Why Every Musician Should Consider International Promotion
One common mistake many artists make is limiting their promotional efforts to just their home country.
Take a U.S. rapper, for example.
They might only run ads in the United States and aim for playlists that predominantly feature U.S. listeners.
This strategy makes sense up to a point since breaking through often involves building a fanbase where you live.
However, it simultaneously neglects a substantial opportunity for broader growth.
Artists who have cracked the code of the algorithms on significant platforms like Spotify don’t shy away from expanding their horizons and reaching listeners worldwide.
Strategic Approaches: Bandwagon Effect and Cross-Marketing
This global approach is strategic, mainly for two reasons:
1. The Bandwagon Effect.
In the music world, the bandwagon effect means people usually only want to listen to well-known music and not so much to new, upcoming artists.
This is really common in Western countries, where big artists like Justin Bieber and Post Malone take up a lot of the spotlight.
For example, when someone like Drake shares a new song on his Instagram (with his massive 143 million followers), he gets tons of shares and comments from all over – from music labels, famous athletes, other artists, fans, and more.
But newer artists, even if they’re with big labels, don’t usually get the same kind of attention.
However, this effect isn’t as strong in other areas of the world, like South America, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe.
People living there are much more open to discovering new, emerging talents (according to a study done by ChartMetric).
Ultimately, it’s easier to trigger the Spotify algorithm when targeting your promotion in these places because they’re more open to new talent, and therefore, more open to engaging with your music.
Getting 2,000 streams from 400 premium subscribers does not have a greater algorithmic effect than 200,000 streams from 50,000 free listeners.
The algorithm, as a non-human tastemaker, focuses only on finding the right music for the right audience, and it requires a significant amount of stream data to recommend your track.
The more plays you get in the first week of your release, the easier it is to get playlisted on Spotify.
2. Cross-Marketing.
Cross-marketing here means one artist works with another, and they share completely different fanbases.
This doesn’t mean a folk musician should team up with a drill rapper…
But imagine a rapper from the United States making a song with a rapper from France. They both appeal to rap fans, sharing the same type of listeners.
By collaborating, they essentially introduce their music to each other’s audiences, leading to more listeners, more engagement, and ultimately, more visibility on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Spotify.
Success Story: Connor Price
A great example of an artist who used both strategies to grow his fanbase and reach is Connor Price.
Connor Price, a rapper based in Canada, collaborated with foreign artists on several tracks and exploded on TikTok and then Spotify.
He has now gathered over 200 million streams on these collabs, which resulted in getting his music featured in editorial playlists and attracting hundreds of thousands of new fans from all over the world.
Connor found a smart and fun way to engage even more listeners with this strategy by involving his fans in the decision-making process of the collab.
Check this video out on TikTok:
@connorprice__ Part 6. 🇨🇦🤝🇧🇷 @luccaraps
♬ False Alarm - Connor Price & Lucca DL
Simple idea, yet so effective!
Connor did a collab with a Brazilian rapper, which is super smart for a couple of reasons.
First, it’s a great way to grab attention on TikTok because these kinds of things can easily go viral. Plus, Brazil is one of the biggest music markets in the world!
SĂŁo Paulo, one of the largest cities in Brazil, is also one of the top 10 “trigger cities” on ChartMetric’s list. That means getting listeners there can really help boost a song in the algorithm more than in western cities like New York.
Implementing These Strategies For Your Music
Armed with these 2 strategies, how can you implement them to find success in the music industry?
First, if you’re running ads for your music, whether it’s on Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, or a mix of them, it’s a solid plan to target countries outside your home country.
Not only will the algorithm effect be more potent here (thanks to the trigger city concept we talked about earlier), but it’s also significantly less expensive to promote and advertise in these countries compared to most first-world countries.
This strategy allows you to pump more volume into your music, getting more streams and more engagement.
Since the algorithm on platforms like Spotify doesn’t specifically look at the listener location, your chances of triggering the algorithm and getting placed on playlists, like Discover Weekly or Release Radar, increase.
This is because you’re giving Spotify more data to determine your audience.
Meaning, if you gather a lot of listeners from Mexico and those listeners engage well with your music (through saves, follows, engagement, etc.), the algorithm will push your music not only locally but also to your home country and other parts of the world.
Second, just like Connor, collaborating with musicians from different parts of the world is a smart move. You could create a multilingual track or stick with a common language.
The key here is to work with an artist who has a different fanbase, but one that shares interests with your fanbase.
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