September 2, 2025 • 41 mins
The #1 Mistake Musicians Make When Releasing Music (Are You Guilty?)
In this episode of the MUBUTV Music Business Insider Podcast, Mark Allen—veteran music marketer, manager, and strategist—unveils his essential music release strategies for independent artists. We discuss building a strong artist story, harnessing data & algorithms, leveraging social media, and the career-transforming power of AI and blockchain. Whether you’re just starting or aiming to level up, Mark shares practical tips to avoid common release mistakes and turn your passion into a sustainable music career. Don’t miss these actionable insights for the modern music professional! 🚀🎵 #MusicMarketing #AIinMusic #MusicCareer #MUBUTV
Our mission here at MUBUTV is to help independent artists and music business professionals of the future to educate, empower and engage their music career.
🎙️ Music Business Insider Podcast: https://www.mubutv.com/podcast
The Music Business Insider Podcast is a deep dive for listeners like you who want to educate, empower & engage their music career. We take you inside behind the scenes through a series of in-depth conversations with today’s leading experts in the Music Industry including A&R, Music Supervision, Artist Management, Marketing, Publicity, Touring, and much much more. You can find it by searching “Music Business Insider Podcast” on any podcast app or platform [ie: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc.].
📒 Show Notes and Resources 📒
https://www.mubutv.com/mark-allen-blossom-agency
⚡️What you'll learn in this episode⚡️
👉 How to avoid releasing music without context or strategy
👉 Actionable ways to leverage data & social media to grow your fanbase
👉 The game-changing role AI and algorithms now play
👉 and so much more...
Here are the ways to work with us here at MUBUTV:
⚡️Insiders! Secure Your Spot! Get expert music career coaching with Ritch & Eric. Book your 15-min discovery call now: Grab a spot! 👉 https://book.mubutv.com
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Podcast Credits
Produced by: Ritch Esra & Eric Knight
Editor: Eric Knight
Shownotes & Transcriptions: Jermaine Shepherd
DISCLOSURE: Some product links are affiliate links which means if you buy something we'll receive a small commission.
Copyright © 2025 MUBUTV™ Media. All Rights Reserved
In this podcast episode, Mark Allen from the Blossom Agency shares his expert advice on how to promote music effectively in today's digital landscape, offering actionable music marketing strategies for independent artist advice. Learn essential music business tips to navigate your music career and build a lasting presence in the music business. Get ready to elevate your approach to the music industry!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
On today's podcast, we sit down with Mark Allen, music marketer,
manager and strategist whose expertise spans over two
decades in the industry. Mark has worked with thousands of artists across
genres, helping them navigate the new digital landscape. We talk about the
most essential questions every artist should ask before releasing music, how to
harness the power of data and social media to build your audience, and the
(00:22):
strategies that can turn a hobby into a sustainable career. Mark
also shares his insights on AI, algorithms and the real
reasons why so many artists are held back from success. Whether you're
just starting out or looking to level up your marketing game, this conversation
is packed with practical advice you can't afford to miss.
Insiders, are you ready? Welcome to
(00:44):
MUBUTV's Music Business Insider Podcast where our
mission is to educate, empower and engage artists and music
business professionals who are dedicated to having a successful career in
the new music industry. Here are your hosts, Ritch Esra
and Eric Knight. Welcome back, insiders, to another episode of
the MUBUTV Music Business Insider Podcast, where our
(01:06):
mission is to educate, empower and engage your music
career. On today's episode, we sit down with Mark Allen, music
marketing expert and artist manager at both Blossom Agency
and Vitalik Noise. We dive deep into the most
essential questions every artist should be asking before
releasing new music what it takes to build long term fan
(01:28):
engagement in the age of algorithms and AI, and how the right
strategy can make sure your music doesn't get lost in the
sea of endless content. Mark shares actionable tips
on leveraging data and social media, working with limited budgets,
and why knowing your passion and purpose is the foundation for
a successful career. Plus, don't miss his insights on emerging
(01:50):
technologies like AI and blockchain and the mindset
shift artists need to succeed in today's industry.
Whether you're an up and coming artist looking to break through or a seasoned pro
trying to stay ahead, this is an episode you absolutely can't
miss. But first, a word from our sponsor. Hey insiders.
Are you an aspiring musician, artist, band, or future music business
(02:13):
professional looking to take your career to the next level? Well, look no
further. At MUBUTV, we offer personalized career counseling and
coaching designed specifically for folks like you. Imagine having
both of us by your side, guiding you through every step of your music journey.
Our sessions are tailored to meet your unique needs, focusing on critical
aspects of your music career such as refining your songs, defining
(02:35):
your artist story, identifying your target audience, and enhancing your your
social media presence. Just to name a few. Whether you're just starting out
or looking to elevate your existing career. We've got you covered. Our
comprehensive approach ensures you get insights on everything
from live shows to branding and marketing strategies. We
understand that every artist is unique. That's why our coaching
(02:57):
is personalized just for you. And here's the best part. We offer
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(03:20):
accessible. Imagine the clarity and direction you'll gain
after just one session. The feedback on your songs, the
strategies to grow your audience, and the confidence to perform live. All
tailored just for you. So why wait? Don't let uncertainty
hold you back. Join us for your free 15 minute discovery call
at book.mubutv.com for a transformative
(03:41):
coaching experience that will elevate your music career. That's
book.mubutv.com
hi, this is Larry Mestel. Founder and CEO of Primary Wave of
Music, and you're listening to the MUBUTV Music Business Insider
Podcast. Welcome back, insiders. Today's featured guest is Mark
Allen, music marketing expert and artist manager. This was a
(04:03):
very, very, very informative and I, I think Eric
extremely important conversation because he
touched on a lot of, I mean, talk about the deep dive,
right? He talked about the specifics that you need to be aware of as an
artist, whether you're starting out, especially if you're starting out or beginning or already have
a career in terms of what you need to be doing with relation to
(04:26):
the music industry when you're putting your music out. One of the most
interesting things that I thought he addressed, which was it showed a real
important consciousness of the world that we're in today, which I thought is very
valuable for, for you insiders, which is the whole aspect of
he said, avoid releasing music without context.
Dropping music with no strategy, he said, is a very common
(04:48):
pitfall that a lot of artists, you know, no context, no story,
no intentionality behind the releases. This is crucial. He said
all of those elements are crucial for cutting through to today. I mean,
otherwise it's just, you're just kind of out there going, hello? Right,
hello? Yeah, Is anyone there? And that, that's kind of the metaphor. Of
what it's like and that's the mantra that we've been having here. MUBUTV, which you've
(05:10):
always talked about. We've always talked about crucial ye building that story, who you are,
what you believe in what, what, what do you think your. Your fans believe in
and. Yes. And who they are and putting that into a story.
Yeah. I also thought that one of the really important areas was. And this
is getting back to kind of almost reiterating what you're talking about. Know yourself as
an artist. Before releasing music, artists should clearly understand
(05:32):
the passions, their passions, motivations, and the reasons they got into
music in the first place. And this goes back to what we usually when we
consult with our clients is the whole idea of
who you are, stand for, what you believe in, what don't
you believe in, And. And putting that into building the. The story.
It's foundational. Yeah, absolutely foundational. Yeah. Yeah. So with that,
(05:54):
insiders, sit back, relax, and enjoy our featured
conversation with Mark Allen. Mark,
welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today. You know, when an
artist or an act is starting to think about releasing their music, what are the
most essential questions they should be asking themselves before starting that
process? There's a few things. One would be, what are you
(06:15):
passionate about as far as your music, your drive, why you got into
this, what kind of rhythm or cadence do you want
to be at when releasing that music? And that could be. The
chronology of a release is different for every artist. Some artists, it's about a
single. Some artists, it's about they have an EP or an album release.
And when we sit down with somebody, it's really kind of figuring out what kind
(06:38):
of body of work they're trying to present, where they are at that.
At that stage of their career. And, you know,
there are quite a few factors, but I think those are the big ones. Mark,
thank you so much for joining us on the show. Thank you. I wanted to
ask you today, when an artist is starting to think about marketing
their music, what platforms are the most effective to help
(06:59):
them identify their audience? Yeah, so there's the social
side and there's the music side, the music discovery side. Music
discovery might be Pandora, might be your Spotify, might be your Apple. Music
data collection is a big part of what we do at
Blossom as well as Vitalik Noise. On the management side, I kind of
manage artists. I'm looking at it from both perspectives. Right. The artist team as well
(07:22):
as marketing team. And on the music side,
we look at, like, the indicators. As an artist,
you want to look at the. The platforms that are going to give you data
back that you're going to be able to kind of read into that, you know,
who's listening, how old are they? What. What are Their,
you know, what are they responding to? Right. Which is
(07:45):
something that you kind of get back from, like Spotify for artists and your
Apple music dashboard. We spend a lot of time in there, look like
really parsing through that data, discovering the audience. And
really, as an artist, it's important to kind of know who. Who's
listening, how long they're listening, where they're listening,
and be able to kind of react to that data in real time.
(08:07):
Social media is obviously a great tool for a lot of those same things.
Instagram, TikTok, YouTube are the big. Sort of like the big three.
Actually, I should say Facebook as well. So big four. We
spend a lot of time sort of helping artists sort of understand their
socials, understand the content that they should be making, you know,
with what regularity they should be making that content and
(08:28):
testing various. I hate to call it content, but it is
the visuals that accompany the music. They need to
be kind of understanding what it is they're making and what's
being responded to. So we'll do a lot of split testing of different content,
what's working, what's not. And the nice part about that is you're getting
an immediate response today, which is so important about social
(08:51):
media, that real time almost reporting that you
can do yourself as an artist. So social media is
honestly is a gift to us as artists, and you get an
immediate feedback. Yay, nay. And artists, you
know, they're. They're kind of doing themselves a disservice when they're kind of not using
those platforms to the best of their ability. So. So yeah, those are the big
(09:13):
ones. Yeah. I look at it as like an immediate test group. You can try
out things like you could try out, you know. What do you guys think of
this new merch design? Is this cool? Would you guys buy this? It's like you
immediately know. Yes, and I agree with you wholeheartedly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me ask you, Mark, how do
artists identify the pioneers or, you know, early
adapters of their work? Are there ways to do that? Yeah, I mean,
(09:37):
I think again, social media and
the early adopters to it, to an artist are really the people
that are the strongest opinions and love it
or hate it. You know, sometimes, like, you'll talk to an artist and they, they
don't like the haters. You know, they're immediately like, oh, they don't like my stuff.
And I'm, you know, that's okay, that's okay. You're gonna get. That's
(09:58):
reality. You know, sometimes people are gonna Feel strongly in the negative.
Yeah, sometimes they're gonna feel strongly in the positive. But as far as getting that
feedback, that's so important because it allows you to kind of
take it in, you know, digest that feedback, digest that
information. You're gonna see early adopters, you're gonna see people
kind of come in, climb on board early. Just make sure that
(10:20):
as you're seeing somebody sort of respond to that music, that you're
sort of super serving that early listener with the
kind of content that's gonna make them happy, that's. That they're gonna check
out that that's gonna be different than other artists.
Right. You kind of want to differentiate yourself because so many
artists are just dropping music with no strategy. So
(10:42):
if you can be that artist sort of, again, super serving them
with your brand of content and really
bringing them in, engaging with them about it, you're
going to be ahead of the game. Yeah. It's so interesting that what you just
said, because you said, you know, music with no strategy, that is one of the
great sins of the modern business today that we call.
(11:05):
Somebody once called it. You know, I think it was T Bone Burnett who said,
you know, there's so much music out there that will never be heard because it's
music without context. It's just like. It's like spam
that's thrown at you on your phone every day that you just delete, delete, delete,
delete, delete. There's no sense of, you know. Yeah. Why would you go through that
trouble of recording and spending your time and money? And then it's like, you put
it on like, well, if it doesn't do, it's like, okay. And it's like. Then
(11:27):
you're wondering why your career is tanking or, you know, stalling, which is. The
difference between a hobby and a career. Right. Which is very, very, very
much what Rich says all the time. You know, it's very good. If you want
to do this as a hobby, it's a great hobby. But if you're doing this
for real, you. You got to really be in it for real. And you got
to learn what you said. You've got to learn why you need,
(11:48):
who you are, what you're about, where you're coming from, what do you stand for,
all of that. And for those that are getting haters, that's when you know you're
doing something right. So for everybody out there, that's. That's getting the hate.
Just know that you're on the right track. Absolutely. Mark, what
strategy should artists be adopting to build long term
engagement with their fans or does it depend on the specific artist and
(12:10):
genre? No, the artist genre should not be a
factor as much as, I mean there are subtle,
there are some subtle differences in genre, but I think
ultimately the rules of the, of engagement are
pretty similar. We, I, you know, I work with country artists, I work with jazz
artists, I work with rock, I work with electronic. I think like,
(12:32):
I mean there's so many ways to answer this question, but I would say that
the, today you kind of have to understand the
landscape of what's happening right now. The boots on the ground, as far
as you're utilizing a platform, you know, these platforms that
have these algorithms, right, that are these. And we'll, I'm sure we'll talk about
this a little more in the interview, but about AI and some of the
(12:54):
curation that's going on through these services and it's so important
to sort of play, I hate to say play ball with some of this,
some of the things that were, that are going on because we've got such an
opportunity today to, to give people the music, to
distribute our music so quickly. AI and some of these
platforms have really leveled the playing field for a lot of us. Like
(13:15):
we're, you know, used to be you needed a record label, you needed some
big, you know, machine behind you. Now getting the music out there
to people is just so, is so simple. And I know it's
cliche to mention things like, you know, the Napster moment and the Spotify
moment. You know, these things are touchstone moments in music marketing and
music availability. But since we have this opportunity right now
(13:38):
to kind of get our music out there in such a quick way,
it's important to just sort of harness the
availability and to play with the algorithm. Like
use that to your advantage. Spotify has created these tools
to curate music to your perfect listener. They
know, I mean, it's crazy today how closely they can get, you know,
(14:01):
to your perfect, the ideal listener for your music. Use that
to your advantage. Market yourself in a way that's going to help
that algorithm find, you know, find you and make you
stand out. Let me ask you, you know, for artists who have
limited financial resources, how can they identify the most
effective platforms or channels to start promoting their work? And are there
(14:23):
specific metrics or indicators that can guide them initially?
Yeah, I mean, socials are free, posting
is free. That part, the organic part, you can
do. You can pick up your phone, you can start, you
can, you can start making content, you can Talk to your audience for free.
That's great. There are. From a, from a. If you really
(14:45):
have limited resources and you're really trying to get exposure and you want to use
paid marketing that, you know, $5, $10, $15 a day or
the daily minimum spends on most of these platforms. So I always tell artists
that they kind of get scared at first when they see big numbers of like
what some companies are charging for, like sort of their promotional services.
I'm like, you can kind of get in the door pretty, for a
(15:08):
pretty inexpensive amount. I don't necessarily
think there's a silver bullet to any of this. I think it's very important
to kind of try many different facets of
promotion and see what works for you. I don't think
that and every artist is going to have their own little formula, but it
is really important that they, you know, that they study what's
(15:30):
happening in real time. The way we were talking about testing before and kind
of surveying, getting that feedback early, that will sort of guide you as far as
what kind of content to make, what people are really enjoying. And as
you're seeing that you can Bob and
Weeb and even flow your career to kind of
meet like what the audience wants. And again, if you're just making it for
(15:52):
yourself, if it's just a hobby, that's one thing. But if you're trying to build
a career, you need to study, you need to research, you need to
understand the algorithm and deliver in some
consistent way, whether that be social media
or, and, or releasing music. Let me ask you,
Mark, do you find that artists today are more knowledgeable and
(16:15):
informed about data and the marketing of their music than in the past?
Yes, I've noticed a huge shift. That's a great
question. Even in my job, I have because I've been in
the music industry for 20 plus years. I think in the past five years,
and I think it corresponds to Covid to some extent. We all
kind of hunkered down. We all got really in the groove with these online
(16:38):
platforms in a way that we never had before. It just forced us
to be really mindful of what was happening on digital
platforms. And I think artists are keenly aware of a lot of the
sort of the demographic data, the save to listener ratio of
them. I'm getting people now asking me about the click through,
you know, cost per acquisition of a follower, things like that, things that
(17:00):
I didn't think I would hear from an artist
talking to me. Now I'm getting a lot of artists that really
understand the Digital marketing landscape and the lingo. It's
exciting. On one hand, it's a little crazy that we've all become
data scientists. That's a little crazy.
We're not supposed to be that as musicians. But it's great to hear it.
(17:23):
I'm all for it. I love artists that are really taking
the time and the initiative to learn the
process, study the data, and really kind of help
themselves. Mark, me and Ritch are actually AI. You're talking to two
AI agents as we speak. I know.
Well, it's funny because speaking on that, and you had brought it up a
(17:46):
few minutes ago, what emerging technologies on the horizon, whether
it be AI or blockchain, et cetera, do you feel will be playing
a more prominent role when it comes to digital marketing and fan engagement?
Yeah, it's. It's really interesting. It's. There's, there's. There's sort
of a really pivotal moment is happening now with curation.
Yeah. You know, a. This sort of AI has just
(18:08):
supercharged this whole thing. We saw it beginning to
happen with Apple Music and Spotify years ago, you know, back 2014,
2015, 2018, in sort of the golden. I consider it the
golden era of Spotify where it was truly about the music. But
now that we've kind of. We've hit this sort of saturation point.
There's so much music, a hundred thousand plus
(18:30):
tracks a day, you know, being uploaded a day. How do you cut through the
noise? You know, and it's like sort of this thing of like, it's this golden
opportunity to get your music out there and have an algorithm that understands
us really well. That's what it's really good at. It's great
at really defining your niche
audience. You have to kind of play ball with that as an
(18:52):
artist. Don't fight the algorithm. People hear algorithm, hear
AI, and they think bad robots, you know, they think bad.
But for us, it's kind of a brilliant thing. It's amazing at
how good it is at really finding your audience. You're a.
Let's say you're an indie rock band and you sound a little bit in that
Joy division, like Interpol sound, let's say. It's amazing
(19:13):
that it kind of will direct the fans right away in
a very specific way to those.
To those influences very quickly if you do things right. That's
amazing. You know, it's a little freaky because on the fan
end, like, for example, myself, you know, growing up in like 80s
90s, whatever, I had to go out and discover music I
(19:35):
had to go to the record store. I had to watch mtv, watch
all the, you know, programs on television, press radio. It was a. It
was a long process. Music discovery was a process, and it.
Was a lot smaller. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Now it's just being handed to you on
a silver platter now. Yeah, Yeah. A lot of it. Yeah. So, like,
you know, it's great. Does hurt my heart a
(19:58):
little bit, because part of the joy was finding
the music, and when you found something, you were so happy. Now you can
literally, within five minutes, find every artist
that ever made music in your genre and
listen to it all. It's a brilliant thing, this music discovery, this
AI this is huge for us,
(20:21):
but we just have to make sure that we really
handle it with care. I think, actually, to me,
the bigger issue with the technology actually is on the production side
when it comes to music creation. When you talk about AI tools,
handling the mixing, the mastering, production, like, sort of some of the
vocal stuff that I see happening, I'm not. I'm a little scared
(20:44):
of that, because that is, you know, once you kind of leave your music
creation up to a computer,
there is a certain sense of, like, losing the humanity in music.
Right. That freaks me out a lot more than on the marketing side. The
marketing side, I think, is. Is we're great. We're in a great position. We
have a wealth of information and data out there. As a musician, as
(21:07):
a. As a team, whether it's your label or your management,
you've got more at your disposal than ever. So I feel great
about that. It's just on the creation side, a little scary. Hey,
insiders, we hope that you've been enjoying our featured conversation.
Stay tuned because we've got so much value coming your way. But before we
dive back in, a word from our sponsor. Hey, Eric, as an artist,
(21:30):
what do you find are the most challenging aspects to a music
career, especially when you're starting out? Well, I think one of the first things is
just trying to get the direction of who you are as an artist, where you
want to go, where you want to be. And, you know, we've talked about it
on the show a lot. Who is your target audience? Who you are, Who. What
do you stand for? What do you believe in? What do you think would resonate
(21:50):
with an audience? And so those are some of the things that I would feel
being a new artist. Obviously, what I know now is different because I know these
things, but for people that are out there, like our audience, that don't have necessarily
any direction to Go would be the first things that I would start off with.
And having the songs incorporate those elements
that you're speaking of into it, that's so important today. Yeah.
(22:11):
And I think that's one of the reasons why we started MUBUTV and why we
started this new consulting service that we're offering to all of our insiders out
there. Because that is another one of the big things. I mean, that is the
big thing is like having the great songs. That's what it really starts off. Our
friend Don Grierson always said it always starts with a great song. So
that's probably. Besides putting together what your audience and what your
(22:32):
target audience is, is the single most important thing. Where are your songs at
currently today? Are you collaborating with people? Are you trying to
go out to networking events where you can connect with other songwriters and stuff like
that? So yeah. And what are your strengths exactly? You know,
are you a strong lyric writer? Are you a strong melody writer? Are
you a strong musician? A player. Right. You know, and it's really important
(22:54):
to get really strong clarity on those issues before
proceeding. I totally agree, Ritch. And you know, with our consulting services,
we offer myriad of different packages that we've made it super affordable
for everybody. So, you know, if you guys are interested out there and connecting with
us on a coaching call, you can visit
book.mubutv.com and start off with a free
(23:15):
15 minute discovery call. Well, yeah, absolutely. That we start with an
initial 15 minute call where we can get a sense of who you are, what
are the issues that you specifically have and want to work on.
Exactly. And we can go from there. Absolutely. Yeah. And we tailor everything
to your needs. It's not like a cookie cutter thing. We kind of really want
to get to know who you are as an artist, where you at today, what's
(23:36):
the snapshot of you as an artist today and then start trying to
craft something that's tailor made for you. So again, if you're interested, Visit
us at book.mubutv.com for your 15 minute
discovery call. Hi, this is Karan Bhatnagar, head of artist and creative strategy at
Hook. Are you an insider? I am. Subscribe now.
Yeah, we were talking to somebody this morning from Brazil who has
(23:58):
a whole streaming platform at Stream, it's called
and he was talking about technology. Now that's coming down the pipe
that he's been looking at in the AI field, which is how you reminded me
of this, where the artist will put music up, it
immediately will be compared to 150,000 other
tracks of that type and audience analytics
(24:20):
of that type. And on the fly at that moment, write a
marketing plan to reach those people based on what you
were just saying. Thing you remember when Fernando was talking about that, I mean
like literally, like within the moment of putting that up there, the track,
all that data or information becomes available. Like
275 data points that they're collecting. Correct. Public information.
(24:42):
Not private, but it's public. On the points you were just making.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's really astonishing. It is. Let me ask you, Mark,
throughout your career you've worked with thousands of artists and, and what do
you feel holds artists back from success in their careers?
Well, one thing is self doubt. I think it's very easy to
not think you're good enough. An insecurity of
(25:05):
just purely. Whether it's, you know, I noticed a lot recently, one thing, one
trend is people that produce a lot of music but they don't
play live. They're afraid of the stage. I think it has
to do. There's a socialization that's not happening with a lot of musicians
that needs to start happening. I mean people need to get out, you know, get
out there. I think it's the isolation, like you said with the Pandemic. Yeah,
(25:27):
yeah. They're a little uncomfortable being in front of a live
audience, but. And I think that's really where you battle test your music. You
know, that's so. It's so important to play live. I always encourage
artists to get out there, play even a couple of shows. Don't.
You don't have to be touring. People say, oh, you know, going on the road.
No, just play some hometown shows. You know, get out there,
(25:49):
hit the stage. If you love it, you could do more of it. I think
that's so insecurity is one another
is their personal life. I think a lot of people kind of.
This is not talked about a lot, but essentially they let a lot of
those roadblocks of interpersonal relationships that they're
having, their parents, their financial situation,
(26:11):
they. They let these sort of dictate to them what they
can and can't do. And I think it's easier than ever to make
music, you know, and put it out. There's a very low barrier to
entry. You can use Distrokid and I mean and
Tunecore and some of these services. It's almost free. It's almost
literally free. So I think that people are holding
(26:33):
themselves back in those two ways. Those are really big ones.
Yeah, I'll Go with those two. Yeah. You know, Mark, throughout
your life, have there been any books or films
or documentaries that have been particularly inspirational to you,
professionally speaking, that you could recommend to our listeners?
God, anything that influenced you. Yeah, anything that
(26:55):
influenced me There. I need
there. Oh, my God. I'm. There was a book about
ideas that. And I. I'm so. I'm bad. I can't
remember the title. I mean, there's obviously Donald Don Passman's,
you know, music business, and I started with that. And that's, you know, cliche again,
but. Oh, God, I will look this up for you guys. There's a book about
(27:18):
ideas, and I'll just give you the idea of the idea of the ideas.
Yeah. Just so you know, what is. It's just really about making
things stick. Made to stick. Made to stick, I think, is made to stick.
That book kind of gave me. You know, you kind
of have to implant something on
the other side. You need. As an artist, and here's why it's
(27:40):
important. I'll just get to. The important part is that as an artist, you
need to know what message you're conveying. Right? And I think a
lot of artists lose the plot. They get into a lot of the nitty gritty
and even some of the things that we talked about, data, right. They get really
into almost the data becomes more important than the
music itself and the message itself. You have to define your niche. You have
(28:02):
to define your voice and stick to that plot.
And that book Made to Stick is sort of, you know, one book
on this topic that's important where you kind of.
You have to be very direct and
very, you know, perceptive to understand what it
is that's going to persuade somebody to actually come into your fold
(28:24):
and become a fan of yourself. And if you're able to understand
that you're going to be a successful artist, you're going to differentiate
yourself and. And so ideas matter, you know,
what you. What you are about matters, you know. Mark,
what advice do you have for artists who are committed to building a career in
music today? I would say, you know,
(28:46):
you kind of. Of like, make. Make stuff, right? Get up every
day and make stuff. Like, you know, it's almost any business. I would
give this advice to anybody, even in, you know, in a totally different field as
well. Wake up. If it's something you're passionate about, just
get up. Make. Finish that the bridge to that song that
you were, you know, tinkering with for months, you know,
(29:09):
just get up. Like. Like attack it, you know, Every day, attack it
little by little. Make stuff, make. Make videos, make
lots of content around your music. Build world building. It's so
much about. World building is marketing now. Every aspect of it.
Think about your merch, think about the finish line, and then reverse
engineer that, right? So, like, that's a big thing that I talk about
(29:32):
is like sort of start with the release. What. What do you envision
with that release? What do you want the fan experience to be? And
then reverse engineer that experience to create the environment
of success. Like, create. Create the full package for the. For
people. You know, make it exciting, make it a moment. Like,
a lot of artists lose that. I mean, because it is very
(29:54):
anticlimactic. One thing that I do understand about being an
artist is the day of release. It comes.
It's a little bit anticlimactic. It's like you're excited.
Your friends, your family are excited. Nobody else cares,
right? I mean, for the most part, it's just kind of a
thankless thing. But if you kind of did all of the
(30:16):
right things, if you put your heart and soul into all these different pieces
of the puzzle, you put it together, you built it.
It's more than the release day. It's a whole cycle. It's
an exciting. You can build a world,
and the release itself is almost. You kind of take the
emphasis off that one moment and you create many
(30:38):
different moments that are really exciting for the fan journey. And
that's really what we're trying to create. I always tell people, you know,
release day, let it just kind of don't put so much
pressure on that. The first 20. I get artists all the time.
I thought the first 48 hours are the most important. No,
you know, there's records that are broken. Like music tracks that
(31:00):
are broken on radio and other platforms. Months, if not
even years after the track comes out. You have many
opportunities to promote your music. So, yeah, I feel really passionate about
this one because I think artists are getting the wrong message from
a lot of people in the business. They're telling them, I think because
of. Maybe it's money, maybe it's their own self interest. They're trying
(31:22):
to, you know, like, you know, but. But they really need to look
at the long game. I think you have hit something in the head because
95% of the artists. And this is where we get back to the people spending
all their time recording. They spent all this effort getting the song great, and
then they release it and they walk away from it. It's like you said, the
anti and that's where the work just begins. You're just at
(31:45):
zero, man. You just hit it to neutral. Let's start driving the ship
forward. And that's where most of these artists and everybody, the. That's listening
need to remember that this is a long game. You're running a marathon, not a
race. You know, this is a long, long marathon. So I
think building on those things and what you're saying is so important.
So it's really interesting that you're talking about that, because that's where I think a
(32:07):
lot of the artists are failing. They spend all this time creating the product. They
put it out, and it's like. Like you said, the anticlimactic. Nothing is happening.
Cause nobody else cares. Well, because nobody else knows yet. Let's get these
algorithms to start learning who you are, are. Start building on that
early, you know, kind of success, and then build, build, build, build, build.
So, yeah, it takes so much longer, as you've been pointing out.
(32:29):
And, you know, one of the things that. That I've gleaned from the conversation with
you, which is really interesting, is you've illustrated
throughout this conversation the volume of
content, whether it's video or marketing or
socials or communication or music or. Or
whatever that is necessary today to actually
(32:51):
bring attention to something. It's not like the old days of, you know,
here's my album, and I'll see you. And that's overwhelmed with the artist. But the
great thing is, is because of AI and all these things that everybody is scared
about now, you can make content very quickly. You
know, a couple of years ago, we're doing. You couldn't do it. Now we're at
a time, thank God, that we're living in this time, because now you can. Can
(33:12):
do it. So it. You. You just got to get out there and just, you
know, make it happen. It's very easy now for you to do it. There's like,
literally no excuses. Yeah. Yeah, precisely. I
hope. Yeah, I hope artists out there understand, you know, anybody would like listening,
that you can do it. You know, take a positive approach. You
know, don't get down. You know, Rich is saying, you know, there's so many.
(33:33):
It's such a vast amount of jobs that we.
Of roles that. That we play as musicians today. We're, you know, on the
business side, on the content side, you're. You're everything. You know, you. You
are a small business. And I think that, like, just
kind of take the bull by the horns, wake up, do a little bit every
day. Yeah. Put your you know, put 30 minutes into your craft. Put
(33:55):
30 minutes into the business side or the marketing side a day. It
will pay off in the long run. Speaking of great books, there's a great book
called the One Thing that I recommend to everybody that, that's,
it's talking about bringing that, that, that. It's. It was written by that
famous Will Keller, the, the real estate company.
And it's such a brilliant book. It's a book that I go to every year.
(34:17):
It's an obvious thing. It's just focus on the one thing, one thing that's going
to get you there. Putting that rock up the mountain and pushing it over. Yeah.
Keller Williams. Keller Williams, yes. Keller Williams, yeah. The real estate. That's
an incredible book. I urge everybody to get that book. It's an amazing book.
Absolutely. Mark, What. Where can our listeners reach you? Is it through your
website? Is it through socials? Sure. The, you know,
(34:38):
theblossomagency.com is my
agency's website. I also manage under
vitaliknoise.com and you know, I'm just Mark
at those. Either. Either of those is great. Beautiful. Mark,
we want to thank you so. Much for taking the time to amazing conversation. We
appreciated it very much. Ah, love the convo. Thank you. Thank
(35:00):
you. So many important
points. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Eric, this was, this
was, I think, you know, essential listening for our
listeners. Absolutely essential. I mean, when, when we get down to it,
you know, Mark took us through the A, through Z's
of the things you need to be aware of. Right. Which I thought was so
(35:21):
important. One of the things that I thought was most interesting in this particular
conversation on this topic was the whole idea of finding the right
marketing approach. You know, I remember when he said, you know, I don't
necessarily think there's a silver bullet. It's very important to
try many different facets of promotion and see what works for
you. Study what's happening in real time. Testing and
(35:43):
getting the feedback early will help sort of guide you in this process.
And that's an important factor. It's not just one way. Oh, well, that didn't
work. Move on. Right. Doesn't work like that. You've got to get to know
and it's, it's to a lot of the things that we've been talking about before.
Who's your audience? Right. What are the platforms you're using?
You know, what is the story of the song about? And how can you develop
(36:05):
that and then weave that into the marketing plan? Absolutely.
Absolutely crucial. And who are you Marketing to. Right. You know,
and what tools are you using? You know, and are all of the elements within
the marketing element. I mean, you've spoken about that many times when talking
about building social media strategies and imaging and
identity and the look and you know, having it all be
(36:27):
cohesive. Correct. This is still, I think, just another level of that
on a deeper level. Yeah. And tagging on with the marketing aspect that you were
just alluding to, Rich, is also about on low budget
marketing, you know, and it's exactly what you just said with social media. Social, this
is what he said. You know, socials are free, posting is free. That part, the
organic part you can do from. If you're really have
(36:49):
really limited resources and you're really trying to get exposure, 5,
$10, $15 a day are the daily minimum spends
on most of these platforms. So, so the whole idea that you
cannot be marketing yourself or you don't have the money, it's, it's, you know,
you spend more money going to, you know, coffee Starbucks for
Christ's sake, you know, to get coffee, which, you know, I'm not a coffee drinker
(37:11):
but you know, I know it's expensive as hell to go get coffee. So that
whole idea of being able to sink money into what
you're doing is better than what 90% of the artists out
there do, which is they, they go through all this trouble. We've talked about it
a million times on the show where they record. They, you know, they, they put
together this great sounding thing. They put it out and it's just
(37:32):
sits there and they're wondering why they're not getting any, you know,
getting any wins, why there's no progress because you're not marketing it the way
you, you set to record this. Yeah. And so that's my whole point in
this for you guys that are listening. If you guys are taking the trouble of
spending all this time and working your craft and getting those songs perfect
and then you just put them out expecting something to happen. It's just not going,
(37:54):
that's just not going to happen. You know, it's, it's just that idea of
doing the same thing over and over again, the definition insanity and expecting a different,
expecting a different result, you know. So again, like you said early off on
this in our segment here that, you know, he really did go through the A
through Z's and this one was an important one. That this is the one that
everybody makes the fatal mistake on, that they don't take it to the, to the
(38:15):
finish line is you're you're recording everything and now you don't put. Have
any marketing behind it. And this gets back to them either not knowing
or haven't gone through the exercises that we're talking about about, about who your
audience is. What is the story about in this song? How can you interweave
that and make that a running theme, like a thread through the whole
marketing process? And all you got to do is study, look at artists that you
(38:37):
guys, you know, follow that you. That you admire, or even ones
that you don't like. We always mentioned Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, their
masters. You know, these guys are doing a lot of that thinking on their own.
They have people that are helping them to a certain degree. But Taylor Swift, you
could tell it's very authentic where it's coming from. And I think if you
can study it from that standpoint, either whether you're a fan or
(38:58):
not of their music, but just appreciate how they weave their
stories of what they do in their songs and how they put that into a
marketing plan, you can kind of take the cues from there and build your own
just based on that. Absolutely. And one of the key things that,
that you just said was, you know, marketing to your audience.
You have to know your audience. Exactly. You have to know your avatar. Yes, the
(39:20):
avatar. Who is the avatar that you are trying to reach. That's one of the
most important elements. And he went through so many of the steps that one
can use in order to reach your market. And I think that's.
That's absolutely crucial in terms of building a fan base. Remember, this is not
necessarily all about having hits today, hit singles. We're not in
that era. But what it is about is about authentically
(39:42):
connecting with an audience, utilizing all of
the things that have been talked about not only in this podcast, but the things
that you had mentioned with regards to identity. Who your fan base is,
is. Do you know who they are? Do you know how to reach them? And
are you revealing yourself to them? Hey insiders, thanks so much for
tuning into this episode. We really appreciate it. To get show notes,
(40:04):
links and everything that was mentioned during this interview, head on over to our
Official website at
mubutv.com/podcast/shownotes. If you're enjoying the
content and what we're doing here on the show, please subscribe to the podcast on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to
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(40:24):
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all ending with the handle mubutv, which is spelled M U B
U T V. Don't forget to catch our flagship show, the MUBUTV
(40:46):
Music Business Insider Video Series, airing every week on
YouTube at
YouTube.com/MUBUTV this show was produced and created
by Ritch Esra and Eric Knight theme music by Disciples of
Babylon. And be sure to tune in next week for another episode of the
MUBUTV Music Business Insider Podcast.
On today's podcast, we sit down with Mark Allen, music marketer,
manager and strategist whose expertise spans over two
decades in the industry. Mark has worked with thousands of artists across
genres, helping them navigate the new digital landscape. We talk about the
most essential questions every artist should ask before releasing music, how to
harness the power of data and social media to build your audience, and the
(00:22):
strategies that can turn a hobby into a sustainable career. Mark
also shares his insights on AI, algorithms and the real
reasons why so many artists are held back from success. Whether you're
just starting out or looking to level up your marketing game, this conversation
is packed with practical advice you can't afford to miss.
Insiders, are you ready? Welcome to
(00:44):
MUBUTV's Music Business Insider Podcast where our
mission is to educate, empower and engage artists and music
business professionals who are dedicated to having a successful career in
the new music industry. Here are your hosts, Ritch Esra
and Eric Knight. Welcome back, insiders, to another episode of
the MUBUTV Music Business Insider Podcast, where our
(01:06):
mission is to educate, empower and engage your music
career. On today's episode, we sit down with Mark Allen, music
marketing expert and artist manager at both Blossom Agency
and Vitalik Noise. We dive deep into the most
essential questions every artist should be asking before
releasing new music what it takes to build long term fan
(01:28):
engagement in the age of algorithms and AI, and how the right
strategy can make sure your music doesn't get lost in the
sea of endless content. Mark shares actionable tips
on leveraging data and social media, working with limited budgets,
and why knowing your passion and purpose is the foundation for
a successful career. Plus, don't miss his insights on emerging
(01:50):
technologies like AI and blockchain and the mindset
shift artists need to succeed in today's industry.
Whether you're an up and coming artist looking to break through or a seasoned pro
trying to stay ahead, this is an episode you absolutely can't
miss. But first, a word from our sponsor. Hey insiders.
Are you an aspiring musician, artist, band, or future music business
(02:13):
professional looking to take your career to the next level? Well, look no
further. At MUBUTV, we offer personalized career counseling and
coaching designed specifically for folks like you. Imagine having
both of us by your side, guiding you through every step of your music journey.
Our sessions are tailored to meet your unique needs, focusing on critical
aspects of your music career such as refining your songs, defining
(02:35):
your artist story, identifying your target audience, and enhancing your your
social media presence. Just to name a few. Whether you're just starting out
or looking to elevate your existing career. We've got you covered. Our
comprehensive approach ensures you get insights on everything
from live shows to branding and marketing strategies. We
understand that every artist is unique. That's why our coaching
(02:57):
is personalized just for you. And here's the best part. We offer
flexible coaching packages that fit any budget. Choose from individual
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(03:20):
accessible. Imagine the clarity and direction you'll gain
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(03:41):
coaching experience that will elevate your music career. That's
book.mubutv.com
hi, this is Larry Mestel. Founder and CEO of Primary Wave of
Music, and you're listening to the MUBUTV Music Business Insider
Podcast. Welcome back, insiders. Today's featured guest is Mark
Allen, music marketing expert and artist manager. This was a
(04:03):
very, very, very informative and I, I think Eric
extremely important conversation because he
touched on a lot of, I mean, talk about the deep dive,
right? He talked about the specifics that you need to be aware of as an
artist, whether you're starting out, especially if you're starting out or beginning or already have
a career in terms of what you need to be doing with relation to
(04:26):
the music industry when you're putting your music out. One of the most
interesting things that I thought he addressed, which was it showed a real
important consciousness of the world that we're in today, which I thought is very
valuable for, for you insiders, which is the whole aspect of
he said, avoid releasing music without context.
Dropping music with no strategy, he said, is a very common
(04:48):
pitfall that a lot of artists, you know, no context, no story,
no intentionality behind the releases. This is crucial. He said
all of those elements are crucial for cutting through to today. I mean,
otherwise it's just, you're just kind of out there going, hello? Right,
hello? Yeah, Is anyone there? And that, that's kind of the metaphor. Of
what it's like and that's the mantra that we've been having here. MUBUTV, which you've
(05:10):
always talked about. We've always talked about crucial ye building that story, who you are,
what you believe in what, what, what do you think your. Your fans believe in
and. Yes. And who they are and putting that into a story.
Yeah. I also thought that one of the really important areas was. And this
is getting back to kind of almost reiterating what you're talking about. Know yourself as
an artist. Before releasing music, artists should clearly understand
(05:32):
the passions, their passions, motivations, and the reasons they got into
music in the first place. And this goes back to what we usually when we
consult with our clients is the whole idea of
who you are, stand for, what you believe in, what don't
you believe in, And. And putting that into building the. The story.
It's foundational. Yeah, absolutely foundational. Yeah. Yeah. So with that,
(05:54):
insiders, sit back, relax, and enjoy our featured
conversation with Mark Allen. Mark,
welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today. You know, when an
artist or an act is starting to think about releasing their music, what are the
most essential questions they should be asking themselves before starting that
process? There's a few things. One would be, what are you
(06:15):
passionate about as far as your music, your drive, why you got into
this, what kind of rhythm or cadence do you want
to be at when releasing that music? And that could be. The
chronology of a release is different for every artist. Some artists, it's about a
single. Some artists, it's about they have an EP or an album release.
And when we sit down with somebody, it's really kind of figuring out what kind
(06:38):
of body of work they're trying to present, where they are at that.
At that stage of their career. And, you know,
there are quite a few factors, but I think those are the big ones. Mark,
thank you so much for joining us on the show. Thank you. I wanted to
ask you today, when an artist is starting to think about marketing
their music, what platforms are the most effective to help
(06:59):
them identify their audience? Yeah, so there's the social
side and there's the music side, the music discovery side. Music
discovery might be Pandora, might be your Spotify, might be your Apple. Music
data collection is a big part of what we do at
Blossom as well as Vitalik Noise. On the management side, I kind of
manage artists. I'm looking at it from both perspectives. Right. The artist team as well
(07:22):
as marketing team. And on the music side,
we look at, like, the indicators. As an artist,
you want to look at the. The platforms that are going to give you data
back that you're going to be able to kind of read into that, you know,
who's listening, how old are they? What. What are Their,
you know, what are they responding to? Right. Which is
(07:45):
something that you kind of get back from, like Spotify for artists and your
Apple music dashboard. We spend a lot of time in there, look like
really parsing through that data, discovering the audience. And
really, as an artist, it's important to kind of know who. Who's
listening, how long they're listening, where they're listening,
and be able to kind of react to that data in real time.
(08:07):
Social media is obviously a great tool for a lot of those same things.
Instagram, TikTok, YouTube are the big. Sort of like the big three.
Actually, I should say Facebook as well. So big four. We
spend a lot of time sort of helping artists sort of understand their
socials, understand the content that they should be making, you know,
with what regularity they should be making that content and
(08:28):
testing various. I hate to call it content, but it is
the visuals that accompany the music. They need to
be kind of understanding what it is they're making and what's
being responded to. So we'll do a lot of split testing of different content,
what's working, what's not. And the nice part about that is you're getting
an immediate response today, which is so important about social
(08:51):
media, that real time almost reporting that you
can do yourself as an artist. So social media is
honestly is a gift to us as artists, and you get an
immediate feedback. Yay, nay. And artists, you
know, they're. They're kind of doing themselves a disservice when they're kind of not using
those platforms to the best of their ability. So. So yeah, those are the big
(09:13):
ones. Yeah. I look at it as like an immediate test group. You can try
out things like you could try out, you know. What do you guys think of
this new merch design? Is this cool? Would you guys buy this? It's like you
immediately know. Yes, and I agree with you wholeheartedly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me ask you, Mark, how do
artists identify the pioneers or, you know, early
adapters of their work? Are there ways to do that? Yeah, I mean,
(09:37):
I think again, social media and
the early adopters to it, to an artist are really the people
that are the strongest opinions and love it
or hate it. You know, sometimes, like, you'll talk to an artist and they, they
don't like the haters. You know, they're immediately like, oh, they don't like my stuff.
And I'm, you know, that's okay, that's okay. You're gonna get. That's
(09:58):
reality. You know, sometimes people are gonna Feel strongly in the negative.
Yeah, sometimes they're gonna feel strongly in the positive. But as far as getting that
feedback, that's so important because it allows you to kind of
take it in, you know, digest that feedback, digest that
information. You're gonna see early adopters, you're gonna see people
kind of come in, climb on board early. Just make sure that
(10:20):
as you're seeing somebody sort of respond to that music, that you're
sort of super serving that early listener with the
kind of content that's gonna make them happy, that's. That they're gonna check
out that that's gonna be different than other artists.
Right. You kind of want to differentiate yourself because so many
artists are just dropping music with no strategy. So
(10:42):
if you can be that artist sort of, again, super serving them
with your brand of content and really
bringing them in, engaging with them about it, you're
going to be ahead of the game. Yeah. It's so interesting that what you just
said, because you said, you know, music with no strategy, that is one of the
great sins of the modern business today that we call.
(11:05):
Somebody once called it. You know, I think it was T Bone Burnett who said,
you know, there's so much music out there that will never be heard because it's
music without context. It's just like. It's like spam
that's thrown at you on your phone every day that you just delete, delete, delete,
delete, delete. There's no sense of, you know. Yeah. Why would you go through that
trouble of recording and spending your time and money? And then it's like, you put
it on like, well, if it doesn't do, it's like, okay. And it's like. Then
(11:27):
you're wondering why your career is tanking or, you know, stalling, which is. The
difference between a hobby and a career. Right. Which is very, very, very
much what Rich says all the time. You know, it's very good. If you want
to do this as a hobby, it's a great hobby. But if you're doing this
for real, you. You got to really be in it for real. And you got
to learn what you said. You've got to learn why you need,
(11:48):
who you are, what you're about, where you're coming from, what do you stand for,
all of that. And for those that are getting haters, that's when you know you're
doing something right. So for everybody out there, that's. That's getting the hate.
Just know that you're on the right track. Absolutely. Mark, what
strategy should artists be adopting to build long term
engagement with their fans or does it depend on the specific artist and
(12:10):
genre? No, the artist genre should not be a
factor as much as, I mean there are subtle,
there are some subtle differences in genre, but I think
ultimately the rules of the, of engagement are
pretty similar. We, I, you know, I work with country artists, I work with jazz
artists, I work with rock, I work with electronic. I think like,
(12:32):
I mean there's so many ways to answer this question, but I would say that
the, today you kind of have to understand the
landscape of what's happening right now. The boots on the ground, as far
as you're utilizing a platform, you know, these platforms that
have these algorithms, right, that are these. And we'll, I'm sure we'll talk about
this a little more in the interview, but about AI and some of the
(12:54):
curation that's going on through these services and it's so important
to sort of play, I hate to say play ball with some of this,
some of the things that were, that are going on because we've got such an
opportunity today to, to give people the music, to
distribute our music so quickly. AI and some of these
platforms have really leveled the playing field for a lot of us. Like
(13:15):
we're, you know, used to be you needed a record label, you needed some
big, you know, machine behind you. Now getting the music out there
to people is just so, is so simple. And I know it's
cliche to mention things like, you know, the Napster moment and the Spotify
moment. You know, these things are touchstone moments in music marketing and
music availability. But since we have this opportunity right now
(13:38):
to kind of get our music out there in such a quick way,
it's important to just sort of harness the
availability and to play with the algorithm. Like
use that to your advantage. Spotify has created these tools
to curate music to your perfect listener. They
know, I mean, it's crazy today how closely they can get, you know,
(14:01):
to your perfect, the ideal listener for your music. Use that
to your advantage. Market yourself in a way that's going to help
that algorithm find, you know, find you and make you
stand out. Let me ask you, you know, for artists who have
limited financial resources, how can they identify the most
effective platforms or channels to start promoting their work? And are there
(14:23):
specific metrics or indicators that can guide them initially?
Yeah, I mean, socials are free, posting
is free. That part, the organic part, you can
do. You can pick up your phone, you can start, you
can, you can start making content, you can Talk to your audience for free.
That's great. There are. From a, from a. If you really
(14:45):
have limited resources and you're really trying to get exposure and you want to use
paid marketing that, you know, $5, $10, $15 a day or
the daily minimum spends on most of these platforms. So I always tell artists
that they kind of get scared at first when they see big numbers of like
what some companies are charging for, like sort of their promotional services.
I'm like, you can kind of get in the door pretty, for a
(15:08):
pretty inexpensive amount. I don't necessarily
think there's a silver bullet to any of this. I think it's very important
to kind of try many different facets of
promotion and see what works for you. I don't think
that and every artist is going to have their own little formula, but it
is really important that they, you know, that they study what's
(15:30):
happening in real time. The way we were talking about testing before and kind
of surveying, getting that feedback early, that will sort of guide you as far as
what kind of content to make, what people are really enjoying. And as
you're seeing that you can Bob and
Weeb and even flow your career to kind of
meet like what the audience wants. And again, if you're just making it for
(15:52):
yourself, if it's just a hobby, that's one thing. But if you're trying to build
a career, you need to study, you need to research, you need to
understand the algorithm and deliver in some
consistent way, whether that be social media
or, and, or releasing music. Let me ask you,
Mark, do you find that artists today are more knowledgeable and
(16:15):
informed about data and the marketing of their music than in the past?
Yes, I've noticed a huge shift. That's a great
question. Even in my job, I have because I've been in
the music industry for 20 plus years. I think in the past five years,
and I think it corresponds to Covid to some extent. We all
kind of hunkered down. We all got really in the groove with these online
(16:38):
platforms in a way that we never had before. It just forced us
to be really mindful of what was happening on digital
platforms. And I think artists are keenly aware of a lot of the
sort of the demographic data, the save to listener ratio of
them. I'm getting people now asking me about the click through,
you know, cost per acquisition of a follower, things like that, things that
(17:00):
I didn't think I would hear from an artist
talking to me. Now I'm getting a lot of artists that really
understand the Digital marketing landscape and the lingo. It's
exciting. On one hand, it's a little crazy that we've all become
data scientists. That's a little crazy.
We're not supposed to be that as musicians. But it's great to hear it.
(17:23):
I'm all for it. I love artists that are really taking
the time and the initiative to learn the
process, study the data, and really kind of help
themselves. Mark, me and Ritch are actually AI. You're talking to two
AI agents as we speak. I know.
Well, it's funny because speaking on that, and you had brought it up a
(17:46):
few minutes ago, what emerging technologies on the horizon, whether
it be AI or blockchain, et cetera, do you feel will be playing
a more prominent role when it comes to digital marketing and fan engagement?
Yeah, it's. It's really interesting. It's. There's, there's. There's sort
of a really pivotal moment is happening now with curation.
Yeah. You know, a. This sort of AI has just
(18:08):
supercharged this whole thing. We saw it beginning to
happen with Apple Music and Spotify years ago, you know, back 2014,
2015, 2018, in sort of the golden. I consider it the
golden era of Spotify where it was truly about the music. But
now that we've kind of. We've hit this sort of saturation point.
There's so much music, a hundred thousand plus
(18:30):
tracks a day, you know, being uploaded a day. How do you cut through the
noise? You know, and it's like sort of this thing of like, it's this golden
opportunity to get your music out there and have an algorithm that understands
us really well. That's what it's really good at. It's great
at really defining your niche
audience. You have to kind of play ball with that as an
(18:52):
artist. Don't fight the algorithm. People hear algorithm, hear
AI, and they think bad robots, you know, they think bad.
But for us, it's kind of a brilliant thing. It's amazing at
how good it is at really finding your audience. You're a.
Let's say you're an indie rock band and you sound a little bit in that
Joy division, like Interpol sound, let's say. It's amazing
(19:13):
that it kind of will direct the fans right away in
a very specific way to those.
To those influences very quickly if you do things right. That's
amazing. You know, it's a little freaky because on the fan
end, like, for example, myself, you know, growing up in like 80s
90s, whatever, I had to go out and discover music I
(19:35):
had to go to the record store. I had to watch mtv, watch
all the, you know, programs on television, press radio. It was a. It
was a long process. Music discovery was a process, and it.
Was a lot smaller. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Now it's just being handed to you on
a silver platter now. Yeah, Yeah. A lot of it. Yeah. So, like,
you know, it's great. Does hurt my heart a
(19:58):
little bit, because part of the joy was finding
the music, and when you found something, you were so happy. Now you can
literally, within five minutes, find every artist
that ever made music in your genre and
listen to it all. It's a brilliant thing, this music discovery, this
AI this is huge for us,
(20:21):
but we just have to make sure that we really
handle it with care. I think, actually, to me,
the bigger issue with the technology actually is on the production side
when it comes to music creation. When you talk about AI tools,
handling the mixing, the mastering, production, like, sort of some of the
vocal stuff that I see happening, I'm not. I'm a little scared
(20:44):
of that, because that is, you know, once you kind of leave your music
creation up to a computer,
there is a certain sense of, like, losing the humanity in music.
Right. That freaks me out a lot more than on the marketing side. The
marketing side, I think, is. Is we're great. We're in a great position. We
have a wealth of information and data out there. As a musician, as
(21:07):
a. As a team, whether it's your label or your management,
you've got more at your disposal than ever. So I feel great
about that. It's just on the creation side, a little scary. Hey,
insiders, we hope that you've been enjoying our featured conversation.
Stay tuned because we've got so much value coming your way. But before we
dive back in, a word from our sponsor. Hey, Eric, as an artist,
(21:30):
what do you find are the most challenging aspects to a music
career, especially when you're starting out? Well, I think one of the first things is
just trying to get the direction of who you are as an artist, where you
want to go, where you want to be. And, you know, we've talked about it
on the show a lot. Who is your target audience? Who you are, Who. What
do you stand for? What do you believe in? What do you think would resonate
(21:50):
with an audience? And so those are some of the things that I would feel
being a new artist. Obviously, what I know now is different because I know these
things, but for people that are out there, like our audience, that don't have necessarily
any direction to Go would be the first things that I would start off with.
And having the songs incorporate those elements
that you're speaking of into it, that's so important today. Yeah.
(22:11):
And I think that's one of the reasons why we started MUBUTV and why we
started this new consulting service that we're offering to all of our insiders out
there. Because that is another one of the big things. I mean, that is the
big thing is like having the great songs. That's what it really starts off. Our
friend Don Grierson always said it always starts with a great song. So
that's probably. Besides putting together what your audience and what your
(22:32):
target audience is, is the single most important thing. Where are your songs at
currently today? Are you collaborating with people? Are you trying to
go out to networking events where you can connect with other songwriters and stuff like
that? So yeah. And what are your strengths exactly? You know,
are you a strong lyric writer? Are you a strong melody writer? Are
you a strong musician? A player. Right. You know, and it's really important
(22:54):
to get really strong clarity on those issues before
proceeding. I totally agree, Ritch. And you know, with our consulting services,
we offer myriad of different packages that we've made it super affordable
for everybody. So, you know, if you guys are interested out there and connecting with
us on a coaching call, you can visit
book.mubutv.com and start off with a free
(23:15):
15 minute discovery call. Well, yeah, absolutely. That we start with an
initial 15 minute call where we can get a sense of who you are, what
are the issues that you specifically have and want to work on.
Exactly. And we can go from there. Absolutely. Yeah. And we tailor everything
to your needs. It's not like a cookie cutter thing. We kind of really want
to get to know who you are as an artist, where you at today, what's
(23:36):
the snapshot of you as an artist today and then start trying to
craft something that's tailor made for you. So again, if you're interested, Visit
us at book.mubutv.com for your 15 minute
discovery call. Hi, this is Karan Bhatnagar, head of artist and creative strategy at
Hook. Are you an insider? I am. Subscribe now.
Yeah, we were talking to somebody this morning from Brazil who has
(23:58):
a whole streaming platform at Stream, it's called
and he was talking about technology. Now that's coming down the pipe
that he's been looking at in the AI field, which is how you reminded me
of this, where the artist will put music up, it
immediately will be compared to 150,000 other
tracks of that type and audience analytics
(24:20):
of that type. And on the fly at that moment, write a
marketing plan to reach those people based on what you
were just saying. Thing you remember when Fernando was talking about that, I mean
like literally, like within the moment of putting that up there, the track,
all that data or information becomes available. Like
275 data points that they're collecting. Correct. Public information.
(24:42):
Not private, but it's public. On the points you were just making.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's really astonishing. It is. Let me ask you, Mark,
throughout your career you've worked with thousands of artists and, and what do
you feel holds artists back from success in their careers?
Well, one thing is self doubt. I think it's very easy to
not think you're good enough. An insecurity of
(25:05):
just purely. Whether it's, you know, I noticed a lot recently, one thing, one
trend is people that produce a lot of music but they don't
play live. They're afraid of the stage. I think it has
to do. There's a socialization that's not happening with a lot of musicians
that needs to start happening. I mean people need to get out, you know, get
out there. I think it's the isolation, like you said with the Pandemic. Yeah,
(25:27):
yeah. They're a little uncomfortable being in front of a live
audience, but. And I think that's really where you battle test your music. You
know, that's so. It's so important to play live. I always encourage
artists to get out there, play even a couple of shows. Don't.
You don't have to be touring. People say, oh, you know, going on the road.
No, just play some hometown shows. You know, get out there,
(25:49):
hit the stage. If you love it, you could do more of it. I think
that's so insecurity is one another
is their personal life. I think a lot of people kind of.
This is not talked about a lot, but essentially they let a lot of
those roadblocks of interpersonal relationships that they're
having, their parents, their financial situation,
(26:11):
they. They let these sort of dictate to them what they
can and can't do. And I think it's easier than ever to make
music, you know, and put it out. There's a very low barrier to
entry. You can use Distrokid and I mean and
Tunecore and some of these services. It's almost free. It's almost
literally free. So I think that people are holding
(26:33):
themselves back in those two ways. Those are really big ones.
Yeah, I'll Go with those two. Yeah. You know, Mark, throughout
your life, have there been any books or films
or documentaries that have been particularly inspirational to you,
professionally speaking, that you could recommend to our listeners?
God, anything that influenced you. Yeah, anything that
(26:55):
influenced me There. I need
there. Oh, my God. I'm. There was a book about
ideas that. And I. I'm so. I'm bad. I can't
remember the title. I mean, there's obviously Donald Don Passman's,
you know, music business, and I started with that. And that's, you know, cliche again,
but. Oh, God, I will look this up for you guys. There's a book about
(27:18):
ideas, and I'll just give you the idea of the idea of the ideas.
Yeah. Just so you know, what is. It's just really about making
things stick. Made to stick. Made to stick, I think, is made to stick.
That book kind of gave me. You know, you kind
of have to implant something on
the other side. You need. As an artist, and here's why it's
(27:40):
important. I'll just get to. The important part is that as an artist, you
need to know what message you're conveying. Right? And I think a
lot of artists lose the plot. They get into a lot of the nitty gritty
and even some of the things that we talked about, data, right. They get really
into almost the data becomes more important than the
music itself and the message itself. You have to define your niche. You have
(28:02):
to define your voice and stick to that plot.
And that book Made to Stick is sort of, you know, one book
on this topic that's important where you kind of.
You have to be very direct and
very, you know, perceptive to understand what it
is that's going to persuade somebody to actually come into your fold
(28:24):
and become a fan of yourself. And if you're able to understand
that you're going to be a successful artist, you're going to differentiate
yourself and. And so ideas matter, you know,
what you. What you are about matters, you know. Mark,
what advice do you have for artists who are committed to building a career in
music today? I would say, you know,
(28:46):
you kind of. Of like, make. Make stuff, right? Get up every
day and make stuff. Like, you know, it's almost any business. I would
give this advice to anybody, even in, you know, in a totally different field as
well. Wake up. If it's something you're passionate about, just
get up. Make. Finish that the bridge to that song that
you were, you know, tinkering with for months, you know,
(29:09):
just get up. Like. Like attack it, you know, Every day, attack it
little by little. Make stuff, make. Make videos, make
lots of content around your music. Build world building. It's so
much about. World building is marketing now. Every aspect of it.
Think about your merch, think about the finish line, and then reverse
engineer that, right? So, like, that's a big thing that I talk about
(29:32):
is like sort of start with the release. What. What do you envision
with that release? What do you want the fan experience to be? And
then reverse engineer that experience to create the environment
of success. Like, create. Create the full package for the. For
people. You know, make it exciting, make it a moment. Like,
a lot of artists lose that. I mean, because it is very
(29:54):
anticlimactic. One thing that I do understand about being an
artist is the day of release. It comes.
It's a little bit anticlimactic. It's like you're excited.
Your friends, your family are excited. Nobody else cares,
right? I mean, for the most part, it's just kind of a
thankless thing. But if you kind of did all of the
(30:16):
right things, if you put your heart and soul into all these different pieces
of the puzzle, you put it together, you built it.
It's more than the release day. It's a whole cycle. It's
an exciting. You can build a world,
and the release itself is almost. You kind of take the
emphasis off that one moment and you create many
(30:38):
different moments that are really exciting for the fan journey. And
that's really what we're trying to create. I always tell people, you know,
release day, let it just kind of don't put so much
pressure on that. The first 20. I get artists all the time.
I thought the first 48 hours are the most important. No,
you know, there's records that are broken. Like music tracks that
(31:00):
are broken on radio and other platforms. Months, if not
even years after the track comes out. You have many
opportunities to promote your music. So, yeah, I feel really passionate about
this one because I think artists are getting the wrong message from
a lot of people in the business. They're telling them, I think because
of. Maybe it's money, maybe it's their own self interest. They're trying
(31:22):
to, you know, like, you know, but. But they really need to look
at the long game. I think you have hit something in the head because
95% of the artists. And this is where we get back to the people spending
all their time recording. They spent all this effort getting the song great, and
then they release it and they walk away from it. It's like you said, the
anti and that's where the work just begins. You're just at
(31:45):
zero, man. You just hit it to neutral. Let's start driving the ship
forward. And that's where most of these artists and everybody, the. That's listening
need to remember that this is a long game. You're running a marathon, not a
race. You know, this is a long, long marathon. So I
think building on those things and what you're saying is so important.
So it's really interesting that you're talking about that, because that's where I think a
(32:07):
lot of the artists are failing. They spend all this time creating the product. They
put it out, and it's like. Like you said, the anticlimactic. Nothing is happening.
Cause nobody else cares. Well, because nobody else knows yet. Let's get these
algorithms to start learning who you are, are. Start building on that
early, you know, kind of success, and then build, build, build, build, build.
So, yeah, it takes so much longer, as you've been pointing out.
(32:29):
And, you know, one of the things that. That I've gleaned from the conversation with
you, which is really interesting, is you've illustrated
throughout this conversation the volume of
content, whether it's video or marketing or
socials or communication or music or. Or
whatever that is necessary today to actually
(32:51):
bring attention to something. It's not like the old days of, you know,
here's my album, and I'll see you. And that's overwhelmed with the artist. But the
great thing is, is because of AI and all these things that everybody is scared
about now, you can make content very quickly. You
know, a couple of years ago, we're doing. You couldn't do it. Now we're at
a time, thank God, that we're living in this time, because now you can. Can
(33:12):
do it. So it. You. You just got to get out there and just, you
know, make it happen. It's very easy now for you to do it. There's like,
literally no excuses. Yeah. Yeah, precisely. I
hope. Yeah, I hope artists out there understand, you know, anybody would like listening,
that you can do it. You know, take a positive approach. You
know, don't get down. You know, Rich is saying, you know, there's so many.
(33:33):
It's such a vast amount of jobs that we.
Of roles that. That we play as musicians today. We're, you know, on the
business side, on the content side, you're. You're everything. You know, you. You
are a small business. And I think that, like, just
kind of take the bull by the horns, wake up, do a little bit every
day. Yeah. Put your you know, put 30 minutes into your craft. Put
(33:55):
30 minutes into the business side or the marketing side a day. It
will pay off in the long run. Speaking of great books, there's a great book
called the One Thing that I recommend to everybody that, that's,
it's talking about bringing that, that, that. It's. It was written by that
famous Will Keller, the, the real estate company.
And it's such a brilliant book. It's a book that I go to every year.
(34:17):
It's an obvious thing. It's just focus on the one thing, one thing that's going
to get you there. Putting that rock up the mountain and pushing it over. Yeah.
Keller Williams. Keller Williams, yes. Keller Williams, yeah. The real estate. That's
an incredible book. I urge everybody to get that book. It's an amazing book.
Absolutely. Mark, What. Where can our listeners reach you? Is it through your
website? Is it through socials? Sure. The, you know,
(34:38):
theblossomagency.com is my
agency's website. I also manage under
vitaliknoise.com and you know, I'm just Mark
at those. Either. Either of those is great. Beautiful. Mark,
we want to thank you so. Much for taking the time to amazing conversation. We
appreciated it very much. Ah, love the convo. Thank you. Thank
(35:00):
you. So many important
points. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Eric, this was, this
was, I think, you know, essential listening for our
listeners. Absolutely essential. I mean, when, when we get down to it,
you know, Mark took us through the A, through Z's
of the things you need to be aware of. Right. Which I thought was so
(35:21):
important. One of the things that I thought was most interesting in this particular
conversation on this topic was the whole idea of finding the right
marketing approach. You know, I remember when he said, you know, I don't
necessarily think there's a silver bullet. It's very important to
try many different facets of promotion and see what works for
you. Study what's happening in real time. Testing and
(35:43):
getting the feedback early will help sort of guide you in this process.
And that's an important factor. It's not just one way. Oh, well, that didn't
work. Move on. Right. Doesn't work like that. You've got to get to know
and it's, it's to a lot of the things that we've been talking about before.
Who's your audience? Right. What are the platforms you're using?
You know, what is the story of the song about? And how can you develop
(36:05):
that and then weave that into the marketing plan? Absolutely.
Absolutely crucial. And who are you Marketing to. Right. You know,
and what tools are you using? You know, and are all of the elements within
the marketing element. I mean, you've spoken about that many times when talking
about building social media strategies and imaging and
identity and the look and you know, having it all be
(36:27):
cohesive. Correct. This is still, I think, just another level of that
on a deeper level. Yeah. And tagging on with the marketing aspect that you were
just alluding to, Rich, is also about on low budget
marketing, you know, and it's exactly what you just said with social media. Social, this
is what he said. You know, socials are free, posting is free. That part, the
organic part you can do from. If you're really have
(36:49):
really limited resources and you're really trying to get exposure, 5,
$10, $15 a day are the daily minimum spends
on most of these platforms. So, so the whole idea that you
cannot be marketing yourself or you don't have the money, it's, it's, you know,
you spend more money going to, you know, coffee Starbucks for
Christ's sake, you know, to get coffee, which, you know, I'm not a coffee drinker
(37:11):
but you know, I know it's expensive as hell to go get coffee. So that
whole idea of being able to sink money into what
you're doing is better than what 90% of the artists out
there do, which is they, they go through all this trouble. We've talked about it
a million times on the show where they record. They, you know, they, they put
together this great sounding thing. They put it out and it's just
(37:32):
sits there and they're wondering why they're not getting any, you know,
getting any wins, why there's no progress because you're not marketing it the way
you, you set to record this. Yeah. And so that's my whole point in
this for you guys that are listening. If you guys are taking the trouble of
spending all this time and working your craft and getting those songs perfect
and then you just put them out expecting something to happen. It's just not going,
(37:54):
that's just not going to happen. You know, it's, it's just that idea of
doing the same thing over and over again, the definition insanity and expecting a different,
expecting a different result, you know. So again, like you said early off on
this in our segment here that, you know, he really did go through the A
through Z's and this one was an important one. That this is the one that
everybody makes the fatal mistake on, that they don't take it to the, to the
(38:15):
finish line is you're you're recording everything and now you don't put. Have
any marketing behind it. And this gets back to them either not knowing
or haven't gone through the exercises that we're talking about about, about who your
audience is. What is the story about in this song? How can you interweave
that and make that a running theme, like a thread through the whole
marketing process? And all you got to do is study, look at artists that you
(38:37):
guys, you know, follow that you. That you admire, or even ones
that you don't like. We always mentioned Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, their
masters. You know, these guys are doing a lot of that thinking on their own.
They have people that are helping them to a certain degree. But Taylor Swift, you
could tell it's very authentic where it's coming from. And I think if you
can study it from that standpoint, either whether you're a fan or
(38:58):
not of their music, but just appreciate how they weave their
stories of what they do in their songs and how they put that into a
marketing plan, you can kind of take the cues from there and build your own
just based on that. Absolutely. And one of the key things that,
that you just said was, you know, marketing to your audience.
You have to know your audience. Exactly. You have to know your avatar. Yes, the
(39:20):
avatar. Who is the avatar that you are trying to reach. That's one of the
most important elements. And he went through so many of the steps that one
can use in order to reach your market. And I think that's.
That's absolutely crucial in terms of building a fan base. Remember, this is not
necessarily all about having hits today, hit singles. We're not in
that era. But what it is about is about authentically
(39:42):
connecting with an audience, utilizing all of
the things that have been talked about not only in this podcast, but the things
that you had mentioned with regards to identity. Who your fan base is,
is. Do you know who they are? Do you know how to reach them? And
are you revealing yourself to them? Hey insiders, thanks so much for
tuning into this episode. We really appreciate it. To get show notes,
(40:04):
links and everything that was mentioned during this interview, head on over to our
Official website at
mubutv.com/podcast/shownotes. If you're enjoying the
content and what we're doing here on the show, please subscribe to the podcast on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to
podcasts from. And don't forget to rate and review our show at iTunes. Five
(40:24):
star. Our reviews are always welcome and help to ensure that Our
podcast stands out on the top rated and new and noteworthy charts
on itunes and our space. You can also find us at social media
at Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter X,
all ending with the handle mubutv, which is spelled M U B
U T V. Don't forget to catch our flagship show, the MUBUTV
(40:46):
Music Business Insider Video Series, airing every week on
YouTube at
YouTube.com/MUBUTV this show was produced and created
by Ritch Esra and Eric Knight theme music by Disciples of
Babylon. And be sure to tune in next week for another episode of the
MUBUTV Music Business Insider Podcast.
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