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You're at the mercy now of the consumer, listening, liking it, and then from them going

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out of their way to check you out.

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And in the beginning stages, you don't want to leave yourself up to the consumer to do

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all that.

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You need to have as much control in that aspect, along with where you're driving traffic from

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tour.

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I think being able to control that is super important, really, and knowing that there's

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tools out there that give you that ability, you want to leverage those as much as you

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can in the beginning.

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And scale your business in that way so that you can set yourself up to actually generate

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a return on investment, which is the whole point of why you're investing into marketing

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in the first place.

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When you're approaching it from a business perspective, that's the end goal, period.

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What's going on, everybody?

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My name is Elliott Towsley, and welcome to another episode of the Cutting Through Podcast.

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Today we're going to be diving deep with Gary Soles.

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He is the brains behind the marketing company Effective Exposure.

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He's here to spill some tea on the music marketing world, how to crack the code without

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breaking the bank, and we're talking about what works, what doesn't, and how to make

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every dollar count in the crazy music business.

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Thank you for listening and supporting the show.

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Let's get to my interview with Gary Soles.

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Straight from the horse's mouth, why don't you give an introduction of who you are and

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what Effective Exposure is and what they do and how we ended up here today?

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Absolutely.

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Yeah.

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So my name is Gary Soles, and I am the founder of Effective Exposure.

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We are a music marketing agency that I went ahead and started back in November of 2020.

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That's when I went ahead and launched.

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So we've been out now for about two years.

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We're a young agency, but I've been in the music game now for, I could say 15 years now.

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I'm 30.

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I took music seriously at a very young age when I was 15, I would say, and I started

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probably creating music when I was like 12.

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So through that experience of me being in the music industry and trying to operate as

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a business, I went through a lot of trial and error.

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You know what I mean?

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And through that trial and error, I reached a crossroad in my life a couple of years ago

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prior to launching the agency where I realized that I had a lot of value to offer to up and

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coming musicians, just like myself, that are trying to get into this game and trying to

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make the best choices possible, right, specifically in the music marketing space, because that's

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the most important part towards building a successful business in this industry.

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And so that was pretty much like my intention behind starting the agency, because I found

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outside of creating music myself, marketing and the analytical aspects of music, I found

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that that was also a passion of mine.

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And so I wanted to go ahead and dive deep into that and be a value to my network.

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You know, and that's that's pretty much how, you know, how I started the agency.

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And, you know, two years later, you know, I have a team of about, I think, six, seven

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right individuals.

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And, you know, right now we're helping quite a few musicians, you know, and it's great,

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you know, building these campaigns and just pretty much guiding musicians through the process

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and helping them be efficient with their, you know, with their marketing budget and

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maximizing their marketing budget as much as possible.

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That's awesome.

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I think you get a lot of experience from actually going through it yourself.

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Even like, I have somewhat of a similar story where like, you know, I started as a musician

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just because I enjoyed it.

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But then like, eventually, you kind of learn, like, if you can solve the problems, even

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on a small level on your own, how do I book a show, you know, like, maybe you don't need

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to perform at the Grammys to know how to book a small show.

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And I think I myself, I never did anything too big or noteworthy when it comes to the

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music business, like, you know, nothing too big or anything like that.

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But like, I did learn some of the small hurdles that it's almost like a coach, like if you

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play football, even if I wasn't like, if I'm not a Hall of Famer, like, I just kind of

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know what it's like to be a football player in that example.

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And that's obviously, you know, some of the greatest coaches, you know, Bill Belichick,

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and I don't think he ever really played, nothing professional.

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Greg Popovich maybe played in college or something.

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But like, so of course, there's exemptions to the rule.

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But I think in general, especially the music space, just knowing what it's like to be the

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musician and knowing what it's like to be pulled in a hundred different ways, whether

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it's how often you release a song, how do you promote it, who do you promote it to,

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how much money do I spend?

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You know, it seems like even the people with the best of intentions have these like cookie

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cutter generic answers that they kind of either just heard somewhere or they assume that's

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how it's supposed to be.

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And I feel like because there is no one right way to find success in the music business,

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a lot of musicians are still looking for like that step by step formula without even realizing

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that at the beginning, it's like, we got to kind of blow this up and start with an experiment

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and kind of start to figure out what works for you, not like what 37 different musicians

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should be doing in general in some theory.

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Exactly.

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And so like, just kind of like coming from being a musician to like now, I'm the same

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age, I'm 30.

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And like, as I got older, I realized I was like, well, okay, maybe my music career path

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is changing, but I still have some insight that I could offer the 22 year old who's taking

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it really seriously now.

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Where I really connected with Gary is we both started as musicians and kind of became marketers.

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Neither of us set out to become good at marketing for the sake of being good at marketing.

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We ended up learning a lot about marketing because we were trying to market our music.

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And I think that is somewhat of a unique perspective in the marketing world, at least for the music

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marketing world.

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So we're going to dive a little bit more into what you can learn as an artist and apply

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it to the marketing world.

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We're on the same page there.

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And just to elaborate on those exemptions, you talk about those coaches.

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It's funny that you mentioned that because there is like a video that I created where

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I touched upon something like that, where when I first started the agency, my biggest

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demon was that like, well, how am I going to get people to trust what I'm talking about

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if I don't have an incredible resume to show successfully in this industry?

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But to your point, whether you were a football player at one point or you weren't, there's

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people that actually study the game and they study it from a perspective that is very unique.

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And those people are worth listening to.

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To your point, those coaches that you're talking about, the players listen to them and they

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ended up getting some championships out of it.

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You know what I mean?

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So it goes to show it's not just about having an incredible resume.

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It's also about studying or doing your research and experimenting.

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And then people that take that walk and that process, those are people that are much worthy.

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It's worth listening to them because they're going to help you evade a lot of the BS in

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the industry that you're trying to find success, particularly here in the music industry.

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So when you were saying at the beginning, how do I get people to learn that I know what

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I'm talking about?

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Like, what were some of the strategies or I'm sure you tried 10 things and maybe seven

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of them didn't work at all, but you found three that did.

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Can you tell me a little bit about that process or did you get lucky and kind of say, I'm

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going to do it this way and it worked or was there a bit of an experiment?

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Honestly, I just leveraged my strengths and what I know what I'm an expert at.

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I leveraged what I have proof of.

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So I started off with ad campaigns, running Facebook and Instagram ads.

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I've been able to get positive results for myself when I was experimenting and I was

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learning marketing for me as Gary Sol's the artist.

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And so I leveraged that as much as possible because I had proof.

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It wasn't just something that I read out from a book and then I try to apply it and

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tell people about it.

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No, I actually have experience and so that's what I leveraged that big time.

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And then from then on, I built off of that, then I was able to gain more experience towards

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helping artists and seeing results and seeing what was going on and then implementing my

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knowledge into the business itself because I got to market the business too.

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You know what I mean?

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I leveraged that as well.

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Hey, look, I'm finding success with the business using the same marketing fundamentals.

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At the end of the day, marketing is marketing.

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The fundamentals can be applied within any business in any industry.

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And so that's really what I leveraged for the most part is what I knew for a fact was

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the right thing.

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When you say so, you're coming from a place where you're marketing your own music, right?

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You initially have some sort of emotional connection to it.

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It's your music.

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Did you find that when it's still your business, but what were some of the things that you

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picked up on when you noticed, okay, hey, marketing music, XYZ works really well.

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But when it comes to this service, ABC seems to work well.

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Did you see that there are differences or do you kind of stick to the same thing no

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matter what it is that's being marketed?

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It definitely varies, taking a look at the analytics, understanding the sales cycles

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of the industries.

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For example, at the end of the day, when you look into the details, marketing agency or

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service-based business versus marketing a musician, there's going to be a lot of differences

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there, 1,000%.

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But as far as the fundamentals of reaching a cold audience, optimizing for specific behavior,

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that behavior coincides with a desirable action towards your business, and then capturing

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that, redirecting that traffic, retargeting, all of those fundamental aspects, those core

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pieces of marketing work essentially throughout any business or any brand within any industry.

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It's just now the details do change, obviously.

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You can't get on a call with a fan and trying to get them to buy your merch.

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That's the difference, you know what I mean?

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Things like that change, along with other details, but again, the fundamentals do apply.

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When you see it work, then that provides confidence in knowing when you are speaking with a musician,

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you have the foresight because you have the understanding through your own failures and

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knowing clearly what didn't work.

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I think that's funny.

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I think so much of the value that I can offer a musician, say, who's starting out and starting

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to take this whole thing seriously, I really feel like 80% of the value that I can provide

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is in what not to do, like, don't do this.

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I tried this.

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Don't do this.

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Don't spend your money here.

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Don't do that.

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Don't do this.

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It's one thing to just be like, I don't like it, but I think, say, oh, don't do this.

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I don't like it.

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A smart musician will say why, and is it just that you don't like it, or is there a reason

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to not promote here?

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I can see the appeal for somebody who is an artist who's just starting out, say their

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first EP is coming out, and nobody knows who they are, but they're considering spending

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that two grand to have a banner ad on...

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World star hip hop.

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Yeah, world star, exactly.

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I can see the allure of that, but the reason I would never say, oh, yeah, go do that is

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because for that particular example, that only works if somebody's...

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If I'm a fan of Wiz Khalifa, I already know I'm a fan of Wiz Khalifa, and I'm on World

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Star that day, and I see the announcement that he's got an album coming out, me already

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know I like Wiz, great, now I'm aware of it, and I'll look for it sooner or later.

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But if you're some artist I've never heard of, it's some banner ad, and I don't read

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it at all.

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Exactly.

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It doesn't appeal any interest to you whatsoever.

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Right.

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And a lot of, like I find, at least for a lot of the conversations I have with musicians

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is in saying, because some people might come to me, hey, I've saved up a bunch of money,

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I'm thinking about doing this on World Star, what do you think?

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And I'll be like, no, because these reasons.

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Not just no, that's dumb, or no, I don't like it, no, you should do this.

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Exactly.

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I think that's a part of it is a lot of musicians come in, what should I do as if someone like

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you or me has a secret code that like, aha, well, since you asked, here's the secret code.

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There is no set path.

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What worked for Russ 10 years ago is not necessarily going to work for you now.

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Correct.

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Or like what worked for Michael Jackson in 1986 is not necessarily going to work for

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you now.

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100%.

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100%.

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Now, I mean, to just elaborate on that, when it comes to advising musicians, and perfect

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example, as you mentioned, like should I spend this money on a World Star hip hop or on this

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package of getting on BET jams, MTV, I'll get in my music video, played in these channels.

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You can go ahead and you can't, for what worked for somebody, it might not work for you and

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vice versa, but what I've noticed is that there is some type of fundamentals that when

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are applied, it's going to work with everybody.

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The fundamentals, what I've realized is in the very beginning of marketing music, you

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want to be able to have as much control as possible with how you're going to place your

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product in front of consumers, you know what I mean, and how that's going to go about controlling

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the ability to actually not just become a listener, but be able to go ahead and become

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a fan and an interested buyer at one point.

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When you talk about the banners or the BET jams or paying to get on playlists, and that's

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your main focus of fan base building, the way that I see it is you're at the mercy

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now of the consumer listening, liking it, and then from them going out of their way

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to check you out.

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And in the beginning stages, you don't want to leave yourself up to the consumer to do

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all that.

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You need to have as much control in that aspect, along with where you're driving traffic from

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true.

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I think being able to control that is super powerful or super important really, and knowing

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that there's tools out there that give you that ability, you want to leverage those as

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much as you can in the beginning and scale your business in that way so that you can

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set yourself up to actually generate a return on investment, which is the whole point of

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why you're investing into marketing in the first place.

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When you're approaching it from a business perspective, that's the end goal, period.

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And so later down the line, as you implement these aspects and you are continuing to grow,

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then that's when you have an audience that you can influence.

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Now you can go ahead and spend the $2,000, like you said, on a world star or getting

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your music video circulated in these MTVs and these BETs, et cetera, PR, for example,

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trying to land on the fader, double Excel.

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You can do that later down the line when you've already built an audience that has bought

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into you, that want to buy from you, have already bought in from you, and now you're

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just trying to build more trust.

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Up until that point, there's really no point.

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And I believe that that's a fundamental right there that I'm talking about back to the main

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point of this.

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If you leverage that, it's going to work from artist to artist.

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Now the details, for example, there's TikTok influencer marketing, et cetera.

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That can, depending on your brand, depending on your style of music, that might work for

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you, that might not work for you.

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But as long as you stick to those fundamentals and understanding what the real goal is at

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hand, which is generating a return on investment, that's going to work from artist to artist,

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no matter what style of music, genre, et cetera.

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Oh yeah.

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I think the fundamentals there, you got to have those in place.

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I often say it's like artists want to go build a skyscraper and they don't build a foundation

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first.

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Correct.

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They just try to build, and then the wind comes and it knocks it right over.

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What are some of the fundamentals you see that folks have blind spots for?

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One of the fundamentals is, for example, they're trying to go ahead and sell merch immediately.

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They want to drop an album and sell merch immediately, and they don't understand that

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you have to go through the process of creating trust with an audience first before they become

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somebody that wants to buy from you.

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Because the reality is, as a musician, no one needs to buy from a musician.

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That's a fact.

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That's what makes it challenging as a musician.

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That's why it's so hard to be successful.

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Because nowadays, there's no need to buy the album to listen to your music.

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They just pay the monthly subscription to a Spotify, to an Apple Music, and they have

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all of the access in the world to any artist's entire catalog without paying a direct dime

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to the artist outside of just the royalty streams.

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That fundamental aspect of, I got to go ahead and provide value through my music, through

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resonating content on social media, and going about the process of continuously hitting

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them with that value before I go ahead and decide to do an email list or attempt to create

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an email list or attempt to generate sales.

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You have to go through that process first.

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You can't just go ahead and expect to launch merch and think people are going to buy just

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because they listened to the album and that's the first time they ever discovered you.

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Right.

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I couldn't agree more.

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I think often musicians operate in the mindset of like, well, this would be ideal for me.

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I'm like, yes, it would be ideal if you could drop an album, make some t-shirt and sell

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a thousand of them.

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Yes, that would be ideal.

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Is that how people shop or operate or do anything?

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What about, okay, what's great for you versus how do customers actually live their lives?

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How do real human beings go through the process of buying something from an artist, right?

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They don't think of that side, they think of the side of, well, yeah, it would be, that

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is a way to make money.

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I should have merch because people buy shit from artists they like, so therefore I should

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sell it.

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But they don't even think of like, well, I don't have anybody to sell this to.

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Because artist merch in particular is, it's not about, oh, wow, this shirt is the nicest

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quality shirt ever and it's super comfortable.

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It's about showing fandom or support for an artist that you saw a show for.

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I saw the Chili Peppers in concert this year and I want to remember that and talk about

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it the next time I wear it at a cookout or something.

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It's not about like, oh, wow, I just really like this design from some artist I don't

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know and now I'm going to spend $35 on the t-shirt.

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I'm sure that happens here and there, but like if you're an artist making band merchandise

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with your logo on it, the only people who are going to buy that are people who are good

296
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fans of you.

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Merch is a good thing to have at some point for many artists, not a thing that's good

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at any time for any artist.

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It's not cheap to make good merchandise and to have a Shopify site and to have some sort

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of shipping system and all this shit like hiring somebody to make the t-shirt in the

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first place.

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It's not necessarily super, super hard and expensive, but it's not like, oh, make a t-shirt

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and on Tuesday we'll have a new website and we'll be selling t-shirts on Wednesday.

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I wish it was that easy.

305
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I think musicians getting caught up in that thinking is the same.

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It's part of the same that they fall into the shady marketing where like, oh, if it

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were so easy, wouldn't everybody have 10 million fans?

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If anybody could buy a million streams for $82 on some Fiverr website, if anybody could

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do that and it was legit, don't you think that they would and it wouldn't be that hard?

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But I think you mentioned it earlier, you've got to think of it like a business.

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You're a musician who loves to make music, but you are a business who happens to be an

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artist.

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I'm sure there are artists out there who just want to have fun and they're just putting

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their music out there.

315
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That's fine.

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I'm mainly talking to the folks who want this to be their business and they're trying to

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do something.

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It's not easy and merch should be something that comes at the right time.

319
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Same with a big marketing expense.

320
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There's a right time to go all in on your marketing.

321
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I guarantee you it's not at the very beginning when you don't know what you're doing.

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You can scale into it.

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It would be a bad business decision.

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Say if you and I started a business and we got funding and some guy invested a hundred

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grand into us and he loves our idea, it would be dumb to say, let's spend 80 grand on the

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first month and when we're figuring out where our market is, what products work best, let's

327
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screw it.

328
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Let's go all in at the beginning and just hope for the best.

329
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Then later on, I guess, oh, I ran out of money.

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I guess I'll get back to you in three months when I have some more money.

331
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Just like you can't operate a business that way, you can't operate a music business that

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way.

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If you only have $5,000 to promote this year, that's okay, but it's much better to spend

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$500 a month than $3,500 in January and then be fucked for the rest of the year.

335
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Maybe you spend $250 each month and you scale up and then by month six, you start realizing

336
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wow, this audience here, guys in their 20s in Houston and LA who listen to Blink-182

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also listen to me and the ads that I've tried, this ad works the best on TikTok and I'm going

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to spend this much money.

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Now you have a clear answer of this worked, this worked, and this worked, so now I'm going

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to go all in rather than I don't know what I'm doing, let's go all in at the beginning

341
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and hope for the best and hit boost on Facebook.

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That's all they do and then that's it and then nothing happens and then they say Facebook

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ads don't work or blah blah and then they have a wrong perception on the tools that

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are actually very useful when you know how to use them.

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You have to let data drive your marketing.

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The analytics are available everywhere, but I often tell clients and musicians that the

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data is like a tool, you know, it's just like a hammer.

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If it's just sitting there, it has no value, it's not being used.

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I've got to pick it up and use it.

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The data can help you find what song is performing best, what audience, who is engaging from

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how old they are, what else they're engaging in.

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The analytics are also how you will be measuring success of your marketing or of a release.

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Your goal can't just be to make it, to go viral.

354
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What does that mean?

355
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How can we quantify that?

356
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How can we measure success?

357
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You need to have the analytics there because they establish a baseline and then they establish

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what areas you're measuring to determine if your marketing is working or not.

359
00:25:08,940 --> 00:25:14,420
I mean, I couldn't agree anymore, you know, to your point, like you said, the timing and

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00:25:14,420 --> 00:25:20,260
the calculation of when you do things in this industry is so important because through my

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own experience, I've seen, you know, I've invested a lot into myself, my hard earned

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money when I was going through that process.

363
00:25:26,540 --> 00:25:30,980
And I can see, you know, how quickly you can spend a lot of money and get nowhere.

364
00:25:31,380 --> 00:25:35,260
Right. And so the calculation aspect is very important.

365
00:25:35,260 --> 00:25:40,060
And a big part of that is knowing what to put the majority of your money into.

366
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And you need to identify that first.

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And so a big part of how we go about helping, you know, my clients with an effective

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exposure is step one for us is helping them identify the best performing release in their

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catalog. Like, that's the most important thing.

370
00:25:55,620 --> 00:26:01,340
Right. Because that right there is going to allow us to know what single in your catalog

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00:26:01,340 --> 00:26:04,020
creates the best first impression amongst your target audience.

372
00:26:04,380 --> 00:26:06,500
Right. The first impression is everything.

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And you want to make sure that you're not spending a crap load of your budget thinking

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that that song is the one without even testing to see if it's actually going to be received

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well and be able to have, you know, to have the ability to look into the analytics and

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determine is this song worth pushing past the month, past two months, you know, long

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term, a year, a year and a half and build pretty much your your core fan base with.

378
00:26:31,060 --> 00:26:36,300
And that that takes a lot of testing, like you said, a lot of experimenting and being

379
00:26:36,300 --> 00:26:41,420
able to know how to look at the analytics, how to interpret the analytics and and be

380
00:26:41,420 --> 00:26:45,300
able to make the best decisions for your business, which I feel like that's where

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leveraging expertise, people that know or that have been in the industry and have really

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00:26:50,140 --> 00:26:54,660
studied are of most value to musicians that way, they're not going through the painful

383
00:26:54,660 --> 00:26:55,980
learning curve. Right.

384
00:26:56,060 --> 00:26:59,700
Three years later, go by four years later and then you have twenty thousand dollars

385
00:26:59,700 --> 00:27:02,260
later and you're like, crap, you know, I finally got it.

386
00:27:02,260 --> 00:27:06,100
But I had to go through a lot of trial and error to understand this.

387
00:27:06,100 --> 00:27:09,260
Should I just went ahead and leverage expertise?

388
00:27:09,540 --> 00:27:13,820
Right. I would have skipped that learning curve within six months rather than three,

389
00:27:13,820 --> 00:27:15,260
four years. Yep.

390
00:27:15,700 --> 00:27:17,500
And spent five grand instead of 20.

391
00:27:17,780 --> 00:27:24,700
Exactly. When you're determining the song that works best, what is a metric?

392
00:27:24,700 --> 00:27:29,420
Is there the the metric that you look for or is it really a case by case basis?

393
00:27:30,220 --> 00:27:31,980
I look for more multiple things.

394
00:27:31,980 --> 00:27:35,500
You know, the first thing that I'm looking for is what what is it costing us to get a

395
00:27:35,500 --> 00:27:38,060
consumer over to the to the streaming platforms?

396
00:27:38,660 --> 00:27:41,460
That's the first thing that I'm looking for, specifically within the targeting

397
00:27:41,460 --> 00:27:43,340
parameters that we're going to have set.

398
00:27:44,020 --> 00:27:50,220
Ideally, you know, if we're working with an American musician, we're looking to see

399
00:27:50,220 --> 00:27:53,740
if we can build them a centralized audience rather than a scattered audience.

400
00:27:53,740 --> 00:27:57,700
So let's try to see if we can find a song that can convert really well, perhaps under

401
00:27:57,980 --> 00:28:04,060
a dollar per DSP visitor, you know, within ten within ten states or less.

402
00:28:04,380 --> 00:28:06,740
Right. And so we're looking to test that.

403
00:28:06,820 --> 00:28:11,620
And then from there, we're getting the cost of a favorable cost, a cost that is

404
00:28:11,620 --> 00:28:17,060
keepable. Well, how is this audience consuming the the single once they land

405
00:28:17,060 --> 00:28:19,580
over to the to the to the DSPs?

406
00:28:19,580 --> 00:28:21,900
Right. First, actually, well, what's the click through rate?

407
00:28:21,900 --> 00:28:26,860
Right. Typically, what I look at is is a click through rate between 50 to 65 percent

408
00:28:26,860 --> 00:28:31,300
or more. That helps me determine how intentional these click throughs were.

409
00:28:31,300 --> 00:28:35,700
Right. And that lets us know the strength of the ads and and you know, how how sold

410
00:28:35,700 --> 00:28:37,460
they were to actually go check out the single.

411
00:28:37,460 --> 00:28:40,980
And then from there, we look at all of these click throughs that occurred, let's say

412
00:28:40,980 --> 00:28:45,060
on Spotify, since Spotify typically is the best, I would say, back end platform with

413
00:28:45,060 --> 00:28:50,300
analyzing data and interpreting, you know, the consumption of a single.

414
00:28:50,580 --> 00:28:54,820
Then you look at, OK, cool. Well, two hundred and fifty consumers, let's say, went to go

415
00:28:54,820 --> 00:28:57,100
listen to the song on Spotify.

416
00:28:57,100 --> 00:29:00,340
And out of those two hundred and fifty, one hundred and twenty, one hundred and twenty

417
00:29:00,340 --> 00:29:01,980
five became an earned listener.

418
00:29:02,180 --> 00:29:05,660
Right. And then out of those one hundred and twenty earned listeners, eighty of them

419
00:29:05,660 --> 00:29:07,460
saved the song. Right.

420
00:29:07,500 --> 00:29:09,540
And then a month goes by.

421
00:29:09,540 --> 00:29:14,220
The stream per listener average is over three and a half, four streams per listener.

422
00:29:14,220 --> 00:29:17,380
Now it's like, OK, cool, they're they're liking the song a lot.

423
00:29:17,380 --> 00:29:22,340
Right. This the analytics clearly are showing that we have very intentional consumers

424
00:29:22,340 --> 00:29:23,620
going to listen to the song.

425
00:29:23,620 --> 00:29:28,140
The ratio between them giving the song a shot to them becoming a listener is about

426
00:29:28,140 --> 00:29:30,580
50 percent or close to it or more. Right.

427
00:29:30,580 --> 00:29:35,660
And then those consumers, a majority of the past 40, 50 percent of them are actually

428
00:29:35,700 --> 00:29:38,700
saving it, which means they're going to listen to the song again in the future.

429
00:29:38,980 --> 00:29:42,540
Right. And the majority of your streams are coming from those types of listeners.

430
00:29:42,780 --> 00:29:46,260
This is a song worth pushing because we're also getting it at an affordable cost at a

431
00:29:46,260 --> 00:29:47,660
very tight targeting parameter.

432
00:29:47,860 --> 00:29:49,420
Now we could build your audience in markets.

433
00:29:49,420 --> 00:29:50,980
We know that in the near future.

434
00:29:51,260 --> 00:29:55,700
Right. As long as we're consistent and we don't go three months in and we stop and

435
00:29:55,700 --> 00:29:59,300
you come, you know, we go all the way through a year, year and a half, two years.

436
00:29:59,420 --> 00:30:02,820
Right. And I tell artists that it's going to take about that time, especially if you

437
00:30:02,820 --> 00:30:05,860
don't have a two thousand dollar monthly ad spend budget or more.

438
00:30:06,060 --> 00:30:10,700
Right. Time is our ally at that point, consistency in time so we can build trust

439
00:30:10,700 --> 00:30:16,180
with this audience. All right. And that's that's how we go about identifying, you

440
00:30:16,180 --> 00:30:20,620
know, how is this song worthy of pushing and making it what we call the best

441
00:30:20,620 --> 00:30:22,340
performing release or that anchor release.

442
00:30:22,340 --> 00:30:26,180
Right. That's so now we know day in and day out, we're making sure out of out of

443
00:30:26,180 --> 00:30:31,060
your budget, a specific amount is going into driving new consumers with that with

444
00:30:31,060 --> 00:30:32,060
that single.

445
00:30:32,460 --> 00:30:39,060
Well, I think you mentioned something important that I think, like you said, the

446
00:30:39,060 --> 00:30:42,860
marketing has to convince somebody to give us a chance.

447
00:30:43,580 --> 00:30:47,780
And I think that's part another part of that musicians often miss.

448
00:30:47,860 --> 00:30:50,500
They're like, well, the music's great. It's going to speak for itself.

449
00:30:50,860 --> 00:30:53,100
Well, that's not the job of the music.

450
00:30:53,620 --> 00:30:59,100
Like the job of the marketing is to convince somebody to give that music from some

451
00:30:59,140 --> 00:31:02,900
artist that they do not know exactly to give it a chance.

452
00:31:03,580 --> 00:31:10,180
And let's say, OK, there are far less movies, new movies coming out, even on

453
00:31:10,180 --> 00:31:13,180
streaming and out. There are far less movies coming out than songs.

454
00:31:13,180 --> 00:31:18,620
Right. Yeah. How many trailers of a movie or a series have you seen somebody

455
00:31:18,620 --> 00:31:22,420
trying to convince you to give them a chance that you have said, no, not for me.

456
00:31:22,420 --> 00:31:23,580
And it never checked out.

457
00:31:24,580 --> 00:31:27,380
100, 90 percent of them, 90 percent, right.

458
00:31:27,500 --> 00:31:32,620
And I bet there's there's a hundred thousand new tracks uploaded on Spotify

459
00:31:32,620 --> 00:31:35,820
every day. And that includes podcasts and like audiobooks and shit.

460
00:31:36,580 --> 00:31:38,260
So a hundred thousand a day.

461
00:31:39,900 --> 00:31:43,900
There's no way there's a hundred thousand episodes and movies uploaded on like

462
00:31:43,900 --> 00:31:45,140
Netflix a day. Right.

463
00:31:45,180 --> 00:31:52,460
At all. No. So my only point is it's hard to convince a casual consumer to give

464
00:31:52,460 --> 00:31:56,700
something new from that they've never heard of a chance.

465
00:31:57,140 --> 00:32:01,340
Exactly. It's the same. If you saw a trailer of some show and it looked OK, but

466
00:32:01,340 --> 00:32:05,820
you didn't know any of the actors, it's unfamiliar to you.

467
00:32:06,220 --> 00:32:09,140
You're probably not going to try it out on your own.

468
00:32:09,260 --> 00:32:12,300
It's going to take your friends saying, dude, this show is really good.

469
00:32:12,340 --> 00:32:14,180
You should go check it out. And you trust your friends.

470
00:32:14,220 --> 00:32:15,740
You say, OK, exactly.

471
00:32:15,780 --> 00:32:21,380
Same with an artist. You are one of a hundred thousand songs that were uploaded

472
00:32:21,420 --> 00:32:29,700
just today and 90 every single person who sees that song come up randomly in an ad

473
00:32:30,140 --> 00:32:34,100
or on like a tick tock algorithm where it's just kind of going through.

474
00:32:34,380 --> 00:32:37,180
It's on a radio station on Spotify.

475
00:32:37,500 --> 00:32:40,980
It is hard to convince somebody to say, you know what?

476
00:32:41,020 --> 00:32:46,380
I will try this because like most people know they're being advertised to.

477
00:32:46,460 --> 00:32:51,420
Most people don't give in right away, even if the ad is fantastic.

478
00:32:52,180 --> 00:32:58,060
They don't give in right away from a fantastic ad from a brand they're familiar with right away.

479
00:32:58,340 --> 00:33:04,620
It takes a lot to convince somebody who does not know you to try something of yours,

480
00:33:04,660 --> 00:33:09,580
especially in music, where there's a hundred thousand new options every day.

481
00:33:10,420 --> 00:33:15,380
So I think I say all this to say as a musician, like you said, this is going to take

482
00:33:15,380 --> 00:33:20,860
some fucking time like you got two years here because if you don't have 20 grand a month,

483
00:33:21,220 --> 00:33:26,420
we can't there's no way to speed this up unless you happen to catch lightning in the bottle

484
00:33:26,660 --> 00:33:28,420
by making fantastic content.

485
00:33:28,780 --> 00:33:33,220
Exactly. Now, that's the you can't bank on that either.

486
00:33:33,500 --> 00:33:38,460
That's the same as saying, well, my financial strategy is dependent upon winning the lottery

487
00:33:38,660 --> 00:33:42,020
in the next two or three years. And if not, I'm fucked.

488
00:33:42,020 --> 00:33:48,260
That's a shitty plan. So like, you can't account for, oh, I'm going to go viral if I do this.

489
00:33:48,460 --> 00:33:52,260
You have to have a plan that is not built around hitting the lottery.

490
00:33:52,260 --> 00:33:59,060
Exactly. You have to be consistent and you have to temper your expectations where like if you do an ad

491
00:33:59,060 --> 00:34:04,220
campaign with Gary for two months and you spend a thousand total dollars on an ad, like, and you get

492
00:34:04,460 --> 00:34:10,340
500 new monthly listeners, I would I don't I don't know if that's actually a good example, but say

493
00:34:10,340 --> 00:34:16,820
5,000, 5,000 people chose to click on that ad and they listened past 30 seconds enough to count as a

494
00:34:16,820 --> 00:34:19,940
monthly listener. This was for me. That's a killer ad.

495
00:34:20,180 --> 00:34:25,780
But like, I can see being the musician be like, I spent a thousand dollars a man, I only got, you

496
00:34:25,780 --> 00:34:31,060
know, a few, I got 2000 streams and like, but it's because they don't know what to expect.

497
00:34:31,300 --> 00:34:37,140
Not even not only that is they don't know what they're actually paying for. Right? Well, I love

498
00:34:38,100 --> 00:34:43,860
that you brought that up because when you're running advertising, right, like Facebook and Instagram

499
00:34:43,860 --> 00:34:48,020
ads or any ad platform, you're not paying for the stream. I tell artists that all the time, you're

500
00:34:48,020 --> 00:34:54,660
paying for that person going out of their way to check out your product. That's like, imagine us,

501
00:34:54,660 --> 00:34:59,860
like, you know, running ads for like our, you know, our service or whatever. And we're counting up

502
00:34:59,860 --> 00:35:04,500
how many views we got on the ad. Like, that's not what I'm looking for. Like, I'm looking for people

503
00:35:04,580 --> 00:35:10,500
taking a desirable action. Right. And, and that action of someone going out of their way to listen

504
00:35:10,500 --> 00:35:16,580
to your music, that's huge. Right. Because to your point, like you said earlier, they don't know who

505
00:35:16,580 --> 00:35:22,260
you are. You randomly popped up on their timeline and there's nothing in the ad that, that is

506
00:35:22,260 --> 00:35:28,100
familiar to them, but yet you still got them to go through that intention right there, that potential,

507
00:35:28,660 --> 00:35:33,940
it holds a lot of weight and that's what you're really paying for. So don't look at the stream

508
00:35:33,940 --> 00:35:38,500
count. Look at the, what it's costing you to get somebody to do something like that. Because like

509
00:35:38,500 --> 00:35:42,180
you asked me about the movies, right? Well, I'd ask artists all the time, when was the last time

510
00:35:42,180 --> 00:35:46,100
you clicked on an ad, right? And actually went through to go listen to someone else's music.

511
00:35:46,100 --> 00:35:50,660
And the majority of them are like, crap, you're right. I'm like, exactly. It's not,

512
00:35:50,660 --> 00:35:56,980
the chances of you doing it is very, very slim. So for those that are, that's huge. That's, that's,

513
00:35:56,980 --> 00:36:01,460
that's something that you got to be very grateful for. Right. And we got to capitalize on that

514
00:36:01,460 --> 00:36:05,780
because that's only one half of the puzzle. The other half of the puzzle is getting them sold on

515
00:36:05,780 --> 00:36:10,740
who you are, right? Which I would say in this day and age of being a musician, that's the most

516
00:36:10,740 --> 00:36:15,700
important part now. I would say 10 to 15 years ago and prior, yeah, the music was really what

517
00:36:15,700 --> 00:36:22,100
got consumers sold and wanting them to buy. Now it's becoming more of who the person is, right?

518
00:36:22,100 --> 00:36:28,100
Because there's so much access to new music on a daily basis. So easy to get met a music that the,

519
00:36:28,500 --> 00:36:34,340
the music value has dropped, right? It's not as valuable as it once was. So now you have to

520
00:36:34,340 --> 00:36:38,180
really appeal to consumers based on who you are, what you're about, what your experiences are.

521
00:36:38,180 --> 00:36:42,180
That's what's going to get them connected. And like I said, that's the other half of the puzzle

522
00:36:42,900 --> 00:36:49,460
after identifying a best performing release and getting listeners, right? Because that's

523
00:36:49,460 --> 00:36:52,660
not going to make you profitable just getting listeners as a musician.

524
00:36:53,300 --> 00:36:58,340
You've mentioned a lot about, you know, profitable, getting an ROI. What are some

525
00:36:58,340 --> 00:37:02,820
of the steps that you can take, you know, with an artist at the very beginning of trying to establish

526
00:37:03,460 --> 00:37:10,100
what their budget should be? Yeah. So typically what I, what I, what I like to ask is how much

527
00:37:10,100 --> 00:37:14,180
can you invest on a monthly where we can keep it at that budget, right? Where, where, you know,

528
00:37:14,180 --> 00:37:19,780
it's not going to hurt you financially and we can keep it on a month-to-month basis that,

529
00:37:19,780 --> 00:37:23,460
that's something that you're comfortable with investing every single month and we can go

530
00:37:24,020 --> 00:37:28,740
a year, two years, you know, with that budget consistently. That's the first thing that I like

531
00:37:28,740 --> 00:37:33,060
to go ahead and ask. And, and obviously too though, making sure that when we're testing,

532
00:37:33,780 --> 00:37:39,060
we stay away from spending a lot of money in the very beginning. And as we get more results, as we,

533
00:37:39,060 --> 00:37:44,340
we find songs and campaigns that are working for us, right? Then that's when, you know,

534
00:37:44,340 --> 00:37:48,740
if you are comfortable with putting more money, you know, and increasing your monthly ad spend

535
00:37:48,740 --> 00:37:52,340
budget. Well, once we have that identified, I can give you the green light and say, hell yeah. If

536
00:37:52,340 --> 00:37:57,700
you can go ahead and go from 500 to 700, 800 a month and still make that a consistent number,

537
00:37:57,700 --> 00:38:02,980
then let's do that. But let's first figure this part out first. Yep. That's, that's a great plan

538
00:38:02,980 --> 00:38:09,780
of attack. I very much agree with that. Start small. You can always scale up, right? You don't

539
00:38:09,780 --> 00:38:16,660
want to make the mistake of, oh, we spent a ton and oops, I made a mistake. You can always start

540
00:38:16,660 --> 00:38:23,940
small and say, Hey, this is working well. Let's spend more. And I've seen many times where like,

541
00:38:24,500 --> 00:38:27,780
you know, just throwing more money at the problem doesn't solve it either.

542
00:38:27,780 --> 00:38:28,740
It's not going to change anything.

543
00:38:30,020 --> 00:38:34,180
Even with good advertisements, there is a point where you can overspend

544
00:38:34,740 --> 00:38:40,660
on either you're hitting the audience, the same audience too many times and it's becoming annoying

545
00:38:40,660 --> 00:38:48,340
or ad fatigue is what they would call it. But then there's also ad fatigue can happen where

546
00:38:48,340 --> 00:38:53,700
just the same ad or the same audience is getting stale. You either need to switch up the ad and

547
00:38:53,700 --> 00:39:00,580
hit the same audience with something new, or you need to switch up the audience. So even on both

548
00:39:00,580 --> 00:39:05,860
music and the agency side, I've definitely seen parts where we say, Hey, month one,

549
00:39:05,860 --> 00:39:09,460
this worked really well. Month two, spend more money. It worked really well. Month three,

550
00:39:09,460 --> 00:39:14,580
spend more money. And then like month four, spend more and like, Oh, we see it kind of regressed

551
00:39:16,180 --> 00:39:21,140
percentage wise because it's like, Oh, I think there's a ceiling here where we should really

552
00:39:21,140 --> 00:39:27,460
only be spending this much and that on that campaign. And a lot of times folks will say,

553
00:39:27,460 --> 00:39:30,580
I've been advertising on Instagram a lot and I've been spending, let's say a hundred,

554
00:39:31,540 --> 00:39:35,220
I've been spending $75 a day and I want to go up to a hundred.

555
00:39:35,700 --> 00:39:40,740
Well, maybe with that additional 25 doesn't need to go all into Instagram where you're already

556
00:39:40,740 --> 00:39:45,940
doing something. Maybe that $25 a day could go into TikTok or it could go into YouTube

557
00:39:45,940 --> 00:39:51,300
where now your overall strategy is growing outward rather than just up in one place.

558
00:39:51,940 --> 00:39:56,260
A hundred percent. No, I think you nailed it in a coffin right there, right? You have to be very

559
00:39:56,260 --> 00:40:00,260
mindful with, you know, how much you're investing and what makes sense because we could reach a

560
00:40:00,260 --> 00:40:05,940
point where we're experiencing ad fatigue or where the cost is just going to increase, right?

561
00:40:05,940 --> 00:40:10,820
The more we put into it just because it's reached its capacity, right? Amongst the audience that

562
00:40:10,820 --> 00:40:18,020
we're targeting. I experienced that, you know, day in and day out. So it's knowing, you know,

563
00:40:18,020 --> 00:40:22,260
if we do reach that and we're looking for more at that point is, okay, cool. Is this the song

564
00:40:22,260 --> 00:40:25,700
that we should continue to market if you want to invest more and this is what we're experiencing?

565
00:40:25,700 --> 00:40:30,980
And then I help make those types of choices, right? So we're not, you know, stuck spending

566
00:40:30,980 --> 00:40:35,540
more, but we're getting less. And obviously we want to see growth, right? And that's another

567
00:40:35,540 --> 00:40:41,940
thing that, as I was listening to you kind of came up, appeared in my mind. Artists sometimes

568
00:40:41,940 --> 00:40:48,500
don't understand like the cycle of consumers listening to a song, right? And, you know,

569
00:40:48,500 --> 00:40:51,940
they might go ahead and see their day to day, they'll spend more money. But they think that's

570
00:40:51,940 --> 00:40:56,420
automatically going to, you know, generate more daily streams on ad spend, but you have to

571
00:40:56,420 --> 00:41:00,420
understand, you know, listeners also reach a point where they listen to a song 10, 15 times,

572
00:41:00,420 --> 00:41:04,180
right? That you will capture them a month ago, but they're stopped listening to the song,

573
00:41:04,180 --> 00:41:08,580
right? And so then there's also new listeners coming in and then like the algorithm might not

574
00:41:08,580 --> 00:41:13,780
be triggering at the level that it was a month ago. So all of these things take place and you

575
00:41:13,780 --> 00:41:18,180
have to understand that the cycle of consumers listening to music isn't as simple as, yeah,

576
00:41:18,180 --> 00:41:21,780
I'm putting more money in and I'm just going to get more daily streams every single day.

577
00:41:21,780 --> 00:41:26,980
And it's just going to go up, up, up, up. It doesn't work that way. There is highs and lows

578
00:41:26,980 --> 00:41:31,620
with it. And you have to consider the fact that listeners, after listening to the song 15, 20

579
00:41:31,620 --> 00:41:37,460
times, their, you know, desire to want to continue to listen to the song is going to slow down also.

580
00:41:37,460 --> 00:41:46,580
Yep. Yeah. That's a really good point. Where like, it's not like a, like that daily stream

581
00:41:46,580 --> 00:41:52,180
number isn't just exactly, it's not going to be a straight path. The only number that could be

582
00:41:52,180 --> 00:41:56,820
that would be like maybe the total number of listeners who have ever listened to a song

583
00:41:56,820 --> 00:42:00,900
from you. That might be the one that could continue going like this, but the rate in

584
00:42:00,900 --> 00:42:06,900
which they're listening is going to fluctuate. I think a lot of people, like there are so many

585
00:42:06,900 --> 00:42:14,420
songs where I loved them and they came up randomly somewhere, somehow I loved it and that was it.

586
00:42:14,420 --> 00:42:20,820
That was the life cycle of that song. Well, that was good. And it just never came on again. Like

587
00:42:22,260 --> 00:42:29,140
I think when I was a musician and in my experience, working with many musicians recently,

588
00:42:30,420 --> 00:42:39,540
I think that they, musicians understand what like a diehard fan is, but it seems they don't,

589
00:42:40,180 --> 00:42:44,420
they think that it's either they're unaware or they're a diehard fan.

590
00:42:45,220 --> 00:42:52,500
And like, I think people lose sight of the humongous gap in between where like, oh yeah,

591
00:42:52,500 --> 00:42:57,380
I remember some of his songs. They were good. I never followed him on Instagram. I never went

592
00:42:57,380 --> 00:43:02,980
and looked at his music video. I could care less about him on Twitter. Like, you know, but like

593
00:43:02,980 --> 00:43:06,740
that's some, some person could have heard a song a few times and been like, that's a dope song.

594
00:43:06,740 --> 00:43:11,620
And that's it. And that's it. Like that's it. Or there's just a lot of times where someone's like,

595
00:43:11,620 --> 00:43:17,700
that song's okay. Next. Exactly. And I think music, like that doesn't mean you can't make money

596
00:43:18,420 --> 00:43:24,420
or have a business off of people in that gap. And it's really hard to get somebody to be a diehard

597
00:43:24,420 --> 00:43:28,500
fan of somebody. And I really don't like the metric of someone who's like, well,

598
00:43:29,460 --> 00:43:35,140
imagine if you had a thousand fans and all of them spent a hundred dollars a year on you. And

599
00:43:35,460 --> 00:43:40,980
I hear that all the time. And I'm like, look, I'm one of the biggest Eminem fans in the world,

600
00:43:40,980 --> 00:43:46,900
I would say. And I have never once spent a hundred dollars on any given year on any of his shit.

601
00:43:47,860 --> 00:43:52,100
That's reality. That's the truth. Do you know how many, how many streams would that have to be to

602
00:43:52,100 --> 00:43:58,180
get a hundred dollars? Like in that it's like 40,000 or something, 4,000 or whatever it is.

603
00:43:58,180 --> 00:44:03,140
Okay. So if I listen to your song 4,000 times this year, you'll get a hundred dollars off of me,

604
00:44:03,140 --> 00:44:07,380
but that's probably not going to happen. So like, I don't like the metric of like, oh, a fan

605
00:44:07,380 --> 00:44:12,420
is one who will buy your merch or like, like, yes, a fan is more likely to buy your merch,

606
00:44:12,420 --> 00:44:15,620
but I don't need to buy your merch to be considered a fan.

607
00:44:15,620 --> 00:44:20,180
Yeah. Yeah. That's where, that's where I differentiate with when I'm speaking with

608
00:44:20,180 --> 00:44:24,500
artists is there's fans and then there's customers, right? We want, we're going to,

609
00:44:24,500 --> 00:44:28,340
I want to help you get customers, right? I want to help you get a customer base because a customer

610
00:44:28,340 --> 00:44:33,380
and a fan, a fan is, like you said, it's too broad, right? I'm a fan of many musicians and

611
00:44:33,380 --> 00:44:37,700
I've never put a dollar in their pocket, right? But I consume the crap out of their, you know,

612
00:44:37,700 --> 00:44:42,980
their music and their content, et cetera, right? So you have to be able, that's why you got to be

613
00:44:42,980 --> 00:44:48,340
very specific and very intentional with how you're going about investing your money, because if you're

614
00:44:48,340 --> 00:44:52,180
not, you know, you could put yourself in that position, you are generating the fans, but you

615
00:44:52,180 --> 00:44:57,540
weren't specific on generating customers. And so you missed the opportunities that capitalize on

616
00:44:57,540 --> 00:45:03,220
those that had the potential to become customers. Well, and part of that is I think artists

617
00:45:03,220 --> 00:45:09,700
misidentify who customers are. Now, like one of the topics I get flack on every once in a while

618
00:45:09,700 --> 00:45:19,140
is I'm like, look, you don't monetize the music. You use the music to build an audience and you

619
00:45:19,140 --> 00:45:28,260
monetize the audience. And the best example is like a customer could be a venue owner who is not

620
00:45:28,260 --> 00:45:35,940
a fan of your music, but the product that they're buying from you is you're going to provide a

621
00:45:35,940 --> 00:45:43,220
service where you might put 250 people in his venue to go see you. So like the customer isn't

622
00:45:43,220 --> 00:45:52,420
necessarily a fan. A record label could be the customer. What they're looking for is going to be

623
00:45:52,420 --> 00:45:58,900
different than like what a fan of you might be looking for. They could very well go together,

624
00:45:58,900 --> 00:46:05,540
but they're going to be different at certain times. So musicians like, I think they do

625
00:46:05,540 --> 00:46:13,060
misidentify who their customers are. Like, okay, if I had 10,000 monthly listeners in my city and

626
00:46:13,060 --> 00:46:20,180
some up and coming artist wants to get onto a song with me, he is now a customer, but not necessarily

627
00:46:20,180 --> 00:46:26,980
because my songs are great. It's because I have an audience that he wants to tap into. I might have

628
00:46:26,980 --> 00:46:32,180
an audience because my songs are good, but there are a lot of artists who have great songs with

629
00:46:32,180 --> 00:46:37,300
no audience and they're not getting any money for any features because people are buying or paying

630
00:46:37,300 --> 00:46:46,100
features to tap into the audience, not the talent. Not the talent. Exactly. Unfortunately. I don't

631
00:46:46,100 --> 00:46:50,740
have a dog in this fight. I'm just telling you this is what's happening. That's the truth.

632
00:46:52,420 --> 00:46:57,860
If I'm a venue owner and I'm running a business, a lot of musicians seem to think venues are

633
00:46:57,860 --> 00:47:03,700
charities. They're not. And they're not. If I have a bar or a club, whatever it is,

634
00:47:03,700 --> 00:47:07,860
I'm running a business. Yeah. I need to generate a return on investment.

635
00:47:07,860 --> 00:47:14,260
Or just like, okay, if it comes down to if I have an option for Friday night and my bar is busy no

636
00:47:14,260 --> 00:47:21,780
matter what, if I think that someone who's a five out of 10 talent, but man, they've got a big

637
00:47:21,780 --> 00:47:24,980
following. They seem to know how to market themselves. They told me how they're going to

638
00:47:24,980 --> 00:47:31,300
promote the show. They're going to get an eight out of 10 turnout with a five out of 10 talent.

639
00:47:32,020 --> 00:47:37,300
Or you could get like, man, this guy is the most talented piano player I have ever seen in my

640
00:47:37,300 --> 00:47:42,500
entire life, but he doesn't know how to market. No one knows about the show and I didn't sell

641
00:47:42,500 --> 00:47:47,780
any tickets. Which situation is the venue happier with? The five out of 10 guy.

642
00:47:47,780 --> 00:47:52,900
Right. Because like, okay, this guy, it's not all about the talent. It's part of it. Don't get me

643
00:47:52,900 --> 00:47:59,780
wrong, but it's just not all of it. I was guilty of this when I was still doing music was I thought

644
00:47:59,780 --> 00:48:09,620
that like a surplus of talent would compensate for the lack of everything else. Where I didn't

645
00:48:09,620 --> 00:48:14,260
know how to market that well. I didn't really know how to do X, Y and Z, but I thought, oh,

646
00:48:14,260 --> 00:48:19,620
well, the music's good enough. It'll take care of itself. But it's not the case because there's

647
00:48:19,620 --> 00:48:27,780
too much good music out there. The difference between some of these acts is non-noticeable

648
00:48:27,780 --> 00:48:33,780
or razor thin. It comes down, if I'm a record label and I'm like, wow, these guys seem to really

649
00:48:33,780 --> 00:48:38,980
know what they're doing. They have all this stuff they're doing on their own in terms of content.

650
00:48:38,980 --> 00:48:43,380
They can book their own shows. They know how to record. They've got their producer. They're

651
00:48:43,380 --> 00:48:47,540
buttoned up. They know what the fuck they're doing. Or these other guys, okay, they're both

652
00:48:47,540 --> 00:48:53,700
an eight out of 10. Who's going to get the deal? These guys. Or let's see even this guy's a nine

653
00:48:53,700 --> 00:48:59,140
out of 10, but doesn't want to market, hard to work with, doesn't want to make content, blah,

654
00:48:59,140 --> 00:49:03,700
blah, blah. And this guy's an eight out of 10, but he's like crushing it and willing to play the

655
00:49:03,700 --> 00:49:07,780
game. Who do you think is going to get the deal? Yeah, not a hundred percent. Unfortunately,

656
00:49:08,740 --> 00:49:13,780
I think some purists out there are pissed about that. And I get it. I understand where you're

657
00:49:13,780 --> 00:49:19,060
coming from, but our job here is to just kind of tell you how it is on the business side, not like

658
00:49:19,060 --> 00:49:26,420
what it should be in fantasy land. Yeah, not a hundred percent. I mean, there's clearly,

659
00:49:26,420 --> 00:49:30,740
what you're pretty much pointing out is that there's differences between being a musician

660
00:49:30,740 --> 00:49:36,100
and in a music entrepreneur. Those are two different things, right? You could be great

661
00:49:36,100 --> 00:49:42,820
at making music, but a terrible business owner. And that's going to reflect your success as a

662
00:49:42,820 --> 00:49:47,540
musician despite your talent, right? And vice versa, a hundred percent. That all comes down

663
00:49:47,540 --> 00:49:51,620
to mindset, right? What's the mindset that you have? What's the approach that you have going

664
00:49:51,620 --> 00:50:00,100
into attempting to pursue your music career? That's a big part. One of my closest friends,

665
00:50:00,100 --> 00:50:04,180
we had a conversation about that, how there's two types of mindsets. There's the dreamer mindset,

666
00:50:04,180 --> 00:50:09,220
and then there's the entrepreneurial mindset. And a lot of artists are in that dreamer mindset,

667
00:50:09,220 --> 00:50:14,900
right? They're waiting more so for handouts, right? The excuses, I don't have enough money.

668
00:50:17,380 --> 00:50:20,740
I get it, money's important, but it's not about how much money you have is what you're doing with

669
00:50:20,740 --> 00:50:25,220
the money, how you're investing it, right? What's the strategy behind it? That's way more important

670
00:50:25,220 --> 00:50:31,620
than how much you have, right? So it all comes down to the mindset that one is incorporating

671
00:50:31,620 --> 00:50:36,420
when they're making choices towards their music career. Hell yeah. I like that a lot.

672
00:50:37,380 --> 00:50:42,580
Everybody needs, I think musicians have enough hats on and enough things to worry about that

673
00:50:42,580 --> 00:50:48,980
ad management is one of the things that I recommend taking off of your plate, if you can.

674
00:50:48,980 --> 00:50:54,500
There are a lot of people out there who can run ads. I think fit is important. And Gary here

675
00:50:54,500 --> 00:51:01,060
definitely knows how to work with musicians, find out what song is working best, find out what ad

676
00:51:01,060 --> 00:51:04,580
campaign and what audience is working best, scale up from there.

677
00:51:05,940 --> 00:51:10,820
From my experience, it's turned out being a musician is just like any other startup. You

678
00:51:12,180 --> 00:51:15,460
might need startup capital in some instances, depending on your goals and what you're trying

679
00:51:15,460 --> 00:51:22,180
to accomplish. So anything that I can do to just alleviate that and provide a service that's

680
00:51:22,180 --> 00:51:27,860
valuable, but at the same time, it's affordable at the same time. I think that's super important,

681
00:51:27,860 --> 00:51:31,860
specifically with artists that are in their beginning stages of trying to roll themselves

682
00:51:31,860 --> 00:51:37,860
out and really be tactical with their approach. Yeah. Hell yeah. All right. Well, anybody who's

683
00:51:37,860 --> 00:51:44,340
listening, who wants to go find Gary, find him at Effective Exposure. I appreciate that, Elliot.

684
00:51:44,340 --> 00:51:47,860
Awesome. Well, Gary, thank you very much. Likewise. It was a pleasure to be on this,

685
00:51:47,860 --> 00:51:55,780
Elliot. I really do appreciate it. I think my big takeaway from my conversation with Gary Soles

686
00:51:55,780 --> 00:52:05,300
is the importance of strategic budgeting and learning how to find and set realistic expectations

687
00:52:05,300 --> 00:52:11,860
when it comes to music marketing. You have to have the analytics in place to establish a baseline.

688
00:52:12,500 --> 00:52:19,140
Then with your baseline, you can say what your goal is, whether it's, I just want the most views

689
00:52:19,220 --> 00:52:26,580
possible versus I want the most people to engage with this content versus I want people to see

690
00:52:26,580 --> 00:52:32,100
this content four times and hopefully follow me after. Those are all three very different

691
00:52:32,100 --> 00:52:39,460
strategies, believe it or not. So having the analytics there is the tool that you use to

692
00:52:39,460 --> 00:52:45,460
measure the success of your marketing. And I think Gary does a great job of explaining the value of

693
00:52:45,460 --> 00:52:51,300
data. So if you're looking to market some music and you liked what Gary had to say, then go check

694
00:52:51,300 --> 00:52:58,820
him out at his company, Effective Exposure. That does it for this episode of the Cutting Through

695
00:52:58,820 --> 00:53:04,900
Podcast. My name is Elliot Towsley. Thank you so much for tuning in and supporting the show.

696
00:53:05,540 --> 00:53:11,940
Believe it or not, aside from sending me money, the best way that you can support the show is by

697
00:53:11,940 --> 00:53:19,300
subscribing and rating the podcast on your favorite streaming platform and send us your

698
00:53:19,300 --> 00:53:25,460
questions about what type of topics you would like us to cover next. My name is Elliot Towsley. You

699
00:53:25,460 --> 00:53:32,340
can find me on Instagram at Elliot.Towsley or check out my company, Denovo Agency, where we can help

700
00:53:32,340 --> 00:53:37,220
entertainers and music businesses promote themselves online. This has been the Cutting

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00:53:37,220 --> 00:53:43,780
Through Podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and we will see you next time.