You pour your heart and soul into your music. The process of writing, composing, and producing a song requires a lot of time and money. And when it’s finally finished, you want to make sure it gets heard.
The challenge is successfully releasing your music so it reaches the right listeners.
In the music-streaming era, knowing how to submit to Spotify playlist curators is a must for getting discovered. But for emerging artists, contacting and getting accepted to a Spotify playlist curator’s list is even more challenging.
We’re here to make it easier.
This article will guide you through five proven tips to simplify how to submit to Spotify playlist curators and grow your fan base.
1. Create a release strategy
If you’re spending time and money creating your own music, it’s also worth investing in a release strategy to ensure your songs gain traction and reach new listeners.
With a carefully planned strategy, you’ll increase your chances of a successful release.
After your song is ready to share, start by addressing the following points:
- Create interesting cover art for your new single or album. Make sure the imagery aligns with your brand, aesthetic, and style of music.
- Start posting organic content on your social media channels and encourage your friends and followers to share it.
- Practice describing your music. Be authentic, concise, and descriptive. This is essential for crafting a great pitch to submit to Spotify playlist curators.
- Identify relevant playlists for pitching your music (more on this below!). Look for as many as possible to increase your chances of getting accepted.
2. Generate listener engagement to boost your standing in the Spotify algorithm
Start promoting your new music several weeks before it’s officially released to create excitement and build engagement. This will allow you to generate anticipation among existing fans, as well as get plenty of exposure in new audiences.
Before your release, start engaging with Spotify users and encourage them to follow you and pre-save your new music. By doing this ahead of the release date, people are more likely to stream your music as soon as it becomes available.
With more listens, you’ll create a spike in engagement on the day of the release, which trains Spotify’s algorithm to push your music out to more listeners with similar taste. The result of this is a larger, more engaged audience, new fans, and regular listeners.
Make it easy for people to pre-save music on Spotify or order it on iTunes by creating a pre-save landing page. This can be done easily on sites such as Hypeddit.
When a user pre-saves your song or album, your new release is automatically saved in a listener’s library on the day that it is released. This engagement alerts Spotify’s algorithm, which garners you even more listeners and saves.
3. Submit to Spotify playlist curators
Having your music added to Spotify playlist curators’ lists is the best method for gaining exposure to new audiences.
If you submit to Spotify playlist curators and they include your new music on the release date, all the new streams and listeners that you get that day will contribute to an engagement spike.
Again, Spotify’s algorithm will reward you. It’s programmed to see success on one playlist as potential success on others. If your song becomes popular on one curator’s playlist, Spotify’s algorithm could start including you in users’ personalized playlists, such as “Daily Mixes” and “Discover Weekly.”
For the greatest outcomes, start reaching out to playlist curators ahead of the release date to introduce your upcoming music. Be sure you provide the right release date so the curator is prepared to add your new music on the launch day.
As artists narrow their focus on getting added to Spotify playlist curators’ lists, many have turned to music submission sites to guide them.
This can be a great idea, but remember: not all of these sites are equally effective.
Most assume the responsibility of communicating with the curators, leaving you in the dark about what’s being said and how your music is described. Music submission sites that don’t allow you to communicate with curators yourself use generic messaging that leads to a low response rate. They also don’t give you the opportunity to receive feedback from the curators themselves.
On the other hand, Playlist Map gives you full transparency and control over your correspondence with curators. Our dynamic email templates help you craft the perfect pitch, but you’re in complete control.
4. Submit your music to Spotify’s official playlists
It’s also worth submitting your music to official Spotify playlists. This can be done by submitting your music directly to Spotify’s editorial staff.
There are hundreds of official Spotify playlists spanning every genre and taste, giving you ample opportunity to find something relevant.
To pitch your song, go to your Spotify for Artists account, click on “Upcoming,” and then click on “Playlist Pitch.” Choose the right song, confirm where you’re from, choose some genres, and be truthful about cultural influences, moods, and style. Pick all the instruments you used in the production of the music, and describe your song in 600 characters or less. Be truthful, tell your artistic side, and describe what inspires you. Don’t forget to suggest where your song may fit well as far as playlists go. It is worth noting that you can’t create an artist profile until you have already submitted at least one song.
Once you have a Spotify for Artists dashboard with your upcoming release added, it’s time to submit it. This is done by selecting ‘music’ at the top of the page and then ‘upcoming’. The next step is to select the upcoming release that you would like to be featured on an official Spotify playlist.
Spotify says to complete this step at least seven days before the official release date, but this is often not enough time for them to review it due to the large volumes of Spotify playlist submissions they receive.
For the best chances of getting your submission reviewed in time for the release, submit your new music for editorial review several weeks in advance.
5. Sell merchandise
So far, we’ve focused on how to submit to Spotify playlist curators and the benefits of getting on Spotify playlist curators’ lists. Indeed, Spotify is the fastest way to get discovered and grow your fanbase in today’s music streaming world. But if you’re looking to make some fast cash while promoting your music, merch is the way to go.
Many artists sell merch in an effort to make back some of the money they invested in advertising and promoting their new music. It also helps spread awareness of your new release, particularly if fans share posts of their purchases on social media, which can prompt further downloads.
If you are just starting to release your music to the world, you may not have many fans yet, and you’ve probably not sold merchandise before. If this is the case, start small by only creating a small volume of t-shirts, posters, or whatever you’ve decided to sell. After all, producing these costs money, too.
Fortunately, there are services that allow artists to sell merchandise with no commitment, upfront cost, or need to hold inventory. Teespring is an example of a fantastic site that allows musicians and artists to sell merchandise without having to risk having too much stock. All you need to do is make a free Teespring account, upload your original artwork, and choose which items to print it on from their wide range of merchandise.
If your merchandise campaign is a success, you can earn some revenue to cover your expenses and even finance upcoming music projects.
Submit to Spotify playlist curators successfully and watch your fan base grow
Planning is essential when it comes to getting your new release out to the most possible listeners and growing your fan base. By taking the steps outlined above, you can increase listener engagement, get added to Spotify playlist curators list, and start earning revenue so your side project can become your career.
All that’s left to do now is to get started and enjoy the process of making your music release as successful as possible!
