Tag: Haulix Tips

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Boost Engagement With These Clever Haulix Promo Banners

Custom Banners Haulix

Haulix promos look great as is, but a few small changes can make a big impact on your contacts. We can help.

Haulix promos are designed to be beautiful and engaging right out of the box. We built our platform knowing that many professionals do not have the time or skills necessary to create original landing pages for each release, which is why they look great as is, but there are customization options available.

One of our favorite customization options is the banner. Located at the top of promo pages and promo invitations, the banner allows you to add one more image to your latest promotion.

We’ve seen countless examples of custom banners over the thirteen years we’ve been in business, but there are a handful of ideas that stand out as both a clever and creative way to increase the impact of a promo page. Check it out:

Promote The Physical Release Of Your New Album

Music professionals buy music. Maybe that isn’t shocking information to you, but it may sound alarms for others. Some believe critics never buy music because they have an unlimited amount of free content to consume at all times. However, in our experience, critics love purchasing the music they preview through Haulix. Knowing an album is great before you place an order is a huge relief.

The example above, from Listenable Records, promotes the upcoming vinyl release from the same band featured in the promo. The promo is for a single, but the banner announces the full release. It’s an eye-catching and informative piece of content that also serves as a reminder for key album information (artist, album title, label, etc.).

Increase Brand Recognition/Familiarity

Many publicists work with a wide variety of talent that can, in certain cases, stretch around the globe. To make sure their contacts recognize their latest campaigns, many clients use custom banners to promote their business, brand, and aesthetic. That way, contacts flipping through their emails will see the banner and think twice before moving on. 

The example above, from Transcending Obscurity, handles this well with a gorgeous, heavy metal-inspired logo that aligns with the sound of the artists they promote. TO is known for its ability to market smaller European metal bands, especially those from niche corners of the genre. For TO and their clients, brand recognition can mean the difference between a click and a skip.

Promote Your Mailing List

Did you know that Facebook and Instagram only show your content to roughly 5.2% of your followers? Twitter, TikTok, and other social media platforms are not much better.

We believe you shouldn’t be charged to reach people who have asked to receive news updates. More than any other form of communication, mailing lists nearly guarantee that your latest updates actually reach your fans. That is why we recently made a post and YouTube video about how surprisingly powerful mailing lists are in 2022.

The example above, from our client You, Me, And Everyone We Know, is simple and straightforward. It tells anyone listening exactly where they need to go to learn more about the band, which is information that promo listeners can use both in coverage and for themselves. It also emphasizes the importance of confirming the subscription, which Is never a bad idea. 

Share Tour Dates + Ticket Information

Haulix is built to promote music, but we know that the work of musicians does not stop in the studio. Every release cycle includes a tour, and custom banners are a perfect spot to promote upcoming performances. You can easily share dates and ticket information or point people toward the official tour site.

The example above, from UK metal band Architects, promotes the band’s 2018 tour. That banner tells people where and when to see the band, and it gives journalists something extra to mention in their coverage that could boost sales.

How do you use Haulix promo banners? Send your ideas to James@haulix.com.

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Why It’s Never A Good Idea To Forward Your Haulix Promos

Earlier this week I was browsing a forum for online music journalists when I came across a question I knew we had to feature on the blog. I won’t out the person who first posed this inquiry, but I did want to share their original comment in full as I feel it’s probably not far from how other young writers have felt or acted when trying to build their brand. It reads:

“Okay…. I just want to make sure I’m not making some rookie mistake. When I get haulix invites or private links, I forward it to my writer depending on their tastes, yeah? Obviously, you’re not supposed to share the invite, and my writers sign a disclaimer about not sharing music and if they do it’s on them, but surely they don’t mean “do not forward this to a writer?” I just ask because I got Finch’s album from razor and tie and she asked me to please not share it. I would never do that outside of sharing it with ONE writer that is writing the review.”

This is not an uncommon question, and to be honest we are kind of glad someone brought this post to our attention as it provides the perfect opportunity to address this concern on a large scale.

To put it the simplest terms possible: You should never share a Haulix promo. There is messaging included with every promo sent out that informs recipients their promos are not to be shared, but there are many who do not follow this request. By sharing Haulix promos you are not only breaking the trust of the label/publicist who sent you that material, but you are also putting yourself in a position to face severe legal repercussions should that material find its way onto the internet.

Most promos sent from Haulix are injected with numerous watermarks that not only identify the original recipient, but also the geo-locations of every person who accesses the respective promo. You should check each promo you receive to know whether or not that particular advance has a watermark. If you share your watermarked promo with someone, and that person later leaks the material online, our tools will point to you as the person responsible for the piracy. You may not have leaked the album yourself, but because the record was entrusted to you it is your responsibility to ensure it is not made available for public consumption. Should that occur, any legal action taken to recoup lost profits will be made against you and not the friend who you allowed to enjoy your advance.

To better explain what happens when an album leaks, we asked Rey Roldan of Another Reybee Production to share some of his experience with piracy:

“A blogger who is part of this site once sent a download of a band I was working with to two writers. One of his writers leaked the album (it was a very highly coveted advance). When we traced it back, we found his watermark. Label, management, band and I were thisclose to taking this a step further in the legal direction. While the writer was responsible for the leak, said "blogger” was ultimately responsible because he breached the contract (I often tick off the “watermark warning” with writers who I am unsure of, just as an extra warning). We got very close to making it legal but we opted to re-strategize and move forward.

I know some editors pass round links designated for them and it sucks. I usually often tell editors that if they are assigning a writer, give me their email address so I can get them their own watermarked music. To be honest, do YOU trust your writers to NOT leak music? If they did leak it, do you want to be legally and professionally responsible for that because YOUR watermark is on that music? God forbid, you pass your streak or download to a writer who inadvertently leaks it, do you want to become that industry pariah?

The music industry is really pretty tiny… Make the wrong move and it can follow you… Be smart about this… Request a link for anyone who is reviewing it for you. Don’t take the fall for anyone because it can happen a LOT easier than you think.”

Some sites may believe an easy solution to this problem is to have one email dedicated to receiving promos that every contributor can access. This may work at first, but should any member of your staff leave the site it is of the utmost importance you change both your email password, as well as your 4-digit Haulix passcode. That way, if they have a promo link and/or access to a promo, they can’t get to ***all**** promos, because they won’t know the passcode.

Likewise, if you allow writers to reach out to publicists on their own and one of your writers decides to leave your site, make sure you inform all publicists the writer has left and is no longer a part of your writing team. If not, that person may continue to receive advances that are linked to your site. Should something happen to those files, it may come back to you.

The best thing you can do to protect yourself and the reputation of your site is to first do a good job vetting your writing staff. Make sure you trust everyone you send releases to not only as writers, but as professionals in the industry. If you would not trust a writer to contact a label directly you might not want them handling advance releases.

Haulix has no say in what happens to individuals caught sharing watermarked materials. We are simply a middle man between journalists and labels. It’s up to our customers to handle the situation how they see fit.

Additionally, you should ALWAYS request additional promos if someone other than you will be reviewing material you have been sent. It may seem like this complicates or otherwise draws out the assignment process, but publicists would rather know who is in possession of their music than have less work to do. For example, let’s say I send you, a blog owner, a copy of my client’s album for your site. You receive the promo, pass it off to a writers, and several days later send me a link to a review of my client’s album written by someone who is not you. Who is this third party? How did they get the watermarked music I sent you? Are they someone I can trust? I have a million questions about this anonymous person. In fact, I may not want to send you another advance if I think you’re going to pass it off to more people I do not know.

It’s easy to understand why forwarding promos seems like a quick solution to the issue of how to get advances from one person to another, but actually taking part in such efforts puts you, your reputation, the livelihood of your site, and possibly even the reputations of your contributors at risk. It takes less than a minute to request additional promos, and doing so keeps you out of trouble.

Don’t risk a leak just to save time. It’s just not worth it.

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3 Ways To Increase Engagement With Your Haulix Promo

Hello again,everyone. We thought we would celebrate the arrival of June with a surprise second post this afternoon, so below you will fine a column aimed at helping Haulix clients increase engagement with their promotional invitations. If you have any questions about the content of the blog, or if you would like more information regarding the distributional services offered by Haulix, please email james@haulix.com and share your thoughts. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

Haulix is the most preferred and trusted distribution service amongst music bloggers, but it can often be hard for even the best artists to make writers engage with their promo. As music writers ourselves, we understand that this is not always a result of bloggers not caring, but more often than not is due to a lack of time on the bloggers’ part to properly interact with every promotional invitation that comes their way. We cannot guarantee how many clicks any single promo will receive, but by following the tips below clients can increase the likelihood that bloggers will want to engage with their promos:

Customize Your Promo Design

Over the last several years the Haulix development team has strived to create a system that looks good ‘out of the box,’ but at one point we realized that in order to serve our clients needs promos needed to be customizable in order to grab the attention of distracted/rushed bloggers clicking through cluttered inboxes. With this in mind our team built and released a number of tools and options for promo creation, including color changes, multiple messaging option, image inclusion/placement, banners, backgrounds, and more. That list may seem overwhelming, but we believe our design has made these tools easy-to-use, even for novice publicists. 

There are well over 5000 promo invitation sent out using the Haulix platform every day, and that is not even considering the thousands likely sent out on our competitor’s platforms, or the artists contacting journalists through file sharing services (mediafire, dropbox, etc). If you or your client are still struggling to gain the attention of the press, customizing your promo design should be the first course of action to try and spur a few additional clicks. For additional information on getting started with customization, click here for a three step guide to creating eye-popping promos.

Personalize Every Promotional Message

As your contact list grows, it can be very tempting to send the same promo to every single contact, or at least a large portion of your contacts, at the same time. After all, time is of the essence when working on album promotion, and if we’re being completely honest the information shared with one person is almost certainly the information you will share with every person you message. The problem, however, is that no writer likes to feel like they are just another faceless entity you leverage for free content. Like musicians, many writers have fragile egos, and they like to feel as if they are needed and or wanted by the world. Generic press promotions are a dime dozen for them, but personalized messaging in much more rare. 

There is no doubt that sending out a generic promo to a large enough contact list will receive engagement, but content delivered with a personal touch will almost assuredly perform better with press. When you write to people and use not only their name, but facts about who they are and/or what they do you convey a sense of caring that forges a much stronger connection than a message delivered with marketing lingo and sales information could ever hope to achieve. If people believe you care for them and take in interest in what they do they are far likelier to want to work with you, regardless of what type of content you are trying to push. Networking is a force like no other, and learning to network well can make a world of difference in the trajectory of not only your career, but the careers of everyone you know as well.

Send out reminders, especially when promos are about to expire.

This may seem like a given, but having spent over half a decade writing about music I can tell you first hand that only a small percentage of publicists/bands ever follow up on the invitations that they send. They might resend that same promo, sure, but actually taking the time to reach out to individuals with personalized messaging to remind them a promo is available or alert them that promos may expire is far more rare. 

Make time for reminders. The average music writer receives well over 100 emails a day, and as much as they may desire to give attention to every email that catches their interest there is simply not enough time in the day for such a thing to occur. Many probably tell themselves they will catch up the next day, but then they awake to 100 new messages and the process starts all over. Reminders add to this clutter, yes, but they also reenforce the messaging you are trying to convey. Sending reminders gives you another chance to grab a writer’s attention, and taking the time to personalize the messaging further increases the likelihood of engagement/response.

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