Groove magazine has been the mouthpiece and engine of the electronic music and club scene since 1989.

Groove spoke to Playlist Promotion`s founder Andi and Tobias, we translated the interview into English for you, read it below.

Tobias and Andi from Playlist-Promotion.com (Photo: Press)

Streaming providers like Spotify are becoming more and more important for our scene. Vinyl is a fetish, but the majority of techno fans have been listening to the music in stream for a long time. For musicians and labels it is not easy to deal with this situation. Because unlike vinyl, they are no longer dealing with distributors from the techno context, but with globally operating corporations. How do you reach them and how do you talk to them? How do you make sure that you appear in the decisive playlists? That’s where Playlist-Promotion.com comes in. The agency, based in Germany, Brazil and the Dominican Republic, brings your music to the appropriate curators. We wanted to hear from the company’s German team, from Tobias and Andi, how they work with the platforms.

 

Many musicians in the scene feel overwhelmed by the challenge of positioning themselves with Spotify and the other providers. How do you support them?

First and foremost it’s about being 100 percent honest. We get between 900 and 2000 requests a month and have to turn down about 30% of all songs. The competition on the music market is enormous, and a good production and of course a strong song is a prerequisite to be included in playlists. When we receive a song, our team first checks whether we can achieve successful results with the song. If this is the case, the song goes to the curators who are specialized in the corresponding genre. They then place the song on their playlists for at least two months.

Asked a little flippantly: What can you do that the musicians cannot do themselves?

Our team consists of musicians, marketing experts and audio engineers. Together we have more than 40 years of experience in music production and marketing. Over the years we have built up a network of over 1000 curators and have access to over 20 million potential listeners. Our portfolio is not limited to the streaming provider Spotify. For selected artists we also offer our services for video-views on Youtube. This will expand and build up the fanbase in the long run.

 

 

What are your greatest successes? What are your greatest challenges?

Our customers come from all over the world. For example, we have promoted BTS, one of the most famous K-Pop bands. On Spotify, the band has about 16 million monthly listeners. Unfortunately, I can’t name American and German names, but among them are artists from the top 10 of the hip-hop and the top 20 of the pop charts. Three of the most famous Hip-Hop artists from Germany are regular customers. Of course we are happy to work with labels and artists from the charts, we don’t make any distinctions between individual music genres. Our success lies in the satisfaction of the artists for whom we work. In a market that is flooded with scam promotions and fake playlists, it is difficult to build trust, and we are proud when we succeed.

We offer organic, real and active promotion. We are real people, not robots.

If a musician hires you, how do you go about it? What are your criteria for working with the music?

We listen to the songs internally, determine the genre and then decide which curators the song goes to. Many songs have hit potential, but our main criteria for the selection process is usually good mixing and clean mastering.

How does your working method differ from classical music promotion?

We offer organic, real and active promotion. We are real people and not robots. Every campaign is equally important to us, we spend between 5 and 10 hours per song just to prepare the songs. Furthermore we are available 5 days a week by mail or phone and we always try to find the best solution for our customers.

Who are you? How big is your team? How did your company come into being? What is your background, what makes you special?

Our team consists of 6 people from 4 different countries, we, Andi and Tobias, represent the German market, Carol and Leo Brazil, Steve UK and Alejandra the Dominican Republic. So we can serve the biggest music markets in an optimal way. Our background is the marketing of music, audio engineering, DJing, event management and of course promotion.

The breakthrough of audio streaming has created a new era for artists and labels. Now it is possible to have worldwide success without a big marketing budget.

 

 

How has your work with Playlist-Promotion.com changed your view of music as a whole? What have you learned about music and its marketing?

Spotify- and YouTube-Promotion are in our opinion ideal opportunities for musicians because there is a return-on-investment and the target group can be narrowed down very well. Our biggest promotion package can also be a very good career kick-start for newcomers. The promotion will not only reach new audiences, but also increase the fanbase.

How do you see streams in general?

Spotify claims to have over 220 million users and is the world’s largest music streaming provider. This gives the provider a huge potential to reach listeners from all over the world. The breakthrough of audio streaming has created a new era for artists and labels. Now it is also possible to be successful worldwide without a large marketing budget.


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