Well, it happened.
Last Monday, I didn’t send a newsletter.
It marked the first time I’ve skipped a week in about a year, which is a sentence that leaves me with an interesting mixture of shame and pride.
I’ve got good excuses, of course. I always do. But, as my high school English teacher told me, a good excuse only helps you feel better about failing – it’s no substitute for good work.
(Ms. Grisch, as you might be able to gather, was a stern woman who brooked no nonsense. I don’t think she liked me much.)
Anyway, here we are: one week after the streak was snapped, ready to start a new streak.
You may remember that two weeks ago, back when I was young, carefree, and under the naive assumption that I’d send you an email every week for the rest of my life, I asked this email list three questions:
- What have you been doing to market your music?
- What have you found to work well?
- What have you found to be a waste of time (or just disappointing)?
Many of you sent in answers. Some of those answers I will print below.
Let’s do it.
Let’s start with a response from someone who clearly appreciates the depth, humor, and topical variety of my writing.
***
The artist:
“i get way too many emails from you dude. i dont think about spotify marketing every hour and every day.
theres no way for me to know if you write these daily or if you just have a bunch of premade ones ready to go. maybe pictures would help to make it more personal?
just food for thought.”
***
My thoughts:
Spotify marketing. Spotify Spotify marketing. Spotify marketing marketing. Spotify – marketing – Spotify.
Kidding. Sorry.
In seriousness, I get where this guy’s coming from. He’s obviously trapped in the digital whirlpool of my email welcome sequence, which includes a series of eight emails that are entirely focused on Spotify marketing.
And look, if you aren’t interested in Spotify, I imagine receiving those emails is about as much fun as being repeatedly spritzed in the face with a mixture of water and lemon juice.
I never want to be annoying, and I get that there are tons of marketing emails out there. So if you’re not interested in what I’m writing, go ahead and unsubscribe – no hard feelings, for real. As I explain in my welcome sequence, unsubscribes are genuinely a win-win; they help me save money on my email software subscription, and they help you avoid my obnoxious sense of humor and poorly-edited thoughts.
Oh, last note here: I actually have considered including a picture in every email, for the very reason this reader suggests. A few marketers I enjoy (Kieran Drew is one who comes to mind) do this every time they send something.
Here’s what it looks like:
Let me know if you think I should do this in every email and if you think the sign should always say “Spotify marketing!”
Okay, on to the next reader response.
***
The artist:
“RELEASE MORE MUSIC. THAT’S THE ONLY THING THAT WORKS!”
***
My thoughts:
I have mixed feelings on this.
On the one hand, I think there’s a lot of wisdom to focusing on consistent creation. In general, it’s clear that having more music is a good thing – because each song functions as an entry point into your artistry, and the more entry points you have, the more chances you have at connecting with fans.
To put things in mathematical terms:
- 1 song with 100,000 streams = 100,000 streams
- 10 songs with 100,000 streams = 1,000,000 streams
There are two challenges with focusing on volume over everything, though:
1) You risk wearing your fans out.
2) For most artists, it’s hard to release a ton of meaningful, good music.
I won’t chase either of those arguments too far, but I will say that in general, I’m wary of treating art as a means to an end rather than as an end in itself. So I tend to rub against the idea that you should churn out songs like widgets on an assembly line.
For most artists, I think shooting for 10-12 songs per year is a good goal. But all things being equal, releasing more music (assuming it’s good music) will probably result in bigger cumulative numbers.
Small text because I’m about to go all TMZ on you and I feel some trepidation about it. But there was recent drama in the music marketing world between Jesse Cannon and Nic D that’s relevant to this topic and worth watching if you’re planning your release strategy. The short version is that Nic D thinks you should release tons of music but Jesse thinks you should only release about an album per year, so Jesse made a kind of funny but kind of mean video critiquing Nic’s approach and then Nic responded and now it’s like the marketing version of Drake vs. Kendrick but actually it’s not like that at all.
All right, next response:
***
The artist:
“I am hella lazy and cheap when it comes to music marketing, and I have all but given up on social media because I feel like a dementor has attacked me every time I go on there.
But the two things I continue to do because they are so low effort and actually yield a decent result are dailyplaylists.com and having a relationship with good local photographers in our area.”
***
My thoughts:
Ha, this one got me – probably because I find it incredibly relatable on multiple levels. I, too, am hella lazy and cheap, and I, too, think browsing social media feels like being attacked by a dementor (which, by the way, is a great line that I wish I’d written myself).
But past the instant relatability factor, there’s some really good advice here.
To be honest, I’m ambivalent about dailyplaylists.com (I’ve had mediocre results there myself and have heard mixed reviews), but I’m a big fan of picking an activity and sticking with it. In my experience, consistency is the biggest factor in making any tactic work – which means it’s wise to pick tactics that won’t wear you out.
And the note about building relationships with local photographers is gold.
One of the biggest mistakes I see artists make is to pursue professional opportunities with an unprofessional aesthetic. If you’ve got some legit artist photos (and maybe even a video), your first impression will be leagues ahead of the ocean of average indies.
***
The artist:
“We made our own playlist! We are still growing it (500+ likes at the moment organically) but it already send us a big part of streams, the main reason is that it’s organic traffic + we can put our tracks in the number 1 position in the playlist to get more streams.
Of course we rotate with tracks from our friends from time to time to 1st don’t have “fatigue” from our listeners and 2nd give a boost to some friends.”
***
My thoughts:
Love it.
Now, I’ve got to note that this was only one of many tactics that this artist is trying. Their entire response included a bunch of other really good stuff.
But I’m sharing this bit because I think building your own playlist is one of the more underrated tactics for streaming growth, for four reasons:
1) It’s easy to do, because ads to grow playlists are very cheap.
2) It’s effective – it can lead to lots of streams.
3) It’s a great way to network with (and serve) other artists in your genre.
4) If you qualify for a playlist curator network (like SubmitHub), it’s actually profitable. You can get paid for your own marketing.
I’ve taught a workshop on this tactic in my streaming growth community – more on that in another email – but yeah, suffice to say I’m a fan.
You know what, I want to print one more bit from this artist’s response, because I think it’s really good:
“Also, for me what really works the best in the long run is building a solid network in your niche.”
I’ve railed against the idea of networking before (as with art, I’m against treating people as a means to an end) – but if you throw off the business-bro connotations and do networking right, it’s probably the best way to grow your music career.
Also, in case you were wondering, this artist’s Modern Italo Disco 2024 playlist is full of bops.
All right, here’s a response from somebody frustrated about what’s not working:
***
The artist (manager):
“Spotify doesn’t offer anything that resembles client support for campaigns. Nothing, nada, zilch…
A cartel pricing structure, lack of market intelligence, inability to spend a budget, and zero customer support makes Meta and other marketing channels a far better options for partnered music marketing solutions.”
***
My thoughts:
I agree with all of these criticisms.
For context, this person (who manages several artists) is referring specifically to Spotify Marquee, an advertising option that lets you show a pop-up to listeners on the Spotify app.
It looks something like this:
On the surface, this mode of advertising seems like a good idea – why not reach people while they’re already listening to music, right? – but in practice, it’s so far left a lot to be desired.
As this reader notes, there are basically zero customization options, the reporting is very limited, and the budget allocation is confusing. To make matters worse, when the money does get spent, costs per result tend to be higher than what you’d see on other ad platforms.
So, yeah – it’s not great. And these issues are more or less applicable to Showcase, too.
With that said, I do think think that Spotify’s advertising tools will probably get better, if only because better results are in Spotify’s best interests. A better platform will incentivize advertisers to spend more, which in turn will benefits Spotify’s bottom line.
Keep an eye on this stuff for the future, but for now, don’t make Spotify’s tools the main options in your marketing toolbox.
Okay, and with that, let’s turn to a final reader response that’s really more of a question:
***
The artist:
“To build a fanbase I must show my music to people for free. Then why will this fanbase buy my music that they already can listen to for free?
Should I continue to look for the answer, or for another planet if I want to sell just my music?”
***
My thoughts:
Ha, what a good (and sad) question.
I’ve written on this before in more depth, but here’s my abridged take.
First, our societal obsession with quantifying the financial value of everything under the sun, although understandable, is sad. Music is valuable in the same way that relationship is valuable; sure, you can put a price on friendship or motherhood, but to do so is to miss the point.
Second, in pure financial terms, our society does not value new music highly, and it seems likely that the value attributed to new music will continue to decrease. So, if you want to make a living making music, you need to understand why people pay for things and what they’re likely to pay for.
I’m of the belief that most human action is incentivized by relationship. You buy tickets to see Taylor Swift because of your relationship to her as an artist, not because you’ve made some detached calculation as to how much the concert is worth in a vacuum.
If you cultivate meaningful relationships with your fans, they’ll probably act to support you, regardless of what you choose to sell.
But, with that said, what you choose to sell does matter. While the value attributed to new sound recordings has declined drastically over the past several decades, the value attributed to experiences only continues to rise.
So the single best way to make a living with your music is by creating experiences – and for most people, that probably means playing shows.
That’s what the data from my artist income survey says, at least.
It’s not easy, but you don’t have to move to another planet to make it work.
All right, that’s all I’ve got time for today.
Thanks to everyone who responded to my three questions; there were plenty of good thoughts (many of which I just didn’t have space for here).
And thanks, as always, for reading – it’s genuinely appreciated. Assuming all goes according to plan, I’ll be back next week to push my sending streak to two.
