If you want to license more of your music in more places, you need to get more of your music to more people in the business.  It sounds sort of obvious and it is.  But it's easy to forget to follow through on this basic reality of the licensing business.  Assuming your music is where it needs to be in terms of production and you're making music that there is a demand for, the next step is to connect your music with the right people.

If you’re ever not sure what to do in terms of moving forward on the path of licensing more music, you can always simply submit your music to more places.  Submitting music and connecting with people in the industry is really a critical part of being successful, regardless of what stage you’re at.  It never really stops. Unless you’ve reached a point where you’re simply content with the number of placements you’re getting and the income you’re generating from your music, if you want to keep growing, you need to continue the process of reaching out and pitching your music.  It’s simply part of the “job”.

I suggest using an industry directory, or several, as your main tool for building your contact list.  Of course I am biased to the one my company publishes.  It's the best and most comprehensive directory I know of.  Using directories will save you a LOT of time digging around on Google looking for companies that license music and figuring out if they even accept unsolicited submissions.  They are well worth the minimal cost if you are serious about making contacts and getting your music licensed.  As they say, time is money, and using a directory that has everything laid out for you in an organized fashion will save you a ton of time and a ton of money.

Here's the system myself and my assistant use for building our contact list:

Several times a month I have my assistant email all of the contacts in one category within our directory.  She sends a brief email introducing me and my music and asks what the best way to submit music is, and what kind of styles they are currently in need of.  One week she might email specifically music publishers.  Another week she'll email Film Trailer Houses.  Another week Music Supervisors... and so on.

If we get a response, we create a folder specifically for that company and of course submit any relevant music they are looking for and follow up with them. That company is then removed from our internal directory so we know not to contact them again with our introductory email.

We do this same process for all of the categories in our directory.  When my assistant runs out of categories, she starts over emailing any companies that didn't respond to our initial email.  Every time she does this, we get new responses.  Some companies take three or four emails before we get a response.  This could be because they don't need anything when we initially respond, and they do later. Or, it could be because they're too busy to respond initially.  Whatever the case may be, we continue to yield new leads for months and months using this process.

When we get a positive response, we submit the styles of music they request and we then work on building an ongoing relationship where we continue to supply music regularly.  Some companies pan out and some don't.  Sometimes we're simply not a good fit for whatever reason.  Some companies accept my music but don’t yield any actual placements. But we have been building a solid list of people working in the business who turn to us for music and who we can pitch to as I create new music. You can do the same, if you follow this approach systematically. 

Ready to start pitching your music using this same systematic approach?

This weekend only, save 60% off the cost of our comprehensive directory containing over 1,600 listings for music supervisors, publishers, music libraries, video game companies, music trailer houses and more. 

In addition to the directory, as a free bonus, you'll also get daily licensing leads for an entire year!  You'll receive a new lead, for a new place to submit your music, every single day for an entire year.

For more information, visit: 
https://www.htlympremium.com/2023-music-licensing-directory.html

Talk soon,

Aaron Davison
How To License Your Music
htlympremium.com