I’m almost exactly halfway through the personal challenge I set for myself.
Last August, I released the first single from a three-song EP and boldly (foolishly) proclaimed a goal of reaching 1,000,000 streams on the project within one year.
(Here’s the post I wrote explaining my thinking at the time. Ah, to be so young and naive.)
Time flies. It’s been 185 days since that first single, which, according to the trusty TI-36X Solar calculator I rescued from Goodwill, means that I’m 51% of the way through my schedule. Sadly, I’m not anywhere close to the same progress toward my streaming goal.
Can I make up the ground? Can I go on a run? Can I somehow race up the rest of mountain to 1,000,000 streams by August 2025?
Let’s put it this way: I’d say Arsenal have a better shot at winning the Premier League this year.
In other words, no, almost definitely not.
In many ways, this is disappointing – but weirdly enough, I’m not all that upset about it. In today’s email, I’ll explain why, and give a quick update on where things are at.
Here’s where things are at:
After just over six months, I’m at 192,136 streams for the project (or about 19% of the way toward 1,000,000).
If progress continues at a linear rate, I’ll end up somewhere around 380,000 streams on the three-song EP. To my ears, 380,000 sounds like a ridiculously big number. (My brain, which is roughly the size of a walnut, views any value above 1,000 as stratospherically impressive and hopelessly abstract.)
But 380,000 streams is well short of my goal.
Fortunately, I think there’s a very good chance that my progress is not linear.
For one thing, I started counting streams upon release of the first single. Now that all three three songs are being streamed rather than only one or two, my cumulative numbers are rising a little faster. There’s more surface area.
For another thing, my algorithmic traction has been increasing over time. My third song, “Everything,” for example, had just over 3,000 Radio streams in the past 28 days; in the previous 28-day period, it had about 2,000 such streams.
If all of this holds up, I expect that I’ll solidly surpass 380,000 streams by August 2025. Actually, I’m hopeful that I’ll end up somewhere closer to 500,000.
That’s right – optimistically, I might get to 500,000 streams.
I don’t even need my trusty TI-36X to calculate that that’s only halfway toward my initial goal.
In terms of the marketing, here’s what the breakdown looks like so far.
I’ve spent…
- $3,735.23 in direct Meta ads
- $20 on SubmitHub
- 0 effort on social media
At some point, I’ll do a lengthy breakdown of all these tactics and try to detail what’s worked, what hasn’t, and why.
For now, though, my main takeaways are the following:
1) I hugely overestimated how much time I’d have for promotion. I anticipated spending a couple of hours on my own marketing per week; in practice, I’ve spent less than 10 minutes per week, and those 10 minutes of work are always crammed hastily into what were originally meant to be five-minute blocks.
2) I hugely underestimated how much I dislike spending time on social media. I mean, I knew I was grumpy about short-form videos. But wow, it turns out that I am, in fact, grumpy.
3) I will not even come close to breaking even on my Meta ads spend, at least in terms of direct ROI from streaming royalties for the foreseeable future. My Instagram commenters believe that this fact makes my whole effort a gratuitous exercise in stupidity.
4) I’m actually feeling very grateful. Weird, I know.
Partly, my gratitude is for the fact that it’s been fun to see my audience grow.
I’d like to say that I don’t care about vanity metrics, but that would be a straight-up lie. I’m vain; of course I care about vanity metrics. Bigger numbers are wonderful for the ego.
In the time since I’ve started promoting these songs, I’ve more than doubled last year’s streams, roughly doubled my Spotify followers, and more than tripled my Instagram followers. All of this means that I’m roughly half as embarrassed when my friends look me up on those platforms.
But as nice as the growth is for my ego, the numbers are still abstract. The most rewarding part – by far – has been getting heartfelt comments from real people who’ve genuinely connected with my music.
Stuff like this legitimately gives me goosebumps.
Screw recouping a direct ROI from streaming royalties – if my music connects with people, then for me, the marketing budget is worth it.
And that’s the larger part of why I’m strangely satisfied so far.
I recognize that I’m hugely fortunate to be able to spend this amount of money on what amounts to vanity marketing. I’m probably not going to hit 1,000,000 streams – or even come all that close. And I’m definitely going to end up thousands of dollars in the red, at least in the short-term.
But, man. The first time I released music, nobody listened to it except my mom.
(In retrospect, this was probably for the best, because listening to that stuff now I’d say it was music only a mother could love.)
My first single just passed 100,000 streams. My whole catalogue is nearing the million-stream mark.
If I told my 17-year-old self that one day he’d have those numbers and regularly receive heartfelt comments from strangers, I think he’d spew his Folgers Toasty Hazelnut coffee onto his too-tight Aeropostale t-shirt in a burst of surprised joy.
So yeah, I’m grateful.
And that’s where I’m leaving things for today.
As mentioned above, I’ll have more tactical breakdowns of all of this at some point – definitely by the time I wrap things up in August, if not before.
For now, I hope this high-level update was helpful. I hope, too, that whatever your own marketing efforts look like, you’re feeling some sort of encouragement.
Marketing can be a grind, I know. But I’m still convinced that the music is worth it.
Here’s wishing you good luck.
– Jon
