So we've all been there . You drop a single and it does well for a bit . Then it goes into the great void that is Spotify . Whatever platform , streaming platform you listen to and , or rather , you release an album and it just takes ages to gain traction . That's where the waterfall release strategy comes in .
Hey , inside the Mix podcast fans , this is Davey Oberlin of All the Damn Vampires . Make sure to follow me on Instagram for updates on all my music projects . And that's Davey Oberlin on Instagram as well . You're listening to the Inside the Mix podcast , and here's your host , mark Matthews .
Welcome to Inside the Mix , your go-to podcast for music creation and production . Whether you're crafting your first track or refining your mixing skills , join me each week for expert interviews , practical tutorials and insights to help you level up your music and smash it in the music industry . Let's dive in . Hello folks , welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast .
If you are a producer or artist interested in learning a potentially smarter way to release your music , this episode could well be for you . We are diving into the waterfall release strategy , and I discovered this strategy in conversation with Jay Gilbert of the your Morning Coffee podcast back on episode 130 .
The general idea behind this strategy is to maximize exposure , increase engagement and grow your audience with every release . So by the end of this episode , you'll have a step-by-step guide of how to implement this strategy , whether you're dropping your first single or planning an album or EP rollout . So we've all been there .
You drop a single and it does well for a bit . Then it goes into the great void that is Spotify whatever platform streaming platform you listen to , and or rather , you release an album and it just takes ages to gain traction . That's where the waterfall release strategy comes in . The idea behind the waterfall release strategy is to gain momentum .
So you gradually , you drip feed releases over time and I've been doing this with my recent releases . I did this with waves , separation and four minute warning . So it started with waves and then I re-released waves with separation , and then I re-released waves and separation with four minute warning , and then I've got another one to go after that as well .
So I'm in very much in the stage of experimenting with this release strategy at the moment . I'll give you my feedback on how it's gone so far at the end of this episode .
So what we're going to do in this episode is we're going to break down the actual waterfall release strategy step by step , using DistroKid but you can use whatever platform you use to distribute your music .
I use DistroKid , hence why we're going to be using it today , and I'll also go through some common mistakes to be aware of , learn from the mistakes that I have made along the way , made along the way .
So by the end of this episode , you will have a strategy that could well help you gain momentum , grow your audience and just continue and build engagement with your fans , slash audience as well . So let's dive in . So here we are in DistroKid . I'm in the upload page and for this strategy to work , you would need to have already released at least one single .
Now I've released three , so I'm going to go through the process . I would now go through for that fourth single , which is untitled , so I'll just come up with a random name . So the first thing , first number of songs it's going to be four . I'm going to enable Snapchat because I own the 100% of the publishing . Has the album been previously released ?
No , no , it hasn't . And it's my name Okay . So all this is already pre-filled out because I have released previously . So it's got my Spotify , apple Music , youtube , instagram , facebook , etc . My release date set when your release date is . So let's go . This is the 8th of March . Today . I'm actually at the point of recording this .
I've got a song that's dropping on the 21st . So let's say I am sticking to my six-week release cadence that I want . So what are we there ? It's 21st 1 , 2 , so that's 4 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 . I forgot how to count them . 2nd of May , let's say Release time . I always leave it as is with the recommended , not bothered about that Time synchronization .
Leave it as is with the recommended , not bothered about that time synchronization . Leave it as is as well . Obviously you can change all these settings here to to suit your the way you release record label put in your label , if you've got one , I'm just gonna leave that blank . Album price I'm just gonna price it at £4.99 .
Actually , no , I'm gonna do £3.99 because it's four tracks , so just under a pound . Each Language is English . Primary genre select your genre . So let's say I've been going with dance lately . Actually there's house on here . No , let's go electronic . And then I want house . So where are you ? I'll just put electro house .
Secondary genre let's just go with dance . Then this is where you would upload your album cover . Obviously this is going to be the album cover of the latest song . So this will be the album artwork for the fourth release . For the fourth release okay , give it a title . Um , so I'm going to call this the title of the fourth song .
So I'm just going to call this the title of the fourth song . So I'm just going to call this , very interesting , my Fourth Song . Here we are and I'm going to take that and then I'm just going to copy that into song one , like so so this is the fourth and new song . So add featured artist to song title no , obviously this is going to change .
This is subjective to whatever you're releasing . Add version no , this is a normal version . Then I would upload the audio and I'm not going to click on . Already have an ISRC , but we will in a minute , so I'm going to let DistroKid sort that out for me . Spatial audio no , is it a cover ? No , music and lyrics .
I did all that , so I'm going to stick my name in there . Boom and explicit no . Is this a radio edit ? No , is it an instrumental ? Let's say it's not and let streaming services decide . The preview clip happy with that . And the track price at 99 cents ? So happy with that . So that's the first song . So it is basically uploading a , an entirely new song .
But for the next three songs it's where it gets slightly different . So let's scroll down . So song title number two let's say this is my four minute warning , which was the most recent song I released .
So I put four minute warning in here , warming for the song title and basically what I now select in this description for track two of four minute warning has to be exactly the same as it was for the previous release , and you have to do this for tracks two , three and four . It has to be exactly the same . Can this for tracks 2 , 3 and 4 .
It has to be exactly the same . Can't stress that enough . Exactly the same . Okay , so I can remember . No , don't show any other artists . No , this is a normal version and I already have an ISRC code . So this is where I'm going to duplicate my DistroKid page here and hopefully it will work fine .
Let's go back to the top and I'm just going to go to my Music and then , if I go to 4-Minute Warning , I can see there's my ISRC codes for 4-Minute Warning , separation and Wave . So I'm just going to copy that for 4-Minute Warning , go back over to DistroK kid for the new release and paste that in there .
So copy and paste your isrcs and you're going to do that . I won't do it in this example . I'm not going to go through each track , but I would do that for four minute warning , separation and waves , and I'm going to do it in the order that it is here as well . So it's going to go .
Track two is four minute warning , track three is separation , track four is waves and I'm going to copy the ISRC codes across into here . So it's important that you select . I think I'm going to have to scroll down to get it exactly right . Already have an ISRC , okay , and then everything else again is going to be the same . So songwriter's name is me , okay .
No explicit lyrics . The song contains its lyrics yes , it does . And then track price . But of course we also need to upload the audio . So this is really important here . So this audio needs to be the same audio . Essentially , I would just to belt and braces approach just use the exact same file that you used originally .
Just as I say for that belt and braces approach . And the easiest way , I think , to do this is that in DistroKid in particular and I'm going to hazard a guess and say you can do this in other distros but if you go up to the top , it's kind of like four dots or four squares or something .
If you go to protect your music and you've got vault , okay , and then I've got four-minute warning , and then if I click on that release , I can , okay , and then I've got four minute warning and then , if I click on that release , I can actually download that wav file that I used or I uploaded originally . You can also get the isrc code in here as well .
That way I know if I download this it's exactly the same as the original upload . So that's what I would select as my audio file for this . So go to to the DistroKid vault , download the original file and then upload that as your audio file . That way , there's no room for error in theory . So then we move on to the next track .
In this instance it's going to be track three , so this would be my one , called Separation . I think I spelled separation wrong . No , that looks right . I'm just going to double check . Let's go back . Separation , yeah . I did spell it right , a word that always gets me . Add featured artist . No , then no again to add version separation . Already have an ISRC ?
Yes , I do . So I could use the vault in this instance . Click on separation here , copy that ISRC and stick that in there and remember , download the audio file from the vault for separation , title separation in fact . Yeah , I'll use that original one , it's going to be the same .
I mean , I could go back to the original separation release and download that one , but it's the same audio file upload that and then go through the same process again as we did with the other two tracks , basically , and then do the same for track four with waves , and that's it basically . That is how you create the waterfall release .
So track one is the new track and then I'm re-releasing essentially tracks two , three and four , and then when I do the fifth track , I'd then be re-releasing my fourth song in theory . So that's a whistle stop tour of how to do it in DistroKid .
So my experience with this strategy so far is as follows I re-released waves with separation and then , at the point of releasing well , rather recording this episode four minute warning is going to be the new release with waves and separation . I noticed a bump in streams for waves at the time of releasing separation .
Ultimately , separation did better and has surpassed in terms of streams . It has surpassed waves . So is that testament to the song being better or is that testament to the algorithm of Spotify recognizing my release cadence ? I'll know for sure , I think , once I've released two or three more songs using this strategy .
Then I'll be able to see a much clearer picture . Okay , has this release cadence benefited me ? Is Spotify now jumping on my music and pushing out to more people because I'm releasing more , or is it just this ?
A better song Could be that , to be fair , I I mean in terms of interaction and audience engagement , I probably got more with separation than I did with waves . On the negative side of this , it's made my Spotify catalog a bit weird in terms of it's just when you look at it , you'll see the same release and then again and again , and again .
I mean I could go back and delete the original releases , I guess , but I but I'm not going to . So it might look a bit old for someone looking at my entire catalogue , but ultimately I'm not really worried about that . To be honest . If you are , then I suppose you could go back and delete the old releases , but so far it has been of benefit , I think .
But I'll know more further into this journey in 2025 . If you go back and listen to episode 185 , I think it is that's my first assessment of my release strategies this year , so it could be of interest if this episode has been of interest to you .
One other key point I didn't mention and I probably should have mentioned right at the beginning , is that the idea is we are building to an EP or album release . My advice and I'm not an expert by any stretch in music marketing or this particular strategy , to be honest but it makes sense to have the songs related to each other .
There needs to be some sort of relationship . It doesn't make sense to me in my head to just have random songs released and build into this waterfall strategy .
Again , we're building towards an album release or an EP release , so there needs to be some sort of relationship and obviously this doesn't mean that you don't need to do the normal marketing that you would usually do and the branding and everything else surrounding that .
So it's not a silver bullet I hate to use that term and I wouldn't even know if it is anyway , because I've only just started using it . So , as a quick summary , we're using the waterfall release strategy to re-release previous singles to build towards an EP or an album , and I showed you how to do it with DistroKid .
Make sure the metadata for the re-released tunes is exactly the same as is the audio file as well , and just be aware that it can convolute your streaming platform catalog a little if you use this particular strategy .
But the idea is that we are going to gain momentum , we're going to increase that release cadence Ideally , hopefully the Spotify algorithm will jump on it as well and we're going to continue to build and grow that audience . So , folks , hopefully this has been of use to you .
If you are interested in using the waterfall release strategy , let me know your thoughts in the comments . If you're watching on youtube or dm me at inside the mix podcast with your experience using this strategy , or maybe someone you know who has used it , whether it's good , bad or anywhere in between , I'll see you in the next episode .