repeat listens, saves and algorithmic playlists which continue to deliver the release to global Rock & Alternative fans.

STEP 9 '2X SOLD OUT HEADLINE SHOWS'

As a result of the success of their debut release coupled with the engagement and data gathered in the process, In December 2023, Loud Liars played their first ever headline shows, both of which were self-promoted via use of their own social platforms, in two major cities which included Leicester and Leeds both at intimate 100 cap venues respectively.

The two shows were completely sold out in advance, with the band generating a total of 200 paid ticket sales independently and additional revenue in branded merchandise.

Evidently, the effects of our campaign weren't just a few streams and some passive listeners, but real, super-engaged, die-hard paying fans who couldn't wait to see the band in action in a live setting.

A true success and a clear monetisation path for their artist project on the back of just one single.

STEP 7

STEP 7 'LET’S GET DIGITAL'

After all, the data doesn't lie!

STEP 8

STEP 8 'ALGORITHMIC SUCCESS'

During week 1 the band had over 40 people listening at any one time and by week three of the release they had grown from 0 to over 15,250 monthly listeners and 450 new Spotify followers.

Totals (all time) to date for this release include:

78,298 streams

1,259 total playlist ads

with 19,393 streams from 'Discover Weekly', 13,635 from 'Release Radar and 13,357 from 'Radio'.

Since its release, the track is still growing daily as a result of repeat listens, saves and algorithmic playlists which continue to deliver the release to global Rock & Alternative fans.

STEP 9

STEP 9 '2X SOLD OUT HEADLINE SHOWS'

The two shows were completely sold out in advance, with the band generating a total of 200 paid ticket sales independently and additional revenue in branded merchandise.

A true success and a clear monetisation path for their artist project on the back of just one single.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?

The band released their second single 'King of the Night' in late November 2023, however, they decided not to work with our team for that specific release due to budget restraints, and as expected, with no continuation of our teams plan, no digital advertising budget, no social and content strategy and no utilisation of our team's personal contacts, relationships and 'know-how', the release achieved just 2% traction of what their first did.

HOWEVER...

The good news is, that the band have now scheduled a second run of headline shows for April 2024 in Birmingham, Leeds and Glasgow all of which are already sold at 50% capacity three months in advance and are gearing up for another campaign with our team to launch their third single 'Red Handed' into oblivion!

Time to do it all over again... but this time even bigger and better!

SO, WHAT MAKES 'NOW LISTEN' PR DIFFERENT?

Almost every other company in the music promotion and digital music marketing field (which we aren't going to name) thinks the 'solution' to your problem is just to generate you some passive, unrelated streams from a sprinkle of traditional third party playlisting or get you into a paid magazine or blog. Marginally worse than that there's the 'sell you a D.I.Y course’ gurus, or your 'opt into our monthly subscription package filled with unhelpful music marketing jargon and ex-industry' specialists.

The problem with all of the above 'solutions' is that they do not cater for you, your story, your message, your artist project, your career level, your competition or most importantly, the people that you are trying to find, reach and ultimately convert, i.e. the fans! In fact, these types of ad hoc services very rarely achieve the goals that artists desire and are unlikely to move the digital needle in the way that you seek or want them to.

If of course you're just looking to add a ' little bit of a buzz' to your project, then that's OK, feel free to try it.

However, the true problem is that we see so so many artists with X number of streams and X number of followers who can't bring ten people to a local show and therefore fail in attracting any real attention from labels, managers, agents and of course, FANS. That's because 99% of the time, under all of those numbers and the platform 'vanity' there's nothing there, zilch.

That's why Now Listen PR build artist brands.

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