In this episode of Modern Music Marketing I talk to Chaitha about how he grew his Spotify to 250,000 monthly listeners in only 2 years. We talk about Facebook ads, playlisting and his journey as an artist.
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Important Points:
Taking inspiration from Alex Hormozi Chaitha advised listeners to not underestimate what they can do in ten years. He encourages them to try things out and don’t be afraid to take that initial jump. Once that initial hurdle is overcome, everything will follow. Most importantly, don’t be afraid to fail.
One of the things that worked for Chaitha was creating ads that were user-centric. Ones that highlight the different kinds of playlists for different activities that listeners do. He uses the app Chart Metrics to find legit playlists.
Some game-changing advice from Chaitha: avoid bots in growing organic streams because a lot of them tend to be fraudulent and intentionally choose playlist covers to represent what kind of music listeners should expect.
Both Andrew and Chaitha agree that small gradual wins make for a longer and more stable career than a one-time spike and viral moment. So, aim for those consistent small wins to build a solid foundation for your craft.
Podcast Outline:
[00:008] Chaitha gave his one-minute advice to the listeners: Don’t be afraid to make that initial jump and fail. You’ll never know what happens in 10 years. – Chaitha
[02:10] He started out sharing remixes and covers until he eventually shared original music. – Chaitha
[04:12] With no equipment and no musical background, whatsoever, Chaitha began recording using his phone. – Chaitha
[05:03] After learning that there’s a production value element when posting his music on social, he worked with a producer, Nathalie Shaun to teach him the basics – Chaitha
[06:12] Chaitha told Andrew how he binged-watched every single video of Modern Music Marketing to learn how to promote his music – Chaitha
[07:45] Pro tip: Advertise and include your song in curated playlists designed for audience activities. – Chaitha
[10:42] Andrew added that targeting people based on curated playlists increases the chance of your song being heard by more people. – Andrew
[12:31] Chaitha tried creating fans-only playlists, too, to test out what kind of engagement or traffic it’ll bring. – Chaitha
[12:55] Getting his radio was a big milestone and a game-changer. – Chaitha
[14:15] Andrew recommends that if you’ll do playlisting, don’t let it end up being more than 10% or 15% of your total monthly streams.- Chaitha
[15:49] Start-up artists often use playlisting to get over the hump. – Chaitha
[17:27] The Chart Metric helps Chaitha find legit playlists. – Chaitha
[18:09] Andrew and Chaitha advised against using bots for Spotify radio, YouTube, and Instagram streams – Andrew & Chaitha
[22:30] Chaitha maintains a network of 50-60 playlists he contacts. These playlists range across different genres. – Chaitha
[22:54] Facebook ads work only for that initial boost you need. Then, focus on finding the most searched playlists to add your music into – Chaitha
[25:39] An average score of 40 for playlists is a good score and will help make it more visible – Chaitha
[28:58] When the new policies for Meta adn Pixel changed, Chaitha stopped running traffic-related ads – Chaitha
[29:43] According to Chaitha it’s crucial to choose the playlist’s cover image to represent what kind of music listeners should expect. – Chaitha
[35:11] Pro tip from Andrew on generating playlist ID that’ll lead users to a specific song in the playlist. – Andrew
[41:23] Andrew and Chaitha talk about TikTok’s role and how many artists can’t surpass their record after their one-time hit. – Andrew & Chaitha
[44:20] For Andrew and Chaitha, a slow and gradual build to success gives him more gratification than a one-time big win. This sets a foundation for a more stable career in Music too. – Andrew & Chaitha
[50:11] Both Andrew and Chaitha as an artist, try to be as hands-on as they can, especially in elements of their music that affects their brands. – Andrew & Chaitha
Wise Words:
[00:08] A lot of people underestimate what they can do in 10 years, but they overestimate what they can do in a year. So kind of just start the process. Don’t be afraid to mess up. Just try everything…You be out there and see what works. – Chaitha
[01:15] It’s always like that initial step that takes the longest to do. But then, after that, it kind of just like snowball effects. So if you can speed up that initial process, then it kind of just, you know, it becomes easier. – Chaitha
[07:45] I think what would make them more inclined to click on would be if they had an ad for a playlist. So people make playlists for whatever their activities are, right? They have playlists for moods, genres, and activities like running, walking, driving, whatever the mood or time of day is. So I was thinking, if there’s a playlist that’s already made for somebody’s taste, right, their preferences, and you just sprinkle your songs within that playlist and you advertise that playlist on Facebook ads, you’ll have a lot of success and a better conversion rate of people actually going and clicking and listening to that playlist than just that single. Because truth be told, no matter how good your song is, if they don’t know the name of the artist, most times, they’re not going to be as willing to click on it and listen to it. – Chaitha
[35:11] It’ll be like the normal, there she goes, link. But at the end of it, there’ll be context equals, and then it’ll have the playlist ID. And what it’ll do is, it’ll open up. There she goes inside of night vibes and starts automatically playing it when they click the link. And I did not know you could do that. It only works on cell phones and doesn’t work on desktops.- Andrew
[43:57] I appreciate the small wins, and I enjoy the process of creating and trying to acquire more success and more milestones. I don’t have a problem in slowly building something up from the ground up. Instead of, you know, having that initial big spike in having a bunch of success. I feel like that, at least for me, would ruin the point of it.- Chaitha
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If you enjoyed this interview, you might also like this one I did with Evange Livanos and Zack Zarrillo of Alternate Side on how their full service music management company rakes in over 30 million Spotify streams per week, and how they support their artists touring and help them build their music career into a thriving business.
