Spinnin’ Records has been well known for their ability to launch top track after top track.
How much of this is due to the quality of the releases?
How much of this is due to their marketing?
Don’t get me wrong, many of their tracks are great, BUT I think most of their success has much more to do with their marketing strategy.
Today, we’ll be looking at their marketing strategy, and what it takes to create a similar marketing campaign.
I’ve basically picked a track at random, but we’ll be looking at Sander Van Doorn’s 2017 release “The Rhythm”.
Materials Needed
To create the campaign, Spinnin’ Records used one of my favorite online content strategies: repurposing content.
They created almost a month worth of promotional content out of a piece of covert art, one video, and the track.
Based on those three items, they created several shorter promotional teaser videos, banner images, and more.
Their full list of promotional material was the following:
- Album art
- Full music video
- 2 music video previews
- 1 Soundcloud preview
- 1 Soundcloud full track
- 1 Facebook cover photo (quickly made out of the album art)
- Miami music week recap video
- Live video (Miami)
- Live video (Tomorrowland)
- Paid blog post
- Podcast features
Many of the items can be created for free, and some can be done cheap if you have friends who are in graphic design.
Schedule
Several social media accounts were used to create the promotional strategy. They used Facebook, Instagram,Twitter, Youtube, and Soundcloud accounts of Spinnin’ Records, Sander Van Doorn, DOORN Records and some affiliates.
Below, you can find the full promotion schedule that was used. You can see that this was methodically planned and spaced out between all of the accounts.
Date |
Account |
Note |
Example |
---|---|---|---|
July 25th, 2016 |
Random Youtube Account |
First recorded live play at Tomorrowland 2016 |
|
April 8th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn Instagram |
Miami Music week recap video |
|
April 8th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn Facebook |
Miami Music week recap video |
|
April 10th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn Youtube |
Miami Music week recap video |
|
April 11th, 2017 |
DOORN Records Facebook |
Miami Music week recap video |
|
April 11th, 2017 |
DOORN Records Twitter |
Miami Music week recap video |
|
April 12th, 2017 |
Spinnin’ Records Twitter |
Miami Music week recap video |
|
April 13th, 2017 |
DOORN Records Soundcloud |
Track preview |
|
April 13th, 2017 |
Out Soon On Spinnn’ Records Soundcloud |
Track preview added to playlist of parent label |
|
April 13th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn Facebook |
Posted DOORN Records Soundcloud track preview |
|
April 13th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn Twitter |
Album art |
|
April 13th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn Soundcloud |
Identity podcast feature (25 minutes in) |
|
April 13th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn Instagram |
Album art |
|
April 15th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn Soundcloud |
Reposted DOORN Records track preview |
|
April 15th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn Facebook |
Music video preview |
|
April 16th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn Instagram |
Music video preview |
|
April 19th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn Instagram |
Different music video preview |
|
April 19th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn Facebook |
Live video preview |
|
April 20th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn Twitter |
Live video preview |
|
April 22nd, 2017 |
DOORN Records Instagram |
Music video preview |
|
April 22nd, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn Facebook |
Music video preview |
|
April 22nd, 2017 |
DOORN Records Facebook |
Music video preview |
|
April 22nd, 2017 |
DOORN Records Twitter |
Music video preview |
|
April 23rd, 2017 |
DOORN Records Instagram |
Music video preview |
|
April 23rd, 2017 |
DOORN Records Facebook |
Music video preview |
|
April 23rd, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn Twitter |
Music video preview |
|
April 23rd, 2017 |
DOORN Records Twitter |
Music video preview |
|
April 23rd, 2017 |
Spinnin Records Twitter |
Music video preview |
|
April 24th, 2017 - Release Day |
|||
April 24th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn Instagram |
Album art with track |
|
April 24th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn Facebook |
Link to track review blog post |
|
April 24th, 2017 |
WeRaveYou.Com |
Track review blog post |
|
April 24th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn |
Link to track review blog post (with header image) |
|
April 24th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn Twitter |
Link to purchase links |
|
April 24th, 2017 |
DOORN Records Twitter |
Link to purchase links |
|
April 24th, 2017 |
Spinnin’ Records Twitter |
Link to purchase links |
|
April 24th, 2017 |
DOORN Records Instagram |
Album art |
|
April 24th, 2017 |
DOORN Records Facebook |
Link to track on Beatport |
|
April 24th, 2017 |
DOORN Records Twitter |
Sander Van Doorn Instagram takeover announcement |
|
April 24th, 2017 |
DOORN Records Instagram |
Sander Van Doorn Instagram takeover announcement |
|
April 24th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn |
Link to track on Spotify |
|
April 24th, 2017 |
DOORN Records Facebook |
Facebook cover photo made out of track album art |
|
April 24th, 2017 |
DOORN Records Soundcloud |
Full track |
|
April 24th, 2017 |
Spinnin’ Records Soundcloud |
Reposted full track from DOORN Records Soundcloud |
|
April 24th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn |
Reposted full track from DOORN Records Soundcloud |
|
April 25th, 2017 |
DOORN Records Facebook |
Sander Van Doorn Instagram takeover announcement |
|
April 25th, 2017 |
Spinnin’ Records Youtube |
Full music video |
|
April 25th, 2017 |
DOORN Records Twitter |
Link to music video |
|
April 25th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn |
Full music video |
|
April 25th, 2017 |
DOORN Records Instagram |
Video with personal message and track |
|
April 25th, 2017 |
DOORN Records Instagram |
DOORN Records team with comment about the track |
|
April 25th, 2017 |
DOORN Records Instagram |
Live video preview |
|
April 25th, 2017 |
DOORN Records Instagram |
Music video preview |
|
April 25th, 2017 |
DOORN Records Instagram |
Music video preview |
|
April 25th, 2017 |
DOORN Records Facebook |
Link to music video |
|
April 28th, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn |
Identity podcast feature (21 minutes in) |
|
May 2nd, 2017 |
Spinnin’ Records Facebook |
Parital music video |
|
May 2nd, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn |
Parital music video |
|
May 2nd, 2017 |
Sander Van Doorn |
Parital music video |
|
May 2nd, 2017 |
Spinnin’ Records Twitter |
Parital music video |
|
May 3rd, 2017 |
DOORN Records Instagram |
Music video preview |
|
May 3rd, 2017 |
DOORN Records Twitter |
Music video preview |
Final Notes
Some final notes that I had were the following:
- When placed in a podcast, it was right in the middle, not at the beginning or end. This is a common spot where people skip to when listening to a mix.
- The Tomorrowland video might be a random person, but I think it was an intentional sneak preview because they edited the video with the release date and track name.
- Facebook, Instagram, and other social media sites didn’t have “Stories” features at the time. Those should be integrated into any promotion strategy today.
- I didn’t keep track of their Snapchat or email marketing. I’m assuming both of these were used for promotion and should be integrated into your promotion strategy.
- While the schedule looks like the accounts are spamming the content, it's mixed in with other content that the accounts are sharing. This will help users stay engaged, without getting bored of the same content being shared.
- The accounts were putting ads on the posts to boost views and engagement. I would recommend you do the same. The ad budget would depend on your goals and what you're comfortable with.