Apple Music promotion campaigns
We can help your music reach those who will love it through Apple Music promotion for artists! Our carefully planned campaigns deliver results, and are tailored to each artist and their needs.
Our Apple Music promotion is 100% organic and means that you will see real results with your music’s streams and downloads, as well as helping with Apple playlist promotion. With Apple Music becoming ever more popular, make sure that its vast audience knows about you and what you have to offer!
In good company
Best music promotion campaigns for you
Are you an artist or band wanting to grow your audience and increase your traction? Working with a music promotion company could be exactly what you need. At Music Gateway, We help to get your music heard & grow your audience by working directly with independent music curators worldwide.
Our approach is tailored to suit each artist, carefully planning each campaign to deliver results. With 30 years of combined industry experience, leverage our powerful network of influencers & professional tastemakers.
Artist Development
We can help manage an artist’s development and career with one-to-one advice covering Branding, A&R, PR, Social Media Presence and Digital Marketing.
Artist branding and A&R is the starting point of a professional career in the music industry and we can help create the perfect brand for you. We will help you get the right look & branding, connecting you with leading industry producers and creatives. It’s time to level up!
Prices start from as low as £150 per month.
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Promotion that cuts through the noise
Apple Music Promotion
We can help your music reach those who will love it through Apple Music promotion for artists!
Our carefully planned campaigns deliver results and are tailored to each artist and their needs.
Our Apple Music promotion is 100% organic. This means that you will see real results with your music’s streams and downloads.
With Apple Music becoming ever more popular, make sure that its vast audience knows about you and what you have to offer!
What Is Apple Music Promotion?
Apple Music promotions involve musicians utilising Apple Music for Artists to increase the reach of their content on the platform.
The capabilities of Apple Music range from branding and sharing music to placement on a curated Apple Music playlist. Some of the newer features include providing analytics and streaming stats for artists to build a data-driven promotional strategy.
Apple Music Promotion For Artists
When it comes to music promotion, Apple Music provides an incredible potential launchpad for artists.
With a user base of over 60 million, online/offline listening, and a catalogue of 70 million songs (larger than Spotify, Tidal and Amazon Music).
Since the development of iTunes into Apple Music in 2015, Apple has actively sought out exclusivity deals. Encouraging big-name artists to release their music on Apple Music first is key to the platform’s paid subscription strategy.
Unlike Spotify, Apple Music has no free tier, so it is ad-free for all users at a flat fee. This goes for the three Apple Music radio shows (Apple Music 1, Apple Music Hits and Apple Music Country). Which are also commercial-free.
An ad-free platform makes the dynamics of Apple Music promotion for Artists different to its many competitors.
Where Do I Start?
Firstly, stage one in promoting your content on Apple Music is choosing whether its right for you by familiarising yourself with its features.
We’ve got some great info about the best Apple Music promotion, the benefits of Apple Music and how to get set up as an artist on the platform here!
When you’re ready, it’s time to upload some content to promote.
No worries if this is all new; we’ve put together a step-by-step explanation of how to upload onto Apple Music.
How Does Apple Music Promotion Work?
Apple Music promotion is a little complex, so listen up.
Firstly, unlike radio stations or ‘freemium’ streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music does not enable standard audio advertising interspersed between tracks and targeted to relevant users.
When you upload music to Apple Music, you accept that the platform is an ad-free subscriber model. There are certainly benefits to this.
Royalties from Apple Music are among the highest of the main streaming services, almost 150% more than Spotify and Amazon Music.
Artists, as a result, need to be a little savvier about how they promote.
All About The Image: Branding On Apple Music
After criticism that the platform had failed to provide artists with the same branding opportunities as Spotify for Artists, Apple Music now allows its content creators to upload a custom image.
This “hero image” is a key branding opportunity for artists. Building a clear visual identity on the artist profile page, in addition to personal bios.
Previously, Apple Music Connect enabled a social media-style feed to foster rewarding fan experiences and relationships with artists.
Connect allowed artists to post photos, videos, and messages directly to fans. But Apple has now removed this feature and shifted emphasis to artists’ info pages.
Recently, Apple Music has also introduced animated artwork for highlighted playlists. Something which may be made available for artists’ pages in the future.
Like other streaming services, Apple Music also provides its branding. This allows you to integrate into other platforms where you might share creative content.
Get Social: Sharing Your Apple Music Content
The platform provides artists with the Apple Music Toolbox. A handy tool for creating short links, embeddable artwork, badges, QR codes, and icons.
Embeddable widgets allow your band/artist website to link directly to content on Apple Music.
If you’re willing to invest a little more, Apple Music can be integrated with Linkfire. This monitors which links are driving engagement and streams.
The ability to embed shareable content across multiple formats makes promoting content easy for you. It also makes music listening convenient and accessible to fans.
In addition, you can display your tour dates. You can do this by linking up with Songkick, Bandsintown, or other listed partners. However, unlike Spotify, Apple Music requires users to integrate the two apps manually.
A Number’s Game: Data-Driven Decisions For Artists Analytics
Granular data is fundamental for effective media strategies.
Apple Music for Artists has increased transparency for artists, utilising data analytics to graphically display your music’s impact.
The insights range from a macro-view of overall music performance. This is less usable but nice for sharing with fans – to comparisons of individual track performance over time.
You can also see how many listeners you have over time. As well as where they are most concentrated (down to city-level). Along with which playlists are generating the most streams for your content.
A nice feature Apple Music for Artists provides distinct from Spotify’s offering is a chart of artists’ ‘Most Shazamed Songs’.
Arguably, Spotify for Artists’ analytics are still stronger. Having brought data analytics to artists for longer than its competition.
Apple Music promotion has been slower in providing artists with transparency about promotional impacts on streaming.
The Pitch: Apple Music Playlist Promotion
The key focus of most artists, however well-established, is playlist placements.
Apple playlist promotion is an organic way of achieving a huge boost in listeners.
Placing your music alongside similar artists in a playlist that appeals to listeners of a genre which your music sits well in is a sure way to find a wider audience.
If you want to increase your reach, you want to focus on submitting your best tracks to playlist pitches.
The snag here is that, unlike Spotify, Apple Music doesn’t allow third-party curated playlists; only the platform’s music editors and their partners can make public playlists.
This makes the pitch significantly more challenging for independent artists who do not have existing relationships with Apple Music playlist curators.
Working alone, your best bet is to boost your followers to a level that hopefully garners curators’ interest.
The challenge here is that you’re competing in a sea of artists, including musicians with major labels that quickly earmark spots on popular playlists.
Alternatively, you can work with a distributor or a music management team, like the friendly people at Music Gateway.
We can boost organic streaming growth for you by pitching your playlists, utilising our trusted relationships with curators.
Music Gateway can extend your reach through targeted Apple playlist promotion. However, if you’re an emerging artist looking to expand your listener base, Spotify or YouTube might be a more effective approach.
With a greater likelihood of being placed on Spotify public playlists and YouTube playlist partner promotion.
Check out how we can help you with Spotify and YouTube music promotion here!
Is It Worth It To Promote Music On Apple Music?
It depends on the artist.
Apple Music offers streaming royalties at $0.007/stream, compared to Spotify’s $0.004/stream. If you’re seeing some decent streaming figures, this seemingly small difference will start to add up.
However, the likelihood of growing your user base on Spotify is greater. The streaming service is the clear market leader, with 32% of the market compared to Apple Music’s 18% share.
Only this year, Spotify announced it has reached 320 million users, of which 144 million are paid subscribers.
The two top streaming sites provide similar branding and analytic capacities for artists. However, Apple Music has sizable barriers for emerging artists hoping for organic Apple Music promotion.
In spite of being widely accepted as the most powerful promotional tool available through the streaming service, public playlists are dominated by the provider’s curated playlists and major labels.
Advanced Apple Music Marketing Tools and Embedding Features
Understanding Apple Music Identity Guidelines for Professional Promotion
Before diving into promotional activities, artists must review the Apple Music identity guidelines to ensure compliance with Apple’s branding standards. These guidelines outline specific requirements for using Apple Music badges, lockups, and promotional materials across marketing communications, including social media, advertising, apps, websites, and printed promotions.
The identity guidelines are particularly crucial when incorporating Apple Music branding into press photos, album art and other promotional materials. Artists should never modify, angle, animate, rotate, or tilt Apple Music badges or lockups, and must avoid applying special effects such as shadows or glows. Understanding these requirements ensures your promotional efforts maintain professional standards while leveraging Apple’s globally recognised brand.
Mastering Apple Music Embed Codes and Preview Players
Creating Embeddable Music Widgets
Apple Music’s embedding functionality allows artists to create interactive preview players for their websites and promotional materials. To copy embed to copy functionality, start by navigating to your chosen song album or playlist within Apple Music. The process involves clicking the dropdown button (three dots) next to your desired content, selecting “Share,” and then choosing “Copy Embed Code” from the subsequent options.
Preview Player Section Configuration
The preview player section offers customisation options for embedded content. Artists can adjust the desired height and width of the music player displayed on their website, ensuring optimal integration with existing design elements. After customization, simply click copy embed to obtain the HTML code ready for website integration.
When you copy the embed code, the resulting player provides 30-second previews for non-Apple Music subscribers while offering full playback capabilities for existing subscribers. This embedded player enables Apple Music users to offer listeners a preview of music anywhere on the web, making content accessible even to those who aren’t signed up to Apple Music.
Leveraging the Apple Music Marketing Tool Dashboard
Accessing Marketing Assets Through Official Channels
Apple Music Marketing Tools provides a comprehensive platform where artists can enter their artist name or any album or song to access promotional features. This centralised music marketing tool streamlines the process of creating professional promotional materials while maintaining brand consistency.
Integrating Affiliate Programs
For eligible artists and promoters, the platform allows you to add your affiliate token to maximise revenue opportunities. When applicable, add your affiliate token to the affiliate field on the content page before generating promotional materials. The Apple Music Affiliate Program offers a 7% commission on qualifying purchases with a 30-day cookie duration.
Apple Music Badges and Lockups Implementation
Navigating the Badges and Lockups Section
After entering your promotional content details, scroll down to the Badges and Lockups section where you can customise colour and language options for your Listen on Apple Music badges. Apple offers Listen on Apple Music lockup artwork translated into many languages, with the trademark “Apple Music” always appearing in English.
Professional Badge Usage Standards
The Apple Music lockups combine the Apple Music icon with messages like “Listen on Apple Music,” “Watch on Apple Music,” or “Pre-add on Apple Music” set in specially designed typography. These lockups provide greater graphic versatility compared to standard badges and work particularly well when space is limited or when the standard badge appears visually heavy.
Key implementation requirements include:
- Using only one Apple Music lockup per communication
- Never combining lockups with Apple Music badges
- Placing lockups below or to the right of main content
- Keeping lockups smaller than primary images and messaging
Advanced Linking and Sharing Strategies
Quick Link Generation
For immediate sharing needs, Apple Music provides multiple sharing options. Artists can click copy link to generate direct URLs for sharing via messages, social media, email, and other platforms. This functionality works seamlessly across songs, albums, playlists, and artist pages.
Player Section and Edit Capabilities
The player section and edit features within Apple Music Marketing Tools allow for customization of promotional materials. Artists can modify sizing, color schemes, and language preferences to match their brand aesthetic while maintaining compliance with Apple’s identity guidelines.
Comprehensive Albums or Playlists Apple Music Artist Promotion
Strategic Content Promotion
When promoting albums or playlists apple music artist promotion strategies should leverage multiple marketing channels simultaneously. Effective promotion involves incorporating Apple Music badges into marketing materials, including press photos, album art, and digital advertising campaigns.
Multi-Platform Integration
Successful artists utilize Apple Music’s promotional tools across various platforms, ensuring consistent branding and messaging. The integration of embedded players, affiliate links, and professional badges creates a cohesive promotional ecosystem that drives listener engagement and subscription conversions.
By implementing these advanced features and maintaining compliance with Apple Music’s identity guidelines, artists can maximize their promotional impact while building sustainable revenue streams through the platform’s comprehensive marketing ecosystem.
Music Gateway
Music Gateway has tools to optimise your chances of playlist promotion success through Apple Music.
But, it is best equipped to help emerging artists promote their music on Spotify or YouTube.
These streaming sites can produce far more tangible results with greater accessibility to those all-important public playlists to get your music into the headphones of future fans.
If you have an immediate budget and you’re ready to go, Book A Call with our Artist Services Team to discuss building the best packages to suit you and your budget!
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