Spotify marketing guide how to improve your music marketing strategy

Spotify marketing guide: how to improve your music marketing strategy

Releasing music is one thing, but successfully releasing music and getting it featured on Spotify is a whole different challenge. Artists, bands and record labels should always focus on their music, that is why we focus on online marketing. Here is a guide on how to create successful music promotion on the biggest music streaming platform.

Create a marketing plan

As soon as all assets have been made to ensure a solid album release, a well-thought strategy should be made to market your product. The plan should be focused on music streaming. A selection of high-quality tracks, music videos, attention on social media or backstage footage to exceed customer experiences is the most important step to take. However conquering the music industry is a huge challenge in the modern-day digital age.

A good marketing strategy should always focus on bringing products and consumers together. Social media should of course be included, let’s highlight a few things here:

YouTube Shorts

Creating easily consumable short-form video content should be included in your marketing plan. Using YouTube Shorts for that also enables you to repost it on your TikTok or Instagram Reels. And yes, this is a perfect tool to drive awareness and traffic to your release on Spotify too.

TikTok

The TikTok social media platform is very well-known all over the world and can help to boost traffic to Spotify. Think of using Challenges; entice fans to use your content in a dance. This marketing strategy made lots of tracks go viral and, incrementally, drive huge amounts of traffic to Spotify.

Pick the track which is most suitable, create a challenge and include it in your marketing plan.

Be on time

One of the most important things to get your track featured on a Spotify playlist is making sure your deliveries are on time. Whenever you pitch for playlist features or let others do it for you, make sure it is done at least 3 weeks prior to the release date. On Spotify for Artists pitches, be sure to at least pitch one week prior to release, as Spotify guarantees placements in Discover Weekly and Release Radar in that case. An important step in your digital marketing campaign.

Record label: control your pitches

As the Spotify for Artists system is also available for labels, Spotify Analytics gives labels control over releases of all sub-labels that are being distributed. Any sub-label or artist can grant the parent label access to Analytics. This offers several big advantages, for example, a quality check. Label managers can enter or edit pitches, add marketing data or make sure all pitches are done in time.

As a label manager, you can make sure releases end up on so-called AI playlists: a playlist that is curated by Spotify’s computer. By pitching at least one week before the release date, a guaranteed placement is secured.

Assets

So what assets are important? What does Spotify care about? Sure, the argument ‘My record is the best that is ever made” is a solid one, but let’s assume that Spotify hears that argument at least 100 times a week.

So what do they want? Make sure to always include a biography, a press pic and preferably also tour dates (when available). Support by f.e. radio stations or fellow DJs, and bands are also quality info.

Pre-save

So the release has been delivered, and pitches have been placed, what’s next? How about boosting traffic to Spotify, prior to the release date? Our pre-save tool makes sure all your fans receive a link to your upcoming track on Spotify.

Spotify pre saves

Smart link-building tools 

Complete.me link-building tool lets you communicate your music with just 1 smart link and shows you all demographics of streams. That way you can measure your promotional efforts and see what works best.

Spotify Ad Studio

All artists who have music on Spotify can get access to their music library. Fans who use a paid subscription get ad-free music, but for millions of users, this is an expensive option. Artists use Spotify Ad Studio to create ads, including a 30-second audio ad. Spotify advertising lets you focus on the listening personality of fans.

Spotify Discovery mode

The Discovery Mode allows artists to reach more people on Spotify through playlist features, in return for a lower royalty rate.

With so many new releases every week, Spotify can’t possibly feature them all. Established artists, with loads of followers, can depend on Release Radar and their already existing fanbase. With Discovery Mode, Spotify offers a tool to upcoming artists who find it difficult to get featured and reach their target audience.

Spotify takes a whopping 30% of the revenue, on the other hand, your track will reach more people than you can possibly achieve organically.

Spotify Marquee

Marquee is another tool to add to your Spotify marketing campaign. It is a full-screen recommendation of your release, offered to free and premium users who have shown interest in your music in the past. There are a few pros and cons though…

This ad platform is not available worldwide, only in certain territories and most of all it is very expensive. But, the results of this Spotify promotion are very good. High click-through rates and lots of new followers and streams. Furthermore, the chance of your content being included in large user-generated playlists also increases.

Influencer marketing

Another way of attracting more Spotify users to your content is using influencers in your digital marketing campaigns. Instead of running Spotify ads, you can contact an influencer agency or use an influencer marketing platform. This marketing strategy is very expensive; you need to pay the agency or platform and besides that the influencers who post your music. Impressions on social media convert to traffic to a streaming platform, in this case Spotify but it can also be used for Apple Music. It is an expensive way of social media marketing.

Podcasts

A very popular format to include in digital marketing is a podcast. A relatively old medium but revived over the past years and now it is more popular than ever. One of the most well-known podcasters on Spotify is Joe Rogan. His show is exclusively available on the streaming platform.

You can upload your podcast to Spotify and use your Patreon account too. Podcasts are a great way to reach a very large target audience.

To conclude

When writing a marketing plan for your new release, try to think outside the box. There are more ways to drive traffic to Spotify besides posting on social media and sending out newsletters. Include new tools and other platforms and be amazed by the results.

Contact [email protected] for more information. Signing up for Kwettr distribution means you get assigned an account manager who can help your with your marketing strategy.

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