Building your Spotify audience on an indie budget.
When independent musician Anne Reburn released her cover version of Kermit the Frog’s “Rainbow Connection,” she wanted to use it as a chance to expand her audience beyond YouTube, the platform where she’s most active.
In the quick video above she tells us how she used two of Show.co’s music promotion tools to drive a couple hundred extra Spotify streams AND grow her email list — all for less than $50!
Spotify pre-saves help build early traction for your new music
First week activity is important on Spotify. It’s an early indicator of whether Spotify should share your music with listeners outside of your existing fanbase.
Anne started by setting up a Spotify pre-save campaign for FREE. This gave fans a chance to save the song ahead of its release date. It also provided Anne the opportunity to capture interest over a few weeks that all culminated on the day her song launched.
NOTE: Show.co’s music promotion tools are free for all CD Baby clients to use.
Reaching new listeners with Interactive Ads
The next thing she did was run an Interactive Ads campaign to boost awareness for her Spotify pre-save.
You can also use Interactive Ads to share a new Spotify track or YouTube video on premium music websites like RollingStone and Pitchfork. The targeted listener will be able to play the track right inside the banner ad itself without leaving the site they’re on.
Anne’s music advertising campaign cost less than $50.
Growing a fanbase with affordable (and free) music marketing tools
Anne spent a tiny fraction of what it costs to run a professional playlist promotion or PR campaign, and it yielded a couple hundred extra Spotify streams, plus a couple hundred email subscribers. Those are tangible results in the form of actual listeners she can reach out to again whenever she releases new music — which is often!
Big thanks to Anne for shooting this video about her experience.
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.