Electronic Press Kit
ELECTRONIC PRESS KIT by DERICK MACKINNON
The following article is designed to help you create an Electronic Press Kit (EPK). Like most things in music, when you know how it’s really quite easy. This is one of the most important tools you can have, it’s a digital CV, enabling you to send one link to > music journalists, radio presenters/producers, promoters, agents allowing them to LISTEN to your music, read your BIOG, see PHOTOS and watch VIDEOS of you. The main purpose is to help you secure press / radio and build a fanbase.
USING THIS GUIDE the rather splendid band Bunkhouse flattered us recently with this email on the results: “Hello Derick, hope you’re well. We e-mailed you about our band at the start of the year when we released our debut album. You gave us some very handy info about EPKs that has proved very useful in getting us plays on BBC 6 Music, Amazing Radio and reviews in The Skinny and The Irish Times. So thanks for the tips!”
New Found Sound founder Derick Mackinnon co-writes an Artist of the Week column in Scotland On Sunday. Check his Services page. By far the most popular service New Found Sound offer is Press and PR campaigns and the most important tool for a successful PR campaign is an Electronic Press Kit [EPK]. (our team designing an EPK is our second most popular service)
You can use your EPK to: 1) secure Press and PR features | 2) gain airplay on Radio and TV | 3) Get gigs and festival slots 4) gain new Fans / Customers (and a whole lot more).
Before you start seeking media attention, make sure you include everything they are likely to need. Make it as easy as possible for journalists to choose you (instead of the other 100 bands in their inbox). Email a link to download (please DO NOT attach massive files) your Electronic Press Kit [EPK] with:
-Music MP3s / WAV files etc (ALWAYS include a link for journalists to Listen/Stream your music SoundCloud for example, nobody is downloading a WAV to listen to your music!)
-Biography (a short story on your band)
-Photographs / Artwork (high resolution for printed media & low for websites / socials include BOTH versions)
-Video (if you have one, this is NOT essential at all)
You should also include CONTACT details + info on future gigs / releases but more on that a little later.
Do some basic research into WHO you approach, did they write about a band similar in genre to you / play similar sounding band on their radio show? Then PERSONALLY contact them, I guarantee your chances of securing coverage increase tenfold (rather than the spray & pray mass email thousands of folks).
CREATE a downloadable EPK, enabling you to send a single link to a journalist / radio presenter / with everything they need. You’re immediately ahead of other bands in their inbox (even some PR companies!)
IF you make it as easy as possible for a journalist to feature you, naturally, your chances increase
The Artist of the Week feature in Scotland On Sunday that Derick co-writes is published in the physical newspaper AND online see https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/music
Since the column is printed in the physical newspaper we NEED a high resolution press photograph, 300 dpi [dots per inch, at least a couple megabytes]. Every week, we receive images taken from social networks, that if printed in an A3 sized newspaper like Scotland On Sunday, would be blurred and pixelated. This is experienced Managers, decent sized Record Labels, Musicians and most worrying of all, even PR companies! IF you do not have a high resolution colour, press photograph (ie not live), unfortunately we can’t feature you, (regardless of how much I might ❤️ your music), it’s a deal-breaker.
>Top tip: the cameras on modern smart phones can easily take high resolution photos so there is no excuse!
CREATE your Electronic Press Kit [EPK] / one sheet BEFORE you start approaching press. DOWNLOAD this template you can edit and amend to make your own version ➡ https://bit.ly/EPK-NFS | THIS is how you set up Dropbox
The following is a little more info on what you need to include within your EPK when contacting media:
1) BIOGRAPHY: A bio is simply a short story giving some background information on your band – it’s important to include information like where you’re from (small village or town is more interesting than a big city), how long you’ve been playing, your upcoming shows. Ideally things which set you apart that are more newsworthy / interesting than just a new release; are you super young? Are you best friends with Lewis Capaldi / supported famous bands? Do any prominent media already rate you? Have you played festivals? This is all-important. Likewise, the more interesting you are the more likely a feature is, include some non-music facts or info. Man Bites Dog is immediately more intriguing than Dog Bites Man. I’ve featured bands who were all stand-up comedians, others got up at 5am to work together in a bakery (& realising they were all musicians started a band together). I still remember these as it’s immediately interesting to a journalist (who receives hundreds of emails a day / week) as it’s a bit different / unusual. Don’t underestimate the potential for media to write about you, play your music based on an intriguing story!!!
Keep contact short, simple and factual when you’re starting out (little white lies are ok). If you are a new band, it’s understandable, likely even, that you might not have a lot to talk about. Here is a useful link courtesy of BBC 6 Music’s Tom Robinson with tips on How To Write a Biography: http://freshonthenet.co.uk/biogs/ (submit a track while you’re at it too)
“The Golden Rule: don’t tell us how great you are. Tell us how interesting you are.” Tom Robinson, BBC 6 Music / Steve Lawson
2) MUSIC: generally media DO NOT want to download files from you, especially if it’s first contact, (I certainly don’t / won’t). Email a link to Stream your music (private SoundCloud link is perfect). Note that email accounts at big publications (The Scotsman, BBC etc) are designed to automatically block emails with large attachments!!
IF / when you get a reply, that’s probably when a journalist will ask (if you haven’t sent already) for your full EPK. Again do NOT attach MP3s / music files, in fact do NOT attach anything use a link to your EPK / a Dropbox Folder or Google Drive. It’s worth noting, that via SoundCloud you can allow media to download your music too, so it’s by far the best platform for sending music. To gain airplay on BBC Introducing and Amazing Radio (see Amazing Radio) you need to UPLOAD your songs. IF you want, there is certainly no harm in sending a personal email to a BBC or Amazing Radio presenter, just include a download link / don’t attach anything.
3) PHOTOS: It’s important to understand that print media (although sadly, quite rare, which of course makes it even more desirable) can’t feature an artist or band without a high-resolution press photograph. (it makes sense right, if you print a tiny photo in an A3 newspaper it’ll be blurred/pixelated)
Online media/blogs are more abundant and arguably just as important, however, in a bid to save storage space and allow websites to load quicker, online media need small, low resolution images.
>Top tip: include both HIGH RESOLUTION photos for printed media (+posters, festivals etc) & LOW RES versions for online blogs / social posts (watch this VIDEO featuring professional photographer Jannica Honey to learn everything you need to know about High/Low Res photos)
Use Dropbox, spark.Adobe.com, or Google Drive to host your entire EPK (Photos, Music [MP3/WAVs], Biog/One sheet, maybe Video etc) WeTransfer is a good platform worth a mention for sending BIG files (like video / WAVs or Photos). Dropbox and Google Drive are (in my opinion) the best platforms to use for hosting / storing your EPK (which will include JPEGs, Word, Pages, Excel, PDFs, MP3s, WAVs, MP4s etc).
4) SOCIAL MEDIA: This is a little bonus: in keeping with making things as easy and convenient as possible, that includes posting about your band from official accounts when the publication or radio station actually writes about you or plays your single. We incorporate this into all of our press campaigns for festivals etc. A journalist should be able to simply copy & paste a Tweet / Facebook or Instagram post, complete with all @Tags / links + use one of your photos. The EXAMPLE in the download pack ⬇️ is a campaign we created for Un-Convention
For all items in an Electronic Press Kit (EPK) we recommend DROPBOX it’s by far our favourite and you can access your EPK / files on your phone with the Dropbox app. Google Drive is pretty good too. New Found Sound also create a version of your EPK built and hosted by spark.Adobe.com it looks ace.
> Here are some more tips on getting press coverage:
Be personal. Contact journalists / radio presenters individually and use their names. Just about every blog, radio show, TV show and newspaper lists the name [and often email address at least Twitter handles] of their writers, so take advantage of that. LISTEN to a radio show you’re asking to play your music and READ an article written by the music journalist you’re pitching your band to, even comment on a recent show, song or review you enjoyed, trust me it helps. Personally I’m not keen on people messaging me via Facebook (it’s really IRRITATING @tagging me + another 100 folks on a Facebook status btw) if I don’t really know you, that will instantly mean I’m not going to be listening to your music. Strangely, I don’t mind so much Twitter or InstaG msgs. IF you have it I’d recommend ALWAYS use an email address. I know from experience, if I spend an afternoon personally contacting 10 people (it’s how I run a campaign) rather than the spray and pray method of mass emailing 200, guaranteed I’ll get more results. Being personal is way more time consuming, and you do need to read / listen to some shows / articles, but it’s a lot more effective than mass emails (do the mass emailing as well, but do so at least a week after you’ve personally contacted people, see point number 2 ⬇️)
Start a mailing list. I’d recommend MailChimp (< click to View/Download How to tip sheet) maybe YourMailingListProvider (although this is an older service). Not only is this a useful tool for getting press but it’ll help you build a fanbase, earn money and even get more gigs. This also allows you to see WHO opens your emails, WHEN they open them and IF they CLICKED on any links. For example - someone at the BBC or The Scotsman clicks on the download link for your Electronic Press Kit, or private SoundCloud link to your new single, you now know - for a fact - they’ve opened your email AND clicked on something. This definitely merits a personal / follow up email in a week or even a few days.
Only contact press and media when you have activity worth talking about. Releasing a new single, EP, album? Great but it’s not that unusual, (before the pandemic 40,000 songs per day on Spotify, this figure doubled during the pandemic). IF you ALSO have an exotic tour, festival dates, etc then it is more newsworthy. Obviously, LIVE gigs are very useful and should be included in a tour / press release / PR likewise if you are playing house gigs or you’re doing a virtual tour or livestream, definitely include this. Always approach radio / journalists when you have something interesting happening as well as your new single, ideally all of the above.
Plan your release timeline. When releasing music / running a press campaign, confirm the release date with your distributor (EmuBands for example, by far our favourite, they’ll pick up the phone and let you speak to a real person!) then work backwards from that date on a calendar, allowing yourself a minimum of 6 weeks (ideally longer say 8 weeks) to generate coverage. For example if your release is coming out in MARCH then you should begin your press campaign at least mid-JANUARY (maybe before). This gives you the best possible chance of securing press & radio coverage (and you should maximise your chances, after all you have already put a lot of time, energy and money into writing and recording the song). NB we recommend more time for an album release you need more time to plan everything (and more notice esp. to larger press outlets) about 3 months should do it
Never attach large music files to emails. In fact, try to avoid attaching anything altogether, when you attach BIG files to emails all you accomplish is you annoy people, there’s absolutely no need to do this in 2022 and it’s not a good place to start! As I mentioned earlier, media are actively looking for new music to shout about, so if you do everything you can to make it easy for them to choose YOU / over the hundreds of other bands/artists contacting them, you stand as good a chance as anyone (maybe slightly better).
Go to gigs and support other bands / your local scene. The benefits will become obvious very quickly. When I see the same band(s) regularly out and about at gigs etc, firstly it’s likely I will have a chat with them, give them my contact details and as long as they’re good, write about them. It’s logical, if you’re out and about (your in with a shout extra points for the artist who has that line) you meet people, when you meet people in person it’s more likely you’ll get a reply when you email, more likely you’ll be offered opportunities like press features, support slots etc. You’d be surprised how helpful it can be simply talking to other musicians and people in your town too >Top tip post a photo / short video clip from gigs and events you go to & @Tag the bands playing / organisers - it’s brilliant content but helps get your name about too
Network and attend music events in person where music industry people are speaking. In England Un-Convention (in Manchester) & The Great Escape (in Brighton), in Scotland XpoNorth (in Inverness), Wide Days (in Edinburgh), Output (Northern Ireland) and in Wales Focus Wales (these are just a few, there are lots all over the UK). These are AMAZING for learning what’s going on, meeting industry people and other bands! Meeting people in person is one of the most important things you can do, journalists, radio presenters, other musicians, record labels, photographers, managers, promoters - meeting face-to-face is far more memorable than receiving yet another email
Here is an example of an Electronic Press Kit (EPK) this is what is called a ➡ One Sheet (simply one sheet of A4 paper which contains EVERYTHING a journalist / presenter needs, your music, biography, photos, etc etc) send this link with a short email to people.
DOWNLOADS: ➡ Visit ➡ https://bit.ly/EPK-NFS to download a template EPK you can edit and make your own. This ➡ PDF outlines the process of taking your EPK folder (with Photos, Music, Video & Biog etc) and turning it into a downloadable link.
If this article is useful to you, please like us on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/user/newfoundsound | Off Axis: https://bit.ly/Off-Axis-Spotify | Scotland on Sunday: https://bit.ly/ScotlandOnSunday
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