March 11, 2025 • 18 mins
In this episode of Inside The Mix, host Marc Matthews takes listeners behind the scenes on his journey to reaching 10,000 monthly Spotify listeners in 2025. Reflecting on his experiences as an independent artist, Marc shares both the wins and the challenges of learning what is music marketing and how to release music independently while maintaining creative authenticity.
Starting with just 300 listeners, Marc’s breakthrough came with releasing his single Waves, reigniting his passion for sharing music with the world. He breaks down the music marketing strategies that helped him grow, from leveraging SubmitHub and social media engagement to experimenting with ad spending. He also discusses how to release your own music effectively, emphasizing the importance of strategic planning, outreach to radio stations and blogs, and the power of a waterfall release strategy to maximize listener engagement.
What You’ll Learn:
• What is music marketing and why it matters for independent artists
• How Marc grew from 300 to 1,700 monthly listeners on Spotify
• The role of SubmitHub, social media, and paid advertising in music promotion
• How to release your own music with a structured launch strategy
• The benefits of a waterfall release strategy for long-term listener growth
• Insights on pitching to radio stations, blogs, and playlist curators
• The highs and lows of promoting music independently
Join Marc as he navigates the realities of independent music promotion, shares his future plans for audience growth, and inspires fellow artists to take charge of their music careers.
Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned artist, this episode is packed with actionable insights to help you release music independently and market it effectively. Tune in now!
Links mentioned in this episode:
Got a question? I’d love to hear from you! Submit a question, share your social media handles or website, and get featured in a future episode. Plus, one lucky question will win a Starbucks voucher each month!
Book your FREE 20 Minute Discovery Call
Follow Marc Matthews' Socials:
Instagram | YouTube | Synth Music Mastering
Thanks for listening!!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Marc Matthews (00:00):
Here's what I'm going to focus on going forward.
I'm going to stick to asix-week release cadence.
Consistency is key.
Of course, the productionquality also needs to be key as
well.
So if I don't feel like theproduction is up to scratch, I
won't be releasing it, but I'mgoing to stick, where possible,
to that six-week release cadence.
You're listening to the Insidethe Mix podcast with your host,
(00:23):
mark Matthews.
You're listening to the Insidethe Mix podcast with your host,
mark Matthews.
Welcome to Inside the Mix, yourgo-to podcast for music
creation and production.
Whether you're crafting yourfirst track or refining your
mixing skills, join me each weekfor expert interviews,
practical tutorials and insightsto help you level up your music
and smash it in the musicindustry.
Let's dive in.
(00:44):
Hey folks, welcome to theInside the Mix podcast.
If you are a new listener, makesure you hit follow wherever
you get your podcasts, and ifyou're watching this on YouTube,
make sure you hit subscribe andgive it a thumbs up if you like
it as well, that would be nice.
And if you are a returninglistener, as always, a huge
welcome back Before I dive intothis episode, if you have a
question that you would likemyself and Tim Benson to answer
(01:06):
on the podcast, click theSpeakPipe link in the episode
description.
You don't need a SpeakPipeaccount, you don't need a fancy
setup.
It's like sending an audiomessage Record up to 30 seconds,
something along the lines ofhey, it's XYZ.
My question for Mark and Tim isand also give yourself a shout
out as well, and then we'llfeature it in an episode.
So click that speak pipe linkand share your questions with us
(01:30):
.
If you want an example of howthis plays out, check out
episode 175.
So I've been looking forward todoing this episode for quite a
while now, and this is areflection episode on one of my
goals for 2025.
So it's kind of like my journeyand what I've experienced so
far.
So one of my goals for 2025.
So it's kind of like my journeyand what I've experienced so
far.
So one of my goals this yearwas to hit 10,000 monthly
(01:52):
listeners on Spotify.
Now, really, I'm not startingfrom zero.
I've got.
At the time of me setting thisgoal, I think it was around 300
monthly listeners.
I hadn't really releasedanything for about a year or so
and I hadn't really doneanything in terms of promotion
for my own music.
So I'm going to go through thisand I'm going to break down my
experience so far.
Now we're only at the point ofrecording this.
(02:13):
It's the 23rd of February, sowe're not far into 2025.
So I'm going to go throughthings that have worked well for
me so far and what could bebetter, and I'll also share the
key takeaways at the end.
So this is going to be great.
If you're feeling stuck in yourmusic release strategy Now, I'm
not an expert on this by anystretch.
This is just what I'veexperienced so far, what I've
(02:33):
done, what has worked well, whathasn't worked well and what I'm
going to do going forward as aresult.
So, again, not an expert onthis.
This is just my reflection onwhat I've done to date to try
and hit this goal of 10,000monthly listeners on Spotify.
So if you're an indie artist orproducer looking to grow your
audience and make smarterrelease decisions, this could
(02:56):
well be for you, so let's diveinto this one.
So this journey started withWaves the release of Waves my
single in 2024.
Waves the release of Waves mysingle in 2024.
And that was in November, andit really kickstarted my desire
to push my own music and releasemore music of my own going into
2025.
And ultimately, this goal of10,000 monthly listeners.
I like to give myself targetsand something to aim for, so
(03:18):
this was one of mine for 2025.
So I started by investing £50in SubmitHub and submitted the
song to various playlistcurators, got about a 50% return
on that, which I thought wasquite good.
Overall, the feedback wasreally really good in terms of
production.
It was just it's progressivehalf, so it's six and a half
minutes, and it just didn't fitinto several playlists that I
(03:41):
submitted to, and there werealso comments with regards to
the melodic line of the trackand I've taken that on board and
it's something I'm going tothink about in future releases.
But I was happy with the returnon that investment on SubmitHub
because I noticed it did helpthen push me forward in terms of
those just listeners andstreams for that initial release
sort of week or two.
(04:01):
So overall I was happy with thereturn on SubmitHub.
As part of this release, Ididn't invest any money in
online advertising so metaadverts on Facebook and
Instagram, which I had donebefore, so I didn't do any of
that this time In 2024, I didinvest some money and effort and
time into learning more aboutFacebook advertising and
advertising using the metaplatform.
(04:22):
So going forward something toconsider Didn't do it in this
particular release.
I also didn't actually reachout to any blogs or radio
stations at all post-release.
Now it did come out aroundDecember and I think in my head
I sort of psyched myself outthinking, oh, no one's going to
be interested in this newrelease, it's all going to be
about Christmas music aroundthis time.
(04:43):
So I didn't actually do anyoutreach whatsoever other than
uploading it to BBC Introducingand it did get featured.
It got played on BBCIntroducing in the southwest,
which was cool, but otherwise nopaid advertising and also no
outreach to radio stations,blogs, webzines, anything like
that at all.
For this release I did have asocial media pre-release
(05:05):
strategy of sorts and it wasreally centered around
engagement and getting feedbackfrom followers on mainly on
Instagram, a few on YouTube aswell, with YouTube posts and
just getting feedback, and alsothrough my mailing list as well.
I forgot about that on feedbackon the artwork itself, and
having mailing list subscribersand followers on YouTube helped
(05:25):
me decide on the artwork itself,and having mailing list
subscribers and followers onYouTube helped me decide on the
artwork, which was really cool.
Got a lot of engagement fromthat and then post release.
I think I did one release post,maybe two, and that was pretty
much it.
So there wasn't really much ofa post release strategy on any
social media platform whatsoever.
I didn't release a music videoeither on YouTube Not something
(05:47):
I'm focusing on really at themoment, maybe in the future.
But again, just to summarise,there was a sort of pre-release
strategy on social media, butthere really wasn't anything
post-release.
It was kind of like on the dayof release it was a
user-generated content of me hey, this is my release, you might
like it, xyz.
And then that was pretty muchit.
(06:08):
And then I actually I do have ahighlight on Instagram where
I've got some stories where it'sbeen shared on playlists etc
and feedback, but apart fromthat, nothing really, to be
honest.
So it was a bit weak.
I say a bit.
It was quite weak really interms of social media strategy
now, in terms of monthlylisteners strategy.
Now, in terms of monthlylisteners on Spotify, I did get
(06:29):
up to around 3,000, if memoryserves, and I think that was
mainly due to my Christmas BabyPlease Come Home cover that I
released two or three years ago,and then you get that festive
bump basically when it's thenjust suddenly at the top of the
pile due to it being Christmas,right.
So I'm going to attribute thatpossibly to a bulk of those
(06:52):
monthly listeners because,having gone through the strategy
I employed for this release, Ireally fell short, I think, in
what in in terms of what I coulddo.
I'm thinking at the time Ireally just wanted to release
some music because I hadn'treally released anything, I
think, for about a year, and Ireally just wanted to release
some music because I hadn'treally released anything, I
think, for about a year, and Iwas just itching to get
something out there.
So I kind of got it to a reallygood level.
(07:12):
I was happy with the production, the mixing, the mastering, got
it released, but then didn'treally have a plan.
So it kind of performed okay,considering I didn't really have
a plan.
But I knew that the nextrelease I was going to have to
level it up slightly, if not alot, to then hit my goal of
(07:32):
10,000 monthly listeners.
So this is where my nextrelease comes in and that is
Separation, which was releasedat the end of January.
So let's dive into my thoughtsand reflections on that release.
So, again, I invested £50 inSubmitHub and this time the
response was OK.
I think I got about 25-30%, soit was moderate.
I managed to get on theplaylist I got on before, which
(07:53):
was cool.
So I've now created a list ofplaylists on SubmitHub that I
can submit to, knowing thatthere's a good chance I'm going
to get featured so long as I'mstill in this sort of
progressive house, melodic house, deep house phase that I'm in
at the moment.
But overall the playlistcurator feedback was very, very
(08:14):
good, but at the same time itwasn't playlisted as much as
waves, which is interestingbecause overall I think the
production is better onseparation, but maybe it's just
the actual arrangement.
Something to consider.
Again, I think it came down tothis one.
Not necessarily the melodicline, but I think it was more to
(08:34):
do with the arp wasn't reallyto some taste and also the vocal
was quite repetitive in it.
I say quite, it is veryrepetitive in separation.
But overall I was relativelyhappy with the return on submit
hub or in submit hub.
So something I'm going to takeforward and I'll continue to do.
Moving on to my social mediastrategy, I won't lie, I think
(08:55):
it was even worse this time.
I didn't really do anything interms of pre-release or
post-release just a few storiesand the occasional reel, and I
think I did a post with regardsto the artwork and there might
have been some user-generatedcontent thrown in there
somewhere but really reallydropped the ball on a social
media strategy and it'ssomething I need to refine, I
(09:16):
think, going forward andactually have a plan, and I
think, because I didn't have aplan and actually map out what I
wanted to do and then probablyjust batch record some content,
I just fell off the wagon.
Really, I wasn't even on thewagon, to be honest, so I
couldn't really fall off it.
So it's something I definitelyneed to refine a lot for the
(09:36):
next release.
However, I did experiment withad spend on Facebook and
Instagram, notably on Storiesand Reels Facebook and Instagram
, notably on stories and reels.
So I got rid of any otherplacements that weren't
conducive to what I wanted to do, because you can go in and
manually do it basically.
But I did a broad targetingcampaign, so I didn't specify
(09:58):
any interests whatsoever and Iused the traffic campaign
objective and I targetedlisteners in the locations of my
top listeners on Spotify, whichI believe United States, uk,
canada, australia and possiblyGermany, over the course of
three weeks I had an average of7p per link click.
(10:19):
After the first couple weeks Iremoved the United States
because it was the mostexpensive cost per click and I
had pretty good engagement aswell A few shares, some comments
as well, and a lot of likes andhearts and everything else in
between.
And if you're interested in thevideo itself, if you go over to
YouTube now and watch this video, I will post it on screen so
(10:40):
you can see it as I'm talking.
So it's a really short video.
I think it was about fiveseconds in total.
One thing I would dodifferently and somebody did
comment on the video itself Iwould actually have the music,
the song, in the background ofthe video, which is not what I
did.
It is literally just me talkingand then explaining if you like
this, then you might like this,but didn't actually have the
(11:02):
video in the back, the music inthe background of the video.
But I was happy with the costper click over the course of
three weeks and also it wasrated as good in terms of
content High performing, that'sthe phrase I was looking for.
It was rated as high performing, so something I will definitely
do again.
This time I did actually reachout to radio stations and some
(11:26):
blogs as well.
Bbc Introducing got featured onthere again.
So this time I used ChatGPT asmy tool here and I put in a
prompt, a more detailed promptthan what I'm going to explain
now, but basically I wanted itto return radio stations with
contact details related tomelodic, house, dance music,
electronic music in the UnitedStates, in the UK and in
(11:49):
Australia as well, and, to behonest with you, I didn't get
any feedback whatsoever from anyof them Now, albeit I think I
only reached out to about 15.
I did get on Amazing Radio,though.
I mean, amazing Radio isslightly different.
You upload your track and thenit gets streamed, it gets
playlisted, basically, and sofar it's been played every day,
(12:10):
which is really, really cool.
But the responses from all theothers it's just been crickets.
It may have got played, I don'tknow, but it has been crickets
for the other ones.
So I'm going to continue todevelop that database and I will
continue to outreach, becauseit may well be getting played.
They just might not have let meknow, or it may well have just
gone to spam, but I'm going tocontinue to build that database
(12:31):
of radio stations across the keylocations for my listeners,
because it could have beenbeneficial.
I just may not have known, orit just went to spam, as I said.
Who knows?
But go on.
Bbc Introducing I've got someregular rotation on Amazing
Radio as well, which is prettycool.
Now the actual release strategyfor Separation is linked to Wave
(12:53):
, so I'm using the waterfallrelease strategy, the idea being
every release is building up toan EP.
So I'm re-releasing theprevious song using the same
ISRC code, basically usingDistroKid, the idea being it
will shine a light on thatprevious release, which it kind
of did.
I noticed a small bump instreams for waves when
(13:14):
separation was released, whichis pretty cool, and I'll do the
same again with the next release.
So waves was released on itsown, separation was released
with waves, and then the nextrelease is going to be released
with both waves and separation.
If you're interested in thewaterfall release strategy,
there is a blog post I put outlast year with regards to this,
so you can click the link in theepisode description and you can
(13:35):
find that the idea is in doingthis.
There's a cascade of releasesbuilding up to an EP.
Now you want them linked, right?
The idea here is that it'sgoing to shine a light on
previous releases.
So it kind of did and I thinkI'll see this hopefully more
with the next release.
So again, if you're interestedin the waterfall release
(13:57):
strategy, do check out that blogpost and I may release a video
in the future of me goingthrough this process with my
next release.
We'll see what happens, but yes, that was my strategy and I
noticed a small bump in streamsand saves and playlist ads for
Waves at the time of the releaseof Separation.
Now let's look at the results ofmy reflection of those two
(14:18):
releases.
In the first 28 days,separation almost tripled the
streams of Waves on Spotify.
It surpassed Waves' totalstreams in just a few weeks.
Spotify radio started pushingmy back catalog as well.
I'm seeing more exposure for myother songs and just more
streams in general.
From that and as of Februarythe 23rd when I'm recording this
(14:39):
, my monthly listeners have hitnearly 1600 listeners, which is
a 322% increase from theprevious month.
Small fry right, small numbers,but at this growth rate I'm on
track to smash my 10k listenergoal in 2025.
So what are my next steps?
Here's what I'm going to focuson going forward, I'm going to
(15:01):
stick to a six week releasecadence.
Consistency is key.
Of course, the productionquality also needs to be key as
well.
So if I don't feel like theproduction is up to scratch, I
won't be releasing it, but I'mgoing to stick, where possible,
to that six week release cadence.
I'm going to analyze my adspend, because I paused the ads
(15:21):
after three weeks to assess thereal effect on listeners and
streams.
So we'll see what happens there.
I'm going to continue thewaterfall release strategy.
The small boost in catalogstreams I think is worth
building on.
I'm going to expand radiooutreach.
I'm going to get.
I'm going to dedicate more timeto building a database of radio
stations and I'm going to alsoimprove my pitch, because
(15:43):
something's falling flat there.
It's not, it's not landing, soI'm going to look and refine
that.
I'm going to maintain my submithub investment as well.
It's a bit hit or miss, but I'mstill finding it useful and I
think this is important.
I'm going to plan a propersocial media pre-release and
post-release strategy, as thishas been significantly weak.
(16:06):
I think it's time to fix it andit'd be interesting to see if
that does then have a knock-oneffect in terms of that growth
in monthly listeners.
So that's my journey so far whatworked, what didn't work and
what I'm going to improve on.
And if you're an indie artistlooking to build an audience, I
hope this gives you some insightand into what's effective and
(16:31):
maybe what might not beeffective.
Now again, not an expert by anystretch, pretty much at the
beginning of this really buthopefully this insight will help
in some way.
And also, I think it'simportant to reflect and
hopefully, if you can take atleast one thing away is to
reflect what went well, whatcould be improved with each
release, and maybe record avideo like this.
(16:52):
You don't have to release it,but if you at least record it,
you're going through the motionsof analysing and reflecting on
what you've done previously andthen what you could do as a
result, going forward.
So hopefully this has helped insome way.
I'm going to check back in acouple of months' time with my
thoughts and reflections andmaybe even some new strategies.
So in the meantime, keepexperimenting.
Here's what I'm going to focus on going forward.
I'm going to stick to asix-week release cadence.
Consistency is key.
Of course, the productionquality also needs to be key as
well.
So if I don't feel like theproduction is up to scratch, I
won't be releasing it, but I'mgoing to stick, where possible,
to that six-week release cadence.
You're listening to the Insidethe Mix podcast with your host,
(00:23):
mark Matthews.
You're listening to the Insidethe Mix podcast with your host,
mark Matthews.
Welcome to Inside the Mix, yourgo-to podcast for music
creation and production.
Whether you're crafting yourfirst track or refining your
mixing skills, join me each weekfor expert interviews,
practical tutorials and insightsto help you level up your music
and smash it in the musicindustry.
Let's dive in.
(00:44):
Hey folks, welcome to theInside the Mix podcast.
If you are a new listener, makesure you hit follow wherever
you get your podcasts, and ifyou're watching this on YouTube,
make sure you hit subscribe andgive it a thumbs up if you like
it as well, that would be nice.
And if you are a returninglistener, as always, a huge
welcome back Before I dive intothis episode, if you have a
question that you would likemyself and Tim Benson to answer
(01:06):
on the podcast, click theSpeakPipe link in the episode
description.
You don't need a SpeakPipeaccount, you don't need a fancy
setup.
It's like sending an audiomessage Record up to 30 seconds,
something along the lines ofhey, it's XYZ.
My question for Mark and Tim isand also give yourself a shout
out as well, and then we'llfeature it in an episode.
So click that speak pipe linkand share your questions with us
(01:30):
.
If you want an example of howthis plays out, check out
episode 175.
So I've been looking forward todoing this episode for quite a
while now, and this is areflection episode on one of my
goals for 2025.
So it's kind of like my journeyand what I've experienced so
far.
So one of my goals for 2025.
So it's kind of like my journeyand what I've experienced so
far.
So one of my goals this yearwas to hit 10,000 monthly
(01:52):
listeners on Spotify.
Now, really, I'm not startingfrom zero.
I've got.
At the time of me setting thisgoal, I think it was around 300
monthly listeners.
I hadn't really releasedanything for about a year or so
and I hadn't really doneanything in terms of promotion
for my own music.
So I'm going to go through thisand I'm going to break down my
experience so far.
Now we're only at the point ofrecording this.
(02:13):
It's the 23rd of February, sowe're not far into 2025.
So I'm going to go throughthings that have worked well for
me so far and what could bebetter, and I'll also share the
key takeaways at the end.
So this is going to be great.
If you're feeling stuck in yourmusic release strategy Now, I'm
not an expert on this by anystretch.
This is just what I'veexperienced so far, what I've
(02:33):
done, what has worked well, whathasn't worked well and what I'm
going to do going forward as aresult.
So, again, not an expert onthis.
This is just my reflection onwhat I've done to date to try
and hit this goal of 10,000monthly listeners on Spotify.
So if you're an indie artist orproducer looking to grow your
audience and make smarterrelease decisions, this could
(02:56):
well be for you, so let's diveinto this one.
So this journey started withWaves the release of Waves my
single in 2024.
Waves the release of Waves mysingle in 2024.
And that was in November, andit really kickstarted my desire
to push my own music and releasemore music of my own going into
2025.
And ultimately, this goal of10,000 monthly listeners.
I like to give myself targetsand something to aim for, so
(03:18):
this was one of mine for 2025.
So I started by investing £50in SubmitHub and submitted the
song to various playlistcurators, got about a 50% return
on that, which I thought wasquite good.
Overall, the feedback wasreally really good in terms of
production.
It was just it's progressivehalf, so it's six and a half
minutes, and it just didn't fitinto several playlists that I
(03:41):
submitted to, and there werealso comments with regards to
the melodic line of the trackand I've taken that on board and
it's something I'm going tothink about in future releases.
But I was happy with the returnon that investment on SubmitHub
because I noticed it did helpthen push me forward in terms of
those just listeners andstreams for that initial release
sort of week or two.
(04:01):
So overall I was happy with thereturn on SubmitHub.
As part of this release, Ididn't invest any money in
online advertising so metaadverts on Facebook and
Instagram, which I had donebefore, so I didn't do any of
that this time In 2024, I didinvest some money and effort and
time into learning more aboutFacebook advertising and
advertising using the metaplatform.
(04:22):
So going forward something toconsider Didn't do it in this
particular release.
I also didn't actually reachout to any blogs or radio
stations at all post-release.
Now it did come out aroundDecember and I think in my head
I sort of psyched myself outthinking, oh, no one's going to
be interested in this newrelease, it's all going to be
about Christmas music aroundthis time.
(04:43):
So I didn't actually do anyoutreach whatsoever other than
uploading it to BBC Introducingand it did get featured.
It got played on BBCIntroducing in the southwest,
which was cool, but otherwise nopaid advertising and also no
outreach to radio stations,blogs, webzines, anything like
that at all.
For this release I did have asocial media pre-release
(05:05):
strategy of sorts and it wasreally centered around
engagement and getting feedbackfrom followers on mainly on
Instagram, a few on YouTube aswell, with YouTube posts and
just getting feedback, and alsothrough my mailing list as well.
I forgot about that on feedbackon the artwork itself, and
having mailing list subscribersand followers on YouTube helped
(05:25):
me decide on the artwork itself,and having mailing list
subscribers and followers onYouTube helped me decide on the
artwork, which was really cool.
Got a lot of engagement fromthat and then post release.
I think I did one release post,maybe two, and that was pretty
much it.
So there wasn't really much ofa post release strategy on any
social media platform whatsoever.
I didn't release a music videoeither on YouTube Not something
(05:47):
I'm focusing on really at themoment, maybe in the future.
But again, just to summarise,there was a sort of pre-release
strategy on social media, butthere really wasn't anything
post-release.
It was kind of like on the dayof release it was a
user-generated content of me hey, this is my release, you might
like it, xyz.
And then that was pretty muchit.
(06:08):
And then I actually I do have ahighlight on Instagram where
I've got some stories where it'sbeen shared on playlists etc
and feedback, but apart fromthat, nothing really, to be
honest.
So it was a bit weak.
I say a bit.
It was quite weak really interms of social media strategy
now, in terms of monthlylisteners strategy.
Now, in terms of monthlylisteners on Spotify, I did get
(06:29):
up to around 3,000, if memoryserves, and I think that was
mainly due to my Christmas BabyPlease Come Home cover that I
released two or three years ago,and then you get that festive
bump basically when it's thenjust suddenly at the top of the
pile due to it being Christmas,right.
So I'm going to attribute thatpossibly to a bulk of those
(06:52):
monthly listeners because,having gone through the strategy
I employed for this release, Ireally fell short, I think, in
what in in terms of what I coulddo.
I'm thinking at the time Ireally just wanted to release
some music because I hadn'treally released anything, I
think, for about a year, and Ireally just wanted to release
some music because I hadn'treally released anything, I
think, for about a year, and Iwas just itching to get
something out there.
So I kind of got it to a reallygood level.
(07:12):
I was happy with the production, the mixing, the mastering, got
it released, but then didn'treally have a plan.
So it kind of performed okay,considering I didn't really have
a plan.
But I knew that the nextrelease I was going to have to
level it up slightly, if not alot, to then hit my goal of
(07:32):
10,000 monthly listeners.
So this is where my nextrelease comes in and that is
Separation, which was releasedat the end of January.
So let's dive into my thoughtsand reflections on that release.
So, again, I invested £50 inSubmitHub and this time the
response was OK.
I think I got about 25-30%, soit was moderate.
I managed to get on theplaylist I got on before, which
(07:53):
was cool.
So I've now created a list ofplaylists on SubmitHub that I
can submit to, knowing thatthere's a good chance I'm going
to get featured so long as I'mstill in this sort of
progressive house, melodic house, deep house phase that I'm in
at the moment.
But overall the playlistcurator feedback was very, very
(08:14):
good, but at the same time itwasn't playlisted as much as
waves, which is interestingbecause overall I think the
production is better onseparation, but maybe it's just
the actual arrangement.
Something to consider.
Again, I think it came down tothis one.
Not necessarily the melodicline, but I think it was more to
(08:34):
do with the arp wasn't reallyto some taste and also the vocal
was quite repetitive in it.
I say quite, it is veryrepetitive in separation.
But overall I was relativelyhappy with the return on submit
hub or in submit hub.
So something I'm going to takeforward and I'll continue to do.
Moving on to my social mediastrategy, I won't lie, I think
(08:55):
it was even worse this time.
I didn't really do anything interms of pre-release or
post-release just a few storiesand the occasional reel, and I
think I did a post with regardsto the artwork and there might
have been some user-generatedcontent thrown in there
somewhere but really reallydropped the ball on a social
media strategy and it'ssomething I need to refine, I
(09:16):
think, going forward andactually have a plan, and I
think, because I didn't have aplan and actually map out what I
wanted to do and then probablyjust batch record some content,
I just fell off the wagon.
Really, I wasn't even on thewagon, to be honest, so I
couldn't really fall off it.
So it's something I definitelyneed to refine a lot for the
(09:36):
next release.
However, I did experiment withad spend on Facebook and
Instagram, notably on Storiesand Reels Facebook and Instagram
, notably on stories and reels.
So I got rid of any otherplacements that weren't
conducive to what I wanted to do, because you can go in and
manually do it basically.
But I did a broad targetingcampaign, so I didn't specify
(09:58):
any interests whatsoever and Iused the traffic campaign
objective and I targetedlisteners in the locations of my
top listeners on Spotify, whichI believe United States, uk,
canada, australia and possiblyGermany, over the course of
three weeks I had an average of7p per link click.
(10:19):
After the first couple weeks Iremoved the United States
because it was the mostexpensive cost per click and I
had pretty good engagement aswell A few shares, some comments
as well, and a lot of likes andhearts and everything else in
between.
And if you're interested in thevideo itself, if you go over to
YouTube now and watch this video, I will post it on screen so
(10:40):
you can see it as I'm talking.
So it's a really short video.
I think it was about fiveseconds in total.
One thing I would dodifferently and somebody did
comment on the video itself Iwould actually have the music,
the song, in the background ofthe video, which is not what I
did.
It is literally just me talkingand then explaining if you like
this, then you might like this,but didn't actually have the
(11:02):
video in the back, the music inthe background of the video.
But I was happy with the costper click over the course of
three weeks and also it wasrated as good in terms of
content High performing, that'sthe phrase I was looking for.
It was rated as high performing, so something I will definitely
do again.
This time I did actually reachout to radio stations and some
(11:26):
blogs as well.
Bbc Introducing got featured onthere again.
So this time I used ChatGPT asmy tool here and I put in a
prompt, a more detailed promptthan what I'm going to explain
now, but basically I wanted itto return radio stations with
contact details related tomelodic, house, dance music,
electronic music in the UnitedStates, in the UK and in
(11:49):
Australia as well, and, to behonest with you, I didn't get
any feedback whatsoever from anyof them Now, albeit I think I
only reached out to about 15.
I did get on Amazing Radio,though.
I mean, amazing Radio isslightly different.
You upload your track and thenit gets streamed, it gets
playlisted, basically, and sofar it's been played every day,
(12:10):
which is really, really cool.
But the responses from all theothers it's just been crickets.
It may have got played, I don'tknow, but it has been crickets
for the other ones.
So I'm going to continue todevelop that database and I will
continue to outreach, becauseit may well be getting played.
They just might not have let meknow, or it may well have just
gone to spam, but I'm going tocontinue to build that database
(12:31):
of radio stations across the keylocations for my listeners,
because it could have beenbeneficial.
I just may not have known, orit just went to spam, as I said.
Who knows?
But go on.
Bbc Introducing I've got someregular rotation on Amazing
Radio as well, which is prettycool.
Now the actual release strategyfor Separation is linked to Wave
(12:53):
, so I'm using the waterfallrelease strategy, the idea being
every release is building up toan EP.
So I'm re-releasing theprevious song using the same
ISRC code, basically usingDistroKid, the idea being it
will shine a light on thatprevious release, which it kind
of did.
I noticed a small bump instreams for waves when
(13:14):
separation was released, whichis pretty cool, and I'll do the
same again with the next release.
So waves was released on itsown, separation was released
with waves, and then the nextrelease is going to be released
with both waves and separation.
If you're interested in thewaterfall release strategy,
there is a blog post I put outlast year with regards to this,
so you can click the link in theepisode description and you can
(13:35):
find that the idea is in doingthis.
There's a cascade of releasesbuilding up to an EP.
Now you want them linked, right?
The idea here is that it'sgoing to shine a light on
previous releases.
So it kind of did and I thinkI'll see this hopefully more
with the next release.
So again, if you're interestedin the waterfall release
(13:57):
strategy, do check out that blogpost and I may release a video
in the future of me goingthrough this process with my
next release.
We'll see what happens, but yes, that was my strategy and I
noticed a small bump in streamsand saves and playlist ads for
Waves at the time of the releaseof Separation.
Now let's look at the results ofmy reflection of those two
(14:18):
releases.
In the first 28 days,separation almost tripled the
streams of Waves on Spotify.
It surpassed Waves' totalstreams in just a few weeks.
Spotify radio started pushingmy back catalog as well.
I'm seeing more exposure for myother songs and just more
streams in general.
From that and as of Februarythe 23rd when I'm recording this
(14:39):
, my monthly listeners have hitnearly 1600 listeners, which is
a 322% increase from theprevious month.
Small fry right, small numbers,but at this growth rate I'm on
track to smash my 10k listenergoal in 2025.
So what are my next steps?
Here's what I'm going to focuson going forward, I'm going to
(15:01):
stick to a six week releasecadence.
Consistency is key.
Of course, the productionquality also needs to be key as
well.
So if I don't feel like theproduction is up to scratch, I
won't be releasing it, but I'mgoing to stick, where possible,
to that six week release cadence.
I'm going to analyze my adspend, because I paused the ads
(15:21):
after three weeks to assess thereal effect on listeners and
streams.
So we'll see what happens there.
I'm going to continue thewaterfall release strategy.
The small boost in catalogstreams I think is worth
building on.
I'm going to expand radiooutreach.
I'm going to get.
I'm going to dedicate more timeto building a database of radio
stations and I'm going to alsoimprove my pitch, because
(15:43):
something's falling flat there.
It's not, it's not landing, soI'm going to look and refine
that.
I'm going to maintain my submithub investment as well.
It's a bit hit or miss, but I'mstill finding it useful and I
think this is important.
I'm going to plan a propersocial media pre-release and
post-release strategy, as thishas been significantly weak.
(16:06):
I think it's time to fix it andit'd be interesting to see if
that does then have a knock-oneffect in terms of that growth
in monthly listeners.
So that's my journey so far whatworked, what didn't work and
what I'm going to improve on.
And if you're an indie artistlooking to build an audience, I
hope this gives you some insightand into what's effective and
(16:31):
maybe what might not beeffective.
Now again, not an expert by anystretch, pretty much at the
beginning of this really buthopefully this insight will help
in some way.
And also, I think it'simportant to reflect and
hopefully, if you can take atleast one thing away is to
reflect what went well, whatcould be improved with each
release, and maybe record avideo like this.
(16:52):
You don't have to release it,but if you at least record it,
you're going through the motionsof analysing and reflecting on
what you've done previously andthen what you could do as a
result, going forward.
So hopefully this has helped insome way.
I'm going to check back in acouple of months' time with my
thoughts and reflections andmaybe even some new strategies.
So in the meantime, keepexperimenting.
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