In this article, Major Labl founder, Mark Knight considers the parallels between new businesses and new bands and asks what can musicians learn about growth from established and proven marketing theory. Managing Expectations One of the biggest challenges associated with promoting independent artists is managing expectations. There is an assumption that one campaign, or in some cases, one ad is going to be enough to transform their fortunes. We recently worked with an artist w

When you know every stream on Spotify can earn you money, why wouldn't you spend some money on guaranteed streams? Here are a three good reasons. Streams don't automatically mean fans. Streams are important, afterall if nobody listens to you music you don't stand a chance, but it's what happens after the stream that is actually more important. . Success on Spotify occurs when you trigger a network effect. IE one stream, becomes multiple streams, a save, a playlist add, a play

When Instagram launched Stories, many commentators cynically saw this as a simple attack on SnapChat, but five years on it's clear the repercussions are far greater. For the first time unsigned artists are right to be questioning the value of full length music videos. Let's consider the facts A professionally shot and edited full-length music video costs thousands Online tools like Canva allow you to make a video formatted for social in minutes MTV, the channel launched to sh

In this article we take a look at the music distribution market and profile the key players, business models and service offerings. #musicdistribution #independentartists #unsigned #spotify

After working with unsigned artists for over 10 years it's easy to conclude that radio is not an effective or cost efficient way to promote unsigned artists. In this article we explain why Reach & Frequency Effective advertising is set up to deliver reach & frequency (lots of people, lots of times). This simple formula drives awareness, interest and ultimately sales. It's the reason brand advertising follows you around the Internet, and the reason you see that TV ad over and

In this article Mark Knight, founder of Major Labl explains why music promotion is only effective if it drives the play count. Focusing on the things that matter As an independent musician it’s important to remember you are only successful if people listen to your music. It feels like an obvious point, but far too often musicians and managers get distracted by the promotion and forget that listening is the end goal. For many musicians, success is the press feature, the blog r