June 28, 2012 The Indie Artist Launch Plan - Part TWO
- Indie Artist Launch
- Welcome Back!
So in part one of the Indie Artist Launch Plan we addressed what seemed to be the two major problems as well as the importance of BUILDING a solid foundation.
The importance of creating the structure - built of the right habits, the right people, and the right attitude are the fundamental building blocks to the success of an Indie Artist Career today.
Again, i go so far as to say that it’s less about the talent and more about the drive. The passion and “learnable” characteristics and skills that successful people embrace and adopt account for more wins than anything else.
So in part one you learned that the Right Knowledge, Right Strategy, + Consistency = Get to Your Next Level.
And since Artist Development is OUR job, what ARE the things – that if you did and were consistent in doing would set you up for the best chance for success over a period of say two years time?
Alright let’s get to it!
Artist Development Today = Clarity, Direction, and Commitment.
This is what I would have done. It’s simple, yet profound. When you reduce the clutter and amount of wheel spinning and just increase the size and intensity of your focus onto these few things, incredible stuff starts to happen.
Let’s call it the two year path of persistence for building a foundation for your music career as a performing artist/band, given you have enough songs written and ready to go, plus a half dozen or so covers you can rock out.
The Performing Artist/Band Launch Plan
2 shows a week – Just keep honing your chops.
1-3 articles a week – Just keep writing engaging content, the best you know how to, and submit to guest blogs like Music Think Tank.
15-20 minutes of social media every day – Keep making connections, keep building your following, replying to and sharing interesting things.
100 names onto your email list every week – Focus on doing this, any way you can. Ask everyone you meet if you can add them to your email list. If you work at it, and there are tons of ways, you should be able to get fifty every week offline, and fifty every week online. If you can’t get that much, keep doing all you can, and then once you’ve flatlined, do a little more research on how you can increase it.
Key Areas of Focus
Email list every week – Keep in touch with them, share your new content, the latest experiences, and keep your listeners engaged.
Write and produce at least one song every month – Get into the habit of doing this, and then promote it to your email list.
Work with a coach and consultant – This is CRITICAL to keep you on track, and have someone help you get over your inner obstacles, and everyone has them. Well, not me… But everyone else. :)
Find YOUR signature sound and style – Develop that thing that you do that is unique to you and YOUR style and personality, and master that. Ask your friends and your fans to be real and give you some honest insight. Focus in on those things, and the things that make people scream, and dance, or smile, or wave their hands, or listen intently. Don’t be afraid to do weird things to try and find what those things are for you.
Observe the feeling of your lifestyle now - Take inventory and see if you had what it takes to make a lifelong career out of this. Is THIS what fills you up? Do you love doing this, more than anything else?
Get known in your town – Go out and meet as many people as you can, network, get their phone numbers and email addresses. Follow up.
Systemize all the pieces that you don’t need/want/can do – Hire someone to submit your music to libraries and pitch opportunities online for example. Create documented processes that break things down into simple, easy to execute, steps.
In that time, once you have been building connections you will probably not have to work very hard to find someone who you can record and produce your tracks. If you cannot pay, barter or work something out.
Make sure you get both the instrumental and vocal versions of each song, go and submit those to as many music libraries and placement opportunities online that you can find. Get a taxi membership if you can afford the $300 and learn about the industry, get involved on the forum, and have your music reviewed on the peer to peer section.
Read everything Bob Baker ever wrote about music marketing, as well as both books by Ariel Hyatt - Music Successs in 9 Weeks, and Musicians Roadmap to Facebook and Twitter.
The thing is that, although all of this stuff sounds basic, and it is… IT is ALL that is required. The hard part, is doing it. It’s not that people cannot do this… You can do this while still going to college, or working a part time job, or even while working a full time job.
You may say to yourself… That’s easy, no problem! But I challenge you to do it, do it for just 3 months, consistently. I dare you. I’ll bet you’ll find that it’s simple, but that it’s definitely NOT easy. And I mean stick to those things… You cannot deviate from doing JUST those things.
Please drop me a line to let me know your results.
I think that if anyone, who had the ability to do these things, followed this formula, would end up sitting very pretty, and have enough momentum, insight, success, confidence built up, to propel them to any level of career success they were willing to go after.
You just have to maintain three things…
Attitude – Be humble, be a learner, don’t get mad at criticism, use it as feedback and adjust accordingly.
Passion – Always do and play what you are passionate about. Once you start to lose that passion, you will strain yourself and burn out over time… Be careful, and only make music that moves you, and that touches other people in some way.
Consistency – This is a master key to success it seems in almost any area. Consistency is the name of the game here. Be persistent and stay consistent.
For daily tips on leveraging your content, and building your online presence for better brand development, traffic, leads, and sales…. Follow me on Twitter
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Jamie Leger is a Business Coach and Consultant who helps Experts and MusicPreneurs create profitable online brands by building their audience and marketing their products and services. He writes and produces music as an Independent Singer Songwriter by night.
In addition to helping authors, speakers, coaches, and consultants package and launch information products and services into profitable ongoing sources of passive income, he also works with artists, musicians, producers, and composers to move to the next level in their music career.
Did you find this content valuable and helpful to you? Then go over to my site www.jamieleger.com and sign up to my mailing list to get exclusive news, updates, and content!
Developing a Strategy tagged Artist Advice, Career, Indie
Reader Comments (7)
I''d love to hear some of your success stories...!
There are many aspects of this article I am in full agreement with, however one idea doesn't really make me so comfortable in doing and that is Emailing every week. The only time that would work is if you had a close connection to everyone on your mailing list, otherwise people truly get tired of all the emails and eventually unsubscribe.
My advice is to make first connection to those new mailing list fans with a simple thank you, followed by reminding them that they will occasionally receive updates on events relevant to their area, or when a new release or interesting development takes place.
this is bullshit. i can't even begin to explain how indies are being led en masse to their ultimate demise. it is the trick of the enemy to keep their competition occupied with things that waste their time, resources and creativity.
if you want to be a social media figure, do all this. you will not have time to make good music.
Hey Mike!
You're right and wrong.
Too much email will absolutely push SOME people away. Maybe a weekly email is too much. Maybe it's just right. It depends on your audience. You have to experiment. But a weekly email is the common starting point for this. Another option is to send out emails when there is something new on your site... You put stuff on your site at least once a week, right?
But people unsubscribing to your list is a good thing. You want your list to be full of people who hang on your every word and at least consider buying every 1 of your products. A list full of people who will never buy your stuff is useless.
The key is to make every email valuable. I don't think that Jamie is saying to send out weekly emails even if you have nothing to say. That will certainly drive people right off your list.
Hey truly!
There are a lot of people who have followed a plan very similar to this and are making a living off their site. And they're selling stuff a lot less fun and addictive than music.
I don't agree with everything Jamie wrote. I think that musicians writing articles is silly. But if you replaced those 1-3 articles with 1-3 studio/rehearsal/show videos/mp3s, interviews on other sites, and mentions on other sites; I would agree with 99% of the article.
Like I just said: this is a starting point, not the philosopher's stone. And people are already doing this to make a living making music.
Happy 4th!
Josh
I have 3 points about this article:
1. 2 shows a week is FAR too many if you're not spreading yourself very, very wide, and even then it's probably not going to be very effective. If you're just playing around your local area (let's say a 200 mile radius) then you are way over-saturating your market, and if you're touring this is far too few shows. My suggestion would be at MOST 2 shows a month. Granted, all the preceding is assuming the band has already gained lots of stage experience, but even if that's not the case there needs to be another way to gain it rather than playing too many shows.
2. I would actually suggest 30-60m of social media, spread throughout the day. Maybe 15, 4 times in the day, but you've got to stay very active, interactive and consistent. Never take too long to respond to comments or messages.
3. I have yet to see real data comparisons but I have serious doubts about the effectiveness of email promotion. Every book I read on the subject has lots to say about how this can work wonders for your online business but I would like to know more specifics about it.
@Mike: Emailing your list once a week is certainly not a lot, and for some reason musicians always seem to think that people will "get annoyed" by them emailing them more interesting and cool stuff.
The thing is... Yes, you ABSOLUTELY want to have a close relationship with your fans... They have signed up to hear from you, because they are interested in you and want to hear MORE from you.
The best way to do that is to Email them more.
You are not emailing them random offers, or spamming people... And it doesn't take that much time either.
This is a huge mistake that artists make, because again, the fact is that nothing really matters about having a list if you don't engage with them, and build a relationship. Be creative and communicate with them more often.
@truly: Build a fanbase, get good at performing, begin to utilize the social channels, be consistent creating and producing new content...
again, these are apart of an indie artists career today, unless you want to just make music as a hobby, you gotta build a fanbase and a relationship with them.
And the extra's, when done with the right attitude become merely an extended platform for your creativity and resourcefulness.
@josh:
Definitely. Substitute writing an article with creating some other form of content, whether thats audio/video or text. The point is, and the real key to the whole thing is consistency in doing only a few key things, and getting better and being creative with those things.
In regards to your objection to writing articles for artists as being silly, if you can write an article and get some traffic through targeted a long-tail keyword; then you can potentially have a long term stream of people that are going to come to your site and potentially like you and your music and become a fan.
The trick is to write something that will engage and interest people. So if it's just something that you are writing or creating for your fans, then ask yourself, is there anything that i could create that i could also get some traffic from? And if so, where? (I,E, Search engine traffic, Guest Blogs, etc)
Step 1: Create content with your fans in mind, and creatively think of if there are any other ways to leverage it.
Step 2: Optimize the content for SEO and Publish it
Step 3: Email your subscribers telling them about the post and encourage participation and interaction.
Doing this once a week is not a monumental accomplishment, but it adds up. It shows people you are serious and that you care about them.
@Kienan: Good point about social media, It can be a balance, and some people may see that as overwhelming.. So i suggest 15-30 minutes a day as a minimum just to get into the mindset and commitment to building the habit.
Email promotion is certainly effective if you followup and build a relationship with them that they find valuable and interesting.