From Spotify to Pandora, digital music platforms have definitely changed the landscape of the music industry and with more and more people signing on to use these types of services, it may be fitting to learn how to use them to your advantage.
Marketing on music platforms can be a great way to reach your target audience and get your message across. In fact, on platforms like Spotify, the average user (and they have 60 million of them), tunes in to about 148 minutes of music every day and 80 percent of these users are signed up to the free version, meaning they are required to hear ads.
On top of reaching a huge audience, these music platforms also allow you to reach a specific demographic, such as targeting people who like a certain type of artist, playlist or genre. This can bring a whole new dynamic to your marketing strategy and help you better understand who your audience is.
When it comes to advertising on music platforms it is important to think about ways to engage your target audience that is also appropriate to the service.
Here are a few suggestions to get you started:
1. Understanding Your Options:
There are hundreds of free music streaming services but the most popular to date include:
- Pandora
- Spotify
- Apple Radio/iTunes
- Google Play
- iHeart Radio
These services all have millions of active users and attract the widest audience, they also offer reasonably priced advertising options.
While Pandora and Spotify definitely attract the most attention, it may be worth considering less popular platforms like iHeart Radio or Apple Music.
When it comes to advertising on a music platform, the ads that tend to perform the best are ones that use original songs, jingles and persuasive dialogue.
To create the perfect ad, you not only need to think about your audience but also the mind-frame that they would be in while listening to their favourite tunes.
For example, if you want to reach the fitness industry and advertise on ‘workout’ playlists, you would have to consider tailoring your ad for people doing workouts or other strenuous activity.
Ads on music streaming platforms are also not limited to just voice overs. In fact, most of these music platforms, like Pandora offer call to action and video ads. These ads can be displayed on users feeds and can pop up when they go into the application to change a song or update their playlist.
These ads are an effective way to get users to stop and look at your product or service and works particularly well if you have a memorable brand or marketing strategy. For example, Coca-Cola often uses interactive, print based ads on Pandora which instantly helps to build awareness.
2. Create a Brand Playlist:
Services like Spotify allow users to create playlists for free and share them on social media. This is a great way to establish and promote your brand and to reach your fans in a new way.
When it comes to creating your playlist, aim to select songs around a certain theme that will fit your brand and persona. You may also want to think of a creative way to come up with different playlist that may be relevant to your demographic.
For example, if you run a restaurant you may want to create a playlist for cooking, a romantic dinner or even a breakfast playlist that helps you to kickstart your morning.
The more people you can get listening to your playlist, the more chances you have of staying fresh in their mind and building up solid leads for the future.
3. Sequential Messaging:
Whether you choose to run a call to action based ad or a voice over, some of the best results have been seen when the ad is tailored to specific times of the day.
For example, an ad about a juicy steak dinner for just $9.99 is definitely going to be more effective if run around 5pm than it is at 8am in the morning.
The head of advertising for Spotify, Brian Benedik also comments-
“Let’s say in the morning users fire up Spotify while they are taking a run, we know they’ are listening for this amount of time on this device with these playlists around these activities. Then in the office they use the Spotify desktop app, and then when they go home, they’re picking up on mobile again. Brands who like to do some cool storytelling are now able to tell some interesting sequential stories across the day. Perhaps users get a piece of creative from Coca-Cola in the morning on a mobile device and a different piece of creative in the afternoon on the desktop, then perhaps a third piece of creative from Coca-Cola at the end of the day, but all of it is related to sequentially tell a story.”
Running ads on repeat on these music streaming platforms can definitely be effective and can help your brand to stay in the memory of millions of listeners.
Music streaming services are definitely hear to stay and in many ways are becoming more popular than mainstream radio.
Why not consider making it part of your marketing strategy and see how it can help your brand grow to new heights?
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