[00:00:00] welcome to episode 140 of the Bandhive Podcast.

It is time for another episode of the Bandhive Podcast. My name is James Cross and I help independent artists tour smart this week. We're not talking about touring. We are talking about SubmitHub now. You might remember if you've been a long time listener of the podcast back on episodes, 63 and 66, we covered SubmitHub. The first one,

number 63 was SubmitHub success strategies with Steve Martin of Ascending Everest. Wow. There's a lot of sibling in that sentence. And then the second one was number 66. SubmitHub the founder's perspective with Jason Grishkoff. And of course, Jason is the founder and main designer and developer of SubmitHub. So it's great to have those two episodes, but it's been about, 70 episodes since then a little over 70 episodes, almost 80 in the case of Steve's episode.

So it's been a year and a half. It's been quite some time since we talked about SubmitHub on the show and. There have been some changes to the platform. So because [00:01:00] of this, it's now time for a refresher on how to use the platform. And specifically, in this episode, I'm gonna cover some of the common mistakes that artists make, which results in them not getting the amount of approvals that they would like to get on SubmitHub. as we dive into this, keep in mind that I'm attacking this from the angle of why you're not getting as many approvals as you want with the goal being that you can work on those things to get more bang for your buck on SubmitHub in your future submissions.

So the first thing that we're gonna talk about, and this is something I see almost every single submitter OnIt hub do: the spray and pray method. They submit to anyone who accepts the genres they are in. And maybe sometimes they'll even label their song as genres that it's not in, just so they can reach more curators in the hopes that somebody will pick it up.

And that does not work. Curators build an audience who appreciates their music taste. Right? So that means that curators want to maintain that audience. And they do this by staying on [00:02:00] brand. So they share music in line with what their audience expects to hear whether it's a playlist or a blog or a YouTube channel, whatever it is, curators are going to share music that is similar to music they've shared in the past.

That is how they build an audience and they don't want to throw their audience. So the number one mistake I see is people who submit their music to the wrong curators. The easy way to avoid this is to not submit to curators outside of the genre that you put your music in, whatever genre that is.

And you know, maybe you have multiple genres. There's a bit of a crossover. That's fine. You can do that. But if you're a rapper and you submit as pop punk, that's gonna get turned down 99% of the time, if not a hundred percent of the time, because that's not what people are looking for. by purposely mislabeling your songs, you are just shooting yourself in . The foot.

Even if it's not on purpose, if it's just a little bit of a stretch, it's not great. You could submit an indie rock song[00:03:00] to a curator who accepts indie rock and have it declined because yes, they accept indie and you play indie, but it's a different vibe. It's a different kind of indie. The next level of avoiding this besides, you know, just being honest about your genre tags is once you have realistic genre tags go and listen to what those curators have recently shared.

It's like the last couple months. And if your song doesn't fit in with the other songs they've shared recently, it's probably not a fit for that curator's outlet. You don't want to submit a song that's drastically different from what they've been. because if you do, your chances of being declined are higher.

if you want to go for those stretches, that's fine. But if you want to have the best approval rates, you need to also carefully select the best matches for your song. So you listen to their stuff and then you objectively decide if it could be a potential fit or not now, even if it sounds super similar, [00:04:00] there aren't any guarantees.

But in my experience doing this basic research makes an approval way more likely. Now, keep in mind that aside from style curators are also going to look for things like a good production or a lofi production or happy songs or sad songs. There could be so many factors that they consider it's, almost endless.

So you kind of have to get a feel for what your song is and what that curator shares and see if it's a fit or. Then at that point, it's a gamble. You don't know if they're gonna approve it or not. Once you submit, but you have a fairly good idea of what they're looking for and you think, okay, this is close enough.

That it's worth submitting. So with all those factors, what does that mean? Basically? It means that you could submit an absolutely amazing song. It could be the best song ever written. It's perfect all around from the song, writing to the performance, to the recording, to the production, all that stuff is amazing, but it still gets declined.

Don't take that as an insult or a slap to the face. The curator is just saying this song isn't right [00:05:00] for us, even though it's an amazing song, this doesn't fit our brand or what our audience expects from us. It's as simple as that, it's not personal, having used SubmitHub both as a curator and as a submitter, when I submit a song, I don't take the feedback personally.

And likewise, when I'm writing feedback as a curator, I don't mean anything personally. I just tell people what I think of the song typically, because I have a background in production. I talk about the production and what could be better there, but sometimes the production is good and the song just doesn't catch me.

So I say, Hey, this is, this sounds really good, but something's missing. Like it's not catching me. It's not like saying, Hey, you gotta listen to this. It's not pulling me by the collar and saying, Hey, check this out. And that's what I look for when I share songs is songs that really make me want to listen to.

You can do all kinds of stuff, but if I don't wanna listen to the song, I'm probably not gonna share it because it hasn't hooked me. So now that we've gotten all that out of the way, it's time to look at the deeper issues issues [00:06:00] with your track itself. So we're beyond the, you know, brand mismatch part of things, let's say that the brand matches the song would fit for that curator's playlist or blog or whatever.

The next thing is. Your production value has to be at least passable for almost any curator on SubmitHub to accept it. If your production value does not sound good, if it sounds like an amateur band from the eighties recorded it direct to a cassette, it's probably not gonna get approved unless that's the sound the curator is going for another thing, if the guitars aren't tuned or set up correctly, you're probably gonna get declined.

I can't tell you how many bands submit songs with guitars that aren't tune. It's pretty bad. Like, you can hear it. You, you listen right away and you're like, oh yeah, this guitar is not in tune. Why would they release this? Like they should have redone the guitars properly set up and tuned, but bands still think that is gonna get approved.

So they submit it. If your vocals are thin or distant [00:07:00] or you sound like you were recorded in a kitchen, you're probably not gonna get the results you want. All of these things add up. There could also be so many other issues with your production. I can't list them all. It's just not possible. But do you keep this in mind?

Your production doesn't have to be perfect, but the better it is, the higher your chances of success on SubmitHub are gonna be, it's not impossible to get approved with bad production, but the odds go down. So if your song has like top level production and it sounds amazing. You might have like a 50, 50 shot of getting approved.

Whereas if you sound awful, you probably have like a one in 100 chance of getting approved. keep that in mind. It doesn't have to be perfect, but the better your production can be. The more likely it is that you are going to get approved. I know to most of you, that probably sounds like a no brainer, but you would be amazed how many artists send in songs.

That just sound terrible. Not because the song is bad, but because the production. The worst thing I've ever [00:08:00] heard, and I'm not exaggerating. The worst songs I've ever heard have been submitted on. SubmitHub you have to be realistic. And if your song is not ready, don't submit it.

That's really all I can say about that. The next facet to consider is your actual song writing. So your song and your performance, and keep in mind that I'm kind of saying song and track interchangeably here. But when I talk about production, I mean the track, when I say song, at least from now on, I mean your songwriting performance and the question is, are you skilled enough to compete with artists who have been releasing music for decades?

Maybe they're assigned to major labels. All that kind of stuff. And yes, major labels do use SubmitHub as well as a lot of well known publicists who work with established acts. I have had major labels submit their music to me on SubmitHub. They use it. That is who you're competing with on SubmitHub your music needs to be that.

Now don't get discouraged because on SubmitHub, . I [00:09:00] have approved way more independent artists than I have label artists, but it's been independent artists who are great at what they do. And you need to be able to compete with that level of songwriting and performance. The average garage band, isn't gonna be able to plan the same level.

As artists who live and breathe music and have honed their craft to become masters of what they do. again, don't take this personally. You gotta look at a blog or curator's approval rate. And if they approve 30% of submissions, okay, maybe you have a chance, but if they approve one or 2% of submissions, you better have really good music.

You better be great at what you do. You better have amazing production, or you're not gonna get approved,

You have to be realistic about what you're submitting and if your stuff is terrible. I know it's tough to kind of internalize that, but you have to say, Hey, this is terrible. We're probably not gonna get many approvals. Or maybe even let's not put this out there yet.

Let's work on this until it sounds better. And then we can.[00:10:00] Now I mentioned changes and none of the above has changed your music quality and your submissions process of finding the right curators. That all needs to be on point to get the best results. But what has changed on mid hub is how you ask for feedback.

So if you've used SubmitHub before and before the last two or three months or so, really. there used to be three options for feedback. You had feedback important, which would mean the curator has to listen for at least 20 seconds and give you 10 words of feedback.

Then you had, I don't care about feedback, which was the same 20 seconds and 10 words of feedback, but the feedback could be copy pasted and you weren't able to leave a rating of how that feedback was. So this way the curator could basically write whatever they want last but not least. You had the, I don't want feedback option, which resulted in the curator having to listen to at minimum, 90 seconds of your song or the full duration of the song.

If it wasn't 90 seconds. SubmitHub very publicly, always advised to use the [00:11:00] main option, which was 20 seconds plus feedback. I care about feedback option. A lot of people used other options and those other options existed because people wouldn't stop asking for them, but because SubmitHub believes in transparency, they have many times publicly said, Hey, if you use these options, You will have a lower approval rate. So one of the things I can say is even if you don't like the feedback, choose feedback important, at least on the old system, the new system, there are still three different options, but it's been rephrased. So those requests are slightly more accurate. The first two are still a 22nd minimum with 10 words of feedback.

But instead of feedback, important and feedback not important, it's now changed. The first one is be specific and honest, meaning that, Hey, if you choose this, the curators are gonna reply potentially with detailed feedback on what you can improve and they might not mince their words. So you have to be ready to.

Internalize this [00:12:00] and take it with a grain of salt and say, okay, like, this is what I need to work on in my music. The second choice is be gentle. This means that curators should tell you what they think about the song, but they can keep it short and brief and they should not tear you apart. They shouldn't say like, oh, this is the worst thing I've ever heard.

You need to do this, this and this. It might be like, Hey, this is really cool. I like this part, but it's not a fit for the playlist. That's the kind of stuff you can expect with, be gentle. then the third option, which hasn't changed is the 92nd no feedback option. But again, I've gotta stress.

SubmitHub says that this option is going to lower your approval rate. So you don't want to use that one. Personally, I recommend the specific and honest option. It does a couple things. First of all, it makes the curator think more about the feedback that they're gonna leave. And especially it kind of prompts them to talk about a specific element of your song.

If you ask them to, because you can actually put in, Hey, this is what we'd like you to critique on the song. Now it [00:13:00] doesn't mean they have to, but it gives them an idea of what kind of feedback you're looking. In that way, you can also narrow down what it is that people like or don't like in your songs, because if they write feedback about certain things, you can try to dig in deeper on those aspects of your song or your track.

The next time you do a campaign. now above all. I know it can be incredibly frustrating to get decline on mid hub, but you have to remember that music is subjective. The curators know what their audience wants and sharing something that doesn't fit that audience.

Could damage their reputation. So that means that even if they love your song, they might have to say no and decline your song. Don't take that rejection personally, instead, take a step back and realize that by improving your targeting, your production or your songwriting and performance, You'll increase the odds of being approved. Next time you run a SubmitHub campaign, and that is how you can be more effective with what you. Now one last note, before I go, I know it can be really tempting to use standard credits, which is [00:14:00] free on SubmitHub, but it is not worth your time. the average approval rate for standard credits is right around 5%.

That is super low for premium credits. It's 20%. So that means if you submit to 10 curators and you use premium credit. You can expect roughly two out of 10 of those to end up as approvals. But if you use standard, you're gonna be lucky to even get one approval out of those 10 submissions. since you're likely spending thousands on your music, you're production, you're recording your gear.

All of that marketing is not the area to skimp out on. It's not an, if you build it, they will come world. You have to put your music out there and get it in front of people. So don't skip this. You have to budget for your market. now this is a little crash course in why you're not getting approved on SubmitHub, but if you want a step by step email course for free, so you can optimize your SubmitHub submissions.

Visit [00:15:00] Bandhive.rocks/SubmitHub. You can sign up there to get that free email course again, that is Bandhive.rocks/SubmitHub. And you can pick up the free step by step email course on how to optimize your SubmitHub submissions.

VA does it for this episode of the Bandhive podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in listening. I really appreciate it. And I hope that this episode has given you some good ideas on how you can better utilize SubmitHub to further your career and market your music. It's really so incredibly important. And just like anything else that you use SubmitHub is a tool.

If you know how to use it, right? Your results will be a lot better than if you don't know how to use it, or if you use it wrong. So be sure to check out the free email course I've created You can sign up for [email protected] slash hub. And through that course, you'll get a step by step guide on how to use SubmitHub.

We'll be back with another brand new episode next Tuesday at 6:00 AM. Eastern. right here in your favorite podcast app until then, I hope you have a great week stay safe. And [00:16:00] of course, as always keep rocking.