“For Your Consideration”—The Evolution of Grammy Award Promotion Campaigns

By David Templeton | From the January/February 2025 issue of Strings

During awards season—whether it be for the Oscars, the Emmys, the Tonys, or the Grammys—it is not unusual to see three brassy words emblazoned across display ads in magazines and newspapers, on websites and emails, on roadside billboards, and, of course, on swag like T-shirts, baseball caps, and the occasional pair of plush bedroom slippers. (Yes, that was an actual swag offering to pop culture journalists in 2019, promoting Netflix’s papal drama The Two Popes.) For Your Consideration, they declare (or, the inevitable initialism, FYC).

Though Grammy voters are as likely to be barraged with FYC campaigns as any other awards-voting community, it was not until the last decade or so that such efforts became commonplace among classical musicians. With the 2025 Grammy nominations announced in early November, and the winners set to be revealed on February 2 in Los Angeles, industry insiders will have received a steady stream of hopeful missives from public-relations managers for months, and the general public may expect to see those 20 letters on Facebook, Instagram, and who knows where else. 

But just how effective are such For Your Consideration campaigns?

Not surprisingly, the answer depends on many different factors. “FYC campaigns can take a lot of forms,” says Katy Salomon, vice president of public relations for Primo Artists, which has several clients in the running for Grammy Awards this season. Different approaches to such a campaign, she reveals, may include “purchased print, online, and social media ads, artist marketing emails to fan lists, direct emails and direct messages on social media to likely Grammy voters, and purchased email lists promising to have [a certain] number of voters.”

About that last tactic, Salomon points out that caution should be taken whenever one is being promised rare, difficult-to-obtain, or direct access to Grammy voters: “Note that the Recording Academy website says, ‘Be advised that the Recording Academy does not release the contact information of its members, therefore you should exercise caution if doing business with any vendor claiming that the vendor has accurate contact lists of Academy members.’”

The Recording Academy itself has addressed the FYC campaign phenomenon, and the Grammy website, as a result, supplies a long list of rules meant to govern the process, including a litany of practices that are deemed acceptable and unacceptable.

On the acceptable list for FYC campaigns and communications: artwork related to the project under consideration, brief and “unembellished” descriptions of the recording or creators, copies or links to the project being promoted, links to websites that promote eligible recordings, and a link to the Recording Academy website, where voting and solicitation guidelines are posted along with lists of the creators who worked on a recording.

On the unacceptable list: use of the Grammy logo, campaigns that cast “a negative or derogatory light on a competing recording,” any tactic that singles out the “competition” by name or title, exaggerating or overstating the merits of “the music, an achievement, or an individual.” Also forbidden are using any Recording Academy trademarks, logos, or any other protected information; providing chart numbers, number of streams and sales figures; sending “personal signatures, personal regards, or personal pleas to listen to the eligible recordings”; misrepresenting honors or awards, past or present, received by either the recording or those involved with production; and referencing the details of the specific Grammy telecast in question—in other words, you can’t mention 2025 or 67th Grammy Awards.

So, there are a lot of ways to do this correctly, and plenty of ways to get oneself disqualified. A thorough understanding of the rules is advised before launching any campaign, including over social media. Speaking of which, in dealing with social media platforms like Facebook, it is important to note that there are pages dedicated to certain artists, designed to call attention to that artist’s Grammy-submitted works. These are acceptable if they follow the rules.

But do these strategies work? The significance of such campaigns has, evidently, risen and fallen over time. “Until a few years ago,” Salomon says, “any Grammy voting member could vote in any category, so these mass blasts and ads were very popular,” particularly because some voting artists would promise to cast a vote in another category in hopes that the favor would be returned. That has largely changed, though a culture of “trading” still exists to a degree, in spite of it being generally discouraged.

“A few years ago, they let in a huge group of thousands of new voting members and changed the rules to encourage members to vote within their genre only,” Salomon explains, adding that it takes only about 150 votes to qualify a classical artist for a nomination. The official Grammy website explicitly says, “Recording Academy Voting Members are entrusted to only select and vote in the fields and categories in which they work, day to day.”

“This makes the large blasts to artists in all genres—rap, rock, children’s music—
useless for most classical musicians,” Salomon notes, “and because of the relatively small number of votes needed for classical, I recommend that artists spend most of their efforts—and little to no money—making a list of their friends and colleagues that are most likely to vote for them, ideally in excess of 150 contacts. Then reach out to each personally, requesting their consideration.”

In other words, who you know and how much you are valued among your peers matters more now than ever. For a classical musician who feels they have a shot at a Grammy, Salomon says they might consider reaching out to voting composers whose works they’ve commissioned, other string quartets and small ensembles with whom they’ve collaborated, fellow faculty members at teaching institutions, soloist friends, conductors they’ve worked with, and members of orchestras who’ve been nominated for Grammys. That last one is especially effective, since the entire orchestra often retains membership following a nomination.

When reaching out to colleagues, the communication is often more subtle than simply emailing a For Your Consideration graphic. As for reaching out to the wider community, Salomon says such campaigns are still in a state of evolution and change. “The FYC originally evolved because anyone could vote in any category,” she suggests, “and because some albums have been out for over a year—if they were released early in the eligibility window—it’s important to bring awareness of the album back to the forefront using traditional marketing techniques, including ad buys, if budgets allow.”

The cost of such campaigns, of course, makes the personal touch even more attractive. “Many of our nominees didn’t spend much at all,” she says. “They’re just very successful collaborators with a lot of friends in the industry.”

It helps to remember that the quality of an artist’s work is not always enough to grab a nomination, and many brilliant projects are overlooked every year. A classical musician who is snubbed should not necessarily feel it’s an accurate measure of the significance of their work. “This is purely a peer popularity contest,” Salomon says, “and has nothing to do with the editorial response to the album. An artist’s reputation and strength of relationships among their peer voting members, as well as their own voting member status, are the biggest indicators of success.”

Of course, as they say, nothing succeeds like success. “Previous nominations,” she adds, “also help a lot.”

How to Become a Grammy Voter

There are three types of membership in the Recording Academy, but only those who fall under the “voting member” designation actually weigh in on the Grammy Awards. Voting members are “performers, songwriters, producers, engineers, instrumentalists, and other creatives currently working in the recording industry.” Prospective voting members must send the Recording Academy two “strong” recommendations from “music industry peers” (self-recommendations are not accepted) and then complete a career profile. A peer-review process ensues, after which successful applicants are sent an invitation to join.