The Music Marketing Lifecycle
An explanation of the music marketing lifecycle and its different stages.
PreviousMusic MarketingNextThe Most Popular Types of ToneDen Campaigns You Can Use to Market your Music
Last updated
An explanation of the music marketing lifecycle and its different stages.
Last updated
Knowing the music marketing lifecycle lets you know which campaigns to run and when to run them.
The music marketing lifecycle is the timeline of promotional activities around your music.
It's simplest form is two stages: Pre-Release & Post-Release.
Pre-Release is the period before your song is available across streaming platforms.
Promotion activities in the pre-release stage center around building hype and list building.
Pre-Release activities include creating FanLinks, running Pre-Save Campaigns. Or they include running ad campaigns to older songs or your artist profile.
Post-Release is the period after your song is available across streaming platforms.
Promotion activities in the post-release stage focus on sending fans Spotify.
Post-Release activities include using the Spotfiy Growth Playbook campaign. They also include creating FanLinks & promoting FanLinks with ads.
You'll want to identify where you are in the context of your song or album release so that you know:
Which campaigns to create
When to create them
How long they need to run for
How much budget you can afford to put into to each campaign
We dive into the different kinds of ToneDen campaigns you can create in Part 2:
We also outline example music marketing battle plans in Part 4:
There tends to be an emphasis on marketing newer songs within an artists catalog.
This makes sense as newer songs are more in-line with an artist's current brand.
But this doesn't mean you should discount other songs in your catalog because they are older.
Remember this: your music is new to anyone to hasn't heard it yet.
If you have a song that is 2 years with 2,000 streams, it's okay to promote it in the same way you would a song that is 1 day old. Viral hits like Truth Hurts by Lizzo didn't pop off until two years after released!
Artists get surprised when older songs outperform more recent songs from their catalog. This is likely due to the fact that the older music didn't get enough marketing attention from the start.
You can now pick which campaigns to run now that you know where you are in the music marketing lifecycle:
