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Marketing
On this page you can find all of the promotion I did for my releases. This includes physical promotional material, my social media campaign and other promotional sources such as the contacts I reached out to for radio plays/ reviews of my music.
Physical Promotional Materials
Here are some of the physical promotional materials I have used to market my work this year:
Posters
Posters were the most important physical promotional material I used. I mainly stuck these around the college as I knew that most of the people, in the Goodlyburn building especially, would be interested in a new music project such as this. This also really helped me reach my target audience as most students are aged between 18-24. I started by printing A4 versions of the posters but later printed larger A3 versions to use on the poster boards and around social areas such as the canteen. I posted versions with and without the QR code you can see above. This QR code goes to my Linktree so it is easier for someone to find my music just from scanning the poster. By the beginning of May all of my posters were placed as I knew I wouldn't have time in May and June to print them and put the Summer and Seasons ones up, especially on the campus. I also thought that having posters up for Summer early would be beneficial because students start to get excited for summer and the holidays around this time. Having an uplifting summery aesthetic might be more intriguing to them than the older, and cosier, Autumn/ Winter posters around this time.
Spring & Winter posters
Autumn & Summer posters
Seasons poster
Stickers
I handed these out at the expo and then gave the rest to my friends to stick on whatever they wanted. This was a good promotional tool because the stickers would be spread out to different locations around Scotland meaning that I had a bit of moving promotional material. I kept the design of these simple, sticking to the album cover. I decided against QR codes alone because I think that people are more likely to scan a QR code if they know where it's taking them. This is why I attached them to my posters instead.
Tote Bag & Future Merch Ideas
I bought a Kirsty Taylor Music/ Seasons tote bag off of VistaPrint. I used this to carry my resources to the expo but also as a promotional resource. I actually got an extra bag because there was an issue with the print on the first one so I gave this one away to a friend in Aberdeen. I couldn't justify the cost of bulk buying these bags to sell because I knew that I would end up making a much bigger loss because of the cost and the lack of buyers I would have. However, this is something that I'd like to use in the future if my budget and fan-base size allows it. I also have some other ideas planned for similar promotional materials below:
If the project is running successfully in 2024 I will consider putting one of these items on sale via Shopify. I would go with Shopify because you can link this shop to your Spotify profile, making it easier for audiences to find merchandise. I also want to do some more mockups of these designs but with the Seasons coloured swirl pattern as the background.
Toyah Swan has been illustrating images for a calendar. This calendar will be available to download as a printout or as a printable download on Gumroad during December. They will also come in the form of monthly desktop/ phone wallpapers. They will be formatted as a 2024 calendar. As this is a 2024 project, not all of the images are completed yet. You can find the mockups for the phone wallpaper versions of this calendar below too. Since they are mockups, the dates are not correct and need altered which I plan to do during the final creation of the calendar. Here are the current images for the calendar (the text on Bitter Chocolate is a placeholder for now):
Calendar
September (Smiling Not Blue)
October (Pumpkin Patch)
November (When I Look at You)
December (Bitter Chocolate)
March (Mushroom in a Meadow)
July (Hello Girl)
August (Dreaming Of)
Social Media Campaign
Here you can find more details on my social media campaign. Have a scroll through my feeds and don't forget to follow for more! The great part about this project is that there is a sense of longevity in terms of promotion. Each song and EP can be re-promoted closer to each season that it is associated with year after year. I took the Social Media Campaign Management module in second semester to improve my social media strategy. This module has taught me to analyse my analytics to create relevant content aimed towards my target audience. My target audience is females aged 18-24 and my campaign was successful in reaching that target. My Spotify analytics have shown me that the majority of my listeners fall within this category.
Below you can see my Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and most recent YouTube video.
TikTok
YouTube
Other Promotional Sources
Here I have included the Google Drive folders of all of the evidence of my blog/ magazine/ radio contacts. You can find the spreadsheet of all of my initial contacts, whether I contacted them and how successful I was with them. I had initially listed down quite a lot of contacts but, after carefully sifting through them, I found some inactive businesses and others that wouldn't work well with my music.
I've added all of the emails that I sent out and received in PDF format below. I got better at having specific contacts that I knew I would be more likely to have success with after releasing more music. I was going to email them under my record label Pug Beats Records, however after careful consideration I decided to email them under Kirsty Taylor Music to appear more personal. I still added the professional touch by adding my press release PDF which came under the name of Pug Beats Records. I have also added each press release I created and sent out below.
I included a coverage log which shows all of the coverage I got and where. I tried to gather as much evidence of these plays where possible.
There were a couple of radio stations that showed all of my releases. Belter Radio featured each of my EP releases on Angel's Scottish Indie Breakfast and Unsigned Radio did as well, on Mellisa's Mix. Two of the outputs I'm most happy with are the reviews I got from Heel Toe Promos on the Autumn EP and The Music Mag on the Spring EP. I am very happy with the responses I received and the coverage I gained for my EPs, considering I did not have any of these industry contacts prior to the project. I believe that my professionalism and organisational skills allowed me to get the most out of these contacts.
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