Marketing is a critical piece to the success of any business. If you can get your marketing figured out, a lot of other pieces tend to fall into place.
In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I share two dangerous mistakes musicians and music entrepreneurs make in their marketing, and how to mitigate them...
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Podcast Highlights:
00:14 – Critical mistakes musicians and music entrepreneurs make in their marketing
00:19 – Mistake #1: building entirely on rented land
00:35 – The dangers of building on rented land
01:43 – The critical importance of building your own website
03:19 – Mistake #2: single source dependence
04:17 – How I’ve mitigated the risk of single-source dependence
06:03 – The solution to single-source dependence
Transcription:
There are a couple of critical mistakes many musicians and music entrepreneurs make in their marketing.
The first mistake is building their business entirely on rented land.
Rented land includes sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t utilize social networks in your marketing. I use social media to promote The Music Entrepreneur HQ in a variety of capacities.
But the problem is that you have no control over whether your account gets shut down.
Some people have built entire businesses using Facebook groups. And, while Facebook groups are fantastic tools for creating community and engagement, if Facebook decides to shut you down, there’s nothing you can do about it.
Furthermore, it may not be as result of you doing anything wrong. Someone in your community could end up violating Facebook’s terms, leading to your group’s termination. You have no control over that, and if your group was monetized, you instantly lose all that money.
What happens to your community then? Do you have everyone’s contact information? Are they on your email list?
Unfortunately, all too often, the answer I hear back is “no”.
It’s important to acknowledge that this isn’t anything new. As MySpace started declining in popularity around 2009, and Facebook became the default social network for social networkers, no one got to keep their friend’s list they’d worked so hard to build.
We need to learn from history and not repeat it. If you want to build your business and keep your business, you can’t build entirely on rented land.
We need to learn from history and not repeat it. If you want to build your business and keep your business, you can’t build entirely on rented land.Share on X
I feel like I’ve harped on this issue for years, but it’s why I’ve been saying you need to build your own website. By the way, no, I don’t recommend using Wix or Squarespace.
There are only two ways of going about it that I recommend:
Set up a hosting account with Cloudways and use WordPress to build your site.
Set up an account with Bandzoogle and build your website there. Their tools are incredibly easy to use.
Why do you need to build a website?
Because your website is not rented land. You own it.
You can direct people to your website to buy your products and sign up for your email list. Your email list, like your website, is also yours – nobody else owns it.
I’ve heard people say email is dead, but that idea is entirely unfounded. You can get a much better response rate from your email list than your social media followers, guaranteed.
I don’t understand why there is so much resistance to going through these steps. It makes perfect sense from a business perspective. You should prioritize what you own over what someone else owns.
Yes, you should partner with powerful allies such as Facebook, but at the end of the day they will never be as invested in you as you are. They could care less if you lose your business overnight.
Many people tend to think of their most popular social media account as the central hub for their content. Stop that. Instead,
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