I Tried The Damian Keyes 21-Day Release Plan

You may be familiar with award-winning Entrepreneur, Educator, Music Industry & Social Media Specialist, Musician, Author, YouTuber… And Jedi, Damian Keyes. In 2021, he coined his 21-Day Plan in this video here. In this post I’ll break down what it is and my results from implementing his strategy. 

But real quick, my blog and YouTube channel is all about my journey as a Christian Indie Folk-Pop Musician. Consider subscribing if you want to learn more about music production, Intellectual Property (IP) digital marketing, and creative entrepreneurship.

So, Damian, if you've checked out my post, I’ve been privy a ton of cool tips from your channel so thanks for all you do, mate! I’ll be sure to backlink to your channel and your Music Business Academy, DKMBA. Alright, let’s get into this.

My Inputs

I had to start with the inputs (i.e., you need to start with some assets that you’ve filmed and produced in order to put his plan in place. Damian has a complete listing that he lays out in his downloadable freemium, so from his listing I had...

1. A mixed & mastered single (Listen on Spotify here)
2. Social Banners (x2 - Release Date & Out Now)
3. Behind the Scenes Video
4. Single Artwork
5. Press Release
6. Lyric Video

What I didn't start out with was a...

1. Giveaway prize
2. Photoshoot
3. Acoustic Video
4. Collab Video
5. Official Music Video
6. Performance Video

My long-form video assets...

1. Lyric Video
2. Demo Diaries (Original Series)
3. Behind the Song
4. Postscript BTS (Original Series)
5. Corroborated (Original Series)

My short-form video assets...

1. If you like…(CCM Artists)
2. Spotify Out Now (Sing-Over)
3. Starting Over on Ice
4. Starting Over Lyric Video Preview
5. Behind the Song (Teaser)
6. Things I Hate Starting Over
7. How to play starting over guitar solo
8. How to play starting over guitar chords

My Initial Following

At the start of implementing this challenge, I had 30 YouTube subscribers, 29 Spotify Followers, and 20 Instagram Followers. 

Day 1: Starting Out (SAT- 13 NOV 21)

This was all about making sure my social banners were complete for YouTube and Facebook, that's right, with an “S.” You need at least two: One with the release date and one with the critical word “Now.” For instance, "New Single Out Now!" By this time, I also ensured my pre-save link was established.

Day 2: Press & PR Day (SUN- 14 NOV 21)

As much of writing is re-writing, I completed my press release earlier but Day 2 is probably the latest you want to wait to ensure your press release is written. Since mine was done, I contacted more folks on my blog or curator list. I say “more” because there are some media outlets I had worked with in the past that I contacted earlier, but I already built a relationship with them. Otherwise, I would agree that waiting a little closer to your release date is to your benefit as a little known artist. There’s no point in teasing something too early that your listeners do not have access to.

I set aside about $250 for a small Playlist Push Campaign to try and reach out to curators and blogs in my specific genre as well as working some of the manual labor myself and searching out contacts. I figured my music is similar to Ellie Holcomb so I pitched myself from that angle with blogs, news outlets, and online magazines where she has been featured.

For that, I was able to get added to one playlist with about 2300 followers and the average time the curator keeps a song on there is 7 months. 

I also proofed my personal blog entry on my geryahdinglemusic.com website and scheduled it to go live. There is no point in expecting others to write about you if you don’t at least write about yourself. 

Day 3: Radio Day (MON- 15 NOV 21)

This is the day I dedicated to contacting local and community radio stations, as well as podcasts that fit my genre.

I contacted 11 entries from my self-made media contact database I manage within Notion, but more on that in a separate video.

I got one reply that stated, “The guitar gives the song too much of a country edge to the sound for their playlist,” which I appreciated since they actually listened to the song and provided feedback.

I did have one success on the same day of the request with Christiandance.eu and their New Music Friday Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) -245 followers - and their Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) Weekly -596 followers - playlists which my song would be be marked for "guaranteed placement"... this means that the song will stay in this playlist for approx. 4 weeks so that you benefit from relevant Spotify algorithms.

Day 4: Teasers & Trailers (TUES- 16 NOV 21)

So, one well known tip to extend the life and excitement of your content is to create teasers and trailers for some of your longer form content. So, this is when I ensured I completed those edits and scheduled on my socials.

I also took today to make my Spotify Canvas loop to optimize my song for the platform, and Amazon recently released a new feature that allows artists to pitch their song to its playlists so I took advantage of that as well.

Day 5: Ad Assets (WED- 17 NOV 21)

So, I'm a little familiar with Facebook Ads from some of my previous music marketing campaigns. Here's an example of one of the ads I used to engage my target audience: 

But everything I’ve learned about how to get started in Facebook ads for musicians, I learned from Andrew Southworth, so be sure to check out his channel because he has tons of value to add.

However, if you’re just looking for inspiration, check out the Meta Ad Library; it offers a comprehensive, searchable collection of all ads currently running from across Meta technologies (i.e., if you want to see examples of the ads some artist you know is running, you can check it out), and I’ll link everything in the description. 

Day 6-8: Are all about Social Media Optimization, Spotify Profile Updates, and alignment (THURS-SAT- 18-20 NOV 21)

So, my main social platform is YouTube, which if you follow Burstimo’s Music Marketing Channel, you might fall under the opinion that YouTube is one of the most difficult forums for new artists to gain traction from their music alone; since YouTube is essentially a search engine, you need to provide valuable content to your viewers that enables you to show up in search and recommended videos.

Instagram used to be a great place for organic reach, but TikTok has largely taken its place in that category, coupled with YouTube Shorts. So, while I have a presence on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, I mainly focus on two social platforms: YouTube and Instagram. This is the time I used to ensure my secondary platform, Instagram, was helping to engage new followers and not distract from my online presence, as well as update my Spotify Artist bio.

Day 9: Is about the new drop (SUN- 21 NOV 21)

This is when Damian recommends dropping the new artwork for your upcoming single and creating a new playlist on Spotify and posting about it. I’ve already had playlists on Spotify that I’ve never posted about so I decided to plug my “Christian Music That Vibes” Playlist, add some new music to it, and post my artwork on the YouTube Community Tab and Instagram page. This is also when Damian recommends posting 5 Instagram stories a day, leading to the release. Mind you, if you follow this method, you’ll need to record a total of “25 Stories.” Since this video is a little dated, I’m sure it’s fine to leverage Reels or YouTube Shorts to the same end, which is what I did, to garner a little more organic reach.

This is also the the time to communicate with your folks in your corner and tell them the Day 1 actions you would like them to complete, which is to listen to your song in full and also to add it to a playlist with similar artists - this is what’s really going to help boost your reach with the algorithm.

Day 10: Building Excitement (MON- 22 NOV 21)

This is when you should release one of your teaser videos and post “5” more whatever’s, Stories, Reels, or Shorts. This is also when I changed my banners to the ones that have my release date on them.

I released the Teaser Video for my “Behind The Song”

Today, I also published my blog entry on my website, geryahdinglemusic.com for Starting Over titled: “After Receiving UTR Media Support and Collaborating with Nashville Producer, Steve Kinney, Geryah Dingle Returns with “Starting Over.”

I also applied for curation on another playlist with “One Big Family.”

Day 11: Make Sure Your Ads Are Setup (TUES- 23 NOV 21)

By this time, you have already created your ad assets, the videos themselves, so now is the time to make sure you’ve got everything setup in enough time for the release; mind you that a real person reviews your Facebook ads for compliance with its policies and standards so you need to allow enough time for that process so you don’t miss activating your ads on release date.

For my ad set, I used this video and created a custom audience and I set aside $150 for my campaign and targeted Females ages 20-50 living in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and New Zealand (the Top countries for CCM) who were interested in Spotify, Christian Contemporary Music, Bethel Music, Casting Crowns, Elevation Worship, Ellie Holcomb, Leeland (band), Phil Wickham and Switchfoot (band) which left me with an estimated audience size between 65,300 - 76,800. and these manual placements.

Day 12: Teaser Video and your folks (WED-24 NOV 21)

This is when you want to drop another teaser video and make sure you have a way of communicating with your inner circle on the release date (group chat or app, whatever). Whatever video you release, make sure it’s somewhere between 15-30 seconds (ideal).

So, today, I released a YouTube Short called, “Things I Hate Starting Over” where I took a few funny pictures of me doing Jenga, a Rubic’s Cube, and holding a piggy bank. I also uploaded it as a Reel to my Instagram page. This was the most successful piece of short-form content for the release with a 9% click-thru rate.

Day 13: He Calls Prep Day (THURS- 25 NOV 21)

This is when you prep yourself for release day, whether that be setting alarms or reminders to yourself, or engaging one-on-one with your inner circle. This is the time, where if you have both an official music video and a lyric video, he recommends releasing the lyric video. Since I normally don’t invest in pricey music videos at this stage, I save the lyric video release to the actual single release date and, instead release, 5 more pieces of short form content.

I did release a lyric video preview with a vertical aspect ratio to help push the song a bit more the day before the release.

Day 14: Release Day (FRI- 26 NOV 21)

This is when you’re supposed to check with your distributor and make sure there are no issues with your release; for me, I used DistroKid and I can easily see which stores my track has been delivered to and you usually receive some type of confirmation email too. This is when you would also reach out to any press contacts and remind them that your release is out today and make sure to set your ads to live today. So this is when you provide hourly updates on the release and culminate with some type of livestream or event. For me, I premiered my lyric video on YouTube and was in the live chat for my listeners to interact with me. If you’ve got more resources, then the sky’s the limit on what you can achieve here. This is also when I updated my social banners from the release date to put out now.

One spin I made on the release plan was to post a “credits post” for all those who contributed on this track. For Instagram, this was in the form of a carousel post with the album artwork and the credits slide. 

"I originally wrote ’STARTING OVER’ back in 2011. This year I was able to collaborate with an awesome team to bring the track to life. Produced with the incredible Steve Kinney (@thestevekinney), we encapsulated the emotion and gravity of the lyrics and melody into a passionate Christian Contemporary Music (CCM)-positive country ballad. @VORANAH at Shyness Studios was the recording engineer. He and I worked on the lead vocal, doubles, triples, a few different ad-lib tracks, and some creative oohs and ah’s as layers. This part of the creation process was all about passion and trying to embody the song’s meaning. Just a quick shout out to the team that made it all possible. Listen to ‘STARTING OVER’ out now. Link in bio."

                                                                                   - Geryah Dingle

I also submitted my song to Playlist Push curators. They don’t push your song out until it’s live on Spotify so I needed to wait until release day for this action. 

Day 15: The Morning After (SAT-27 NOV 21)

This is when a lot of folks tend to lose steam, but Damian recommends you continue to release a series of videos. They don’t have to be the exact ones he references, but you need to remain active. So this is when I updated my Artist pick on Spotify to my new single, and was supposed to post about a limited giveaway of some of my Merch on the YouTube community tab (I didn’t do the giveaway because I didn’t get everything with my legal team sorted out for the terms and conditions to be cleared in time, but I have some set terms now that have been reviewed and will use them on a new release). Still, I ensured my song was pinned on all my social media platforms. Post release, the video I posted was titled, “I made this song for my baby brother.”

Day 16: Is When You release another video (he penciled in a collab video here) (SUN- 28 NOV 21)

I have a video of me in the recording studio that I released on this day that has a sort of “pop-up-video” style commentary called “Postscript.”

Day 17: Is when he recommends you post the Behind the Scenes Video. (MON- 29 NOV 21)

I released a “Behind the Song” video. And checked the status of the ads I had running and optimized where I could. This is also when you want to ensure you’re re-sharing any shares of your track on socials.

Day 18: Is when he recommends an acoustic video. (TUES- 30 NOV 21)

I didn’t have an acoustic video so this is when I released the original demo of the song along with a bit of commentary about the meaning called, “Demo Diaries.”

Day 19: More Ad Optimization (WED- 1 DEC 21)

This is when I posted, “Just an Indie Singer-Songwriter Sharing her Music with the World” as another piece of short form content.

Day 20: Going LIVE (THURS- 2 DEC 21)

Is when he recommends doing a live session and talking a bit in between songs about the release and how everything went

This is the day I posted “Starting Over on Ice” as a way to keep the momentum going over on my YouTube channel. I didn’t do the live stream, but want to incorporate one into my future single release plans. 

Day 21: Is All about the Thank Yous (FRI- 3 DEC 21)

This is when you go back and thank everyone for supporting your new release because a little really goes a long way. You also want to analyze what went well and what could have been done better. That’s part of the reason I made this video as a sort of after action review with myself and to share that experience with my audience and other indie artists.

Results

During the selected dates, videos on my official YouTube artist channel got 2.2K views with 528 unique viewers or new eyeballs checking out my content and 9 new subscribers.

On Spotify, from the release date, November 26th thru the end of the 21-Day Plan, the song garnered just 12 streams and 6 saves. However, if we fast forward to one month later....

The song garnered 824 streams from 537 listeners, with 78 saves and 15 playlist adds.

To date, Starting over is still my most successful music release with almost 4,500 all-time streams (as of December 2022).

There wasn’t anything I did that can’t be replicated. I followed a set strategy coined by Damian Keys, used my own equipment, and made good content using a great song, while telling great stories that allowed my audience to get to know me. It’s as simple as that.  

And if you think this was interesting, you need to check out my YouTube channel for next steps in marketing your music.