Promo Push's Russell Biles on Promoting Dance Music Today

Promo Push, the UK promotion company founded in 2011, has built its reputation handling campaigns for artists including MK, Chris Lake, Claptone, Above & Beyond, Tiësto, Diplo, Flashmob, DJ Hype, Axwell, Jamie Jones, and Vintage Culture. Russell Biles, head of promotions at the company, spoke about the firm's four-pronged approach to getting dance records heard.

From DJ promo to Spotify playlists

The company launched with a focus on DJ and club promotion, delivering genre-specific campaigns across the electronic music landscape. Dance radio promotion came next, building a network with international heads of music, playlist managers, and mix show hosts. Online press campaigns followed, working with music journalists and editors at dance music publications to align coverage around a release. In 2019, Promo Push added Spotify promotion, pitching to third-party playlist curators.

DJ promotion across the genre spectrum

Biles explained that the DJ promotion service covers house, tech house, deep house, nu-disco, melodic techno, trance, and mainstage releases, delivering tastemaker DJ and 1001 Tracklists mix show promotion. Each DJ and club campaign is tailored and finely tuned, working with both major and independent labels, management agencies, and artists directly. The goal is to get releases to the right DJs at the right time, from underground clubs to festival main stages.

International radio reach and reporting structure

Radio promotion is international, targeting dance music stations and specialist DJ shows worldwide, including BBC Radio 1, SiriusXM, Radio 538, Kiss FM, One World Radio, Ibiza BPM Radio, SLAM FM, and stations throughout Europe, USA, Australia, and beyond. In addition to FM stations, the company pushes to specialist digital and online dance stations and uses the monitoring tool WARM (World Airplay Radio Monitor) for tracking plays and radio support.

Each campaign runs over four weeks with weekly reporting to clients, detailing feedback and scores from DJs and radio, who's listened, reviewed, and intends to support. Press and Spotify campaigns follow the same four-week timeframe with weekly reporting, providing direct links to each press feature and Spotify placement secured. Press release curation is included in the service, and weekly reporting is delivered in PDF format with coverage links, readership estimates, and a full overview of online release traction.

Promo Push has delivered over 4,000 campaigns to date, working with labels including Anjunabeats, Axtone, SIZE, Ministry of Sound, Positiva, Spinnin' Records, and Defected Records.