How I Plan To Go From 10k To 100k Monthly Listeners On Spotify

For the past few months, I've been sitting at just over 10,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. And so, I've decided to set myself a pretty ambitious goal for the rest of the year. And that is to reach 100,000 monthly listeners by the end of 2025.

So, in this video, I'm going to show you exactly how I plan to do that. Hey, I'm Nick from 11 Out of 10. And on this channel, I talk about music marketing things that I've done for my own project and other music stuff so that maybe you can apply some of the things that I've learned to your own artist project.

As I said in today's video, I'm going to talk about my plan to get from 10,000 to 100,000 monthly listeners. Now, the video structure is fairly straightforward. First of all, I'm going to go over my basic release strategy, okay?

The overarching strategy for the rest of the year. Then, I'm going to get a bit more detailed going into content and press, how I plan to do ads, various playlisting. We're also going to do some more out of the box tactics near the end.

So, stick around for that. And finally, I'm also going to talk about why the hell I'm actually doing this. Let's get into the video then.

So, overall, my strategy is fairly straightforward. Yeah, nothing extremely out there. I'm sure you've probably seen similar stuff in other places before, but let me just go over my overarching strategy.

So, in 2025, I first off plan to release a fourtrack EP. And I'm going to do a waterfall release. If you don't know what a waterfall release is, it's when you release a single and then four to six or even 8 weeks later, you release another single and then kind of create a mini EP with those two singles.

Then four to six week later, you add another single. So then you have three singles together in like a three track mini EP and so on and so forth. And then eventually I'm going to have four tracks in the EP.

But I would have released four to eight weeks apart. So that's my first plan. After this EP is done, I will also release a few singles at the end of the year just so that I can reach about seven to eight tracks for 2025.

As you can see, I plan on releasing the songs four to six weeks apart, really depending on their traction. So, if something's doing very very well, I might delay the release just to milk it as much as possible. And if a song is not doing so well, then I might release another track a bit sooner.

And I have about eight songs in my catalog on Spotify. So, by the end of the year, I should have doubled this. I'm really hoping for exponential growth because if I only have eight songs and going from 10,000 to 100,000, I'm setting some pretty big goals over here.

But this is the broad strategy. And within each release, each single release, there is a more detailed strategy which I'm going to cover now in each various category of promotion. So, first off, looking at content and press for each single, each song within the EP and the singles that come afterwards, I'm going to do three carousel posts on Instagram specifically.

So, one basically announcing that the song is coming out. Another one on the actual release day of the song, telling everyone that the song is now out, and then one more either saying thank you or keep listening or I don't know, something in that vein. These are going to be like film photos, that kind of aesthetic.

I'm also going to do five short form videos per song. So, think like reals, Tik Tok shorts, that kind of format. Maybe me talking about a different song or how I produced the song or a mini version of the song played like acoustically.

Just those 15-second clips that everyone always hypes. Just five per song. Nothing insane.

Not trying to break the internet. But I haven't done as much short form as I would have liked. So going to give it a rip because I might as well.

And then also depending on traction or how good I think the song might be or the potential for the song, I'll either do a live performance video or a little music video to go with the single. This might come a bit later, maybe not in the exact release cycle of 4 to 8 weeks, but I will hopefully be doing one for each one. Either a music video, little lyric video, or even a little live performance.

And then the last thing I'm going to do around content and press is I'm going to have my EPK, my electronic press kit. We just did a video on that. So if you don't know what that is, check out the video somewhere here.

and it's basically my bio which I'm going to send to a whole lot of different press outlets. So hopefully they can do a little write up on me, a little blog post, that kind of thing. Just try and reach as many eyes and ears as possible.

So this is my content and press strategy. Next up, I am of course going to run meta ads. I talk about that a lot on this channel.

And specifically, I'm going to run some direct to song meta conversion campaigns with a budget of 250 to 300 per song. $300, euros, round about the same thing. But this will also vary depending on if I really can't get my ads to work for a specific song, I might pull the plug on the ads a bit and then spend more money on my playlist ads.

But basically, these direct to song ads. People are going to see a little Instagram story or real with me doing something in the ad. It's going to take them to a landing page and that landing page will take them to Spotify and hopefully they'll save the song, add it to their liked songs, add it to one of their own playlists.

I'm also going to be running ads to some of my own playlists. I have one playlist with about 4,000 followers, another one with just over 2,000 followers. And I put my own music every four or five songs within that playlist.

And my new songs when I release them, I'll put them at the top of those playlists. So, I'm also running ads to those constantly. And it's just a bit of a more organic way for people to discover my music.

And it's also really good at feeding the algorithm. as Spotify basically learns that people that are listening to my music, they're also listening to some other songs within my playlist that are in a similar genre and then hopefully they recommend my music to people that are listening to the other artists, the other songs within my own playlist. Yeah.

So, that is my ad strategy. Pretty straightforward. Next up, my playlisting strategy obviously ties into what I've just said.

I'll also be using these platforms like SubmitHub and Groover where I'll set a budget of about $50 to $70 per song and basically submit my song to other playlist creators. Hopefully they add my tracks to their own playlists just because I think in those first few weeks upping the kind of listenership streams in the first four four weeks, even the first week is extremely important for getting the algorithm knowing who is interested in your song. I'll be doing a bit of playlisting of course and then as I just said I'll add my own songs to my own playlists which I always update as I am also a curor on submit hub and Groover playlist push too.

So send your music to me if you are in the more like chill indie world and give a little shout out if you discovered us on YouTube. Maybe I'll have some extra love and be more uh gentle add you to the playlist. So yeah, if you do discover us that way, let us know.

Then of course, I've already pitched my first song to a Spotify editorial playlist. It actually comes out probably in the week of this video. It's called Goodbyes.

Go and check it out. Mixed by Timber, who is also editing this video. Shout out Timber.

An absolute legend. So, yeah, I've done my Spotify editorial pictures. Those you never know if you're going to get on a playlist.

Of course, I have landed some nice ones in the past. Uh, but I rarely I don't bank on these editorials ever. I rather bank on the submit hub playlisting or meta ads for kind of guaranteed growth.

Of course, I've already pitched my song way before one week before it releases. So, I should get on release radar for all my followers. I think I have close to 900 followers now.

So, everyone should get my song in their release radar. Lastly around playlisting is if my songs become illeible, then I will be putting them in Spotify radio uh and activate Spotify discovery mode. So yeah, this is a little feature that you can activate on certain distributors.

I'm part of Lander now. I switched from Touncor so that I could have more control over Spotify discovery mode. I see I wrote Spotify radio, it should say Spotify discovery mode.

So I will be putting my songs in there if they become illeible. But yeah, you can see lots of other videos on what that is. I'm not going to cover that in depth here, but I will be doing it.

Then I also have a few more out of the box tactics that I'm going to go with to hopefully get me to 100K. And one of them is something I actually haven't done for maybe the last five of my releases. I'm not going to be doing any pre-saves.

I kind of gave up on pre-saves cuz you could see the data and I had like three people pre-saving the song and it never really seemed to affect things. I mean, also as an artist, I mean, I should probably feel bad about doing this, but I know on the day I can go and listen to the song. There's no point to really pre-save it.

I guess as soon as the other artist announces it, then I'm probably going to go listen. And I always do. Like I always see which of my friends, which of the artists I like have just announced their song has come out and then I usually listen to it that day.

So Fridays are a lot of fun in that regard. But this is why I guess I don't do pre-saves. I don't really believe in them.

But I see Spotify has got some countdown modes which a lot of bigger artists have been using lately. Maybe I'll do that for one of them if I can unlock that mode, but I don't know if I've quite got it unlocked. And I'm only really going to be pushing the promo after the release.

Of course, I'm going to do an announcement post about a week to 10 days before the track actually drops, but that's it. I might post a few stories here and there, like two or three, but I'm only going to really do the more hard ball promo once the track is out. And my reasoning is there's no point in pushing the song too hard in my eyes if there's actually nothing for listeners to go and convert to, to go and listen to.

Doesn't make sense to be shouting about this thing and then they're like, "Okay, but we can't actually listen to the song now. " Kind of just gets a bit annoying. So, I'd rather when I'm actually shouting about the song, they can go and listen to it instead of just waiting there and then by the time it's actually out, people are just drained.

That is why I'm going to do that. Another kind of out of the box thing, which I have done in the past, is when I see other musicians running ads on Instagram for their own playlists. Sometimes I DM them if they're in the same genre and I ask if we can do a playlist swap.

And it's worked out. I think I've had like three or four different people now. I've done these playlist exchange.

So, I'll be doing that when the song drops. Maybe you're a playlist or two. Let's swap.

I'll be actively seeking collabs, too. I have one collab, this dude, Nathaniel, who I met actually through doing a playlist exchange. He's on one of my tracks hopefully in some of the singles for the end of the year.

I'm writing another song with my friend Linda, who I've already done a song with her. So, that'll be another collab, which makes two for the year. But, if I can do all the singles at the end of the year as collabs, that'll make me very, very happy just because as artists, we can kind of cross-pollinate with one another.

they can reach some of my audience and I can reach some of their audience and hopefully just takes everything much further. I'm also a part of quite a few WhatsApp groups. One is specific to South Africans in Amsterdam.

Got almost thousand people in this group and I'm just going to share my song in there. People are very supportive of things that people post there. So maybe I can get a bit of traction that way.

Also in Amsterdam there quite a few music groups. I always post my songs in those. So if you're a part of any groups I recommend doing that for your own release.

You always get a few listeners and people always seem to give feedback. I've never done this before, but I've heard of people posting their playlists on Reddit, so I might share some of my own, which will obviously have my own music. And hopefully this can also get a little bit more traction for me.

I also work as a tour guide and I do kind of do this too, but I always give people a little QR code that takes them to a website I made and then I link them to my Spotify in the website as well as some recommendations for for Amsterdam where I do these tours. But I think when the songs start to drop, I'll be pushing people a bit harder, being like, "Hey, you don't have to tip me. Just stream my music, but tip me, too.

" And then, you might be like, "Why is this an out the box tactics? Play at least two open mics or shows per release. " I haven't really been playing much these last couple of months.

I've been focusing a lot more on recordings, on building this YouTube channel, on focusing on the music marketing coaching that I've been doing, too. So, I haven't really been playing live too much, but getting out to an open mic every four to six weeks and playing a show, I think, is very doable, and it's always nice to connect with real people in that way, not only in the kind of online space that I find myself working a lot in around my music. So, yeah, those are some of my more out of the box tactics.

If you have any ideas on some crazier stuff that I can do, let me know in the comments below. But lastly, just to touch on why am I actually doing this? I guess a lot of people say that it can't be done.

And when I say it can't be done, they say like making a profit through Spotify or streaming is not profitable. And whenever people say things can't be done, then I'm kind of drawn to trying it myself. And I have seen other artists like Jen, who I learned a lot of these strategies from myself, actually becoming profitable over time.

So I thought a lot of people say you can't, but he did it, so I might as well give it a shot. Maybe I end up burning all of my money, but at least I know that I tried. And I think that's very important to me.

I also want to prove myself as I kind of said over there and I want to just kind of show other independent artists and myself to what is possible without a label. Of course, the ideas of labels pushing stuff is always hovering in the back of my mind, but the little bit that I make through streaming, am I giving them that and how much can they actually do for me is always in the back of my head. So, this is, I suppose, a really big push from my own side.

If it rarely fails, perhaps I'll consider going the more label distributor route. But I'm a big fan of DIY kind of indie musician thing, which is I guess why we started this whole YouTube channel, too. And one of my favorite artists, Alice Feboo, she's also done all of this stuff herself.

So, I kind of I guess this is all me just trying to aspire to what others have done and see if I can do it for myself. And I also want to document what I'm doing so that others can maybe learn from my successes or learn from my failures. And I can also hold myself accountable cuz now that I've said all of this, I need to do it so you can see what I've actually done.

I mean, last but not least, I feel like my music deserves to be heard or at least not just put on the void and there to kind of die. I got to give it its best shot. And if it's meant to take, then that'll make me very happy.

But at least I know I've pushed it as hard as I can, both from like an effort point of view and making content and videos and pictures, but also from like a financial point of view. like I've invested as much as I as I actually can afford. And yeah, I think that'll just give me the peace of mind just around this whole release.

That is basically my entire strategy. And I hope in future videos this year, I do a few check-ins. I do plan on doing this just to see how this is all going.

And hopefully at the end of the year, hopefully even before then, we can say that we got or I got to 100,000 monthly listeners. But that basically wraps up our video here today. I hope that you found it interesting.

And if you have any thoughts, any ideas, please leave them in the comments. If you are interested in videos like this, remember to like and subscribe. We do release new videos every week, so if you are interested in this kind of stuff, make sure that you are subscribed.

But until next time, have a groovy week. Bye-bye.