Effective Music Marketing: The Anatomy Of A Show.co Campaign

This article explores how artists can take advantage of the marketing opportunity provided CD Baby's recently acquired Show.co, a company which makes online marketing tools employed by companies like Universal and Sony.

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Guest post by Chris Robley on DIY Musician

Last year CD Baby bought Show.co, a company that makes really great online marketing tools used by artists on Universal, Sony, Nettwerk Music Group, and more — and we’re making these tools available to CD Baby clients for FREE.

To market your music through Show.co:

Log into your CD Baby member account
Look to the right-hand side of the account dashboard
Click on “Free Marketing Tools!”

Once you’ve created your account you can use Show.co’s suite of online marketing tools to:

Grow your Spotify following
Build your email list
Boost engagement on YouTube and SoundCloud
Host contests and giveaways
And much more

Where to begin?

I think that increasing your number of followers on Spotify is a good first goal for almost any artist. So start by testing a “Social Unlock” campaign where people can follow you on Spotify in exchange for “unlocking” some kind of special content.

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, since anyone who doesn’t use Spotify can opt to give you their email address instead.

The images in this article illustrate this type of campaign in action. The band Smalltown Poets ran a “Social Unlock” campaign to build their Spotify following and email list.

So what kinds of content can fans unlock?

Almost anything you can dream up, including:

an MP3 or FLAC download
a PDF
an unlisted video link on YouTube or Vimeo
a hidden URL
a special Spotify playlist
a coupon code
free merch
VIP access to a live stream
tickets to a concert or meet-and-greet

When Ignition Records uses the “Social Unlock” tool to give away concert tickets, box sets, and meet-and-greets for clients like OASIS and Noel Gallagher, they often see crazy high conversion rates in the 80-90% range.