Managing multiple release campaigns at the same time is something every artist faces once you have more than one single in motion. The old release needs follow-ups while the new one needs its first wave and the next is being scheduled.
I run campaigns for five artists simultaneously, and the best lessons from that experience are about attention, not tooling. Here is what I have learnt.
How running campaigns used to work
Before I had a unified system, the same five concurrent campaigns lived across seven places:
- A spreadsheet of contacts per artist
- Gmail for sends, with labels per campaign
- WARM for radio play data
- A PDF generator for the end-of-run report
- Drive folders for press releases, WAV files, photos
- A separate document for follow-up scheduling
- Notes in a Markdown file for what worked, what did not
The cost was memory. Spreadsheets do not remember who ghosted you on the last single. WARM does not know which station went on rotation without ever replying. Drive does not tell you the SoundCloud preview link broke an hour before send. A campaign that finishes is a campaign whose lessons stay in your head, not in the system.
That was the problem I set out to solve.
What does a week running five campaigns look like?
Here is the live state of the roster:
| Artist | Track | Status | Notes | |--------|-------|--------|-------| | SG | Lonely World | Wave 1 fired today | 262 sends. Release 29 May. Follow-up scheduled. | | LV | Obvious | Released today | Wave 1 a week ago, plus 149 release-day extras. | | BE | Brand New | Wrapping | 88 plays across 14 stations in 6 countries. | | EG | Because of You | Complete | Watching for residual rotation. | | RB | Don't Make It Hard | Complete | Watching for residual rotation. |
Five campaigns. Three operating modes (in-flight, fresh release, wrap). One system holding the state.
What makes multiple campaigns manageable
Approve-to-send queue. Every pitch I draft waits for me to read it before it goes. Nothing sends without you. SG's Wave 1 was 262 contacts; I read every one before approving the batch. This is the single most important rule regardless of how many releases you are managing.
Shareable coverage page. When BE wrapped, the artist got a shareable link instead of a PDF attachment. Plays, replies, and coverage stay fresh on every load. The artist opens it in the run-up to their next single and the numbers have not gone stale.
Campaign notes that carry over. The rules I have learnt live as editable notes in the system. Do not pitch generic inboxes when a named producer exists. Follow up at T+7 rather than T+5. BBC contacts need a more formal tone. When I learn something new on a campaign, I edit the note and the next draft picks it up. Over time, these notes accumulate into a playbook that improves every single release.
What is still hard about managing multiple campaigns
Five concurrent campaigns is the ceiling for one person and a system, not the floor. What runs out first is attention on each pitch rather than capacity. A system can hold the state for ten campaigns, but nobody can pitch ten with care, and the quality of each named-producer relationship is what the work is actually for.
Campaigns close well when you have read every pitch, sent every follow-up at the right time, and remembered which producer ghosted on the last single. A system should remove everything except that.
Which is the whole point.
The takeaway for your own releases
If you are releasing music independently and planning multiple singles, the lesson is simple: keep everything in one place, capture every lesson so it carries to the next release, and never send a pitch you have not read yourself. The contact list and the timing lessons both compound, which is why the system is worth building before you need it.
