Music marketing tools for list building

Get free access to the same marketing tools used by Nettwerk Music Group, Sony, Universal, The Orchard, and more.

Do you want to build your Spotify following, grow your email list, and boost engagement on platforms like YouTube and SoundCloud? Do you want to spend less money or time on promotion, but have a greater effect? Does the sun rise in the east?

Last year CD Baby purchased Show.co, a company that makes elegant marketing tools used by major label artists and their marketing teams (such as Ignition Records, who uses Show.co to run contests and build lists for the band Oasis).

I’m excited to say that CD Baby is making these tools available to all our clients FOR FREE!

Show.co: pro music marketing tools

To market your music through Show.co:

  1. Log into your CD Baby member account
  2. Look to the righthand side of the account dashboard
  3. Click on “Free Marketing Tools!”

CD Baby offers marketing tools used by major label artists

As a CD Baby artist, you can have two of the following campaign types active online at any time:

  • Email-for-Download — Build your email list.
  • Social Unlock — Grow your following on platforms like Spotify, YouTube, Twitter and SoundCloud.
  • SoundCloud — Boost streams and fan conversions.
  • YouTube — Increase views and fan conversions.

Pro music marketing tools available to CD Baby artists for free

How are artists and labels using Show.co?

Last December I used the Social Unlock tool to grow my Spotify following and email list, and I had great results. The campaign was easy to build — it probably took 5 minutes — and yielded an almost 50% conversion rate (if you’re not up on marketing stuff, that’s pretty good), helping me capture both Spotify followers and email addresses in exchange for unlocking a holiday playlist I’d created.

Music marketing with Show.co

When Ignition Records uses the Email-for-Download or Social Unlock tools, they often see even more impressive conversion rates (in the 80-90% range) — particularly when running a contest to give away concert tickets, box sets, or meet-and-greets.

One of the best features of Show.co is that you can easily reward fans with almost any kind of “unlocked” content:

  • a download
  • a PDF
  • an unlisted video link
  • a hidden URL
  • a playlist
  • a coupon code
  • or whatever else your audience will be interested in

In exchange, your fans take a specific action: follow you on Spotify, SoundCloud, or Twitter, subscribe to your YouTube channel or email list, etc.

Effective music marketing tools

Show.co gives you an easy and fun way to turn casual fan interest into real results. Try it and you’ll see for yourself.

If you’re a CD Baby client and you already have a Show.co account, contact us and we’ll switch your account to FREE.

A few user tips to make your marketing campaigns as effective as possible:

  1. Choose an image that is very light or very dark in the center — When you design a campaign, you’ll upload an image that is displayed as the background for the campaign URL. The text for your campaign (for instance, “Follow us on Spotify to hear our new album before it’s released”) is displayed in the center of the page OVER that image. You can set the text to be white or black, but in order for it to POP on the page, you want the text to contrast with the portion of the image directly behind it.
  2. Play with the “blur” settings on the image — To add clarity to your messaging, you can blur the image behind your text, just for an extra bit of design control.
  3. Start by testing a Social Unlock campaign for Spotify — This is an easy way to get a feel for Show.co, and you can use a single campaign to build both your Spotify following AND your email list. Check it out and you’ll see what I mean (just be sure to enable email capture).

Create a Show.co campaign to market your music today!

Effective online music marketing tools

After you’ve built a campaign, share it on social, and via your email newsletter. Then let me know: how did it work? I’d love to see the campaigns you create, so please leave a link in the comments below.