There was a standout track on the album called ‘Daughters’ which we wanted to promote, but unfortunately it didn’t fit within our radio strategy. Because of this we had to find a non-traditional way of getting it to market. With the lyrical content being so focused around female empowerment, it made a lot of sense to release it alongside International Women’s Day, helping to raise awareness and possibly some money.
We partnered with a nonprofit called charity:water. In developing nations women can walk for hours a day to fetch water, so having easy access to clean water means those women can attain better access to education and employment. Charity:water supplied us with footage to create a video for ‘Daughters’, and with this we were able to secure Vevo promo support of 2m video impressions across their homepage and YouTube.
We were also able to place the online video premiere with Glamour Magazine, which helped increase our reach by placing it beyond a musiconly environment and out to a wider audience. Next we had to develop a way of receiving donations.
Rather than agreeing to donate a percentage of income made on digital single sales, we opted for a ‘pay what you want’-style campaign, allowing people to download the track for free but asking that they make a donation directly to the charity. Not only did this mean that 100% of the income was going directly to the charity, but we also found that people were making considerably higher donations than they would pay on a traditional DSP. Rather than paying 99p for the download, people were donating £5-100, a clear sign that the ‘pay what you want’ mechanism was an effective strategy for raising money. In total we were able to raise just under £4,000, which was an incredible result.
Because the download campaign ran two weeks either side of IWD (starting a week before, and lasting for a week after), we decided to host a Facebook Live stream on the day itself. This was a way for Lissie to say thanks to fans who had got involved – and to encourage more people to do so. Via live stream, she explained the reasons behind her partnership with charity:water and IWD, as well as the story behind the song itself. She also performed the song live and acoustically, answering fan’s questions that were typed into the comments field. The stream was well received with over 40k viewers, providing a very engaging and personal moment in the campaign.
We found that the ‘pay what you want’ strategy was extremely effective at raising money. We raised £3,880 through 124 donations; according to charity:water, this is enough money to supply 158 people with clean running water. In comparison, if we had the same amount of transactions via a traditional DSP, we probably would have made around £92, assuming the payback per track would be 74p.
The campaign was also a great example of how identifying a unique opportunity outside of a traditional campaign can really help increase the exposure of the artist.
In response to our IWD campaign, Lissie was invited to be interviewed and perform on CNN News International which was a great and unique opportunity. It’s a great accomplishment to be able to open up an artist to a host of new fans while also being able to use that exposure to do some good and give something back.
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