What Makes A Successful Song? - The Formula of a Successful Song.

WHAT MAKES A SUCCESSFUL SONG?

A successful song is a song that gets a lot of attention, your audience love it, share it and listen to it over and over again.

Plus, it should answer your goals that you set.

A successful song leans on two things:

1. The song itself

2. The exposure it gets

If the song is good it just needs to get exposed so many people can listen to it.

The song itself

The song is built from several ingredients.

Lyrics – good songwriting is a really important part of the song, it’s the bridge between the listener and the song, people love to read lyrics, a good lyrics will get them connected to the song.

Vibe/mood – the vibes of the song reflects what the listener should feel when listening to the song. You want them to be happy or sad? You want them to dance or cry? Setting a clear vibes will get the listener to understand and connect to the song, however unclear vibes might confuse the listener or might make him lose interest of it. The vibes should be reflected in the melody and the lyrics. 

Melody – melody is what makes the song a song, when writing the melody you need to consider the vibes of the song and the singer’s skills (this is why making a sketch is important before producing the song).

Singing/vocals – the way the singer sings is also a big part of the song, it should considers the vibes of the song, the comfort vocal range of the singer and the way he uses his voice. Bad singing can ruin the whole song, however even a bad singer can use his voice wisely. 

Mixing – mixing is a large part of the song, it what connects the melody and the vocals together, in simple words, it’s what makes the song sounds professional and clean .

Quality – the quality of the recording is very important, if the song is recorded bad and hard to hear it might ruin the song as long as it ruins  its vibes. Sometimes bad quality can reflects better the vibes of the song, but consider that when it sounds cleaner it’s simpler to understand the lyrics and makes it sound perfect on different devices.

The exposure the song gets (marketing)

After you made a good song you want people to listen to it.

Releasing it without a marketing strategy would be a big mistake because when you do so the most likely you won’t get enough listeners and you would think then that you have a bad song, though you don’t.

It’s important to do not compare yourself to those artists who says “I just released my song to SoundCloud and people liked it”, that’s not a thing that happens usually and when it does, I believe they had a marketing strategy.

If it’s your first release and you don’t have much fans or audience, or maybe you have released music and still you don’t have fans and audience, you should read this:

No fans or audience means nobody knows you – doesn’t mean your music is bad or that you are a bad musician.

There are a lot of musicians and bands that got discovered after their second or third LP.

There are many ways and strategies to release your music, but I know that this is the last thing you want to do right now, to choose. You are probably not a professional marketer and not an experienced musician on the industry yet, you can’t choose the right strategy for you. So you can do two things, call to an expert or let me simplify it for you.

The first thing you must understand about marketing is – if your audience are there, be there too.

If you know that your audience are on Spotify, get your music onto Spotify, if your audience are on Instagram because your music is talking on a specific topic maybe, be on Instagram, if they love doing sport, get your music in GYM places or on training playlists.

I said I’ll simplify it for you, so here it is, know your targeted audience and find out where they spend their time at.

But take in consideration that you have to try spending money as less as you can, but don’t be afraid to spend it and get experienced.

If you know your audience are on Spotify remember that there are also enough audience for you on SoundCloud as well and SoundCloud is free to upload your music to there, in contrast of Spotify that you need to pay to a third side distributor to get your music on it (there are also free ones but I recommend reading the ‘terms and conditions’ before using).

After you made a research on your audience and the platform or the place where you want your music to be is clear, it’s time to sit and think:

• Do you know the platform you chose? Have you ever spent time on it? I mean bunch of time, have you ever listened to music there?

• Do you know how to get your music there? Does it cost you money or is it free? What file format do they require? What quality? How long does it take for your music to get uploaded?

• Do you know how to target your music to your targeted audience on the platform? If you are playing it on a GYM place so it’s already targeted but if you upload it to SoundCloud - how do you target your music to only heavy-metal lovers or only Pop lovers? Social media platforms work on tags and keywords usually, find out how the platform works so you will get to the right ears.

• Have you read the ‘terms and conditions’ page? 

• Artwork/video – nowadays most of the platforms are asking for an artwork that represents the song to be uploaded along with the song.

Choose wisely something that represents the vibes of the song.

It can be a photo that you took outside or a selfie of yours, it can also be drawing or digital art or whatever is on your mind whilst it represents the vibes and the mood of the song.

Here too, you can hire an expert if you find it hard to do it yourself, after all you are a musician not a graphic designer or a photographer (you should consider hiring a freelancer depends on the budget you have, just don’t compromise on it too much).

What about a video? music video, lyrics video, it’s good that you have enough time and money for it but I recommend you to wait with that because you might find yourself spending a lot of money, time and effort for nothing, because you don’t need this yet.

A music video does drive more new listeners and it might express the song’s mood better than an artwork, however a music video is something that you should make after you uploaded the audio so you can understand if your audience really get connected to it or not.

Don’t spend your time on something that you don’t need yet, after all you are a new musician on the industry and you want to keep the money to the relevant things.

• What’s your budget? Think how much you are ready to spend, be realistic. Divide it to two budgets:

1. For artwork/video

2. For marketing                                        

The most of the budget should be spend on marketing.

• What can you do to promote your song on the platform? organically  (without spending money) and not organically (paid promotions).

• Can you do it yourself or do you need help? Consider finding someone who will help you with the promoting strategy you just made.

That’s it, it’s time to do acts, everything has planned and now you can try it.

To sum up, first make sure you have a good song then market it, understand who your audience are and where they spend their time at.

Use organic and paid promotion to promote your song, spend less money and use it wisely.

About me:

My name is Darel Bens, I'm 19 year old, I've been into music since I was 13, I learned music production and the last 3 years I've spent learning marketing. Making marketing strategies is one of my hobbies and my professions.

Plus, I'm a graphic designer which I learned at home and worked with my brother on a huge project of a horror game called "Denial" (our first game), I was the graphic designer and the sound designer of the game.

My dream is to be a successful singer and to expose my messages to those who care.

Write to me: darelbens1@gmail.com

My Instagram: @officialdarelbens