How D Music Marketing used Soundcharts real-time analytics to build and execute go-to-market strategies for international artists entering Latin America

D Music Marketing is one of the key players in Latin America, providing marketing and promotion services to independent labels, recording artists, and consumer brands trying to get into the market. Here’s how they’ve used Soundcharts’ all-in music analytics to build custom strategies for their potential clients, maximize release impact, and streamline reporting to their partners.

Real-time global data monitoring: The key to building a successful development strategy and optimizing the roll-out across territories

Just like in any other industry today, music companies around the world use data every single day to educate their strategy and pave their way to success.

D Music Marketing is a data-driven company from the get-go, recognizing the importance of data-driven decision making in our ever-changing industry. Their operation scaled up, and about two years ago, they decided that they needed a real-time data analytics tool to collect the artist’s information for the team.

Understanding where you stand is an essential component of any promotion campaign. First, DMM has to set a starting point to know where they stand — and define the goals they should aim for. Then, just like any other company in the music business, DMM has to continuously report on campaign performance to their clients. Every week, DMM needs to gather all the top layer metrics across DSPs as well as campaign-specific indicators like local playlist additions and airplay — which is extremely time-consuming if you have to do it all by hand.

Why Soundcharts was the D Music Marketing choice?

To create custom go-to-market strategies for their partners, detect the market entry points and optimize the execution of the roll-out strategy, D Music Marketing needed a real-time, all-in-one data analytics solution. In a nutshell, Soundcharts helps DMM to:

• Identify high-potential partners and build better, data-driven proposals, without the access to artist-only analytics platforms (like Spotify for Artists)
• Shape out the release roll-out strategy and get the real-time data they need to optimize the execution of promotion campaigns. 
• Access all the data on the artist’s performance in one place and save time on regular weekly reporting

Using worldwide Airplay monitoring data to locate high-potential partners and build data-driven proposals

For D Music Marketing, as a company that focuses on specific regions, analyzing the audience distribution across the local sub-markets is a key to locating the pressure points and concentrating the promotional efforts where they have the most impact. D Music Marketing uses Soundcharts’ Airplay Insights and streaming audience data to get a snapshot of the artist’s listenership in the region — both for the artists they already work with, and the artists they’re looking into as potential partners.

In the latter case, D Music Marketing uses Soundcharts airplay data to identify artists that already generate interest on the radio in Latin America — without any promotional investment. That allows them to structure their proposals to potential clients.

Layering on local streaming consumption data, D Music Marketing can single out the regions where the audience is already exposed to the artist’s music, creating a solid foundation for their go-to LATAM strategy. Local airplay and streaming data allow DMM not only to identify the high-potential partners but also fine-tune their pitch by offering data-driven go-to-market strategies, improved forecasts, and realistic project goals.

Implementing an agile, reactive promotion campaign with real-time data analytics

However, the data-driven approach doesn’t stop there. Angelica Sanchez, Project Manager at D Music Marketing, told us how having an all-in-one analytics dashboard allowed her to optimize the execution of roll-out campaign for Brittany Howard’s debut solo album. 

Brittany Howard already had some clout in the region as a leader of Alabama Shakes — yet, she was mostly unknown as a solo act. Armed with Soundcharts analytics, Angelica carried out a successful promotion campaign for Brittany Howard, making LATAM one of her fastest-growing regions: 

Step 1: Defining the entry points 

Radio promotion is an essential component of any ambitious marketing campaign. D Music Marketing has the network and the expertise — but having the data to identify the pressure points allows DMM to focus their attention on where it it matters most. Soundcharts helps the team to answer the critical question: “Whom should we contact to pitch this artist?”

Step 2: Execution 

Once the release roll-out strategy is set up and ready to go, project managers at DMM need to make sure the execution stage goes as planned. While working with Brittany Howard, Angelica continuously monitored radio airplay across LATAM markets to verify that the radio programmers who promised to put the song on the air actually followed through with it — and get in contact with them right away in case they didn’t.

Step 3: First Impact Assessment 

Within the first 24 hours, the first leg of the analysis begins. This initial review aims to summarize the roll-out execution and success indicators like key playlist additions and radio airplay. That is a vital step of the roll-out campaign — a chance to see if the implementation went as planned and make necessary adjustments to the promotion strategy.

For Brittany Howard’s campaign, the first days of the release went great. In Angelica’s own words, with Soundcharts she had “a huge indicator that the project is doing well.” In 24 hours since the debut release, she could see that all the stations they’ve contacted were putting a couple of songs in rotation. As for the streaming playlists, at least one of the songs off the new album made it to the New Music Friday in most of the markets worked by DMM.

Step 4: Post-release benchmark

Then comes the post-release analysis. Once a couple of days has passed, the radio airplay and playlist additions for Brittany Howard started to convert into listenership across DSPs. To identify the ultimate success of the roll-out, Angelica studied DSP consumption data and local charts, benchmarked against other markets and global growth metrics. If the regions she worked performed better in comparison, that meant success: DMM clearly made an impact on the artist’s audience growth in Latin America.

Step 5: Continuous post-release reporting

After the initial momentum has passed, it’s essential to keep track of the artist’s performance to maximize the long-term release impact. Once the first weeks have passed, it’s time to seek out opportunities for further growth. Here, once again, D Music Marketing took advantage of the local market data available on Soundcharts.

Today, music professionals use data to support their decisions. However, it’s not just about the numbers and metrics — they need actionable insights to guide their strategic decisions, optimize tactical execution and, ultimately, help them develop artists. Music professionals are looking for a data-centric approach that would empower them to reach their goals and stay ahead of the curve.