Spotify Pre-Save – Making sure your single hits the scene with perfect timing

We probably all know the feeling: the new song is finished and we want to share it with the rest of the world out there straight away. Quickly upload it to the digital distributor and impatiently check when it will appear on the streaming and download portals. And then what we were afraid of happens: nothing.  

  Spotify Pre-Save  

Pre-Save is about the following: You release your new single, but you don’t do it immediately, you put the release date in the future. Until then, promote your single to the hilt and give your fans the opportunity to bookmark your new song in their Spotify account or even add it to their own playlists. They won’t be able to listen to it until then.  

On the day of release, your fans will receive a message from Spotify and can stream your song immediately. The ingenious thing about it is that all these streams are attributed to this one day. As a result, the Spotify algorithm notices that a new song has appeared that is well received and therefore ranks it higher in the hierarchy and is therefore more inclined to suggest it to other listeners.  

So instead of getting hold of a few individual streams over a period of a few weeks, you collect lots of Pre-Saves in the same time and then receive the concentrated load of streams on the day of release.  

So, let’s tackle the issue from the get-go:   

Create your Spotify Artist profile  

To be able to use the full range of Spotify features, you must first “claim” your own Spotify Artist profile. Or, to put it technically, “claiming”.  

To claim your artist profile, you must have already released at least one song via a digital distributor and delivered it to Spotify. This could well be “just” a short demo.  

Now do the following:  

1. Go to http://artists.spotify.com and create a new account. Here you select the option “Artist or Manager”. Follow the registration process with user name, password and confirmation. If you have to log in again afterwards, do so.  
2. Next, Spotify For Artists offers you the opportunity to search for yourself. So enter your artist or band name in the search field. 
3. As soon as Spotify has found you on its platform, you “claim” to be this artist or band. You can do this by clicking on your (band) name. 
4. To prevent just anyone from claiming your music as their own, there is now a cross-check with your digital distributor: Spotify For Artists recognizes which distributor it has received your music from and takes you directly to their website during this process. There you log in and confirm that you are you and that you are claiming your music for Spotify.  

All done. Now you have full control over your music on Spotify, and Spotify confirms this after a short processing time with a blue checkmark behind your (band) name.     

Create your Pre-Save campaign 

Let’s get to the heart of it all. First, you have to upload your new single to your digital distributor and make the usual entries for artists, composers, lyricists and so on.  

Only this time you don’t click on “immediately” or “as soon as possible” for the release date. Instead, choose a date a good four, eight or even twelve weeks in the future. Your single will only be delivered to the world’s music platforms in the course of this specified day.  

This process looks different in the backend of the many digital distributors, so I can’t give you exact instructions here. But the principle is the same.  

Next, you can request the URI for your single in the backend of your digital distributor. URI stands for “Unique Resource Indicator” and is the unique identification code for your single on Spotify – and also the Pre-Save link.  

This link is available for each of your published songs and you can make it easier for your fans to find your music by sharing the respective link with them instead of letting them find the right song by chance.  

At the moment, your fans can’t do anything with this URI or Pre-Save link, apart from clicking on it to bookmark your new single in their Spotify account. Your single will be released later.  

Now it’s up to you to promote your new single as effectivelt as possible so that as many Spotify users as possible bookmark it. On the day of release, which you set yourself, your single will then appear ready to play in your fans’ Spotify accounts so that they can stream it. As I mentioned in the introduction, these streams are then bundled with the day of publication, which pleases the algorithm and hopefully brings you a few more recommendations to users who haven’t known you yet.   

Advertise your Pre-Save  

There are, of course, many ways to promote your Pre-Save, i.e. to collect as many Pre-Saves as possible by the day of the days:  

1. Share the Pre-Save link on your social media channels. You can post a short audio or video clip so that your fans can try out your single. Don’t be afraid to increase the intensity of your advertising measures towards the end of the campaign, i.e. shortly before publication.  
2. Also share the Pre-Save link with Spotify playlist owners, if you know any personally.  
3. Publish a normal YouTube video for your single and let viewers know that they can Pre-Save this song in the description or by displaying it. Give them the link, of course.  
4. Send press releases to stylistically relevant music blogs and websites in which you announce your new single and link to the video on YouTube if applicable. Put the Pre-Save link in the release, many blogs and music websites copy and publish press releases one-to-one.  
5. Hand out flyers at concerts with a QR code containing the Pre-Save link and point it out to your fans. Why don’t you play the new song live?  
6. Share the Pre-Save link with friends and family via email, WhatsApp, Telegram or text message.  
7. On the day of release, send out another press release describing how well the single has done. Now it’s all about keeping up the momentum and getting as much out of the single as possible.  

 

As you can see, a Pre-Save is a clever idea to get more out of your publication. The success of the campaign naturally rises and falls with your marketing efforts. So give it your all.  

 

Best regards,
Julian Angel
Magazine musicbizmadness