Ever released a song only to watch it vanish into the streaming void after a brief moment in the spotlight? In this episode of Inside The Mix, Marc Matthews delves into the waterfall release strategy, a strategic approach to music distribution that aims to revolutionise how artists share their work and maximise their reach.
The core concept of the waterfall release strategy is explained: instead of releasing singles in isolation or dropping an entire album at once, artists gradually build momentum by rereleasing previous tracks alongside each new single. The episode outlines how an artist might start with one song, then release it with the second single, followed by packaging all three tracks together for the third release, continuing this pattern until the complete EP or album is unveiled.
Marc provides a practical walkthrough of how to implement this strategy using DistroKid, although he notes that the underlying principles are applicable across various distribution platforms. He emphasises the critical importance of maintaining identical metadata and audio files for re-released tracks on DistroKid, the correct and consistent use of ISRC codes, and offers practical tips to help artists avoid common pitfalls when using DistroKid for a waterfall release.
Sharing his own experiences, Marc discusses testing this approach with his recent releases, "Waves," "Separation," and "Four Minute Warning." He highlights the noticeable increase in streams for his earlier tracks, demonstrating a tangible benefit of the strategy.
The episode explores the potential advantages of the waterfall strategy for artists looking to maximise their music's reach and lifespan, particularly on Spotify. Marc discusses how this method can keep an artist's catalog fresh in listeners' minds, potentially trigger algorithmic favour through consistent releases, and create multiple opportunities for music discovery on platforms like Spotify. He poses the question of how a waterfall release can help boost Spotify streams and keep back catalogs relevant.
While acknowledging it's not a guaranteed solution, Marc positions the waterfall strategy as a compelling option for producers and artists aiming for sustained traction rather than a fleeting moment in the spotlight. He encourages listeners to consider if this approach, particularly when implemented through DistroKid, could transform their next music release and help them effectively utilise the waterfall release strategy on Spotify.
Links mentioned in this episode:
Listen to 4 Minute Warning
My Journey to 10,000 Monthly Listeners - What Actually Works?
How to Release Music and Artist Strategies for Engagement and Success in 2024 with Jay Gilbert
Don't Release Another Song Without Reading this First: A Guide
Book your FREE 20 Minute Discovery Call
Follow Marc Matthews' Socials:
Instagram | YouTube | Synth Music Master
Episode Transcript
So we've all been there.
You drop a single and it doeswell for a bit.
Then it goes into the greatvoid that is Spotify.
Whatever platform, streamingplatform you listen to and, or
rather, you release an album andit just takes ages to gain
traction.
That's where the waterfallrelease strategy comes in.
Davey Oberlin (00:19):
Hey, inside the Mix podcast fans, this is Davey
Oberlin of All the Damn Vampires.
Make sure to follow me onInstagram for updates on all my
music projects.
And that's Davey Oberlin onInstagram as well.
You're listening to the Insidethe Mix podcast, and here's your
host, mark Matthews.
Marc Matthews (00:35):
Welcome to Inside the Mix, your go-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.
Hello folks, welcome to theInside the Mix podcast.
(00:58):
If you are a producer or artistinterested in learning a
potentially smarter way torelease your music, this episode
could well be for you.
We are diving into thewaterfall release strategy, and
I discovered this strategy inconversation with Jay Gilbert of
the your Morning Coffee podcastback on episode 130.
The general idea behind thisstrategy is to maximize exposure
(01:19):
, increase engagement and growyour audience with every release
.
So by the end of this episode,you'll have a step-by-step guide
of how to implement thisstrategy, whether you're
dropping your first single orplanning an album or EP rollout.
So we've all been there.
You drop a single and it doeswell for a bit.
Then it goes into the greatvoid that is Spotify whatever
platform streaming platform youlisten to, and or rather, you
(01:43):
release an album and it justtakes ages to gain traction.
That's where the waterfallrelease strategy comes in.
The idea behind the waterfallrelease strategy is to gain
momentum.
So you gradually, you drip feedreleases over time and I've
been doing this with my recentreleases.
I did this with waves,separation and four minute
warning.
So it started with waves andthen I re-released waves with
(02:05):
separation, and then Ire-released waves and separation
with four minute warning, andthen I've got another one to go
after that as well.
So I'm in very much in thestage of experimenting with this
release strategy at the moment.
I'll give you my feedback onhow it's gone so far at the end
of this episode.
So what we're going to do inthis episode is we're going to
break down the actual waterfallrelease strategy step by step,
(02:26):
using DistroKid but you can usewhatever platform you use to
distribute your music.
I use DistroKid, hence whywe're going to be using it today
, and I'll also go through somecommon mistakes to be aware of,
learn from the mistakes that Ihave made along the way, made
along the way.
So by the end of this episode,you will have a strategy that
(02:46):
could well help you gainmomentum, grow your audience and
just continue and buildengagement with your fans, slash
audience as well.
So let's dive in.
So here we are in DistroKid.
I'm in the upload page and forthis strategy to work, you would
need to have already releasedat least one single.
Now I've released three, so I'mgoing to go through the process
.
I would now go through for thatfourth single, which is
(03:07):
untitled, so I'll just come upwith a random name.
So the first thing, firstnumber of songs it's going to be
four.
I'm going to enable Snapchatbecause I own the 100% of the
publishing.
Has the album been previouslyreleased?
No, no, it hasn't.
And it's my name Okay.
So all this is alreadypre-filled out because I have
(03:28):
released previously.
So it's got my Spotify, appleMusic, youtube, instagram,
facebook, etc.
My release date set when yourrelease date is.
So let's go.
This is the 8th of March.
Today.
I'm actually at the point ofrecording this.
I've got a song that's droppingon the 21st.
So let's say I am sticking tomy six-week release cadence that
I want.
(03:49):
So what are we there?
It's 21st 1, 2, so that's 4, 3,4, 5, 6.
I forgot how to count them.
2nd of May, let's say Releasetime.
I always leave it as is withthe recommended, not bothered
about that Time synchronization.
(04:09):
Leave it as is with therecommended, not bothered about
that time synchronization.
Leave it as is as well.
Obviously you can change allthese settings here to to suit
your the way you release recordlabel put in your label, if
you've got one, I'm just gonnaleave that blank.
Album price I'm just gonnaprice it at ÂŁ4.99.
Actually, no, I'm gonna doÂŁ3.99 because it's four tracks,
so just under a pound.
Each Language is English.
Primary genre select your genre.
So let's say I've been goingwith dance lately.
(04:31):
Actually there's house on here.
No, let's go electronic.
And then I want house.
So where are you?
I'll just put electro house.
Secondary genre let's just gowith dance.
Then this is where you wouldupload your album cover.
Obviously this is going to bethe album cover of the latest
(04:51):
song.
So this will be the albumartwork for the fourth release.
For the fourth release okay,give it a title.
Um, so I'm going to call thisthe title of the fourth song.
So I'm just going to call thisthe title of the fourth song.
So I'm just going to call this,very interesting, my Fourth
Song.
Here we are and I'm going totake that and then I'm just
(05:12):
going to copy that into song one, like so so this is the fourth
and new song.
So add featured artist to songtitle no, obviously this is
going to change.
This is subjective to whateveryou're releasing.
Add version no, this is a normalversion.
Then I would upload the audioand I'm not going to click on.
Already have an ISRC, but wewill in a minute, so I'm going
(05:43):
to let DistroKid sort that outfor me.
Spatial audio no, is it a cover?
No, music and lyrics.
I did all that, so I'm going tostick my name in there.
Boom and explicit no.
Is this a radio edit?
No, is it an instrumental?
Let's say it's not and letstreaming services decide.
The preview clip happy withthat.
And the track price at 99 cents?
So happy with that.
So that's the first song.
So it is basically uploading a,an entirely new song.
(06:05):
But for the next three songsit's where it gets slightly
different.
So let's scroll down.
So song title number two let'ssay this is my four minute
warning, which was the mostrecent song I released.
So I put four minute warning inhere, warming for the song
title and basically what I nowselect in this description for
(06:26):
track two of four minute warninghas to be exactly the same as
it was for the previous release,and you have to do this for
tracks two, three and four.
It has to be exactly the same.
Can this for tracks 2, 3 and 4.
It has to be exactly the same.
Can't stress that enough.
Exactly the same.
Okay, so I can remember.
No, don't show any otherartists.
No, this is a normal versionand I already have an ISRC code.
(06:49):
So this is where I'm going toduplicate my DistroKid page here
and hopefully it will work fine.
Let's go back to the top andI'm just going to go to my Music
and then, if I go to 4-MinuteWarning, I can see there's my
ISRC codes for 4-Minute Warning,separation and Wave.
So I'm just going to copy thatfor 4-Minute Warning, go back
(07:14):
over to DistroK kid for the newrelease and paste that in there.
So copy and paste your isrcsand you're going to do that.
I won't do it in this example.
I'm not going to go througheach track, but I would do that
for four minute warning,separation and waves, and I'm
going to do it in the order thatit is here as well.
So it's going to go.
Track two is four minute warning, track three is separation,
track four is waves and I'mgoing to copy the ISRC codes
(07:36):
across into here.
So it's important that youselect.
I think I'm going to have toscroll down to get it exactly
right.
Already have an ISRC, okay, andthen everything else again is
going to be the same.
So songwriter's name is me,okay.
No explicit lyrics.
The song contains its lyricsyes, it does.
And then track price.
But of course we also need toupload the audio.
(07:59):
So this is really importanthere.
So this audio needs to be thesame audio.
Essentially, I would just tobelt and braces approach just
use the exact same file that youused originally.
Just as I say for that belt andbraces approach.
And the easiest way, I think,to do this is that in DistroKid
in particular and I'm going tohazard a guess and say you can
(08:20):
do this in other distros but ifyou go up to the top, it's kind
of like four dots or foursquares or something.
If you go to protect your musicand you've got vault, okay, and
then I've got four-minutewarning, and then if I click on
that release, I can, okay, andthen I've got four minute
warning and then, if I click onthat release, I can actually
download that wav file that Iused or I uploaded originally.
(08:41):
You can also get the isrc codein here as well.
That way I know if I downloadthis it's exactly the same as
the original upload.
So that's what I would selectas my audio file for this.
So go to to the DistroKid vault, download the original file and
then upload that as your audiofile.
That way, there's no room forerror in theory.
(09:02):
So then we move on to the nexttrack.
In this instance it's going tobe track three, so this would be
my one, called Separation.
I think I spelled separationwrong.
No, that looks right.
I'm just going to double check.
Let's go back.
Separation, yeah.
I did spell it right, a wordthat always gets me.
Add featured artist.
(09:23):
No, then no again to addversion separation.
Already have an ISRC?
Yes, I do.
So I could use the vault inthis instance.
Click on separation here, copythat ISRC and stick that in
there and remember, download theaudio file from the vault for
separation, title separation infact.
Yeah, I'll use that originalone, it's going to be the same.
(09:44):
I mean, I could go back to theoriginal separation release and
download that one, but it's thesame audio file upload that and
then go through the same processagain as we did with the other
two tracks, basically, and thendo the same for track four with
waves, and that's it basically.
That is how you create thewaterfall release.
So track one is the new trackand then I'm re-releasing
(10:06):
essentially tracks two, threeand four, and then when I do the
fifth track, I'd then bere-releasing my fourth song in
theory.
So that's a whistle stop tourof how to do it in DistroKid.
So my experience with thisstrategy so far is as follows I
re-released waves withseparation and then, at the
(10:27):
point of releasing well, ratherrecording this episode four
minute warning is going to bethe new release with waves and
separation.
I noticed a bump in streams forwaves at the time of releasing
separation.
Ultimately, separation didbetter and has surpassed in
terms of streams.
It has surpassed waves.
(10:47):
So is that testament to thesong being better or is that
testament to the algorithm ofSpotify recognizing my release
cadence?
I'll know for sure, I think,once I've released two or three
more songs using this strategy.
Then I'll be able to see a muchclearer picture.
Okay, has this release cadencebenefited me?
(11:09):
Is Spotify now jumping on mymusic and pushing out to more
people because I'm releasingmore, or is it just this?
A better song Could be that, tobe fair, I I mean in terms of
interaction and audienceengagement, I probably got more
with separation than I did withwaves.
On the negative side of this,it's made my Spotify catalog a
bit weird in terms of it's justwhen you look at it, you'll see
(11:31):
the same release and then againand again, and again.
I mean I could go back anddelete the original releases, I
guess, but I but I'm not goingto.
So it might look a bit old forsomeone looking at my entire
catalogue, but ultimately I'mnot really worried about that.
To be honest.
If you are, then I suppose youcould go back and delete the old
releases, but so far it hasbeen of benefit, I think.
(11:55):
But I'll know more further intothis journey in 2025.
If you go back and listen toepisode 185, I think it is
that's my first assessment of myrelease strategies this year,
so it could be of interest ifthis episode has been of
interest to you.
One other key point I didn'tmention and I probably should
have mentioned right at thebeginning, is that the idea is
(12:17):
we are building to an EP oralbum release.
My advice and I'm not an expertby any stretch in music
marketing or this particularstrategy, to be honest but it
makes sense to have the songsrelated to each other.
There needs to be some sort ofrelationship.
It doesn't make sense to me inmy head to just have random
songs released and build intothis waterfall strategy.
(12:40):
Again, we're building towardsan album release or an EP
release, so there needs to besome sort of relationship and
obviously this doesn't mean thatyou don't need to do the normal
marketing that you wouldusually do and the branding and
everything else surrounding that.
So it's not a silver bullet Ihate to use that term and I
wouldn't even know if it isanyway, because I've only just
started using it.
(13:01):
So, as a quick summary, we'reusing the waterfall release
strategy to re-release previoussingles to build towards an EP
or an album, and I showed youhow to do it with DistroKid.
Make sure the metadata for there-released tunes is exactly the
same as is the audio file aswell, and just be aware that it
can convolute your streamingplatform catalog a little if you
(13:27):
use this particular strategy.
But the idea is that we aregoing to gain momentum, we're
going to increase that releasecadence Ideally, hopefully the
Spotify algorithm will jump onit as well and we're going to
continue to build and grow thataudience.
So, folks, hopefully this hasbeen of use to you.
If you are interested in usingthe waterfall release strategy,
let me know your thoughts in thecomments.
(13:48):
If you're watching on youtubeor dm me at inside the mix
podcast with your experienceusing this strategy, or maybe
someone you know who has used it, whether it's good, bad or
anywhere in between, I'll seeyou in the next episode.
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