How To Succeed In The Music Business - Build Your Fans First

written by: Tony Guidry for ascratchythroat.com

If you’re an artist  waiting to be “discovered” or hoping to be given a record deal based on your perceived talent or the “uniqueness” of your sound, it’s time to educate yourself on the basics of the music business. The belief that major labels are LOOKING to sign new artists because of their talent is very far from the truth, and the sooner a person who desires to be an entertainer learns this, the better.

The process of getting “on” doesn’t require a co-sign or “hook-up” from an established artist or record label executive. You get on by building relationships with people who like your music, support it by buying it, and actually listen to it – these people are called FANS. When you get enough fans talking about you and your music, you’ve created a buzz. 

If you’re able to create a buzz around your music........

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How to Succeed With Twitter, by Tony Guidry

How To Succeed With Twitter

By, Tony Guidry (www.aScratchyThroat.com)

March 2013

Twitter is an essential tool in your social media strategy. With 250 million unique users monthly, and over 500 million registered users, this is a platform where you definitely need to establish your presence. 

Today our focus is on the best ways to use twitter to reach people who share your profession or area of interest. In other words, we’ll be focusing on how you can use twitter to interact with people in the music industry, in order to learn from the professionals.

I chose to start by sharing with you ways to interact with ‘decision-makers’ and people who influence the music industry because for most aspiring artists there is a NEED to be educated about the business of music.

You may want to start by........ 

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Wendy Day’s Most Valuable Article About Securing Radio Play

By, Wendy Day (www.SlavesNoMore.com music industry how-to site coming soon…)

Before you read this article, please make sure you’ve already read this primer: http://bit.ly/100VB2r about the basics of securing radio spins.

Radio is still the most misunderstood aspect of this industry. I see people lose tens of thousands of dollars constantly in this industry because they either trust the wrong radio promoters or they don’t know what they are doing. I can’t teach you whom to trust, but I can tell you how I successfully pursue radio for my artists.

I am NOT a radio promoter, I am a consultant. I help people start labels and make money with their music, so one of the many things I do is hire and interact with radio promoters. I have relationships with 10 or 12 different top independent radio promotion people all across the country. I trust them. They have all delivered results for my clients in the recent past. But just because they do a great job for me doesn’t mean they will do a great job for you. [I protect my connections at radio, so if I don't know you well, I won't share an introduction with you. Don't even ask!]

There are MANY variables with radio: time of year, how crowded the radio market is, money, your song, sound, subject matter, money, tempo, features, who’s behind it, the artist, work ethic, money, how established the artist is, how likable the artist is, how likable and knowledgable you are, money, relationships, power, experience, catchiness, money, frequency of your releases, your money, their money, competing labels’ money, etc.

I’m going to assume you’ve done these things before you start spending money at radio:

1. You’ve gotten your single hot on the streets and in the clubs in your region (not just your city, but in the cities that are within a 5 hour driving radius of where you or your artist live) because..........

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Radio Spins, by Wendy Day

By, Wendy Day from Rap Coalition (www.WendyDay.com)

I have been consulting independent urban record labels and artists for many years now, and the most misunderstood aspect of this industry is radio. So few understand how radio really works, and an even smaller amount of indie labels and artists understand how to get their records played at radio. Because of the lack of information and knowledge, radio promotion remains an area where one can lose a large amount of money very quickly. And most do.

I have a friend who paid $25,000 to a radio promoter on the recommendation of a popular radio host at a local station in Detroit. My friend did not receive one spin anywhere in the country. He was eventually told the single did not research well and that it was not a radio single. It was too late in the life of the single to hire anyone else. Could he have been told that prior to spending the $25,000? Provided it was true, yes. My guess is that he was taken for a ride and that the radio promoter (whose name I never even heard before), and the guy who had referred the scam “promoter,” made a quick come up on $25,000 for no work. There are two other folks I know who hired a radio promoter in Atlanta who is known for jerking people, and one lost $25,000 and the other lost $15,000. That promoter now works for a major label, so he’s fine financially, but these two labels are out a large portion of their budget for no spins whatsoever. Now they are looking to break bones.

Just last month, I got a call from a guy in the South who has invested in a project, but is totally clueless about the music industry. He name dropped some people in the industry who are excellent at what they do at radio, but not for people like him. When I tried to explain how it all worked, my answer did not fit his vision of how he wanted it to work and he disappeared quickly off the phone. I imagine he will soon be parted from even more of his money by folks who pick up on what he wants to hear, and tell it to him. What is it about this industry that makes folks act like idiots? As I pull up the BDS to see what spins his artist is getting, I see he still hasn’t figured it out. Sadly, the artist has placed his career in this guy’s hands. Who really loses? The artist.

There are quite a few legitimate radio promotion people and companies out there....

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Marketing Yourself As An Artist, by Wendy Day

written by Wendy Day (wendyday.com)

Marketing is the overall image and awareness that is put forth by your brand as you advertise, promote, do interviews and basically spread the word about your music (which is your product). One of the keys is to know exactly who will buy your music, and tailor your marketing campaign to them. The best method to draw in fans is “word of mouth,” so therefore your goal should always be to spark positive conversation (word of mouth) about you and your music.

Who Is Your Potential Fan?

Taking it outside of music for a minute, can we all agree that the person who shops at K-Mart is different from the person who shops at Neiman Marcus? The person who drives a Hyundai, may have different interests from the person driving a Bentley? So back to music now—the person who is listening to or buying Justin Bieber’s music is different from the person who supports Trae. Souljah Boy is a younger audience, more pop music, radio, and internet driven, while Trae makes music to ride and/or smoke to—meaning the fan is older and probably more likely to be male. They are also more likely to buy a CD at the local Swap Meet or the Car Wash, while a Bieber fan may be more likely to download his music to an iPod, smartphone, or MP3 player, or buy the CD at the Best Buy next to the Mall for $9.99.

So, if I was marketing a young pop artist, I might try to book him on Nickelodeon shows and set up a high school or Mall tour. With a rapper who doesn’t appeal to a teenage demographic, I’d probably do more of a college tour, and club dates reaching a 21 and older crowd. So, it’s important to know who is buying your music. You need to be able to figure out the demographic for your music or your song, and that will let you know the direction your marketing needs to take. If you are not able to determine who your fan base is yourself, you need to find someone around you who can. But they better be right. If you are making music that appeals to white skateboard twenty-something kids and you market to young inner city teens, you are fucked in the gate!

When I was out on the road with BloodRaw in February of ’08, I kept dragging him to college campuses because he makes anthem type party raps, and he kept telling me’ “Let’s go to the ‘Hood.“ It’s not that one is right and one is wrong, but that he knows who buys and listens to his music. In this case, we blitzed the ‘hoods first and then grew out to the college and party crowds. He had a perfect understanding of who his market is.

How Will You Reach Them?

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Building A Buzz

by Wendy Day (WendyDay.com)

In the early 1980s, when rap started, there were few rappers and producers, so they had no difficulty standing out. Today, it seems everyone wants to be a rapper or a producer. I sometimes think we have more rappers than fans…

As more people want to get into the rap music business, it gets cheaper and easier to do so. The price of production equipment, recording equipment, and microphones has dropped substantially, making rapping and producing open to more people. And it has become easier than ever to get music to the masses by uploading finished songs to the internet to share them with the world on free social media pages (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc), music sharing pages (SoundCloud, BandCamp, ReverbNation, etc) or inexpensive websites. Marketing has become cheaper and easier as one can sit at home and use the internet to market, promote, and drive traffic to one’s website or Tumblr page. Because of this, it seems that everyone wants to be a rapper.

Distributing music is easier than ever. Today, an artist is rare if his or her music is NOT for sale at iTunes or available for streaming at Pandora or Spotify. The playing field has been leveled. Any artists smart enough to market and promote their music, and who have some money (budget) to invest into themselves can build a career in music–or at least feed themselves with their music. Hopefully.

The days of needing a record label are over. So why do so many people still want to be signed to a record label?

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Building Social Media Relationships With Influencers

Reblogged from: BundlePost, courtesy of: Robert Caruso

A frequent question I get from my connections in the social graph is “How do I build a relationship with an influencer for my brand/product”. Though it is a common question, the answer isn’t as common.


Since I sincerely believe that social media marketing is a parallel universe to the real world, I always take a step back and consider what we do in real life. What are the steps we would take in our local offline environment to accomplish this? What adjustments can/should we make within the social sphere to help us achieve what we are wanting to do.

First, we need to understand that social media marketing is NOT about you. You have to have a mindset of giving, providing value to others and a willingness to help them succeed.

Secondly. you need to clearly define what you hope to accomplish by building the relationship with the influencer. Review your product? Have a phone call? Share your link? There are many different goals one could have for wanting to build a relationship with someone specific within social media. know what yours is.

Once you have aligned your thinking with the first and second points above, you can then follow these steps to best position yourself for a relationship:

1) Identify – Be sure that the person/brand you are targeting for the relationship makes sense. Identify the person(s) that are best suited for your brand, product or service.

2) Observe & Document – Do your research. Make sure you know what they do, their website and blog locations. Monitor their social posts and conversations and take note of who they are as a person and what drives their conversations. Pay specific attention to the human/personal topics that they engage around and document the information.

Don’t rush the observation step. Take time to understand the influencer. Rushing will usually result in missing the important subtle things that are most important! This can take a week or a month, depending on the person. Take your time…

3) Engage – Once you understand the topic drivers and personality of your influencer, begin to engage with them. Specifically comment on their posts, share their content and facilitate meaningful conversations with that person. If they have a blog, share their articles and comment on them. Look for ways you can assist them by furthering their reach, introducing them to prospects and retweet their relevant content.

*Important – A big mistake made at this stage is to do too much too quickly. Do NOT like/share bomb. (don’t like 5 posts on their wall in a row or RT their last 4 posts, etc.) This can come across as stalking or an obvious ploy. Use common sense and ramp up these activities over several weeks or months.

4) Build – Build a relationship with the influencer through more and more frequent conversations.

5) Ask/Answer - Ask open-ended questions about them, their articles and their business. The goal here is to continue to further the relationship building, but also foster a climate where the influencer begins asking YOU questions about what yo do. This is the point you know you have earned the right to talk about what you do and what you would like from them.

*Important – DO NOT ask for anything at any point before this stage. You must do the work prior to requesting a call, review of your service or sharing of your content. Also, be sure that you continue steps 3, 4 and 5 on an ongoing basis. Don’t make the influencer feel as though they had a horrible one night stand and were played.

I cannot stress enough that patience in the entire process is crucial. If you follow these techniques and take it slow, you will develop influencer relationships that will bring value to them and benefit your brand.

Robert M. Caruso
@fondalo
Founder/CEO – Bundle Post