The music marketing game is constantly evolving, and the bar for quality has never been higher.

We are now seeing fully-produced music video content chopped into 15-second increments as the norm for promoting our work on social media.

People are saturated with daily content from artists at the top and the bottom of the game alike, and the standout stars are the ones consistently manufacturing ear- and eye-catching moments for their fans.

So how can we make sure what we’re doing actually connects with people and gets them to listen to our work on Spotify rather than just swiping away?

Well, there are a few foolproof concepts that every winning piece of content has in common, some timeless principles that will last, regardless of the way things trend in the future.

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Make your song the star

If you’re making content to promote your music, the most important element is your song.

It’s not your cover art, it’s not the video, and it’s definitely not you talking.

It’s your music.

Yes, your cover art is important.

Yes, your video content has a huge impact on the efficacy of your marketing.

And yes, there is absolutely a time and a place to talk to the camera, share the story behind the track, and nerd out about production, mixing, and all the other things.

But when the end goal is to get someone listening to your music, showcasing the product is what matters most.

So put everything you can into the work you put out.

And when you’re coming up with content ideas—whether for use in organic posts or ads—make sure whatever it is you’re putting together places your song at the center of attention.

This means don’t run an ad without your song in it.

Don’t do an explainer vid expecting people to convert to Spotify as a result.

And definitely don’t make the mistake of thinking that posting a picture is going to win over a cold audience because it’s not.

In short, the song is king.

Everything else is secondary.

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Don’t oversell it

It’s 2024.

People know a music video when they see one.

And they certainly know where to listen when they discover a new song they like.

On top of that, most people assume that if they’re seeing a video or an ad for your song, then it’s available on pretty much every platform they can think of.

If it’s not, it should be.

After all, we want to make it easy for people.

Because people are smart and have learned how to discover new music on social media and consume it on their platform of choice, the way we promote new music needs to change a bit as well.

These days, our call to action can be fairly subtle.

Incessant text overlays with things like “out now” or “available on all platforms” are overkill.

Again, people know it’s out now (or at least they expect it to be) and they know where they can find it if they like it.

So less is more.

Because Spotify is essentially synonymous with all music streaming at this point, simply including the Spotify logo is enough if you feel you need it.

I personally still love including the Spotify logo on ads featuring the cover art—it works great.

For video content, I often let the video and the native ad CTA (e.g. “Listen now”) do the work for me without any logo overlays at all, and if I do include text, incorporating relevant artists and genres in a more natural way pays off nicely.

Not only will keeping it simple appeal to your audience, but it will also make your content feel more organic and less spammy, regardless of the context.

Less selling, more sharing.

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Leave them wanting more

The real art of getting people to click through to listen to your music isn’t so much about what you give them but what you don’t.

What?

“But Tom, that doesn’t make sense.”

Let me explain.

The best-performing ads I run, both for myself and for every artist we serve with our agency, generally have a couple of things in common.

First, they incorporate a transitional moment in the song (e.g. end of the verse going into the pre-chorus, end of the pre-chorus going into the chorus, etc.)

This might be tough to wrap your head around by reading it, but imagine your video includes four bars of music—the first two bars are the end of section one and the last two bars are the beginning of section two.

What this does is it showcases two distinct “feelings” from your song to give your listener more context, and it introduces a change in the middle so your content doesn’t get stale.

And secondly, whichever section comprises the end of the video (section two), I always want it to leave the listener wanting more.

This is the psychological hack that gets someone to go from scrolling on social media to listening to your song on Spotify.

It’s basically the marketing version of the cliffhanger.

Just like your favorite shows keep you coming back for more by leaving you hanging at the end of every episode, so too can we encourage our potential listeners to click through on an ad or organic video by building up to the right moment and removing the bulk of the payoff.

So find a memorable moment in your song, give the listener a touch of that feeling, and then end the clip.

You’ll be amazed at how well this works with the right song and the right moment.

This is essentially how a lot of viral song moments have happened on social media over the years.

The human brain has to close loops.

From a music marketing standpoint, it pays to make someone listen on Spotify to do that.

It may sound simple, but it works.

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