case Study
THE GROVE
four 8 Week Single Releases, content creation & headline shows
”Laid Bare have been pivotal in boosting our online presence this past year!
Thanks to their digital marketing we have had fans flying from around the world to shows and increased vastly our streams and merch potential.”
- The Grove
About the grove
The Grove came to us as a seven-piece band with a growing social presence and their first EP newly released.
With 2,145 Instagram followers, 609 Spotify followers and fewer than 800 monthly listeners, they had already built the foundations of an audience. The opportunity was to turn that early interest into sustained growth around each new release.
After seeing the band live, we could see the potential immediately. The focus was to build a repeatable release strategy that could grow their audience, strengthen engagement and create momentum from one single to the next.
Your next release is an opportunity to build momentum.
The Grove started with fewer than 800 monthly listeners. Today, their catalogue has generated more than 2 million streams. What could your next release achieve?
Our Strategy
The Grove’s challenge for us was to use our social marketing expertise to support their efforts in promoting her new music. We did this by running a digital ads campaign for each single, filming tailored content to each release, best advising on organic social media practice to growth their social platforms and strategising their live performances throughout.
The objective was to create sustained growth rather than treat each single as an isolated release. We ran an eight-week campaign around each single, with every campaign using the data and learnings from the previous release to inform the next.
1. Build the organic content engine
We worked with The Grove to increase activity across Instagram and TikTok, developing creative content around each release and making sure there was a consistent stream of content supporting the campaigns.
2. Test the creative
For each song, we filmed and tested three or more different sections of the track alongside three different visuals across Meta Ads. This allowed us to identify which combinations generated the strongest response rather than deciding on one creative and hoping it worked.
3. Scale what worked
Once the strongest song section and visual had been identified, we concentrated spend behind the best-performing creative and targeted Spotify's Tier A countries. This meant the campaign wasn't simply spending more over time. It was using performance data to become more efficient as it progressed.
4. Build from release to release
The learnings from each campaign informed the next one, allowing The Grove to build an increasingly engaged audience around each new single rather than starting from zero every time.
Each of our 8 week campaigns for The Grove involved a highly bespoke Organic & Paid-Ad social strategy. Our advice included encouraging an increase in activity across Instagram and TikTok, through sharing imaginative and creative content ideas in keeping with ever-changing trends across both platforms. The increased organic activity and meant they were building momentum ahead of the first release, giving the Paid-Ads component of our campaign an immediate head start.
Our paid strategy was centred around running three Ads using different sections of the song and three different visuals across Meta Ads (Facebook, Instagram), analysing the success of each Ad in real-time and adjusting our approach accordingly. Once we had determined the best performing section and visual of each song, we were able to target these Ads towards Spotify’s Tier A countries only (which pay out a much higher royalty rate), confident that the cost would remain low due to only using the most successful Ads.
Results
⭐ Over 2 Million streams (and counting!)
⭐ Streams continued to increase further over the following 15 weeks (7,500+ per day), despite the fourth campaign ending
⭐ 47k saves, 49k Playlist adds, average 3.1 streams per listener
⭐ Spotify followers increased from 609 to 5,276
⭐ 2,145 instagram followers grew to 5,800
⭐ 800 TikTok followers grew to 4,200
⭐ Our targeted Ads reached over ? people with over ? Unique Link Conversions directly leading to Spotify Streams over the course of the campaign
The campaigns didn't just drive streams - they drove meaningful engagement with The Grove's music. Their Spotify save rate reached ?%, compared with an industry benchmark of approximately 3-5%. That level of saving showed that the campaigns were reaching listeners who genuinely connected with the music, rather than simply generating low-intent plays.
“Without Laid Bare’s sound advice, positive energy and long-term outlook we would not the seen the growth in our musical career.”
- The Grove
Large and consistent Spotify follower increase once the campaign began
Graph showing the increase in daily streams
Content Creation
We also filmed and edited a bank of content for The Grove, giving the campaign a range of professional creative assets to use across both paid and organic social.
Having this content ready before each release meant the band wasn't starting from scratch every time they needed to post. It also gave us multiple visuals to test through the advertising campaigns, helping us identify which creative connected most strongly with the audience.
The result was a more consistent release presence without putting the responsibility for producing every piece of content back on the band.
Headline show strategy
the grove
Alongside the release campaigns, we helped The Grove build momentum around their headline shows.
We started with a 150-capacity London venue, which sold out and helped create further demand around the band's live activity. Four months later, the band moved into a 200-capacity venue, using organic social activity and retargeting to previous gig-goers through their growing mailing list.
That show sold out too, allowing us to step up again to a 250-capacity show at The Lower Third.
The approach was simple: build demand gradually, make each show feel like an event and give the audience a reason to buy the next ticket before they miss out.
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