From Streams to Super-fans: CD Baby Provides Major-Label Marketing Tools to All its Artists--For Free

Indie artists now have more marketing muscle. CD Baby, the leading indie music distribution and royalty administration service, is integrating the music marketing services of its latest acquisition, Show.co into its artist dashboard. This will give CD Baby’s entire community of musicians and labels access to a powerful array of promotional tools that can bolster their popularity on streaming services and engage larger social media followings.

“Show.co has become a key marketing tool for major label artists, so we know CD Baby artists are going to be excited about free access to this service." says Kevin Breuner, VP of Marketing at CD Baby. “It’s designed to let artists and labels leverage just one piece of content on Show.co to drive specific actions from fans.”

In the hands of each CD Baby artist, Show.co can launch numerous campaigns intended to drive audience growth and list building, promote new music and videos, and more. These calls-to-action can include subscribing to a YouTube channel, engaging in a contest, or following on Twitter or Spotify. Artists also have the opportunity to trade music singles for a fan’s email address. Once the fan submits their email address, their city and country are also automatically collected, providing valuable information for marketing efforts such as tour promotion.

“Show.co provides an amazing direct-connect for our artists and their fans,” says Breuner. “Indie musicians can not only build their email lists, but also track what platforms their fans are using to consume their music, thus guiding the artist on what music streaming and video services to focus on.”

Show.co had quietly attracted the attention of major labels (Universal) and big indies (Rounder, Nettwerk), as well as others. But since the acquisition by CD Baby, 650,000 artists will be able use the service to share content and collect important data. For artists and labels who do not use CD Baby, Show.co’s marketing services cost up to $119 per month. But for all CD Baby users, the powerful marketing tool will be free in the coming months.

“More than 6,000 labels and artists have already used Show.co’s services, so we know it works,” says Breuner. “We are really proud to offer this to our artists as a part of their already comprehensive toolbox.”
 

About CD Baby

CD Baby is one of the largest distributors of independent music on the planet, home to almost 650,000 artists and more than 7 million tracks, getting independent music to more than 100 digital services and platforms around the globe and allowing artists to monetize their presence on YouTube. Artists using the CD Baby platform have earned more than $500 million since its founding and its Publishing Administration service, CD Baby Pro, allows over 100,000 songwriters/artists to collect all of their publishing royalties.

CD Baby has become the go-to partner for many icons in the new music industry. Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, Twenty One Pilots, and Macklemore had their start on CD Baby, while others like Ingrid Michaelson and Gregory Alan Isakov have maintained independent and highly successful careers. Artists like Rooney are among the musicians who’ve dropped the old label system and turned to CD Baby to strike out on their own.