There’s a lot of talk in the music industry today about bot streams and fake playlists. It’s a very real problem, not just because big artists and labels are buying bunk plays that are monetized (fraud!), but because junk traffic ruins platforms’ ability to gather useful data about an artist’s ideal audience.
That puts all the more pressure on emerging artists to pitch their music to legitimate playlisters and avoid scam promoters who promise placement results or guarantee certain stream counts.
Well, last year I tried out a playlist pitching service called Groover. They manage a vetted network of 3rd-party playlisters, social influencers, and more. I found their platform super helpful and got great results: 37% of all the playlist curators I pitched my song to placed the track on their lists.
But I’m just one artist. I wanted to see how it worked for three other musicians in different genres and at different stages in their careers.
Short answer: It worked really well.
I’ll tell those stories below, but if you want to jump straight into testing Groover for your own music, go here to save 15% on your first campaign when you use coupon code GROOVERCDBABY.
Playlist pitching and social shares at a glance
What’s the TLDR on Groover?
It’s a global platform that connects artists with music curators, influencers, playlisters, DJs, labels, and managers across the world.
You pay to have your music considered by those curators. And since you pay per pitch it can work for artists on any budget.
Lastly, that fee GUARANTEES the tastemaker will listen and consider your song, or you get your money back.
Groover does NOT guarantee results. They guarantee access to curators and consideration.
4 approaches to playlist pitching
1. The ignored song
When I tested Groover, it was for a single that I dropped ten months earlier, but very much neglected because I had a lot of other things going on at the time. I released the song, did zero promotion, and there the track sat on Spotify — unloved.
So getting a success rate of 37% through Groover helped immensely. None of those playlist placements went gangbusters on their own (most yielding play counts that averaged between a few dozen and a few hundred streams).
But the cumulative impact of all those placements happening at once laid a late foundation for the song that finally put it on the radar of Spotify’s recommendation engine. Ever since the Groover campaign, that song has been my top-streamed track with significant boosts from Spotify Radio, pre-Discovery Mode.
You can watch the breakdown of my whole pitching process here.
2. The Proper Introduction
After the pandemic swallowed up all the momentum from the release of her debut album a few years ago, Canadian alt-folk artist Melodi Ryan was approaching the launch of her latest single like she was a brand new artist.
She used Groover with the goal of getting a mix of reviews, feedback, and playlist adds that would give the song some lift, but also help build out her resumé and website with press quotes and song descriptions.
You can see how the campaign worked below, but I also asked for her quick impression of the process.
Melodi says:
“The results were fantastic. Well worth the money for the placements, attention, and feedback I got in return.”
3. Showing love for the “side project”
Prolific songwriter, actor, and comedian Ohene Cornelius releases a lot of music.
Sometimes under his own name, or as a featured collaborator with countless other artists (including a track with renowned guitarist Marc Ribot), or via the new outfit Harlem River Yacht Club.
Earlier this year, HRYC put out their first album.
Now that a few months have gone by, it felt like the perfect time to kick up some more sharing and playlist activity through Groover.
Out of 37 total pitches, he got 10 shares — a mix between playlists and social posts.
It’s not all happy news, of course. Part of pitching music inherently involves rejection or negative feedback.
I did notice when I used Groover, though, that even the rejections were delivered in a professional way, which seems to be reflected in Ohene’s experience as well.
He explains:
“Using Groover was informative and fun to see the reactions of tastemakers around the globe. They were thorough, and although I didn’t agree with all their feedback, I was happy that they weren’t faking the funk for the Groovies. My songs were shared a bunch of times by some quality DJs. Though it didn’t drive 1000s of people to my single, it was good to get some quotes to describe my music. Not sure if I’ll use it again, but I wasn’t mad at the results.”
4. Breaking the catalog curse
For a long-established act with a deep catalog, sometimes it’s really difficult to make a new song travel. The audience loves the old songs. The algorithms have data on the old songs. Even NEW fans first encounter the OLD songs, because those ones have the most streams.
So what can you do to make a new song break through?
Groover to the rescue.
For Kevin Breuner’s band Smalltown Poets, there was a particular song from a newer album that their closest fans were continually mentioning as a favorite, but the Spotify algorithm was still featuring past hits over new material.
The goal with this Groover campaign was to get more activity and listener data associated with this song “See The Future.”
Kevin says:
“We spent 100 Groovies and were focusing on playlist curators, hoping to drive this track up into our Top 5 songs list on Spotify. The campaign worked very well.The results were amazing: Over 50% of curators we pitched to shared our song! It got us exactly the activity we were looking for.”
Four different artists with different goals for their songs. But an overall positive experience pitching music through Groover.
Keep in mind, of course, results will always vary when approaching curators. So much depends on specific tastes, timing, quality, and targeting the right people.
BUT… Groover helps streamline the whole process so you leave a lot less up to chance.
Want to use Groover to pitch your music to playlisters, influencers, or DJs?
Use code GROOVERCDBABY to get 15% off your first campaign!
Chris Robley is an acclaimed singer-songwriter and award-winning poet from Maine.
His Beatlesque indie-pop and milltown Americana songs have been praised by The Associated Press, No Depression, KCRW, The LA Times, Boston Globe, NPR, American Songwriter, and others.
His poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Prairie Schooner, The Poetry Review, and more.
Robley has received a Maine Literary Award in Poetry, Boulevard’s Emerging Writers Prize for Poetry, and in 2016 was selected by former US-poet laureate Robert Pinsky as a finalist for the Dorset Prize.