The Ultimate Release Checklist (2025)
6 Steps to bring your release To The Max, and a deep dive in how to release a song in 2025
Releases are the pinpoint of every artists career. With a new release you showcase your new music, you can reach new audiences and create a long lasting impression on the fans you already have. But lets be honest, sometimes it can be quite confusing what you actually need to release a song, and how to break through the noise of all the other songs, which are released on the same day.
Weather you are an indie artist on a tight budget or ready to invest, these six steps will help you to maximize the success of your release. Lets walk you through everything you need.
Pick a Budget and Release Date
Before anything else, establish your budget for this release. Decide how much you can invest in the release and how you spend it:
- Artwork, Music Video, Video teasers
- Social Media promotion
- DJ Promotion
- Spotify Promotion
- Distribution
- Blog articles or Radio promotion
This is necessary to see how the budget is turning into profit and to look into all the statistics and analyze what worked and how much it costs. This in combination with your release date should be done 4 weeks in advance. Otherwise you might not be able to make changes, or do your due diligence.
Technical Checklist
Well it all starts with the music and it comes down to your distribution partner, to really make your release work. Here are the most important things to have prior to your release.
- Confirm your royalty splits with collaborators, singers and other musicians (publishing and master splits should be confirmed with a split sheet)
- Upload your song to your rightholding organizations such as ASCAP, Buma/Stemra, STIM etc.
- Add proper metadata to your WAV/MP3 with songwriters, credits, producer
- Update your Press Kit if needed, to send it out to blog writers
- Submit your song to your trusted digital distribution partner, and upload it on your SoundCloud page
- If you have used samples, clear them in advance and not wait until the last minute
Promotion
Now its time to spend the real budget. Promotion is one of the most important parts of your release. With no promotion people wont have a clue that you have released a song, because all the social media platforms are saturated with content and you play against 120.000 daily releases on Spotify alone!
So use your budget wisely and promote your song!
Social Media Promotion:
Start with teasing your song without giving away the actual release, only play with call to action hooks like: Have you ever made a song at 2am and its the best song ever?
- Create convincing and high-quality snippet videos of you working on the song in your studio, making music outside or of the writing session. This will significantly amplify the excitement for your release and if your have a collab with someone then make collaborative posts. This will drive engagement up.
- Film behind the scenes content, and use actual show footage of your song being played or you playing the song in a club or festival.
- Edit everything in advance to minimize the chance of last minute edits, and plan your content, with Hootsuite or Metricool.
- Dont just post the cover art of your song and think people will stream it then, you have to actually engage with them.
- Share your pre-save link in stories, and engage people to interact with the link. Make sure to check all statistics and adjust if you get less traction
Spotify Promotion:
With a partner like Tracks To The Max you can enhance the reach and streams of your release and Tracks To The Max will make sure to place you into the right playlists, which are genre specific and most important of all ORGANIC!
- Pitch your song 2 weeks in advance, this gives the promoter enough chance to pitch your song to all the playlist curators
- Make sure to have a good quality song, with a good sounding mix and master
- Choose the right budget, you can either buy a bigger campaign in the begin, or you can buy twice, first campaign for the release day and weeks and then 1 more time a month after the release, to maximize your reach
- Don’t fall for too good to be true offers, seriously they can harm your profile and even get your song removed. With Tracks To The Max you have a trusted partner who provides organic and bot free streams.
Release Day Checklist
It’s go-time. Make the most of your release:
- Post across all your platforms with streaming links
- Add smartlinks to all bios
- Send an email blast to your fanbase and industry contacts
- Go live, repost fan reactions, and be as active as possible
- Add your own song to your personal Spotify playlist (it helps the algorithm!)
Post-Release Checklist
The momentum doesn’t stop after the drop:
- Launch an ad campaign using your best video snippet
- Continue sharing milestones like playlist adds or media features
- Follow up with blogs, curators, and contacts
- Keep posting TikToks and IG Reels consistently
- Dive into your Spotify for Artists analytics—understand who’s listening and where
