6 effective ways to promote your Synthpop release

90% of the readers can skip this section, but just because it is so important: if you are a Synthpop artist, you generally should be doing some social media posts. Social media content is generally a manageable and cost-efficient way to reach new people, as you can really show your personality using this promotion form.

Costs: 0 out of 10 - as this is a free option, the only payment you can choose to make is buying a "verified" checkmark on some platforms like Instagram. That is not a very necessary investment early on. That means that the only cost you make is the opportunity cost of not spending your time instead on making more music, or for example working.

Effort: the rating is 6 out of 10, not because it is easy to go viral or be successful, but mainly because it really adds value as it builds your personal brand, and it stays online forever. Making one post a day, or every few days, and not always overthinking the content is the best way to stay sane doing it. Give a glimpse of the person behind the music, and whether you go viral or not is not as important as being present online and easy to connect with. We listed the best social media options for you to consider:

Playing at a local venue is a very effective way to promote your music. If you manage to convince people that your Synthpop music is great, it is very easy to build further on that fan base. Meeting people face-to-face can turn casual listeners into loyal fans, and the people going to the local venue are often easier to get excited if they feel like they are about to discover the new "Ed Sheeran" at their local bar. Furthermore, building a strong scene close to home can create a word-of-mouth growth difficult to attain when somebody just sees you on their social media feed.

Costs: 0 out of 10 - as this is a free option, there are no costs involved. If you play your cards well and contact the right venues with a strong portfolio, you can even get compensated for your time and performance, by both the venue or the visitors.

Effort: this is rated 8 out of 10, because it is pretty challenging to find and also get accepted to perform at a local venue. The biggest challenge is to be allowed to perform; look in your city and neighboring cities for any Synthpop open mics: if there are any, sign up or directly connect with the host. The more niche your genre is, the more difficult it can be to find gigs that really match your description. You can also just apply to any open mic that mentions the head genre you are in (e.g. Electronic Pop). Performing at a local venue is also a great way to shoot social media content and to gain stage confidence & experience. If it is difficult to find an open mic, consider other available options: find small gigs by directly contacting local cafes, bars, and DIY spaces in order to book early shows to share your Synthpop repertoire. It helps if you claim to be able to bring some listeners (ask friends & family to come).

A great way to introduce new people to your music is to collaborate with other artists, ideally also in the Synthpop niche. It is a really fun project to do and additionally it can lead to some great results growing your and their Spotify. Making a song together might actually teach you new things about making music, but importantly it can introduce you to their listeners, and vice versa. This exchange benefits both parties, and you're now not only visible on your own Spotify page, but potentially also on another Spotify account. If your combined song doesn't go viral, there is still the chance that you will find new listeners if the artist you collaborate with makes a very popular release in the future!

Costs: 2 out of 10 - you only make the costs you would normally make when releasing a new song on Spotify. Beyond that, there could be some costs for promoting the song, using META ads, or playlisting.

Effort: we rate the effort 4 out of 10, because you have to go through the entire cycle of crafting a new song. It might be slightly less intense if you collaborate with someone that really fits your working ethos and style, but this is highly dependent on who you end up working with. In the past it was a bigger challenge to find someone to collaborate with, but nowadays there are many online platforms you can use to meet artists:

A popular and beginner friendly option to find new listeners is to share your song using a playlist pitching platform. This allows you to land on high-quality Synthpop playlists with a steady listener base, that can discover and interact with your music. You benefit by getting exposure and new listeners, and the curators have the opportunity to further grow their playlists, and to monetize the audience they have grown. To help you choose from all the major curator platforms available, we compared 19 major submission platforms. This comparison looks at how much each playlist pitching platform gives to their curators to ensure that all playlists are very active, with PlaylistsForYou sharing 80% of its revenue with their curators.

Costs: we rated the costs 6 out of 10 because the free playlist pitching options don't amount to impactful streams, but the paid options cost between $1-$9 per pitch. Instead of the free options above, that take a high amount of (manual) effort with results depending strongly on your marketing skills, playlisting is fairly effortless, especially if you use a submission platform that does the pitching for you. You choose a budget that aligns with the amount of curators you would like to contact, and you get your results within 5 days.

Effort: the effort you have to put in with playlisting is very low, especially if you use a service that also selects the best fitting curators for you. There is some effort required to research which platforms have enough curators focused on Electronic Pop music, and preferably are also experienced in pitching specifically Synthpop artists. With 41 playlists accepting Synthpop submissions, PlaylistsForYou has enough options you can land on to grow your streams.

This is another very strong alternative paid option, if executed well. You get to create your own playlists, that are exactly built around your niche Synthpop sound. If you have a good music taste and select the songs that blend in well with your songs, people listening to the playlist might also become fans of your songs. The potential benefits are large, but there is a reason why the supply of artists pitching songs vastly overshadows the supply of curators receiving songs in the music industry.

Costs: if we purely look at the budget you need to get started running your own META ads, it is quite substantial for most artists. Depending on your technical skills, you need to learn to set up a META Pixel yourself, or pay around $600 for someone to do it for you. Additionally, you need a pretty big daily promotion budget (~$10 per day) for the META algorithm to learn which people to target. In the beginning, you will "waste" (or call it learning money) 100s of dollars in order to test which advertisements bring good results, and which settings work. You can use guides like that of Andrew Southworth to get a grasp of the basic settings that work for beginners.

Effort: it is honestly a pretty big challenge to learn all the tricks of running META campaigns. There are many people whose full time job is to optimize META campaigns, and you have to do it as another secondary (or often even third) job next to music creation. You need to learn to set up a META Pixel, you need to find good creatives that fit your Synthpop song & sound, and you need to explore which META settings work for you. However, if you succeed: artists that figure out META ads often spend 50%+ of their budget on META, and use a secondary smaller monthly budget for playlist pitching. This is done to give new releases an additional boost beyond their own advertised playlists, as multiple playlists pushing a song gives a strong signal to the Spotify algorithm.

Blog posts are a great way to build a strong personal brand beyond the social media marketing we recommended in the beginning of our article. Compared to the other promotion methods above, this strategy on average provides more value later in an artist's career, when people start to Google your name more often. Still, it can also provide value early in your music career, if you land on the right niche Synthpop blogs, with actual readers looking to discover new artists. In that case it does not just add branding value, but it can be a direct funnel to your Spotify increasing listener numbers. When a local venue you contacted tries to research you, they will see you as much more established if there are other people & sites talking about your music. The reason we put this as a third option, is that you should first make sure that the foundation is already there. Once that is there, you can start to think more and more about expanding your presence and personal branding by working towards blog features.

Costs: it is much more beneficial to land on niche Synthpop blogs than the large "we write about any artist" commercial blogs. This also helps to keep the costs a bit more manageable, as there is a bit less competition for the same spot. Still, depending on website traffic you will spend between $30-$200 on a feature, and the benefits and impact are often mainly a stronger personal brand, and hopefully (but not guaranteed) some more long term listeners.

Effort: the right Synthpop blogs are difficult to find, as we are not aware of any lists of blogs being available in the Synthpop niche. Once you find some blogs, they need to allow (paid) guest blog posts. Even if that is the case, most Synthpop blogs are difficult to get in contact with, as many are part-time hobbyists who don't check their mails as often.