For Griff Washburn – who performs as indie electronic artist Goth Babe – his music echoes his adventurous spirit. His sound brings listeners across his journey through nature, from sailing along the coast of Mexico to exploring the great outdoors in a camper van.

For the past few years, manager services and artist development company mtheory, have partnered with Goth Babe's manager Sean Sheahan, to develop his music marketing strategy, using a data-driven approach to promote Goth Babe’s experiential sound. So, when it came to building hype for his EP, Iceland, which dropped in November 2022 and his debut album, Lola, which will be released on January 26, 2024, his team turned to Campaign Kit to surface the right music – both new and catalog – where listeners were already streaming. “The end goal is helping artists connect with their fans. Being able to hone in on where artist fan bases actively are consuming their music already, and reach them there, is the best approach,” says mtheory’s Director of Marketing, Mira Brock.

Using Campaign Kit in Spotify for Artists, Goth Babe's team strategically grew his audience release by release. From deploying a "staircase" approach with Marquee to grow his audience with each release, to creating a second (or even third) life for catalog tracks with Discovery Mode, to using Showcase to build off success from Discovery Mode, Goth Babe's team creatively used Campaign Kit tools in lockstep with their overall marketing strategy. Let’s take a look at how Goth Babe’s team surfaced the right music at the right time to bring even more listeners into his musical ecosystem.

Marquee Brought Listeners Into Goth Babe’s Storytelling Over Time

In the lead up to Goth Babe’s EP, Iceland, his team used Marquee’s full-screen format to deepen fandom with a series of new releases. The strategy: engage the right listeners more and more with each new drop. “We ran Marquee for every single release, with the idea that it would function like a staircase. By the time we reached an EP…we’d been building more and more listeners,” says Brock.

Included in that staircase strategy was Goth Babe’s previous EP, Santa Catalina. To maximize impact among listeners who hadn’t yet heard the release, Goth Babe’s team targeted all relevant Marquee listeners and ran the campaign later in the release cycle. As a result, the Marquee reached the widest set of listeners who hadn’t actively streamed yet – and more than 30% of Marquee listeners saved a track from the EP to their library or added it to a personal playlist.

“We used a Marquee the Wednesday after the release week,” continues Brock. “We waited for organic streaming to happen first and then Release Radar to hit on Tuesday. We wanted to maximize spend by reaching people who hadn’t streamed the song yet.”

With each step, Goth Babe’s team brought listeners deeper into his musical storytelling. To accelerate that journey, his team promoted his single “Surfing in Iceland” driving to his This Is playlist, where listeners could discover more of his sound after streaming the new release.

“It wasn’t just about the singles, but a catalog consumption experience,” says Brock. “Listening to ‘Surfing in Iceland’ within the This Is playlist would help guide listeners into navigating the rest of the artist’s catalog.”

The strategy paid off. The Marquee for “Surfing in Iceland” drove nearly 4x more listeners of Goth Babe’s broader catalog, as compared to previous campaigns promoted to the singles or EPs page – meaning the Marquee prompted listeners to dive deeper into the Goth Babe experience.

Discovery Mode Brought New Life to Goth Babe’s Catalog Tracks

When Goth Babe’s team first started using Discovery Mode, they tested out the tool with catalog tracks that previously had not received a lot of listener activity. After seeing great results in terms of stream lift, they decided to include bigger catalog hits in their campaigns, such as Goth Babe's 2019 single, "Weekend Friend." With the help of Discovery Mode, streams of the track peaked in January 2023 when it experienced more than 3.2 million streams on Spotify — nearly 6x the streams it had generated in its first month of release.

“We’ve been pleased and blown away with the results of tracks such as “Weekend Friend”. Discovery Mode gave 'Weekend Friend' an entirely new life, but the fun part is also adding in tracks that were never focus tracks or hadn’t been playlisted before,” explains Jonah Berry, Vice President of mtheory.

This is a story that Goth Babe’s team has seen with other previously popular tracks as well, such as the single,“I Wanna Help Your Mind,” which also beat out streams from its initial release week in 2021, after it was included in Discovery Mode. It then reached its highest streaming peak in December 2022. Discovery Mode has given selected tracks not only an entirely new life, but also a second or third life in some cases.

Discovery Mode has also helped Goth Babe reach a more international audience. “Once we saw we were reaching a wider audience through Discovery Mode, we really doubled down on that and started using it to reach new listeners in new regions,” says Mira. With the help of Discovery Mode, Goth Babe has now reached new listeners in 160 markets across the world.

Discovery Mode has been key in re-engaging Goth Babe’s listeners and bringing new listeners, wherever they may be, into his listening ecosystem.

Showcase built on Discovery Mode momentum

After seeing the success Discovery Mode drove for “Weekend Friend,” Goth Babe’s team used Showcase to continue the momentum.

“With Showcase, it was really exciting to focus on a catalog release and have it highlighted on Spotify’s Home,” says Brock.

After reviewing data on Goth Babe’s audience segments, Goth Babe’s team decided to target his previously active audience with the campaign headline “You might like” to re-engage listeners who hadn’t recently streamed his music. With the help of Showcase, Goth Babe reactivated listeners who had fallen out of his active audience – 12% of previously active listeners who streamed the single saved it to their library or added it to a personal playlist. And their engagement wasn't limited to “Weekend Friend” — more than 18% of listeners went on to stream from Goth Babe’s other releases. With a cohort of reactivated listeners, Goth Babe is now ready to drop his debut album to an even more engaged audience.

With Campaign Kit, Goth Babe grew and developed his fanbase, turning listeners into long-term fans

For Goth Babe, the Campaign Kit tools work in harmony to ensure he engages the right listeners at various moments in the discovery and release cycle.

“All the products work really cohesively and in tandem,” Mira shares. “Using these tools together is about trying to cast a broad net to reach new listeners or less active ones and bring them closer in. Then when you have a new release, you can further engage these listeners. The goal is to build up Goth Babe’s daily streams and monthly listeners so that at the time of his next release he has the highest amount of listenership possible. Our marketing goal is to amplify an artist’s reach and Campaign Kit allows us to do exactly that — whether it’s for a catalog track or a new release.”

By using Campaign Kit tools together over the course of more than a year, Goth Babe’s team grew his monthly listeners metric to its highest-ever level, achieving their marketing goal ahead of his Iceland EP release, and in preparation for his debut album release, Lola.

Campaign Kit made it easy for Goth Babe’s team to measure the impact of their campaigns and constantly iterate on strategy. They were especially focused on intent rate — a measure of likelihood of long-term fandom.

“We can look at the data to understand what works and what listeners are resonating with. Intent rate is really valuable to us because it shows the listeners’ intent to stream more music. That’s the ultimate success of a campaign — bringing in new listeners, but also having them intend to stick around and continue engaging with the artist,” adds Mira.

For Goth Babe and his team, it’s all about bringing listeners into his musical world and creating a shared experience. Hear more about how Goth Babe’s team used Campaign Kit to support these goals in our upcoming Campaign Kit Masterclass, and be sure to check out Goth Babe’s debut album release: Lola, on January 26.