The 7 words that make up the title, a quote from Steve Martin, deserve to be an article of their own, on their own. It has come to be one of my favourite quotes for âmaking itâ in the music business.
I attend a lot of music business events and sometimes give lectures at schools, and I end up meeting a lot of artists who are asking the wrong questions. Questions like:
âHow can I get this signed to a label?â
âHow do I find a good booking agent?â
âHow do I get people to buy my music?â
The successful artists I know obsess over one question alone:
âHow do I make this better?â
They invite feedback and listen with attention when getting it. Even when that feedback is not coming from a label representative, but an industry outsider, because they realize that in the end most of their fans will be industry outsiders.
So if youâre still looking for a new yearâs resolution, then make it this:
I will focus on improving myself and the art I create.Â
I will make it so good they canât ignore me.Â
I will be critical of myself and invite feedback so I may learn.Â
I will find people who can teach me how to be better, either by direct feedback or by being positive role models.
Because once you get really good, people will find you. People will share your music. People will want to collaborate with you. Youâll get your opportunities. Youâll be able to surround yourself with skilled people who can worry about those other questions.
Focus on yourself, because thatâs where change is easiest to make.
How the convergence of 2 trends opens up new business model opportunities for artists.
When I landed in Russia to get involved with music streaming service Zvooq, my goal was to look beyond streaming. The streaming layer would be the layer that brings everything together: fans, artists, and data. We started envisioning a layer on top of that, which we never fully got to roll out, in big part due to the challenges of the streaming business.
It was probably too early.
For the last decade, a lot of people have been envisioning ambitious direct-to-fan business models. The problem was that many of these were only viable for niche artists with early adopter audiences, but as technology develops, this is less so the case today.
Letâs have look at a few breakthrough trends in the last year:
Messaging apps are rapidly replacing social networks as the primary way for people to socialize online;
Better data plans & faster internet speeds have led to an increase in live streams, further enabled by product choices by Facebook & YouTube.
Messaging apps overtaking social networks is a trend thatâs been underway for years now. Itâs why Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014 for a whopping $19 billion. While 2.5 billion people had a messaging app installed earlier this year, thatâs expected to rise to 3.6 billion in coming years. In part, this is driven by people coming online and messaging apps being relatively light weight in terms of data use.
In more developed markets, the trend for messaging apps is beyond text. WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Slack have all recently enabled video calling. Other apps, like Instagram, Snapchat, Live.ly, and Tribe are finding new ways to give shape to mobile video experiences, from broadcasting short video stories, to live streaming to friends, to video group chats.
For artists that stay on top of trends, the potential for immediacy and intimacy with their fanbase is expanding.
Messaging apps make it easier to ping fans to get them involved in something, right away. And going live is one of the most engaging ways to do so.
Justin Kan, who founded Justin.tv which later became video game streaming platform Twitch (sold to Amazon for just under $1 billion), launched a new app recently which I think deserves the attention of the music business.
Whale is a Q&A app which lets people pose questions to âinfluencersâ. To have your question answered, you have to pay a fee which is supposed to help your question ârise above the noise of social mediaâ. And Whale is not the only app with this proposition.
Yam is another Q&A app which places more emphasis on personalities, who can answer fansâ questions through video, but also self-publish answers to questions they think people may be curious about.
Watching a reply to a question on Yam costs 5 cents, which is evenly split between the person who asked and the person who answered. Itâs a good scheme to get people to come together to create content and for the person answering the questions to prioritize questions they think will lead to the most engagement.
What both of these apps do is that they monetize one of the truly scarce things in the digital age.
Any type of digital media is easily made abundant, but attention can only be spent once.
These trends enable creating an effective system for fans to compete for artistsâ attention. I strongly believe this is where the most interesting business opportunities lie in the music business at the level of the artist, but also for those looking to create innovative new tools.
Make great music.
Grow your fan base.
Monetize your most limited resource.
This can take so many shapes or forms:
Simply knowing that your idol saw your drawing or letter;
Having your demo reviewed by an artist you look up to;
Getting a special video greeting;
Learning more about an artist through a Q&A;
Being able to tell an artist about a local fan community & âcome to our city!â;
Having the top rank as a fan & receiving a perk for that.
Each of these can be a product on their own and all of these products will likely look like messaging apps, video apps, or a mix.
A lot of fan engagement platforms failed, because they were looking for money in a niche behaviour that was difficult to exploit. People had to be taught new behaviours and new interfaces, which is hard when everyoneâs competing for your attention.
Now this is becoming easier, because on mobile it can be as simple as a tap on the screen. Tuning into a live stream can be as simple as opening a push notification. Asking a question to an artist can be as simple as messaging a friend.
So, the question for the platforms early to the party is whether theyâll be able to adjust to the current (social) media landscape, or whether they let sunk cost fallacy entrench them in a vision based on how things used to be.
Thereâs tremendous value in big platforms figuring out new ways for artists and fans to exchange value. They already have the data and the fan connections. Imagine if streaming services were to build a new engagement layer on top of what already exists.
Until then, artists will have to stay lean and use specific tools that do one thing really well. Keep Product Hunt bookmarked.
Putting fan remixes in the spotlight is a hundred thousand times more valuable than taking them down.
The scarcest good on the internet is attention. Any savvy artist, manager, or label employee knows this and develops strategies to sustain the attention of fans over long periods of time.
This comes in the form of content strategies, where the social media outlets of artists turn into media with frequent updates. Itâs a pretty tiring process and can take a lot of focus away from other important activities.
Social media is so excitingâŚ
But itâs necessary.
One way to sustain attention is to connect fans together and have them keep each otherâs attention on you. Itâs something I wrote about in 2011 and preceding years, and since then, a lot has changed. For the better.
We have powerful connected devices in our pockets at all times. Our web browsers have also grown more powerful, with the Web Audio APIs enabling a lot of new possibilities. And basically everyone is on social media now.
Throughout the last year, Iâve spoken to the founders of apps and platforms like Pacemaker, MetaPop, and 8Stem. All enabling people to take existing music and mix it, or remix it, and then publish it. Legally.
None of these would have been possible 5 years ago, but with current technology and in todayâs landscape they make a lot of sense.
Remix culture is going mainstream and âlistenersâ are increasingly being shifted from passenger to driverâs seat.
Instead of creating all of your own content, why not let fans do some?
As a matter of fact, theyâre already doing it. Look at the fanbases of the Monstercat and Lapfox Trax labels. It seems exceptional, but itâs just about the culture you create around yourself as an artist or label.
Instead of taking down unauthorized remixes, give them a spotlight.
So what if thereâs no immediate way to get those 5 cents of revenue from the 5,000 streams itâs going to garner? Itâs a hundred thousand times more valuable having an inclusive culture in your fanbase, and a following of fans that actually participate in what youâre creating.
And when I say a hundred thousand times, I mean it.
Taking a fan remix down over a tiny bit of revenue can alienate a fan and stop them from spending money on you, but the value of a highly engaged fan that actually helps you seed your content strategy⌠Could it be $5,000? Sometimes, yes. Sometimes even more.
Get a read of how many of your fans also make music.
Figure out how to make it easier for them to make their own edits.
Got a lot of bedroom producers as fans? Release stems.
A few weeks ago, at the Sørveiv conference in Norway, the accomplished music manager and lecturer Sally-Ann Gross led a panel about gender in music, which led to a great audience discussion.
It was suggested by someone, a man if that matters, that perhaps this just needs time to be worked out and that women need more role models.
Bullshit. This has always been an issueâââwhat good is more time?
Itâs true that more role models might help, but then youâre placing pushing the responsibility back to women. Itâs like saying âitâs your problem, you solve it,â but in fact itâs a problem that we all keep alive. For instance, itâs the status quo which prevents role models from being more visible.
A young woman in the audience bravely spoke up later and gave a very personal account of her experience as a woman in music. She mentioned that she always feels pressure on her, because sheâs the only woman in the room. She has to make her contribution count. She felt like she canât make mistakes, and has to perform way above average to be taken seriously.
I donât know about you, but I really donât want people (â â Ⲡ⌠â§) around me to ever feel that they canât make a mistake. Or to feel that constant pressure and not be able to relax.
It may seem hard to understand what you can really do when youâre in a position of privilege. Especially since you donât want to disempower the people youâre trying to help. But itâs not that hard.
If youâre in a position of privilege, hereâs what you can do
Step one: accept that youâre in a position of privilege. Donât be scared to use that privilege in order to make the world a better place. In fact, consider it your responsibility.
It starts with being part of the majority. In music, that means being a guy. Then there are positions of respect, built up through past achievements or professional seniority, but those donât matter that much. Just being part of the majority makes it easier for you to stand up for whatâs right, than for someone who doesnât hold a position of privilege.
Build space so people can actually perform. Donât gossip. Be someone people can trust. If you have sway in a group, speak out when people treat others unfairly, such as overly skeptical or patronisingly.
Worry people may not be welcoming to someone new? Communicate your belief and trust in them widely. Take extra time to make sure the person gets integrated into the team.
Create a culture of listening. Perhaps the problem in music is that itâs very much a business of egos in which many people just run with their assumptions without listening to each other. This causes people to believe that whatâs true for them, is true for others.
When people are dismissive of someone, find out why. If itâs bullshit, challenge them. Donât let false beliefs go unchecked.
Never take away someoneâs chance to stand up for themselves.
Iâve intentionally removed gender from here, because it can happen to anyone. In building a team, Iâve sometimes made non-obvious choices that I had to defend and make sure that people saw what I saw in someone.
Thereâs so much you can do. Go have this discussion with women you see speaking out about this. They want to solve a problem, so theyâre interested in having this conversation. Email them or have a chat with them after their panel discussions at conferences.
But what we donât need is more time if that means postponing planting seeds for a better future.
If you see a festival line-up with almost no women, share your disappointment with the organiser and consider not getting a ticket. If you see people unwilling to give someone a chance because of whatâs between their legs, address it. If the only way to get rid of their bullshit is to stop working with them, then make a plan and cut them out.
Donât work with people who arenât willing to listen to others.
And obviously, if you see anything worse, like sexual harassment, call it out.
I didnât start working in music to join an old boyâs club. Did you?
Laziness is good. It teaches us to get results with the least effort possible. If you avoid procrastinative behaviour, laziness can even be a great recipe for success, because youâll be a master at shortcuts and finding the most effective ways to get things done.
I, like everyone, can be pretty lazy at times and it can take a lot of motivation to muster up the motivation for some activities. Over the years, Iâve learned that the strongest motivators for me are either:
Instant gratification, eg. the dopamine triggers created by most time wasting activities and procrastination;
Having a purpose beyond what Iâm doing.
This year I set up the MUSIC x TECH x FUTURE newsletter as a way to âforceâ myself to write something every week. Prior to that, I had âcreatedâ (written) articles mostly sporadically, but now I had a weekly deadline. And I had a vision: I knew that MxTxF was something I wanted to grow, to build, and hold to a high standard. All creation happened within that context.
Creation for the sake of creation is great.
But if youâre striving to achieve something, then the path of random creations is one where youâll depend on luck and pure chance.
So whether you make music, work at a label, or arenât doing anything creative – ask yourself: what could I be building?
Start from doing what youâre already doing.
Why are you doing it?
What are you learning from it?
Does it all fit together?
Does your work add up?
If the answer to the last question is no, thatâs fine. If you make coffee for customers every day, then every day will look more or less the same, and every morning you hit the reset button and do it again. Same day, repeating, with the same results. Whether you fail or succeed in that case depends on consistent performance and random external factors.
The lazy personâs nightmare.
If that sounds like you, think about what you could do that adds up. Then wrap it in purpose.
Back to the coffee example. Letâs say your wrapping in purpose is that you want to become the best coffee place in your town. Now you have a context to fill. Youâll need to talk to your boss and make a plan, you need to figure out what makes a place great, talk to your customers, etc. All of this you can do while doing what youâre already doing.
The lazy personâs dream.
Now letâs look at music.
Stop expecting to get a lucky break. The word luck implies unlikeliness and when you work hard and never get lucky, it can become intensely demotivating.
Create to build.
Youâre building a following.
Youâre building a fanbase.
Youâre building your artist brand.
Every time you release music, itâs a step in building those things.
In that context, you can evaluate your steps.
For instance, 2 times this year, the open rate of my newsletters dropped below 30%. Terrible, because I strive to keep it between 40-50% (higher would be nice, too). In the context of building something, a low open rate is terrible: if you canât win peopleâs attention consistently, then youâll lose it eventually.
So I looked at what I did.
In one case, it was just the subject line that was a bit too pushy and may have caused people to auto-ignore the email, thinking itâs yet another spammy newsletter.
The other case was more difficult, but my hypothesis was that the edition the week before was a bit weaker than usual, so people didnât open it the week after. I didnât have a good way to know this for sure, but it gave me a new way to think about what Iâm building.
What that means is that by placing my creations in the context of something Iâm building, it forced me to zoom out and think more carefully about the greater picture.
You may assume people are not watching your new video, because you posted it on your Facebook at the wrong time of the day, but maybe itâs because your last video sucked. If youâre just pushing out creations without thinking about the greater context youâre building, youâll miss that information.
The value in creating consistently and feeding it into something you can grow is so much greater than the sum of parts. So donât just create; build.
Best of all, itâs a great way to justify laziness. Just donât procrastinate.
Finding your way to success can be confusing as an artist. Hereâs what you should be focusing on.
At the Play & Produce conference in Ghent, Belgium, I joined a panel about digital revenue streams with Jef Martens (Basto / LazyJay), and Sebastien Lintz who does digital for Hardwell, artist management at Sorted, and is label manager at Revealed Recordings.
We discussed a lot of topics, some of which are covered in this article, but a lot of questions were left unanswered when we ran out of time.
So, for all those musicians that want to turn their craft into their livelihood, I wanted to create a basic resource to be able to refer to. This article goes over:
Making good music.
Getting your music in front of the right audiences.
Networking (!).
Retaining your fans & building community.
Monetization.
Youâll learn some new tricks to get better at what youâre doing, but more importantly: the below teaches you to develop your own strategy. Dive in!
Step zero: make really good music.
Before anything else, you need to make great music. This is part skill, part taste, and part understanding of trends. The best music is timeless, but before it becomes timeless, great music has to be timely.
As your skills develop, so will your ability to develop a consistent sound thatâs unique to you. This is important, because itâs unlikely youâll ever be âthe bestââââsimple mathematics. However, if you make a sound that stands out, you donât need to be the best, you just have to make something remarkable.
Seems like an obvious step, but it often needs repeating. If youâre feeling lost or overwhelmed, know that the most important thing to work on is to develop your music and your skills. Everything develops from there.
Step one: getting your music heard.
Make a lot of music and release a lot of music. Make sure itâs easy to find, to stumble upon, to access, and to share.
There are a variety of tools that help you distribute your music to a lot of different places, like Labelgrid, or distributors like CD Baby and TuneCore. They help you to be everywhere your (future) fans might be.
In order to be discovered, make sure to put time into the artwork and accompanying description for your music. The description provides keywords for people to find your music, so donât hold back on mentioning the names of bands that influence you, genres, etc.
Make it easy to share your music. Great music is inherently viral. Since YouTube is the most universal music player, you must have your music on there. Make sure the title has all the relevant information plus an indication about the type of music, to guarantee more clicks when people share it.
Regarding the artwork, you should understand that we live in the age of feeds. Social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram encourage us to scroll endlessly, because it means weâll spend more time on their platforms.
If your sound is good, people will share it (hence step zero).
From there, you need to find your audience.
(pro tip: get your music everywhere, but figure out what channels work best for you and double down on them. Doing a little bit of everything is a good way to not get traction anywhere. Make sure you actually enjoy using the channels you focus on, because if itâs not fun for you, youâre going to get exhausted and inconsistent eventually.)
Step one point five: finding your audience.
If you understand your musicâs audience and where they hang out, or who else they listen to, you can start doing specific things to get your music into their ears, such as:
Remix other artists in your genre. Donât ask for permission, but communicate to them once your remix is done. After all: their repost helps you reach their audience and chances are theyâll have a bigger audience than you. Play nice. And donât put your remix on Spotify or other monetized places without permission. Itâs less about the legal issues, and more that itâs just bad for human relations.
Connect with communities in your genre. On Reddit you can find loads of communities where producers are helping others to learn to master their art. You can also connect to communities around certain genres or prominent labels inside a genre. If Redditâs not your thing, you can find groups like these on Facebook too.
Pitch your tracks to channels your audience follows. These may be blogs, YouTube channels, or internet radio stations. You can be more creative also: if thereâs a popular video game streamer on Twitch that listens to a lot of music like yours, you could reach out to them, offer to make a personal theme song for them in exchange for a certain amount of airtime on their stream. Be creative.
The value of being (one of) the first. On our panel, Sebastien Lintz pointed out that being one of the first people on a platform can have big advantages. So keep your eye on new apps that pop up, get on there, try them out, see what happens. This is how you secure a first-mover advantage for a specific segment. Not convinced? Just look at what Vine and Musical.ly have enabled.
Step two: develop strong relations with people.
Success in music is usually a combination of music skills and people skills. When you see an overnight success, what you donât see is the many years of preparation involved in that.
An artist may be young, but the team around them will know exactly who to talk to, who to ask for favours, the right people to work with, etc.
So, donât be shy. Make sure youâre frequently in the same room as people who can help you. If you have a chance to pitch your music and get feedback, then go do it, even if you think youâre not ready. The feedback youâll get will be valuable, but itâs also a good chance to get into the mind of label A&Rs, learn how they think, and youâll know who they are if you run into them again.
These things happen in live settings, but sometimes people like Sebastien call for artists to submit music & have it publicly reviewed.
Speak to the DJs, promoters, organisers, etc. at local shows.
Go to conferences and set aside your shyness. Go chat with people, find out what theyâre doing, and if thereâs a panelist you find interesting, grab them for a chat. Theyâre there to speak to people and theyâre interested in meeting you.
Basically: talk to people, and if itâs uncomfortable, then take a friend with you whoâs good with that. The music business is a network business, so understand that youâre building relations that will last your entire career. Start early.
Step three: retaining your fans.
With the previous steps, you should have a way to get your music heard by people. Attention is fickleâââso the big question here is not how to get people to listen to your music, but how do you get people to listen to your music again? And again, and again, and again.
You need to feed them to places where you can reach them again. Itâs incredibly valuable, so if youâre annoyed with vloggers telling people to subscribe in every video: place yourself in their shoes. And do that!
Find the best ways to reach people. Facebook posts, once you scale your fanbase, may only have a 5% reach. Tweets are similar. Itâs one of the reasons why I started a newsletter to talk about the future of music. For the last year, the open rate has been close to 50%. The typical artist newsletter has a 20â25% open rate.
Ads & remarketing. Sometimes itâs worth it to pay for ads. For instance, if you create a unified link for your release with a tool like Linkfire, you can integrate Google Analytics & AdSense. This way, youâll get some data about the people that checked out your release and youâll be able to target them on sites they visit, or when they Google something⌠Got a show in a town with a lot of fans? Set an ad that reveals your show the next time they Google for something fun to do on the weekend.
The basic jest of social profiles is this: be consistent, stay relevant, and frequent. Donât abuse peopleâs permission to appear in their feeds or inbox, because theyâll unsubscribe or learn to ignore you. Good luck winning their attention back then.
Step three point five: building your fan community.
I love using the example of the fanbase as a house party. In my many years of awkward beers with strangers, Iâve learned there are roughly two types of house parties:
The type where you get let in, stand around a room with strangers, where nobodyâs really entertained and just waiting for the host to come chat with them, and thinking of an excuse to bail ASAP. đŠ
The type where the host lets you in, immediately introduces you to people you should talk to, suggesting topics you can discuss, and then at some point in the night you realize you havenât even seen the host in an hour, because youâve been having such a good time with their friends. đĽ
Building a community is a great way to get your fans to keep their attention on you, even after you leave the room. Not only that, but you now have the power to get back into the room, shut everyone up, and ask people to amplify what you have to say:
âHaving a great time? Letâs get some more people in here! Text your friends. BYOB.â
Facebook Groups are an excellent way to do this. It also lets you mix fans that youâve known for a long time (eg. friends), with first generation fans, and later fans.
Help keep the community active. Get people to talk about music, art, whatever you find interesting and is somehow a relevant connector. The music shared in the group doesnât have to be just your music.
Step four: âshut up and take my moneyâ
Having a connected fanbase allows you to intimately understand who the people that listen to your music are, what they care about, how their minds work, what they find cool, etc.
This allows you to better package the experiences you provide to them.
In music, the money is in the package. Whether itâs the live show, the download, merch or something else.. This means you can make the music you believe in, while also developing ways to make money off of it.
I usually hold up Yellow Claw as an example of a group that understands their fans really well and have developed multiple business models based on that understanding.
Basically, what it comes down to is this:
Great music shouldnât have to be charity, so donât put yourself in the position of having to beg fans to âplease buy my album.â
Instead, think the other way around: what can I make for my fans that will make them thank me for giving them the opportunity to spend money on me?
No need to employ dark voodoo techniques. đš Itâs just a matter of getting into the right frame of mind. Letâs call it the Kickstarter State of Mind.
Successful Kickstarters are a combination of:
A great product or idea (a metaphor for your music).
A charismatic call to action (a metaphor for your artist persona and brand).
Exciting rewards for contributing money.
Go spend some time on Kickstarter and see how price tiers work. Usually they cater to different types of audiences, or fans with differing levels of commitment. But they all have this in common:
People are super excited to be able to spend their money. Not for youâââthatâs just a nice bonus. But for themselves.
Recap
Step zero: make really great music. Keep working on your skills. This is by far the most important part. Itâs the fuel for everything else. If nothing seems to be working, it may just be because your music is not good enough, or simply doesnât stand out. Sorry.
Step one: getting your music heard. Get your music everywhere, take into account what your music looks like when people share, and double down on the channels that work best for you.
Step one point five: finding your audience. Use other peopleâs audience (OPA) by remixing, pitching curators, connecting to communities, and securing a first-mover advantage.
Step two: developing strong industry relations. Make no mistake: the music business is a business of human connections. Start early. Be nice & professional.
Step three: retaining your fans. Keep your fansâ attention by connecting them to your socials and finding other clever ways to reach them again.
Step three point five: building your fan community. Fans help keep each othersâ attention on you and can help amplify your message. Be the host of the most fun house party theyâve ever attended.
Step four: âshut up and take my moneyâ. Besides conventional revenue streams, you should be creating things that are so exciting for fans that theyâll thank you for the opportunity to spend their money.
Is it that simple?
Well, yes.
The hard part is that you need to put in a lot of hours. You have to be smart and relentless. Practice grit. You have to persevere, but also know when to cut your losses.
As long as youâre flying solo, take a look at job descriptions at labels or management agencies to understand how to strategically release music and build towards milestones.
Once youâre ready to build your team:
Work with people that inspire you. Donât work with assholes.
And for fuckâs sake, keep your focus on your music.
Your music always comes first.
