157 – I Have $1,000,000 Dollars to Spend – How do I Take My Record Label National?

Interested in growing your label? Trying to figure out how to use your budget? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share some tips on how to take your record label national. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – A mysterious question I’ve gotten a few times 01:20 – Tire kicker? 02:34 – Consider hiring a consultant, coach or mentor 03:44 – Do you know who your target audience is? 04:43 – A possible roadmap for our collaboration 04:53 – Free versus paid advice 05:34 – We could get national exposure for you tomorrow 06:22 – What does national exposure mean to you? 06:38 – #1: Facebook ads 07:32 – #2: Influencer/celebrity marketing 08:30 – #3: Direct mail 09:27 – #4: Radio 10:47 – #5: Television 11:54 – #6: Podcast tours 12:50 – Closing thoughts 13:33 – The New Music Industry: Adapting, Growing, and Thriving in The Information Age Transcription: Today, I wanted to answer a question that I sometimes see come through my inbox. Now, before I go anywhere with this, I do want to let you know that we appreciate the questions that come through. They really do form the foundation of the content we curate at the Music Entrepreneur HQ and we do consider content to be one of our most important and strongest assets. You know, I would not have published four books if that were not the case. So keep sending those questions. But we do want you to bear this in mind as you listen to this episode. I sometimes get a question, something along the lines of, I have a million dollars to spend and I want my label to go national. How would you suggest I spend that money? And this is a really weird question. Let me just say at the outset that that is one of the strangest questions you could ask. Now, I understand maybe that is a true concern for you, but it seems to me that it's more likely it's tire kickers that are coming along and asking that question. Just to see, you know, I wonder if this music consultant guy is any good. I have a feeling he's not that great. So let's just ask, let's just see how he would budget a million dollars. Because a million dollars seems like an overwhelming amount to a lot of people. Now, if you're in big business, a million dollars really is nothing. But for the average person or the average musician, a million dollars would be a lot of money. So they just want to throw out some kind of astronomical figure to stump you. Well, here's how I'm gonna answer that question. Now, there are hundreds of different marketing channels we could utilize to help your label go national. But I want to address the fact that you might just be a tire kicker to begin with before we even talk about how we might potentially market your up and coming label. If you've got a million dollars to spend, has it ever occurred to you that you might want to take a small piece of that budget and give it to a consultant or coach or mentor or somebody who might be able to help you with this process? I imagine there's a reason you're contacting me specifically. I'm not saying you haven't reached out to other music consultants, as I'm sure you have. But here's the thing. This is how I make my living. I offer advice and tips, and tools for musicians. I create books and eBooks and courses. And we also do some advertising and affiliate things on the website. But I also offer one-on-one coaching. Were you aware of that fact? Maybe not. Here's the thing. If you had said, I have a million dollars to spend and I'm gonna give you 10% of that to help us create a marketing strategy for our label, I would be on the next flight down to wherever you happen to be located. And we would begin to get to work on this right away. I would help you hammer out a strategy based on your target audience. But here's the thing. You don't even know who your target audience is in the first place, do you? Because if you did, you wouldn't be asking such a general question. And if you've got such a great label, doesn't that also mean that you've got some awesome artists signed to your label already? Can't you utilize their star power to help you market your label? I'm glad that you've got such great ambitions and stacks of money to spend. That is fantastic. You're gonna need that money though, because it doesn't seem like you've taken inventory of any other assets that might help you create a proper strategic marketing strategy that's gonna help you go national. So again, I appreciate the question and I want you to keep sending those questions because they are what form the foundation of the content that we create for you at the Music Entrepreneur HQ to help you in the way that you need. But if you come to me asking for my advice, what I'm going to do is propose a possible roadmap for our collaboration for mutual benefit. Here's the thing, even if I give you  great free advice, and I believe I certainly have at times, if you don't take it, it's not worth anything. But if you paid me for the advice an amount that would be a lot to you, you would probably take me much more seriously and would be more willing to act on it because you would be going, hmm, you know, I just spent $10,000 on David Andrew Wiebe's expertise. I really wanna take action on the things that he said because I want to make it worthwhile. And that's how business works. I benefit you and you benefit me. It doesn't really work any other way. So with that out of the way, and assuming you're not just a tire kicker coming looking to see what type of marketing advice I might have, because honestly, I read a lot of books. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I watch courses and videos and read tons of articles. There are so many marketing tactics out there that we could employ to market your label and get national exposure tomorrow. And I'm not just talking about theory here either. I've tested and experimented with a variety of tactics and strategies depending on the type of business as well as the client. So this is not coming strictly from a hypothetical place. It's also coming from quite a bit of experience at this point. Now, you never bothered to define what national exposure meant to you and how you would be able to quantify that because again, you're not really serious about this, are you? But if I were you, nevertheless, the first thing I would focus on is Facebook ads. It's a really, really fast way of getting in front of the people that might be interested in what you have to offer. Before we get to that, we would spend some time studying and researching your target audience because at this point, we have no clue. You've provided me with no data. I don't know what kind of label you are. I don't know what kind of artists you represent. I don't know what kind of genre or music that they play. So we have no information to go on. But in general, I would target people in North America. And knowing that some of the biggest spenders are preteen girls and teenage girls, that seems to be a pretty good place to start. Of course, it's really gonna depend on the style of music and audience that likes that style of music. And since we have none of that information, that's the best I can give you. Number two, could you collaborate with a celebrity, a well-known artist, or some kind of public figure to draw attention to the business? People get irrational about celebrities. If people really trusted doctors, we would see them more in proactive paid advertisements. Instead, what we see are celebrities helping to promote the brand because again, people are irrational about celebrity. And when they see their favorite celebrities endorsing a product, they can't help but want to buy it. If you're going to build a label, guess what? You're probably going to need to sign and work with some awesome artists. And by the time they've signed a contract with you, you will probably have a much better idea of how to plan and structure your marketing campaign to help get your label out into the world. Number three is direct mail. Now, this might catch some of you off guard. Why would you use direct mail, which people generally think of as junk mail that arrives in their mailbox and they just want to throw it away the moment it comes anyway? Well, if you had a direct mail piece that was a large envelope with a big bold letters, free music inside, and I could pull out a CD and I could pop it in my computer or CD player or other media device, have a listen to it, I'm going to get a sense of the kind of music that you're offering. And because you gave me something for free, I'm going to be more inclined to give you something back that's of value. I'm not saying your open rates are going to be through the roof, but they should be reasonably good, all things considered, because there's not a lot of direct mail pieces like that showing up in people's mailboxes anymore. Number four, radio. As a record label, you're going to want to develop a relationship with the preexisting industry. Radio still wields quite a bit of power, even with all the streaming platforms that have come along. And by the way, it might be worth developing some partnerships with streaming sites as well, don't you think? You're going to want to think like an entrepreneur here. Maybe you could go and record a single for one of your most prominent artists and help get radio airplay for that. And then ask the radio stations to share about your label every time they play that song. Maybe you could book yourself a radio tour and give interviews everywhere you go. And barring all other possibilities, and by all other possibilities, I don't mean the two I just mentioned. I'm sure you could come up with a few more. Please do. But barring all other possibilities, you can still take out ads on the radio. And if you have some great-sounding, compelling ads, which again,