Your Ultimate Guide to Music Promotion on Spotify
Image credit: Spotify
Discover Spotify’s Campaign Kit, a suite of tools designed to elevate your music and cultivate devoted fans on the world’s favourite streamer.
Getting your music on to Spotify is the easy bit, with fast, free distribution on RouteNote. The hard bit is getting heard once you’re on there. Thankfully, Spotify have a bunch of fantastic tools to boost your music to listeners around the world.
Spotify offer a suite of effective campaign tools tailored for the music realm. Their arsenal includes Playlist Pitching, Discovery Mode, Marquee, and the latest addition, Showcase. Each tool is meticulously designed to help you connect with your ideal audience, boost engagement during their music-listening moments, and gauge the impact on streaming metrics.
To make it even easier for artists to make an impact on Spotify, they’ve brought these tools under their ‘Campaign Kit’ umbrella.
What is Spotify’s Campaign Kit?
As the world’s largest music platform, Spotify offers a unique opportunity for artists to create enduring fan connections. Campaign Kit provides you with the essential tools to amplify your music, reaching listeners within Spotify programming or when they are actively deciding what to stream next.
Image credit: Spotify
Here’s how each tool in Spotify’s Campaign Kit works:
1. Playlist Pitching: Submit your upcoming, unreleased music to Spotify’s editors for playlist consideration—this service is entirely free and accessible to all artists. Streamline the process of sharing your latest tracks with playlist curators of popular playlists like Rap Caviar, Today’s Top Hits, and Fresh Finds.
2. Discovery Mode: Expand the reach of your songs in personalized playlists without any upfront costs. Prioritize specific tracks, and we’ll leverage that information to connect you with new listeners who are likely to become devoted fans.
3. Marquee: Capture listeners’ undivided attention with a full-screen, sponsored recommendation of your latest release as soon as they open the app. When users engage with a Marquee, they can save or immediately access your new release, allowing them to immerse themselves in your music.
4. Showcase: Showcase enables you to promote your music to potential listeners with a mobile banner at the top of Spotify’s Home—the go-to spot for millions of users deciding what to listen to. Highlight both new releases and catalogue tracks for various occasions, such as a song going viral, building excitement for a tour, or celebrating an album anniversary.
Each of these tools is available in your Spotify for Artists portal.
How Campaign Kit Amplifies Your Music
Spotify offer some real-world examples of how artists and their teams are utilising Campaign Kit and other Spotify for Artists tools to expand their reach:
1. thuy – Independent R&B Artist: thuy and her team leveraged Campaign Kit across multiple releases, experiencing a remarkable 300% growth in monthly active listeners. Starting with Discovery Mode to build anticipation for her debut EP, they capitalized on the momentum with Marquee, targeting light and moderate listeners to convert them into dedicated fans.
2. Magic City Hippies – Miami-based Band: Employing a popular Campaign Kit strategy, Magic City Hippies promoted singles leading up to their 2022 sophomore album, Water Your Garden, using Marquee. They then activated Discovery Mode for the same tracks, resulting in Marquee viewers being four times more likely to stream pre-release singles.
3. Conner Youngblood – Nashville-based Folktronica Artist: Conner Youngblood’s submission of the song “Pizza Body” for editorial playlist consideration led to its inclusion in the Mellow Morning playlist. This not only significantly increased his monthly listeners and followers on Spotify but also translated to a noticeable boost in attendance at his live shows worldwide.
4. Goth Babe – Independent Artist: Goth Babe’s team successfully hyped four new releases by strategically combining Marquee and Discovery Mode. Using Discovery Mode on catalog tracks expanded his audience, while Marquee effectively notified listeners about his new releases. The result? A reinvigorated fan base and increased streams for catalog tracks.
How to Get Started with Campaign Kit Tools
While all artists have access to playlist pitching, access to Discovery Mode, Marquee, and Showcase is still expanding. Eligible artists and their teams can navigate to the Campaigns tab on Spotify for Artists on desktop to begin creating campaigns.
Visit Spotify’s new Campaign Kit website for in-depth details on how you can achieve your goals, whether it’s growing your audience with a new release, re-engaging fans with your catalogue, celebrating a release anniversary, developing new audiences globally, and more.