64 Truisms & Advice Nuggets For Independent Artists Trying To Cut Through

After spending the last 15 years working with independent artists as a manager, consultant, blogger, podcaster and music startup founder, I wanted to share some pearls of wisdom I had learned along the way, which might also benefit you. In no particular order.

64 Advice Nuggets for Independent Artists

1. Write, record and produce the highest quality music possible

2. Remember, nobody listens to bad music twice

3. People judge books by covers, so look good, consistently

4. Success is reaching and engaging lots of people, lots of times

5. Growth is faster when you are seen as both meaningful and different

6. The most original artists are just the best at hiding their sources

7. Aim to inspire a devoted following, not an ambivalent ‘Like’

8. Get out of your bubble and watch and learn from the best

9. The best marketing probably comes from outside your category

10. There is no idea in unknown artist releases new song - create a hook

11. The creative process starts, not ends, with the production of a track

12. The very definition of madness is doing the same things and expecting different results

13. Take time to read How Brands Grow and apply the insights to music

14. If you don’t have benchmarks or targets, how can you understand success

15. If you were on Dragon’s Den, why would anyone invest in you?

16. Don’t release music, plan to release music, create a 6-12 week plan

17. Understand the difference between push and pull marketing and focus on the latter

18. Start with the channels you control before rushing to paid promotion

19. Always ask a PR to tell you the name of their favourite track to ensure they have listened

20. Understand category entrance points and align your music with moods and moments

21. Create content you’d want to watch

22. You need to engage the eyes before you engage the ears

23. Make content for format. A square peg never works in a round hole

24. Broken social links are the hardest thing to recover from and the easiest thing to fix

25. Understand the principle buyer moderation and balance time spent on ‘super fans’

26. Emotional messaging always beats rational messaging, so tap into the power of music

27. Nobody will ever care as much about your music as you

28. Prioritise post-launch over pre-launch when people can listen

29. If you don’t pre-save, why expect anyone else will?

30. Blogs are only valuable if their content appears in Search results

31. Blogs are only valuable for you if people are searching for you

32. What are you doing that makes people search for you?

33. Plan in stories and cycles and don’t be afraid to return to those stories again and again

34. Promote your best-performing content. It’s the best indicator of consumer pull you have

35. Momentum comes from multiple sources; so do lots of things well, often

36. Don’t waste money on full-length music videos until you have fans to watch them

37. Your Spotify save rate is a more telling metric than total streams

38. Network with other musicians. They are your allies, not your competitors

39. Don’t confuse vanity with effectiveness. One radio play is only good for the bio 

40. Never pay to play

41. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is

42. Successful music blogs don’t beg you to submit music

43. People see through social accounts with higher followers and low post engagement

44. Always make friends with the sound engineer; he can make or break you

45. Gig promotion is not one social post

46. The best live moments happen when the sound fails, and special intimacy happens

47. 20% of nothing is nothing. So how are you attracting a manager?

48. When you can’t pay with money, think how you can barter your skills to attract partners

49. Social media content should be either entertaining or informative; if it’s neither, it will fail

50. The best social creators find one format and repeat it. What’s your repeatable format?

51. A great and unexpected cover version never loses its power

52. If you don’t make the effort, why should anyone else? Don’t leave that bio blank

53. Competitions asking for fan votes shouldn’t be trusted

54. If a music blog shares your content, share their content back and show appreciation

55. A band rarely just breaks; success is building continuous momentum

56. Broad targeting normally trumps narrow targeting

57. Put your house in order before you invite guests over, or they won’t come back

58. Be your authentic self, but retain some mystery

59. Be a brat, but don’t ever be an unreliable brat

60. Music promotion (output) never works without music marketing (input)

61. Anyone can buy cheap video views on YouTube

62. Virality is driven by watch time, not ‘total views’

63. Understand the difference between Bonfire and Firework content and create both

64. Nobody dreams of being unsigned, but everyone aspires to be independent

Listen to the free audio, podcast version of this blog post here.

About the author: 

Mark Knight is the co-founder of the music start-up Major Labl Artist Club and also runs Right Chord Music, a music blog that champions incredible unsigned and independent artists. As a professional marketing strategist, Mark aims to bring best-practice brand marketing to band marketing. He has consulted for indie labels such as Earache Records (working with artists like Buckcherry, Scarlet Rebels, The Temperance Movement, and Travis Meadows), Trashmouth Records (Maggie The Cat), and various independent musicians including Anna Wolf, Iraina Mancini, and Porcelain. His work with The Daydream Club earned a nomination for Best Digital Campaign at The Music Ally Awards, making them the only unsigned artist to receive this recognition. The band now have over 100m Spotify Streams as an independent artist. Mark has also written for The Guardian, Music Radar, Reverbnation, Music Think Box and Musosoup blogs.

Major Labl Artist Club recently launched Beat ‘N Track, a free interactive music map and directory for musicians. Imagine LinkedIn meets Google Maps and Fiverr for music. Beat ‘N Track allows Artists to connect to venues, music services, fans and even other musicians like never before, and it’s 100% free.