For musicians, using organic Spotify playlists for music promotion will be all about playlist placements. A music artist that has a Spotify login can easily access Spotify for artists every day and check Spotify streams, Spotify stats, and the best Spotify playlists that are promoting your tracks.
Spotify playlist placement music promotion will be far more valuable and effective than just buying Spotify streams because your account could be shut down by Spotify.
Many musicians feel that streaming royalties are merely a waste of time. But that can be farther from the truth. Streaming actually has the potential to be a great passive source of income. If you know anything about passive income, you'll know that it takes a lot of time to build.
Even as you're busy playing live events and shows and marketing your music, you can get streamed. Engaging in other activities can be a good way of cross-promoting your catalog on platforms like Spotify through playlist placement.
However, let's say you're taking the streaming business a bit too seriously. You want to do more than announcing to the fans that they can now stream your music. You have to get your music placed on playlists while making money from it.
How to make money on Spotify through playlist placements?
If you want to make big money on Spotify, then stick with the process. You might not see any immediate results from your efforts. It might take a long time for your music work to bear fruits.
However, you shouldn't get frustrated. If you have enough time and patience to worry about the results, it'll probably mean you aren't making enough music. So, you should get back to your studio and start making more demos.
Moreover, organize your schedule well. Make ample time for your art and promotional efforts. You should juggle and balance the two and get the best of both worlds.
Get placed on Spotify playlists
To get placed on major Spotify playlists, you need to pitch and submit your tracks to Spotify playlist curators for playlist placements. There are many platforms on the internet that have a strong curator network of verified and popular playlist curators from all around the world.
These curators will have a combined reach of millions of active listeners. Over the years the playlist market has helped create special relationships with verified playlist curators and you can be assured that they'll listen to your submission and contact you directly.
If you're a creator, you won't just be making music for yourself but you should make music because you'll want fans to listen to you. For musicians, TV and radio promotion is no longer as relevant as it was in the past because music fans these days prefer streaming services like Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Music.
Many talented aspiring musicians find it difficult to establish their presence on major streaming platforms such as Spotify. Unfortunately, Spotify algorithms dictate if a talented musician takes off or not. Services like YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music are driven by algorithms that'll identify rising songs and artists, then boost them further. However, getting that initial momentum is a huge hurdle most musicians face.
The significance of playlist-placement after COVID-19
Post COVID-19, the only realistic method of getting your sound out there will be via playlist placements as the majority of clubs all around the world are closed. Moreover, Deejay's are far less relevant due to social distancing rules.
When your track is added to a playlist, all the listeners of that playlist will get to listen to your song, thereby organically increasing the algorithm ranking of your track, streams, monthly listeners, and royalties. But your track will likely not be added to any decent playlist in case you don't submit it to playlist curators because there are such an abundance of options to choose from.
Just like how life is a game of numbers, music is the same. You will need to connect with the right people. If you're looking to increase your listener base and you do a few things wrong, you'll likely end up with the wrong result. It might sound weird but it is true.
Today's marketing agency knows how playlist curators prefer talking directly to musicians instead of having to go through bulk song recommendations from various promotional companies. Most of the marketing agencies these days have decided that each campaign should come with a brand new custom pitch that they send out from the backend while redirecting the replies to the musician's email.
This will better connect musicians directly to thousands of big playlist curators. Using this method, the playlist curator will never know if the campaign was sent by a third-party. They'll see it as the artist or team members have reached out directly to them. This will increase the success rate for each campaign. Moreover, this is also the reason why every customer gets asked to fill forms before their campaign kicks off.
Playlist placement platforms like SubmitHub or Playlist Push will prefer to keep these playlist curator contacts to themselves while asking musicians to pay them for promotion each time they have to release a track. Many marketing agencies prefer to connect musicians directly to playlist curators for a one-time fee instead of a subscription service.
With this campaign method, the musicians can just sit back and get replies from playlist curators who love their music. Moreover, these replies will also show your original pitch and the private email address of the playlist curators.
Since many of these marketing agencies are also sales and keyword analytic companies, they're able to solve other problems for artists besides playlist submissions. For instance, they can also help pitch your songs to Spotify or YouTube playlist curators, dancers, deejays, influencers, and more. Moreover, they can also get your track involved in viral TikTok challenges while also creating and distributing press releases that land on Yahoo News, NBC, and more. These marketing agencies are here to help artists and business owners achieve major success.
Reasons why your playlist placement and submission attempts might fail
- You are sending your new tracks to playlist curators who have fake listeners or fake followers
- You are not pitching your songs properly with ample confidence and emotional triggers
- You might be using spam trapped words when pitching your music request via emails or your email might not come across as professional
- Not pitching your music to enough curators
- Sending your tracks to the old email addresses of playlist curators
- Using companies that will not let you contact big curators directly
- Not sending your music submissions to the curators' focused inboxes
- Making grammatical errors or using wrong email subjects
- Sending the wrong kind of Spotify link
- Sending your pitch on the wrong day or the wrong time
Even if you don't do all the things correctly and you make any of these mistakes, you might not be able to see an increase in your monthly listeners or the status you deserve. There are many options today to offer professional help to indie musicians and labels pitch and organically promote music to the biggest playlist curators.
As proof of work, many platforms will also redirect the curator's replies to personal email addresses such that musicians are able to connect directly with playlist curators, blogs, deejays, record labels, and radio for current and future projects, ensuring the long-term success of the musician.
All talented musicians and record labels are openly invited to benefit from the market's advanced Spotify playlist submission service and other music promotion services.
Alternate ways to make money from your music
The digital age of today's music industry means that it is getting increasingly harder to get paid for music. However, there are a few alternative ways that you can make money from your music -
Royalties from songs
Each time you hear music in a shop or lift or even a gym, the artist who produced that music will get paid for it. Each time you're in a coffee shop and you hear music in the background, the artist who produced that track will get paid.
In fact, every time you hear a song being played anywhere [on the radio, out in public, on TV, and more], the artist who produces the song will get paid.
As an artist, you need to get involved with the organizations that take care of royalties for artists.
For instance, in Canada it is SOCAN, in the US it is ASCAP, while in the UK it is PRS for Music. Most major countries do have collecting societies that'll take care of royalties for musicians.
Make use of YouTube Content ID
No matter what your views are about YouTube, there is no denying the fact that it is definitely the #1 music streaming service out there. It gets tons of views on a daily basis, which makes it a platform that cannot be ignored.
If you upload your tracks to YouTube, you can easily get paid for it. YouTube has a certain system called "Content ID" that'll find exactly where your music is being used on YouTube. In case it finds your music somewhere and you're the copyright holder, you can then choose to monetize your music by placing ads on the video. You can also get paid for the usage of your music, even if the videos aren't uploaded by you.
Syncs or placements
Syncs, often called placements, refer to the tracks that are used in media like TV shows, commercials, movies, video games, etc. Placements are generally arranged through placement agents or music supervisors and use sound libraries for finding music for their projects.
One great website to start out with syncs would be Versus Media. They put artists in touch with film projects and TV companies that need music. Moreover, they're absolutely free to join.
Another great site for placements is Pump Video. You can submit two tracks to get the 'green light' and upload as much content as you want to the library.
Create merchandise
Whether it is selling signed records, t-shirts, coffee mugs, or posters, merchandise is a great way of making some extra money.
In today's digital age, there is definitely a lack of extra art that would come in the past with platforms like vinyl and CDs.
Fans these days want something more authentic that comes from the musician, so it would make sense to give them different options. Websites like Bandcamp and BigCartel will provide musicians with stress-free tools that they can use to sell merch.
Invest in your brand
As it is often said that it takes money to make money. Almost every method of promoting yourself will take a bit of investment to get going - making merchandise, pressing records, and more. Perhaps the first thing you need to invest in will be your music. Make sure that it sounds the absolute best before you even start promoting it.
Invest in high-quality recording, mixing, and mastering equipment. It is important to make sure that your music will sound great in all playback situations. In case your music is of bad quality, you'll likely have to spend a lot of time and money to get the audience to notice you. Who even wants to listen to bad music?
Fandom
Arguably, the most valuable payment that you make from your music isn't actually money, it is a fandom.
Nurturing loyal super fans is tough work. However, it'll definitely pay off in the long run. This means you should aspire to be a great human first and then a talented musician looking to make it big. Super-fans will love your music and support you in any and every way they can.
It'll be great if you could tap into this resource. Talk to your super fans, meet your fans face-to-face, and be there if they contact you. One of the greatest things for DIY music promotion would be to form genuine relationships with your fans.