Mastering Waterfall Music Release: Best Tips and Practices
In one of our blogs entitled “Music Royalties Deep Dive (Part 3): Royalties Flow for Independent Artists + How To Survive Spotify’s Royalty Policy Changes,” we discussed optimizing your release strategy with the “Waterfall Release Method”. In today’s blog, we will dive deeper into what this is and how you can utilize it as an independent artist!
Music Royalties Deep Dive (Part 3): Royalties Flow for Independent Artists + How To Survive Spotify’s Royalty Policy Changes
MUSIC & MONEY is sure a never-ending conversation. And who wouldn't want to keep talking about it, right? Dive deeper and learn how to survive Spotify's royalty policy changes as a bonus!
What is the Waterfall Release Strategy?
A “Waterfall” Release Strategy is an approach where the release of singles from an album or EP is staggered over some time, rather than releasing all tracks at once. Through this strategy, each single acts like a stepping stone, a link to the next one, eventually creating a consistent flow of content that keeps your audience captured.
How can the Waterfall Release Strategy bring you success?
✓ It builds a push to help you be consistent in creating new music. Thus, allowing you to produce more quality releases that would then enable you to gain heightened exposure and traction to your music.
✓ It enables you to optimize Spotify’s algorithm, which ultimately increases your chance of getting into Spotify Editorial Playlists.
✓ It generates more streams, increasing your music royalties.
Key Formula:
Strategic Scheduling
– It’s all about timing. Releases must be scheduled well as each single needs enough time to gain traction before the next release.
Audience Engagement
– Commitment to regularly releasing content and tracks is a sure way to keep your audience engaged and even involved.
Cross-Promotion
– A form of marketing promotion where audiences from a previous or related track will be targeted with the promotion of a related or following release, maximizing exposure and interest of the listener.
How to set up a ‘Waterfall’ Release schedule?
Upload your first track as a single release as you normally would.
Once the first single is approved, upload the next release as an ‘EP,’ and include the first single as a track in the EP.
Note: Make sure to use the SAME ISRC CODE for the first single to ensure your streams don’t get lost and that the DSPs don’t recognize the single as a “new” song.Continue these steps for each release – adding a new track to the ‘EP’ each time.
Note: Ensure that the metadata are parallel with the previously released tracks. This means that the song title, artists, features, composers, lyricists, and ISRC codes are identical.
IMPORTANT!
Your artwork must match the metadata of the release it's associated with. You should not use the final album cover art for all preceding singles unless there isn’t any text on the artwork.
Best Tips and Practices!
Never underestimate the TIMELINE.
– Plan ahead. Schedule moves deliberately. Set realistic goals, and lock in the release timeline. Organize your thoughts and plot plans on a timetable.Analyze your audience.
– Check your audience and listener activity and location. Analyze which days your songs or genre reach a height of listens. See which locations are have the most numbers of listeners, etc. The point is, look at the data. Dive deep and learn to analyze it for your best strategy.Level up your social media game.
– Increase anticipation and buzz through, social media. Tease your audience with what’s up and coming from you, and build momentum through direct engagement with your audience on social platforms..
Also, we advise that you diversify your social media content. This enables you to gain a variety of audiences, allowing them to relate with you and vice versa.Be flexible and learn to adapt.
– Be flexible and adapt to the season. Why release a song, that best suits parties and dancing when it’s a cold season for introspection and reflection? Learn to track the performance of your releases, read the data, and as previously mentioned, use the available data to adjust your strategy accordingly.
We know that it is thrilling to release your music all at once. But doing so is not always the best for your music.. Remember, SPACING and TIMELINES are key – “If you’re releasing singles, it’s best to space them out 4-6 weeks apart. And if you’re releasing a full album, it’s best to release 1-3 singles before releasing the full album (again, everything should be 4-6 weeks apart).”
Releasing with a spaced timeline builds momentum as listeners begin to discover your music. Once the momentum is created, it’s time to push for the next release. Strategize again, and level up the game!
From one industry professional to another, we’ve seen how this technique helped artists anchor engagement and solid influence which led to making a name in the music industry. Trust us, it’s a must-try. ;)
So… What do you want to talk about next?
