Doing music is about way more than just playing a few tunes and melodies. There are so many hats a musician has to wear to keep business moving in the right direction, it could make your head spin. Being in business for yourself creates its own set of challenges, but it’s incredibly rewarding if you find success. For musicians, that means figuring out how to be business savvy in addition to being our creative selves. A tall order to fulfill. Nonetheless, having a successful career is very doable if you have the right systems in place to achieve your business goals. In this article, we’ll discuss the 4 critical business elements musicians should not ignore.
A Business Model
If you are hoping to earn an income from artistic endeavors, the first priority is to outline your business model. Your business model consists of three things…
- What products or services are you selling?
- Who are you selling those products or services to?
- How are you going to market your products or services to them?
Unfortunately, a lot of musicians skip this step entirely and they end up making great music or content, but it doesn’t translate into earning a significant income. That’s because they don’t have a full understanding of their business model nor is there a strategy in place to make the connection between your music and music-related products/services and an income. In other words, you haven’t transitioned fully from a hobbyist to a business.
As musicians, we really need to start looking at our operation as a business. Seeing yourself as a business shifts your mindset and forces you to think more as a business owner would. For example, a business owner is constantly considering ways to boost revenue by creating sales campaigns, looking for marketing opportunities, developing products/services, engaging with customers by making offers, putting their products and services directly in front of their consumers and more. However, as musicians, we tend to approach our music with a different mindset. We tend to think that if we create the music, we will attract fans. Moreover, if we do happen to get fans, there’s no strategy in place to convert those fans to actual customers (people who are willing to pay you money).
So the first step as a musician and creative entrepreneur is to identify your business model. For help with this, download my free Build a Music Business Model Worksheet here.
Once you have a list of products and/or services that you’ll offer, figure out how many of those units you need to move in order to meet your monthly revenue goals. For example, if you want to earn $2000 per month from your music, determine how many gigs you’ll need per month to accomplish that. You may also have other products or services you can combine to supplement your income such as sound engineering, music licensing, sponsorships, side hustles, income generating endeavors online, merchandise sales, running your own record label, and other money making activities for musicians.
Pro Tip: If you’d like to grow your music income exponentially, one idea is to start your own record label. You could release your music under your label and take full advantage of “label prestige” for your own music plus, you could also provide record label services for other artists which would generate even more income. For a full rundown of how to start and manage your own record label, check out Nick Sadler’s book, The Label Machine.
Book Recommendation
THE LABEL MACHINE
Learn all about the music industry business and how to navigate the tricky dos and don’ts. Understand and take control of your music copyright and the legalities involved. Build your label effortlessly, learning how to professionally market your music and artists – allowing you to reach thousands of fans.
Learn how to create multiple label revenue streams to create an established record label.
Your Marketing Strategy
As a business, you have to market and promote your services. You must actively acquire customers in order to have a successful business with longevity. This is a requirement to maintain success. Just because we’re individuals, doesn’t make us immune to marketing requirements. We have plenty of reasons why we don’t put effort into marketing and promoting ourselves…
- We’re afraid to bring attention to ourselves out of fear that we’re being too pushy
- Our fellow musicians create a stigma around promoting
- We don’t know where to start so we don’t start at all
- We’re afraid we won’t get any results
- We’re afraid our investment will be a waste
All these reasons are valid objections, but we need to overcome them because it doesn’t serve our business goals. Marketing and promoting your music doesn’t have to be rocket science. Think of it as a plan to get you from Point A (not having people know about you) to Point B (making people aware of what you have to offer). Plans can change or adjusted if something is not working. The key is to start taking action and build up momentum. Here are some example marketing plans…
- Send a combination of postcards and emails out to local venues/retirement homes/art galleries/etc about your entertainment services with a “Book Now” call-to-action.
- Host 1 Giveaway a Month on your YouTube channel to build up your subscribers.
- Create profiles on gigging platforms like these and update them regularly.
- Reach out to bloggers to get your music featured (here’s my #1 Strategy to get bloggers’ attention).
- Sponsor an Ad in your niece’s recital program.
- Execute a custom marketing strategy for a music release
Marketing your music is not a one-size fits all type of strategy. Every musician is different. What you offer, may be different than what the next musician offers. Therefore, your marketing strategy might look very different than someone else’s. That’s why it’s important to outline your business model first. This gives you a roadmap that helps you define what kind of marketing activities would be most effective for you based on the services and products you offer. For example, if one of your primary services is wedding music, then your marketing approach would target bridal shows, bridal boutique partnerships, connecting with wedding venues and event planners, creating content for brides (see my SEO article or watch this video to learn more about this top secret marketing approach that hardly any of us utilize), local wedding venue bloggers, etc. If you primarily offer entertainment services for wineries, then you’d focus on outreach to wineries. You’d make a press kit just for wineries, for instance. Or you’d make cold calls to new wineries each week with the intention of connecting with the music booking person there.
Product Development and Positioning
This aspect of your music business revolves around your particular products and services. Everything you offer should be fully developed, consumer-ready, and readily available. This includes yourself as an artist (Artist Branding and Development) and your music. How will you distribute your music? On which online platforms will you make your music available? Do you plan on having physical CDs or will it just be digital? How will you sell your merchandise? Where can your fans find your merchandise? Everything you offer should be presented well and easily available for your fans to find and buy.
Think through this aspect of your business thoroughly. It could impact your ability to earn money. If your music is not available for purchase on popular distribution platforms, how will people find your music to buy? If you are planning to release your music exclusively on your website, how will you make your fans aware of that?
Everything you put out should align with your overall branding and presentation and it should represent you well. Be very conscious about the content you put out as well. Make sure it aligns with your messaging and artistic look and feel.
Customer Service / Fan Engagement
Your fans are the reason you’re in business. They are your most important asset and they should be treated accordingly. Good customer service is a major success factor in business. If a business doesn’t have good customer service, they will not see any type of significant growth or worse, they will go out of business.
As a musician, the same concept applies to your business. Make it a practice to engage with your fans on social media platforms. Answer their questions, respond to their comments and messages. Treat your subscribers well. Keep in touch with them and send out emails consistently. Send them small gifts and tokens of appreciation. Do not ignore them. Thank them. Acknowledge them.
Download the Worksheet
Turn your interests into revenue-generating strategies and start earning more income with your music.
The same goes for your customers or clients. Address any grievances with integrity. Respond to all reviews you get, good or bad. If you interact with booking professionals, treat them with kindness in the same manner. Your reputation follows you wherever you go. Word will get around about your rapport and professionalism. Make sure it’s all positive. Maintaining a good customer service policy has many good benefits for musicians.
- It increases your chances of getting good reviews from clients and fans.
- It establishes a positive rapport that can promote more followers and subscribers
- It encourages word of mouth which could increase gigging opportunities
- It encourages repeat gigs
- Promotes fan engagement
Good customer service for a musician translates to positive fan engagement. You’ll establish a good rapport with your fans which makes for a great long-lasting relationship.
If you want to enjoy a satisfying career as a musician, start thinking like a business. Set up your operation in the same manner a business owner would. Sell yourself. Be mindful of how your content is presented. Make sure you’re publishing high quality music. Get serious about your marketing strategy. Don’t neglect your fans. A business-minded musician has a much better chance at finding success than a hobbyist.
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