A $20,000 Radio Campaign

One of two things will happen if you spend $20,000 on a radio campaign,

1.  Nothing much will happen.  The promoter will send you a few reports of some stations in Montana and Connecticut that played your single in their daily rotation.  But you pretty much piddled away $20k.  

It was the wrong single and/or the wrong radio promoter and/or bad timing and/or…

2.  Things, in fact, start happening.  6 weeks in, the single is gaining some traction in key markets.  The skies are looking sunny.  Let’s start really revving the engines…Oh by the way, the radio promoter is going to need another $60,000 to keep going and really pushing the single up the charts.

To keep it going you have to keep funding.

The single’s doing well! We can’t pull the plug now, this is obviously THE song and its connecting! But all we had was $20,000, we ain’t got no mo money…this totally sucks.  I guess we gotta pull the plug.

$20,000 not wasted, but kinda wasted.

—

$20,000 is a lousy amount of money to spend on a radio campaign when that’s all you have to spend on a radio campaign.  If it goes poorly, you’re broke and depressed.  If it goes well, you’re frantic, broke and playing the coulda woulda shoulda game.

It’s important to spend your money wisely.

It’s important to put yourself around people (your team) who know how to spend your money wisely.

So here’s a word from the wise: Spend nothing on radio, or be financially prepared to spend a lot if it goes well, and financially sturdy enough to be ok if it doesn’t go well.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

The 200 Songs Thing

“We wrote 200 or 300 or a million songs for this record”

Who cares.

It gets said under the notion that if you wrote THAT MANY!!! then certainly there MUST be some smashes that everyone will love, and your career will take off like the rocket ship that you’ve always believed it to be.

But it doesn’t work like that does it?

I wish every time I heard an artist ranting about the number of songs they’d written, that the album had even one or two undeniable ones.  But most of the time…nope.

Sure, give yourself a much deserved pat on the back for putting that much effort into your album, but we don’t care about your effort, we care about finding a song we love.

Writing lots of songs does make you better at writing songs.  It raises the floor at which the quality won’t be beneath.

But the muse doesn’t pay attention to numbers.

It could show up once every ten or fifty or a hundred or five hundred songs.  No one really knows.

Don’t set out to write 200 songs for your record.  

Set out to write a great song every time you write, and then another and another.

Then you’ll have a smash single and a great record.

Impressive.

And will skip the desire to impress people with the number of songs you’d written for this record.

p. s. “We wrote 200 and picked the best 12”.  Of course you chose the best 12! Why would you do anything else?!  And that’s just it, that’s the sad part.  Because now you’ve told everyone that of these 200 songs, these 12 are the gems, but the gems look more like concrete blocks than rubies and diamonds. 

p.p.s. I suppose stating how many songs you’ve written could have its place in your marketing strategy, but there ain’t a hit popping out the other end, thats about all its good for.



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A Successful Tour

Do you want to go on a successful tour?

Talk to someone who’s had one.

Now, depending on the stage of your career, the term “successful tour” means many different things.

But you want to go on a successful one.

And it doesn’t have to be such a mysterious desire and endeavor.

Talk to someone who’s been on the type of successful tour that you want to be on.

Ask how they did it and then copy them.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

That’s How Artists Make Money

By doing something or selling something that people want to pay money for.

Duh.

That’s how artists make money.

It’s so simple and easy to overlook.  You don’t get money merely as a by product of effort, heart, hope, passion, creativity, staying up all night, being on a three month tour, writing lots of songs.

The reason any artist is popular, successful and makes a career out of music is because they do something and sell something that people WANT to pay for.  That people jump at the chance to give their money for.

The size venues you play are an exact reflection of the number of people who want to come see you play.

The tv/film placements you get are an exact reflection of how may supervisors want to pay to use your music.

The number of streams, the number of t-shirt sales, the private events…

If you want to make more money, do something where more people respond in their brains with “Yeah, I’ll pay for that”.

So on the flip side, if you ain’t making any money as an artist, you’re not doing things that people are paying for.

 
p.s. There are two parts of the equation.  The thing you’re doing/selling…and the level of desire people have to pay for it.  

It could be you need to change the thing you’re doing… but it could be the “thing” is great and you need to increase the peoples’ desire via a greater overall number of people becoming aware, or stimulating an increased level for the people who are already aware of what you do/sell.



p.p.s.  I was reminded of all of this today while walking out of an office building for a startup business here in Nashville.  Although, its not so start up anymore as it’s one of the fastest growing businesses in town.

It was a nice office with nice floors, a cool kitchen, good computers, good technology.  They’re all just regular people like you and like me.  And the way they have been able to grow like they have is that they happen to provide goods and services that LOTS of people are clamoring to pay for. 



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Hoarse On Stage

What if you pretty much lost your voice on stage, right as the band is getting through the intro of the song and the fans have their eyes on you waiting for that vocal to come shining through? 

Freaky.

But you’re already up there, the people are have paid for their ticket and they’re looking to you.

You’re voice has gone hoarse but you’ve gotta come through.

And you would. You would get creative with your communication, creative physically, creative interaction, creative with the audience and with the band.

Because in that moment you would NEED to do all of these things a lot more than usual.

What if you did those things anyway, while still having a healthy voice.

See, handing you a hoarse voice on stage finally stimulates the need.  But the need is there regardless.

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What A Penny Could Be Worth

Life on the road can be pretty blurry, literally and figuratively. The groundhogs day effect, the same ol’ same ol.

Here’s something that might be exciting and meaningful for you on the road.

After each show you give out a penny…to one person, in front of everyone on the road with you.

You say why that person is getting the penny that day. Maybe they had an exceptional performance, maybe they screwed up but recovered well, maybe they’re wearing some new awesome jeans, hit some great lighting cues, or made friends with the ugly nasty bar tender.  

The penny ceremony will go through some phases: it’ll start off a little strange but special, then get really special, then get cheesy, and then find its right place in life on the road.

But through all of these phases, the person who receives the penny, while they’re only one cent richer for the day, will absolutely feel valued and appreciated even if they play it off as no big deal.

A penny becomes worth a lot more than a penny.

Try it. What do you have to lose…It’s just a few pennies.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com