Content:
1: Submit music as an artist
2: Submit to a radio station directly through a music submission platform
3: Submit music to radio stations with a PR company
4: Submit to a radio station via a third-party music distribution system
5: Submit music to radio stations via IODA (Independent Online Distribution Alliance)
6: Submit via a music plugger or radio plugger
If you want to get your music on the radio, you came to the right place. Many independent artists would love to get their music exposed via radio promotion, but do not know where and how to submit music to radio stations.
Getting radio airplay is what new artists want. It allows musicians to expose their music to a new audience. Nowadays, many community and commercial radio stations accept submissions from independent artists and musicians.
Radio stations receive thousands of submissions every week, from hip hop music to jazz. Many artists know these stations don't have the time to listen to every single song. If you're looking for exposure via radio airplay, working with someone who knows how radio works and has relationships with people at community or commercial stations is essential to getting heard.
As an indie artist, it's hard enough just making music and trying to promote it; finding time for all of these other steps could be difficult as well. Getting your music on a radio station is a game changer when it comes to gaining music exposure as an artist.
There are thousands of radio stations, each playing music from different genres, that you can submit your music too. Finding the right stations to play your music will take time, just make sure to research the radio stations before submitting your music to determine the type of music genres they accept. Smaller stations are a great start for indie artists to promote their song, as they can be more accepting to receiving music from new artists on the block.
1. Submit music as an artist
Once you have finished producing your new song and want your hard work to be paid off through radio play, make sure that you have created a quality profile on your website. Additionally, a Spotify artist profile is always great to gain access to your music. You should also keep your music files handy as you never know when the opportunity may arise to send your songs to a commercial radio station.
Many other artists and musicians know that it is a must to create social media accounts for yourself and make sure that they’re active, so the stations can find you if they want to. It's vital to have a decent bio and audio quality, as well as eye-catching single and album artwork for your tracks/albums that are available online.
This method is mostly used for radio station staff to find you rather than you submitting music to them.
Having a well established social media presence can do wonders for musicians and make it easier for music curators to find good quality new music. By submitting your music to music streaming platforms and uploading your songs to your social media accounts and website, it will therefore, become easier for commercial radio stations or local/college radio to find you and play your song to a new audience.
2. Getting your song on the radio through a music submission platform
Many artists in the music industry know that music submission is a great way to promote your music. These platforms assist artists in getting their music heard, be through the radio, Spotify or even music blogs.
One Submit for example is an online music submission platform that gives music artists the opportunity to submit and expose their music to Radio Stations, as well as Spotify Playlists, Youtube Channels, TikTok influencers, and more. You can even submit your song to a record label.
Once you submit your song, a curator, based on your music genre, will review and listen to your song and if they like it, they will add your song to their playlist/channel etc. We are all about connecting artists and music curators.
3. Submit music to radio stations with a PR company
PR companies can help you get your music onto the radio, TV stations, magazines, blogs and YouTube. They do this by sending out press releases with a link to your music or video.
The best part about this method is that it could be used as an alternative to submitting your music directly to radio stations. PR companies have connections with almost every major media outlet across the world so their chances of getting you heard by new listeners are much higher than if you were doing everything yourself.
However, there is one drawback: some PR companies may charge hefty amounts, depending on how many months they want to work with you.
4. Submit to a radio station via a third-party music distribution system
Third-party music distribution systems are a great way to submit your music to radio stations. These services collect and distribute various types of content, but they often provide an opportunity for you to upload your music and then track how many plays it gets on various platforms. An example of this type of platform would be;
These platforms assist artists with their music distribution and make it easier for them to get their music out there.
You can expect these services to charge a fee for their service, but it will pay off when you get more plays on a radio station than you would have otherwise.
Musicians know that commercial radio stations play the best music that the public love listening to, it is therefore, critical that you produce high quality radio friendly new music that a radio station would love to play.
5. Submit music to radio stations via IODA (Independent Online Distribution Alliance)
IODA is an independent online distribution alliance, a group of independent record labels that have joined together to create a digital distributor. This means that you can submit music to radio stations via IODA.
When submitting music to radio stations for play consideration, keep in mind that not all radio stations use IODA as their preferred digital distributor.
You should contact the program director of each station with which you want to submit your music and find out if they are using IODA as their digital distributor. If they are not using IODA, then there's no need to submit your new track through this service, and instead, just send it directly via email.
6. Submit via a music plugger or radio plugger
The radio pluggers are music industry professionals who draw on extensive relationships with radio stations and can help you get your music played on these stations. Radio pluggers are also called promoters, but they have a more specific job description than just promoting music.
The best way to submit your music via a radio plugger is by emailing them with one or two links from sites that stream your songs like Spotify, SoundCloud, Apple Music or Tidal. If you don’t know how to send tracks via email then make sure that whoever does it for you makes sure there are no watermarks or names in the file name of any song along with making sure no samples from other songs appear in the song itself.
If possible try sending links directly from Spotify/Spotify playlists where possible as this will give your track greater visibility within those channels due their popularity among listeners - plus it will make things easier if they want this information when they're listening out later on as well!
The best way to get your music onto the radio is to work with professionals.
If you want to get your music played on the radio, it's important that you connect and have a good relationship with all of these parties including program directors and a radio music director. This is not something that can be achieved overnight. You need to build trust and demonstrate that you are committed to making high quality work. Once you've done this, then there are various things that you can do as part of your campaign strategy which will increase the chances of getting airplay for your songs on a radio station.
Radio represents song quality from hard working and talented artists. If you believe you are an artist of high quality, it is important to understand that there are different ways that you can get your music onto the radio. Just remember that there is no one right way to submit music to a radio station, and each of these methods will have its own pros and cons.
The best thing is to try them all out until you find what works best for you. Either way, getting your music played on the radio as an independent artist can and will help expose and promote your music and kick start your music career.
Goodluck!
Check out the best music promotion services available
For TikTok music promotion on our radio stations, visit our home page
Read more about Spotify playlist submission
For our music promotion plans, visit our home page