Last week's feedback was great so far.

(And I thought there wasn't any value in it)

At the end of that email, I told you about an idea for Spotify.

You may know that I used to work in the music department at a radio station for many years.

We received tons of new music every day. From bad sounding indie productions to good sounding indie production, to the obvious agencies promoting the big fishes.

Some of the suggested music came in playlists. 

Basically, the promo people just added a bunch of different artists of their roster into one playlist and sent it to us. The subject line often included the name of the biggest artist on that list. 

We loved it.

(No, not the subject line)

The playlists saved us hours of time opening new links, downloading files, inserting CDs, or putting on records.

(Okay, we also loved getting vinyl, but that's another story for another time)

So, we just had to go through a playlist, rate its content, and—if we liked one song—bring it to the next editorial committee to decide whether or not it should get air time.

Who benefited from this?

Everyone.

We music editors could spend more time on finding the right music, the promoted artists had a higher chance to get found (and picked), the promo people had more songs with air time, and the audience experienced better music.

With this image in mind, let's move to this weeks' topic:

Similar to my radio years, I'm an avid listener, and am always looking for fresh music. If I find something great, I look for playlists that include this song. The potential to find other great songs on these playlists increases exponentially. 

A while back, I started testing new ideas on Spotify.

Even though you can sell merch or other stuff, and maybe even get some bucks out of it if you have the numbers, I consider it rather as a promotion tool than a money-making machine. You can make money with it, but you need at least hundreds of thousands of monthly plays to make a living from it.

For my tests, I created a playlist for one artist, named it after a very similar sounding big artist, added several songs of this big artist, and finally added one song of the artist I wanted to promote.

(To enhance the listening experience, I also added other similar-sounding small artists to the playlist)

From what I can tell so far, this method works great. And—even though I'm not done with testing—I'm telling you this now because I know that other people found out about this, too.

So, before other people use this free promotion opportunity, you better hurry up. Schedule 30 minutes this week right now, and get this done ASAP. It doesn't cost you anything but a little bit of your time.

One thing to keep in mind though: If your music isn't well-produced or mixed, and you're adding it to a playlist that got killer sounding tracks, this might turn against you.

So I'd recommend looking for the best option with not only a very similar sound but also a very similar sound quality. Let me know your thoughts and share your results with me, I read every message.