Now is the time to start planning how you’ll release and promote music in 2025 so you can hit the ground running in the new year. Every January, YouTube comes alive with videos about “how to get your first 1 million streams (or something similar) in 20XX”, but for me, the work begins long before the beginning of the year. No doubt, December is all about the holidays, but it is also a time that is best suited to create a plan and start putting in the work to achieve your goals. Here are four...
23 days ago • 4 min read
We all love winning the game of attention, but revenue is the true lifeblood of any business. Views, likes, streams, and followers are important metrics—social proof matters—but too many creative people get stuck at this stage without considering how to monetize their efforts. Yes, you can make a little money from streams on Spotify and ads on YouTube, but if you want to convert your passion into purpose and your purpose into profit, you’re gonna have to sell something. This means creating a...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Bad marketing may not be why no one is listening to your music. Sure, the world is full of talented artists who struggle to get the word out about their work, but I would venture to say that, for most, unappreciated talent isn’t the biggest problem. It’s also not the marketing. It’s the music. So before we start throwing money at ads, playlists, or however else you intend to promote your work, let’s ask ourselves a few simple questions to ensure we maximize our efforts and generate the most...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Ads are a great way to automate your output, but automation is just the beginning. Yes, an effective campaign allows you to put your growth on autopilot so you can spend more of your time doing the things that only you can uniquely do for your business. But ignoring your ads completely can ultimately work against you. Advertising is just the first step in the process. Once our ads are live, it’s time to turn our attention toward maximizing engagement and communicating the benefits of our...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Are your Spotify ads not generating the results you want? Are you tired of throwing money at campaigns that just aren’t converting? Rest assured, you’re not alone. We’ve all been there, myself included. Many artists struggle to effectively connect with their audience and pull traffic to Spotify to generate long-term fans and listeners. Fortunately, most of the time, it’s a relatively easy fix. So let’s pick through three super simple reasons your ads might not be generating the results you...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
I finally stopped feeling like a starving artist when I figured out how to turn my love of music into an actual business. For context, I spent nearly two decades playing live shows, 15 years playing music professionally, and 10 years touring at the highest level, performing in arenas and working a full schedule as a session drummer in Nashville, Tennessee. Life was good. But no matter how high I climbed the ladder of “corporate musicianship” (if that’s a thing), I never quite felt like I had...
about 2 months ago • 5 min read
I have seen a lot of talented artists fail at marketing their music. Great songs, bad everything else. It’s painful. And heartbreaking. There are many potential ways to get it right as an independent artist, but there are several guaranteed ways to get it wrong. Promoting your work is hard enough without shooting yourself in the foot, so let’s unpack five common mistakes I see artists make. And how to avoid them. Avoiding social media Independent artists overlook the power of social media to...
2 months ago • 3 min read
Streams are the most discussed metric on Spotify, but they are hardly the driving force behind unlocking algorithmic discovery on the platform. No, that honor is reserved for a far less visible number: popularity score. Every artist, every album, and every track is assigned a popularity score by Spotify’s algorithm. And it is this little number that is the best gauge for understanding precisely how our music is performing. But how can we read this? (Hint: use the Artist X-Ray) How can we...
2 months ago • 4 min read
Spotify’s recommendation engine is powered by two parts of a simple equation: traffic and time. It looks something like this: Yes, Spotify’s algorithm is far more mathematically complex than these two components, but when we drill it down to its basic principles, traffic and time are the key ingredients. More traffic in less time, the more popular your work becomes. Now, most artists seem to understand that the more traffic you can get to your music, the more likely Spotify is to recommend...
3 months ago • 3 min read
