Tuesday, November 1st, 2022.
Hey, it’s TJ Miller, you want some game? Let's Tip Unda The Hat!
For the best indie music from indie artists, click, and follow Independent Artist Of The Week Unda The Hat. This week, Donyale Renee Be sure to hit the like button and follow this amazing group of indie artists. They will be major soon!
Competitive Analysis? - Let’s go -
So by now, you’ve figured out that the Music Business is just that…a business. It operates on the same business principles as any other CPG (consumer packaged goods) product. But just a little bit left of center because it deals with intellectual properties, aesthetics, muses, feelings, emotions, and is all nice warm, and fuzzy. Business on the other hand is cold, hard, emotionless, analytical, and impersonal. So, musicians, you have to learn some of this business stuff or make sure you put a team around you that will handle it for you. Steve Jobs once said, “we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.” Which means he knows what ideas his competitors have. Now I’m not advocating you steal musical ideas, remember last week's blog about copyright infringement? What I’m talking about is seeing what your competitors are doing from a marketing perspective. See what works, and tailor it for you, your persona, and your brand. Applying business strategies to your music career can help you succeed. You and your direct competitors have one key characteristic in common: you are both going after the same target audience. Your basic competitors are either direct or indirect. Direct meaning similar style, genre, and persona like Future and 21 Savage. Indirect would be artists that are not necessarily similar or in the same genre but goes after the same audience like Chance The Rapper and Lil Durk. Yes, there will be some differences, but for the most part, they are looking for a similar target audience and money. Major labels have been doing it for years. Once an artist appears out of nowhere and becomes popular, other labels say oh we have to get ourselves one of those. A big part of my job at Motown was to find out what our competitive artists were doing and how were they stimulating the target audience which was also our target audience. This is again about paying attention to brand, staying consistent with your brand, seeing what the competition is doing for their brand, and doing some of that. Are they just taking pictures and posting on Instagram and TikTok or are they taking their fans and followers on a journey, saying come go with me; not just look at me. You can learn a lot from your competitors; which posts got the most engagements, what type of merch are they selling, and what are they talking about outside of their music. Even if what they are doing is outside of your budget or your experience, it is nice to set goals and attain them.
Don’t forget, join us on Clubhouse tomorrow, Wednesday at 4:00 PST, 6:00 CST, and 7:00 EST. It will be industry legend Johnny Walker, formerly of DefJam, now founder of Nabfeme, Philanthropist Robert N. Johnson, and myself. “Untold Tales of the music industry.” Click and save the link, then join in to ask questions, comment, or tell your own story.
This week's #IAOTW - Indie Artists Of The Week - Donyale Renee aka "The Southern Soul Diamond" is a Houston native now living in Atlanta. She has sung background for countless national recording stars and has opened for even more. She has a brand new track on Spotify now and an even hotter website. Click on her name, scroll down, and click the picture to learn more about this talented artist. Be sure to like and share the Spotify playlist.
For more information on this or to hire Unda The Hat as your brand or label consultant send a message via undathehat.com. See you next Tuesday.