In July, Spotify opened the process of submitting music to Official Spotify playlists – 2018’s holy grail of music marketing – to all artists and labels. The submission tool has now exited beta, and the stats from the first few months are impressive.
Since July, more than 67,000 artists and labels have submitted music resulting in 10,000 artists being added to official Spotify playlists for the first time. Factoring in that some of the artists and labels using the submission tool had previously received playlist placements, that means that for every 6 or so submissions, at least 1 resulted in an Official Spotify playlist placement for a new artist.
The streamer offered several success stories:
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When acoustic troubadour Gustavo Bertoni’s song “Be Here Now” was selected to appear on the Acoustic Morning and Fresh Folk playlists, his monthly listeners jumped from 7,000 to 617,000
- Alt-rock band Yonaka, hailing from Brighton in the UK, saw their numbers increase from 82,000 to 290,000 when added to New Music Friday.
- After Pop newcomer Jayden Bartels’ song “Can't Help Me Now” was featured on New Music Friday, her monthly listeners practically tripled to 72,000. Prior to utilizing this new feature her music had never been added to an official Spotify playlist.
- Belgian rapper Bryan Mg jumped to 33,000 monthly listeners from 4,600 after landing on the La Vida Loca playlist.
“After the first release got picked up by Spotify I think about a month later I got my first booking for a club show,” rapper Bryan Mg shared. “People also started to send me private messages on Instagram about where they heard my music for the first time. I also received invitations for radio stations in the Netherlands and in Belgium and saw my followers on Instagram and Spotify get a boost.”
Advantages Even If Not Playlisted
Even if a submission does not result in an Official playlist spot, it will guarantee that the track is featured on all the artist’s followers Release Radar playlists. “Plus,” says Spotify, ” the additional metadata you provide when you upload it will help us recommend it to potential new fans for years to come.”