This article will help upcoming artists understand the importance of album cover art, artwork or simply cover art for music promotion.
I keep seeing a whole lot of upcoming artists, yearning for an effective music promotion, especially online, but they have one poor or bad album cover art.
Most of them go to the extent of using their smartphone to design album cover art for their music promotion. And worst of all, they affix a photo they also snap with a smartphone.
While some, because they have access to or own a system unit or laptop; end up doing the design by themselves., instead of seeking the services of a professional graphic designer.
So while observing all these and lots more, I finally come to realize that; the majority of upcoming musicians do not know the importance of artwork or cover art, especially when it comes to online music promotion.
That is why they pay less attention to it.
And for that reason I am writing this article, to help a lot of upcoming artists who will read it; achieve effective online music promotion by using a good album cover.
What is album cover art?
Album cover art is a graphic design that usually carries the image, name and other vital details about an artist and his music.
Before now, you have invested a lot of time, money, energy, emotions, ideas, etc, into composing, recording, mixing, and mastering process.
You have even gone as far as shooting a very nice video for your track. You’ve done it all and it sounds good and looks nice.
And it’s about time for you to deliver it to the world; via the modern delivery system known as the internet.
There are hundreds of online platforms for music promotion.
Some are free, some charge less while some even charge a huge amount, promising thousands of views and downloads.
However, even if your choice of having your song online settles on a free online music platform; there is one thing you must upload alongside your song.
And that is the album cover.
In the website dashboard, we call it a featured image.
Importance of album cover art in music promotion.
Album cover art is very important in music promotion because it will help the music consumer to judge if the song inside has value or quality.
This goes to say that an artist who has spent good money to record quality music will also do well to have a dope album cover art for it.
This is more important to upcoming artists whose music has not yet been listened to, especially if they are promoting it online.
Now permit me to clearly state here that it is this artwork, album cover, cover art, feature image; or whatever name else you might give to it, that will attract a viewer and compel him or her to click on a post that will lead them to listen, watch or download any music online.
In other words, online viewers will not just click on any post and start listening to a song.
Something must compel them to do so, and that’s when your album cover comes to play.
Why online music consumers do not download or listen to music made by upcoming artists.
Now one might ask, why do online users refuse to click on an upcoming musician’s song online just like that?
The answer is simply that, they are afraid to waste their time and data on a song that is whack, or poorly recorded.
Poor studio recording.
I was opportune to live with a very popular DJ back then in Wazobia FM, Lagos.
Every day this DJ will return home with several CDs being submitted by an upcoming artist who wants their song to be played on air.
We will then sit down to listen to the songs one by one; in order to ascertain if they are ok to be played on the radio.
Because radio stations have their policy on the kinds of songs you must play, breaking those rules always carries a big fine as a penalty.
So after accessing those songs one after the other, we will always discover that most of them were either whack or had low or no production quality at all.
Some of you will not even hear what the artiste was singing, especially the rap songs.
While others, the artiste’s rendition would be good but the studio production is a total mess up.
Now while I was having those experiences, I never knew I will one day become an online music promoter, and have lots of music being submitted to me by upcoming artists for online promotion.
And permit me to add quickly here that, most of the songs I still receive from upcoming artists today are a total mess.
I can however stand in for the upcoming artists of those days who had poor studio production.
Because Nigeria was not advanced in the art of audio-making as it is today.
There were very few recording studios in Lagos back then, and the cost of recording a track was also very expensive.
I remember in 2005 when I went to Kennis music to inquire about recording a song.
A track was 15,000 Naira, and their minimum track recording was 4 which made the sum total of making a track 60,000 Naira.
They even called those 4 tracks a single.
Music production in Nigeria today.
But today there is no denying the fact that Nigeria has advanced so much in the art of making good music.
To the extent that, an upcoming artiste can achieve a very good sound recording even from a home recording studio.
He can even choose to buy a beat online for a low price and pay little in the studio for the voice, mixing, and mastering processes.
Therefore, poor sound quality in the audio making, should not be raised or discussed as a problem in today’s music industry.
Having taken the pains to explain all this to you, I hope you now understand why online viewers do not risk their time and data to click on an upcoming artiste’s music they find online.
They will instead prefer to search for new songs by the big artists; knowing that those ones are already certified to give them what they want.
But then, I can bet it on my life that it will be very hard for an online viewer to scroll by without clicking on a post from an upcoming artist music promotion that carries a very nice and attractive artwork or covers art.
The saying “don’t judge a book by its cover” is not applicable here because it won’t take the viewer much time to confirm the authenticity of the music once he clicks on it.
And of course, if the song is good he would end up downloading and even including it in his playlist.
Conclusion.
I hope you now understand that your artwork or cover art is the first view an online user will have about your work.
So you must ensure that it represents the quality of the music you have online for promotion.
If you want your music to have lots of online listeners, watch time, and downloads, make sure you go for the best cover design you can ever think of.
I will even advise you not to try to do it by yourself, even if you are the best graphic designer.
Connect with another best graphic designer, and share ideas with him.
And in no time you will see what great artwork or cover art you guys will come up with.
Good graphic designers are everywhere; you can even meet a lot of them online, contact them, and tell them to send you samples. Negotiate the price and soon you will see what great cover art you will have, plus how the views of your online music will increase sporadically.
But before you contact your graphic designer or still decide to do it yourself, you need to have an idea of what makes up good cover art.
So read the follow-up of this article here: Qualities Of Good Album Cover Art For Music Promotion.
Good luck!
