Benefits of doing a pre-save campaign on Spotify

While major player in the industry have been taking advantage of Spotify’s pre-save feature for a while now, not nearly enough up-and-coming bands/artists are utilizing this particular promotional tool.

Guest post by Hugh McIntyre of Tunecore

All musicians should also go out of their way to claim their artist page on Spotify. If you don’t know what this means, or you aren’t sure how to get started on this process, Tunecore has you covered!

A few years ago, Spotify unveiled its latest feature: pre-save campaigns, and while some major players in the music industry regularly employ this tactic as a way to get their new singles to the masses, I don’t see nearly enough up-and-coming acts doing the same. This likely isn’t something that will turn your unheard track into a global smash (though you never know!), but it is one more weapon in your arsenal that can be utilized to do everything possible to rack up streams, reach those who already like your music and hopefully earn a few more bucks with your latest drop.

Here are just some of the benefits of a Spotify pre-save campaign.

Reminds Fans

When you have a new song or album ready to go, there is almost no amount of promotion that’s bad (almost). You don’t want to make the mistake of simply tweeting once that it’s coming or posting one picture of the album cover on Instagram the day it drops and moving on, as that isn’t nearly enough promo, at least as a rising talent in the music world. Someone like Adele can share a cryptic message and have the entire world go crazy, but everyone else has to do everything they can to ensure that their message doesn’t get lost in the fray of social media and overstuffed email inboxes…which is a lot easier than you’d like to believe.

Employing a pre-save campaign on Spotify can be one in a long line of different ways you can remind your fan base a single is on the way. After teasing the song, outright announcing its title and release date, sharing the cover, and maybe even giving them a snippet to listen to, you can also post on your social accounts that they can now pre-save it on Spotify.

When you’re trying to tell a group of people the same basic message over and over (to make sure everyone sees it and many remember it), you need to do your best to differentiate how you do so, otherwise you’ll begin to annoy those who follow you.

Right Into Their Libraries

When a listener pre-saves a song, that means it will be immediately downloaded into their Spotify library the moment it becomes available on the platform. That might not sound terribly important at first, but believe me, it is.

No matter how hard you promote your forthcoming single, there are bound to be people who either miss your efforts entirely, as well as those who see it and move on…or even who become excited about the drop, only to forget entirely later on. This is sadly just how the world is, as everyone is busy and there is so much happening, so you can’t expect everyone who follows you on social media or who is a fan of your art to remember to head to your page on release day to download the cut.

Instead of relying on them to commit this future action to memory, help your fans out by encouraging them to pre-save the cut. That way, even if they completely forget it’s on its way or when it’s slated to drop, they will catch it the next time they open Spotify to listen to their favorite tunes and it’s already in their saved tracks.

Need help getting your music on Spotify? Tunecore can help with that!

Momentum

Two things can help you out on Spotify: working with the people who compose the weekly playlists that attract millions of listeners, and influencing the algorithm, which is hugely important to that platform, even if it’s not well-understood and often overlooked.

Spotify’s algorithm pays very close attention to not just what songs and albums people are listening to, but when they press play, how long they keep it going, and other details. If your new single is only played by a few people here and there, it doesn’t stand any chance of improving its standing, but if it is immediately downloaded to a number of people’s libraries (thanks to a pre-save campaign), that will help it in the “eyes” of the algorithm. The track will also benefit, as it will surely rack up more plays in its first few hours and days if it does land in people’s saved songs list, and all those streams in a short period of time, and soon after it was released, may be enough for it to attract the attention of those who work at the company. Once that happens, it could wind up on a playlist or two…which will only help your cut receive more plays, rise the ranks further, and so on. 

Basically, a pre-save campaign can be one more way to achieve momentum with your new song, which can mean all the difference.

Use Their Features!

Whether you like Spotify or not, and there are plenty of reasons to both love and hate it, we’re all stuck with it, and there’s no way to get around or deny its immense popularity and power. If the Sweden-based platform is unavoidable, you may as well do everything you can to use all the features it offers, learning the ins and outs of the site. This hasn’t been confirmed, but it seems possible that the company may favor those artists who engage consistently and fully with their new programs and projects, and any little bit helps for musicians trying to be noticed. 

You don’t need to spend a lot of time with all of Spotify’s features to be able to speak on them with some authority and know what you’re doing, which is worth your effort if you’re going to be a working musician in today’s streaming-first musical economy.