I cut this little music video together from the hundreds of videos folks made with our song. We ran a promo contest to get it some traction on Tiktok after I’d decided I couldn’t ethically pay for ads on Meta or Spotify (two of few avenues for indie music marketing).
This was the second time we ran a contest like this, with pretty rad success for a fully independent band! We had a budget of $100, a couple books of stamps, and a bunch of small merch like stickers & pinback buttons. All in all <$150 total campaign cost.
I made a Tiktok post telling the our followers (and TT at large) that I’d Venmo them $5 or send them our “crappy art pack” (stickers + hand drawn index card art). There would be 40 winners, 20 each for cash/art. Winners got to pick which they wanted until we ran out of one or the other.
Y’all, I literally could not give the money away. Everyone wanted the art packs. A handful of folks asked me to donate to Gaza-related GFMs instead (we did, + a little extra for those). So many people turned down prizes and said they just liked the song, wanted to support.
I went through nearly 100 people before I gave away the entire cash budget. Our otherwise unpromoted song got 1,000+ streams on Spotify that week. Millions of views on TikTok. YouTube subscribers jumped by 50+. Sure, These are small numbs in the grand scheme, but they are HUGE for an artist our size.
To top it off, we’ve gotten radio play, blog, and podcast reviews from this promotion. We’ve sold merch. We had a killer photographer come shoot one of our shows on tour, just because she liked the music! And we’ve made real fans AND real friends by connecting with folks through it.
To artists: rethink your audience build and ad budget. Do you want numbers or do you want to make music for people who get you and like your work?
Often we forget—ourselves little lost numbers in the algorithm—that art is about connection.
And that everyone loves free stickers.