Making An Impact
Entry posted by john
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What I write here is mainly for artists, but much of it can be applied to songwriters.... although generally scaled down a little.
As an indie, this is perhaps one of the most fundamental questions.
Realistically there are some major constraints in place:
- Lack of budget
- Poor contacts
- Poor tools, or awareness of their need
- Poor knowledge
- Poor use of actual assets (sometimes even knowing what is an asset and what is not)
- No team
The sad truth is, that the lower your budget, the more you rely upon contacts, tools, knowledge, good use of assets and a good team.
The fact that many don't have good contacts, tools, knowledge etc. is not a reason to continue to do nothing. It should be the alarm call that slaps you about the face and pushes you work hard and work smart, every single day.
There are other ingredients such as creativity. Weirdly, for what is a creative industry, many indies fail to unleash their creativity to overcome the obstacles in front of them.
In Indie-land, there is no magical success fairy. No one will swoop in, wave a wand and solve all your problems. Frustratingly, it appears that many artists are happy to wait for such a fairy. They only realise the fairy isn’t going to arrive when years have passed, they are playing similar gigs to years before and still few people know they exist.
As a side point, perhaps modern artists are content putting in minimal or convenient effort to ultimately achieve poor results? Perhaps they like to have excuses to hide behind because when it comes down to it, they think that if they don’t really take part, they can’t really fail? If they do go all in, and still fail, that must surely be the fault of the music? Wrong! It could be... but there are a multitude of great bands that never got the recognition that they deserve.
As an indie, The buck stops with you. There is no hiding behind “we have no money” or “we didn’t get the opportunities”.
Moving Forwards
Resolve to learn what you need to. Stop waiting for something that isn’t going to happen. If anything is going to happen, it is going to be because:
YOU MADE IT HAPPEN.
It isn’t enough to have one bit of a general music biz artist plan in place. You need to cover all bases. You need skills you currently don’t have. They will cover areas that you have no experience of. You will be faced with the dilemma of doing it yourself, or farming it out to others. If you do farm it out to others, you will then face the dilemma of finding money to pay people, or finding a creative way to get people to help you for free (or near free).
If there is one thing you take away from this blog post it is this:
if if you want success, you will not get it working alone.
- You will need to build a team
- You will need to collaborate with other artists on promotion activities
Most artists don’t have number 1 and often struggle to see a need for it. Yet, it is absolutely essential.
As for number 2:, most don’t connect that reaching fans is all about harnessing the power of other people... and collaborating with other artists is a fantastic way to expand your reach, and to help your band stand head and shoulders above the throng.
- If you build a core team to handle the business of music, you can effectively multiply your reach by 5 times.
- If you add a street team to help spread your promotion activity you can multiply it by a further 15 - 20 times.
- If you train your team in social media, each member of your team can be getting your message in front of 1000 people, very easily. There is nothing stopping them reaching far higher numbers. On Twitter alone it is not unheard of for individuals to be followed by 20k, 50k, 100k people.True, most are below 500.... but that is why you train your team.
This is just your team. If you collaborate with other like-minded artists you can be adding several other similar teams. Yes there will be some overlap, but that is expected.
If you are prepared, and coordinated, working to a plan, even what you do as an individual can become much, much, much more effective than the general ad hock methods most indies use.
If you spread this wo your immediate team, and to the artists you collaborate with, collectively you will all be more effective.
- By building your team, and helping others build their’s you increase your overall reach, the number of people you can put your music in front of. By growing your team effectively, you can go from an immediate reach of 100 - 500, to having an effective reach of 250,000.
- By growing teams in the right way, the people you can reach are also reasonably matched to your type of music. i.e. They are not just the general public. They are the right audience. Importantly, they are not immediate family and friends!
Making An Impact
To truly have an impact, you need more than talking to a lot of people. More than talking to a lot of the right people.. You need to get the right message in front of the right people at the right time. You need to say the right things.
It sounds so simple, because largely, it is. You need to know your resources, know how to grow them, and know how to make the most of them.
It is no secret. Artists are being drowned by a throng of wannabes. You know the ones. The ones who haven’t worked a day to learn how to sing or dance, but feel entitled to being discovered as the next big thing. Talent show fodder. Some are no doubt talented. Most are not.
The trouble is, they are drowning out the artists who are working for it. The sucker punch is that the throng of wannabes are just as good if not better than most artists when it comes to self promotion.
You need to stand out, above the throng.
Many more artists are learning to work better than they were. They are leaving the artists who don’t learn behind them. Dots in a rear view mirror.
You need stand out, above other artists.
To do that takes hard work, yes, but you need to work smarter, and harder.
Luckily you come to Songstuff for your information and support. 
More to come...
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