The Internet has changed the game… forever.  I remember when I was a kid and I didn’t have reliable access to a computer, magazines were my source for finding new music.  I’d flip through the new edition of the Rolling Stone and go straight to the reviews.  Blink-182: Enema of the State only 3 stars? Come on RS that album was my jam.  FutureSex/LoveSounds 3.5 stars? Why you got to do my boy JT dirty like that?  Even though I rarely agreed with the reviews, I still read them every month because this was my source for finding new music.  Back then, an artist with a budget would drop an ad in the review section, but only the artists with big label support could afford that.  Cue the Internet.  I haven’t touched the Rolling Stone in years because I can find all my new music on blogs all over the web.  And now there are platforms for musicians of any level to advertise their music on these blogs… hallelujah!

One of these platforms is Wavo, a digital marketing company for artists and labels to connect with passionate music fans like myself.  Wavo accomplishes this in the form of sponsored ads on music sites.  When a music fan visits one of their favourite blogs, such as Consequence of Sound, they will see below-the-fold and in-feed sponsored ads of new artists.  The ads are consistent with the form and style of the blogs they are posted on, so the viewer can hardly even tell they are ads.  This is called native advertising.  Because the ads blend in with the blogs, the viewers are likely to engage with them as they would with any other post on the blog.  At the very least, the viewer enters the marketing funnel when they see the ad and become aware of the artist.

So Wavo gives any artist the tools to get their music on hundreds of popular music websites, but has it actually contributed to anyone’s success?  Absolutely.  A relatively unknown artist by the name of DENM wanted to increase his plays and followers on Spotify, so he set up a campaign with Wavo to help him achieve this.  After a 15 day campaign, native ads for his Spotify page had been viewed 827,000 times.  Because the first campaign was so successful, DENM launched a remix competition using Wavo for his song Lit.  Both of these campaigns were huge successes.  DENM increased his streams and followers on Spotify.  His song Lit has over 1.6 million plays!

Thanks to the Internet any musician can promote their music.  Even a struggling artist such as myself can use Wavo to get their music on huge music websites, and I did!  Sadly, my campaign was not nearly as successful as Wavo’s, but it did garner 20,000+ impressions, thus raising brand awareness and beginning the listeners’s journey through the marketing funnel.  Next step, develop a campaign that continues to move the listener through the funnel.