For artists trying to build their music careers by growing and monetizing a fan base, improving the music itself is not always the best starting point...

In this episode of Creative Juice, Jack and Circa discuss how to reverse engineer your music business growth by improving the processes that help you create, capture, and monetize your fans' attention! Learn why only focusing on developing your product might get you stuck at the starting line, how to set achievable goals to release music and content, and to structure offers and promotional cadences based on real fan feedback!

If you want to fine-tune the processes that will actually grow and scale your fan base and your career, the insights from this episode have you covered!

DISCOVER:

1. How Circa Started Indepreneur With Personal Conversations

2. Why Growth Isn't Solely About Creating Better Music

3. How To Set Realistic Goals For Long-term Success

4. How To Use A 9-word Email To Engage Your Audience Effectively

5. How To Build And Reverse Engineer A Promotional Cadence That Fits Your Strategy

6. What Artists Can Learn From Taylor Swift About Maximizing The Value Of A Release

RESOURCES:

Learn Top Music Marketing Strategies Inside IndiePRO

Looking to expand your team or need marketing help? Apply to work with IndieX!

Join Us In The Indepreneur Discord Server!

Are you gearing up to release your next single? Don't pick your release date until you maximize your efforts in the stages before, during, and after the launch!

In this episode of Creative Juice, Jack and Circa pick apart the foundations of single releases so that you can plan your waterfall releases to have the biggest impact. Learn about the myth of fast releases, dive deep into what assets and content you should have ready for both pre-release and ongoing marketing efforts, and best practices for distribution and effective pitching to playlists!

Before dropping your next song, let this episode be your checklist with strategies and tips to make it your most successful release yet!

DISCOVER:

1. What Assets And Content You Need For An Impactful Pre-Release And Post-Marketing

2. Best Practices For Distribution And Timing

3. How To Utilize Spotify For Artists For Playlist Pitching

4. What Spotify's Audio Profiling Means For Your Tracks In The Recommendation Engine

5. When To Consider Pre-save Campaigns

6. Why Post-marketing Is The Most Critical Phase Of Your Release Strategy

7. When To Consider Using Paid Traffic To Boost Your Visibility

RESOURCES:

Learn Top Music Marketing Strategies Inside IndiePRO

How To Kick Start A Fanbase With Content

Looking to expand your team or need marketing help? Apply to work with IndieX!

Join Us In The Indepreneur Discord Server!

Are bottlenecks in your creative business slowing down your progress? Identifying and removing these barriers can be the key to unlocking your creative output AND fan base growth...

In this special episode of Creative Juice, Jack is joined by Jonah McLean (aka DUX), a lead strategist and coach from our IndieFounder program, to dive into the most common bottlenecks he finds in artists' creative businesses! Learn from Jonah's experience consulting and coaching hundreds of artists and explore the three biggest bottlenecks he's observed in music marketing, from the challenges musicians face after an initial burst of audience growth to the paralysis caused by indecision and overthinking!

If you're stuck in your music career growth and not sure why, this episode covers it all. From simplifying your music business systems to managing your work and failing forward in your marketing, use these tips to get yourself back on track!

DISCOVER:

1. How To Tackle The Three Biggest Bottlenecks Jonah Sees Musicians Face

2. Where Artists Struggle After Initial Audience Growth

3. How To Handle Indecision And Overthinking To Keep Your Projects Moving

4. Why Failure Your Most Powerful Marketing Tool

5. How To Simplify Your Music Business Systems

6. What You Can Learn From Tim Ferriss and A Simple To Do List

RESOURCES:

Learn Top Music Marketing Strategies Inside IndiePRO

Work With An Indepreneur Coach To Build Your Music Career!

How To Run Your Music Business and NOT Burn Out w/DUX

Looking to expand your team or need marketing help? Apply to work with IndieX!

Join Us In The Indepreneur Discord Server!

Feeling stuck in your music career? Not sure what roadblock is holding you back? If you're at a standstill, diagnosing the root cause is the first step...

In this episode of Creative Juice, Jack and Circa dissect the major reasons why artist careers slow down and how to diagnose and avoid these pitfalls. Learn about maintaining a consistent release cadence, keeping your enthusiasm to engage your fans, navigating the honeymoon phase of music marketing, and the common breakdowns in artists’ traffic systems!

Don’t let your music career falter without a fight. This episode will give you a diagnostic approach to help you keep your career on a growth trajectory with strategy, tactics, and stories from our agency and coaching clients!

DISCOVER:

1. What It Takes To Maintain Momentum With Your Music Releases

2. How To Keep Your Engagement High And Your Fans Excited

3. Why Navigating Past Early Success Is Crucial For Sustainable Music Marketing

4. What Causes Most Music Career Stalls And How To Overcome Them

5. Where Email Marketing And Tour Marketing Collide

6. How To Overcome Revenue Slowdowns With Offers

RESOURCES:

Learn Top Music Marketing Strategies Inside IndiePRO

Looking to expand your team or need marketing help? Apply to work with IndieX!

Join Us In The Indepreneur Discord Server!

For artists and bands looking to fuel their growth with effective music marketing strategies, there's a dizzying array of options constantly being advertised to you...how do you know what opportunities to focus your time, effort, energy, and budget on?

In this episode of Creative Juice, Jack and Circa break down opportunities in the industry for marketing your music so that you can choose the best vehicle for your growth! Learn about the differences between digital marketing, influencer campaigns, playlisting, and PR and the pros and cons of each strategy.

Whether you're looking to work on your own music marketing or build a team, this episode will help you you survey your options and choose the most effective ways for you to grow your fan base, revenue, and business from top to bottom!

DISCOVER:

1. Why Having a Large Fan Base Offers More Leverage for Monetization

2. How We Structured Our Agency to Seize Music Marketing Opportunities

3. How Email, SMS Marketing, and Paid Ads Can Predictably Grow Your Career

4. The Pros and Cons of Influencer Marketing

5. The Risks Associated With Playlisting and How to Navigate Them

6. Why PR Is Effective for Building Brand Authority

RESOURCES:

Learn Top Music Marketing Strategies Inside IndiePRO

Looking to expand your team or need marketing help? Apply to work with IndieX!

Join Us In The Indepreneur Discord Server!

Visit the websites of your favorite artists and bands and you'll probably find a form with the call to action "Sign Up For Updates". Tough question: how many fans do you think actually sign up just for updates?

In this episode of Creative Juice, Jack and Circa answer one of the biggest questions on growing your list of fans...how to actually get fans to sign up! Learn about the top email list-building offers we use with our IndieX agency clients right now, choosing the right offer based on your audience size, and what emails to send to your fans after they sign up for an offer!

If you've tried email marketing before and want to give your fans a solid reason to sign up, this episode unpacks everything that we see working for artists in the wild today!

DISCOVER:

1. Why It's Important To Properly "Bribe" Your Fans

2. How To Build A Permission Offer Based On Your Audience

3. Why Early Access Offers Perform For Email List Growth

4. How To Craft An Effective Giveaway Campaign

5. Where Email Marketing and Tour Marketing Collide

6. How To Create The Ultimate Offer Around Your Album

RESOURCES:

Learn Top Music Marketing Strategies Inside IndiePRO

Looking to expand your team or need marketing help? Apply to work with IndieX!

Join Us In The Indepreneur Discord Server!

Will 2024 be the year that email marketing proves to be dead, buried, and useless for artists? The answer might surprise you...

In this episode of Creative Juice, Jack and Circa spill the beans about the future of email marketing for musicians with facts and figures, case studies, and client stories showing how email is one of the highest ROI channels! Learn why music industry folks think that email is a thing of the past, why poor strategy ACTUALLY makes email marketing appear dead, and how we've used email marketing at our agency IndieX to drive five, six, and seven-figure e-commerce campaigns and operations!

Want to make email marketing work in your business? This episode dives deep into stories, strategies, and automation tactics so that you can transform your email marketing into a powerhouse!

DISCOVER:

1. Why Email Is NOT Dead In 2024

2. How Poor Strategy Leads to Unsuccessful "Dead" Email Marketing

3. What Makes Email Marketing a 4200% ROI Channel

4. How An IndieX Client Did $40k in Vinyl Sales In One Day Through Email Marketing

5. Why Owning Your List of Fans Is Critical for Success

6. What Offers and Email Automations To Use In Your Marketing

RESOURCES:

Learn Email Marketing For Musicians Inside IndiePRO

Looking to expand your team or need marketing help? Apply to work with IndieX!

Join Us In The Indepreneur Discord Server!

Planning an EP or album release this year and overwhelmed with options for building the marketing strategy? There are two camps when it comes to launching an album in 2024...

In this episode of Creative Juice, Jack and Circa share album launch strategies that set our IndieX agency clients up for success so that you can apply them to your releases - and profit! Learn about the common pitfalls in EP and album launches, the interplay between singles releases and full album launches, how to get your fans excited about your launch, what you need to get started, planning a release timeline, and building an album launch funnel that converts!

Don't release an album in 2024 without a roadmap for engaging your fans and maximizing sales! This episode is packed with strategy, tactics, and stories from successful launches to help you plan your most successful launch yet!

DISCOVER:

1. Why Is There A Gap Between Production Costs and Marketing Budget For Artists

2. How To Build An Effective Album Launch Funnel

3. How To Engage Your Fans for a Successful Launch

4. What You'll Need for a Successful Launch From Music and Tools to Content and Beyond

5. How to Plan Your Release Timeline

6. Why An Album Launch Funnel Has Long-term Benefits

7. PLUS: Get Our Free Album Launch Workbook

RESOURCES:

Learn Top Music Marketing Strategies Inside IndiePRO

Get Our Free Album Launch Workbook

Looking to expand your team or need marketing help? Apply to work with IndieX!

Join Us In The Indepreneur Discord Server!

Compared to every other industry around the world, the music industry is notably bad at data consolidation and artists suffer the most from it! There are a dizzying amount of digital marketing tools that can help artists capture and monetize fan bases...So where do you start?

In this episode of Creative Juice, Jack and Circa discuss the marketing tools every artist should have in their arsenal and unpack the features that are non-negotiables! Dive into website platforms, email and SMS marketing tools, e-commerce platforms, funnel builders, and automation tools and learn why "music" specific tools often don't measure up to broader digital marketing solutions!

Don't let the lack of the right tools hold back your fan base growth and revenue! This episode provides a roundup of the digital marketing tech that we use day in and day out for marketing for artists and bands of all kinds!

DISCOVER:

1. What Essential Marketing Tools Every Artist Should Have

2. Why Broad Digital Marketing Solutions Outperform "Music" Specific Tools

3. How Email Marketing and SMS Marketing Should Differ in Your Strategy

4. What Real Value Automation Brings Artists and Common Misunderstandings

5. Examples of Simple and Complex Automation

6. PLUS: An Inside Look at the IndieCRM!

RESOURCES:

Learn Top Music Marketing Strategies Inside IndiePRO

Looking to expand your team or need marketing help? Apply to work with IndieX!

Join Us In The Indepreneur Discord Server!

Ever felt like your music is the roadblock in your marketing journey? It's time to rethink, reassess, and re-strategize!

In this episode of Creative Juice, Jack and Circa reveal what to do when your music marketing strategies hit a roadblock and how a critical evaluation of your music could be the key to unlocking audience growth. Learn why social content fails and how to diagnose yours, as well as when to fine-tune your music from gathering and analyzing feedback to refining songwriting, production, mixing to create a better product!

Don't let your music hinder your marketing efforts. If your music needs some fine-tuning, this episode has you covered with tips to transform your music from a stumbling block to a spark for your career!

DISCOVER:

1. The "Do Not Pass Go" Moment in Music Marketing

2. Why Content Fails and How to Diagnose It

3. What Steps to Take if Your Music Needs Work

4. How To Gather and Analyze Feedback For Your Music

5. When To Look Critically At Your Music

6. How To Refine Your Songwriting, Production, and Mixing Processes

RESOURCES:

Learn Top Music Marketing Strategies Inside IndiePRO

Looking to expand your team or need marketing help? Apply to work with IndieX!

Join Us In The Indepreneur Discord Server!

What separates a good artist from a great artist brand when it comes to merch? Here's a hint: It's all centered around customer experience...

In this episode of Creative Juice, we're joined by special guest Seamus Menihane, founder of Down Right Merch to get his expert insights on merchandise and fulfillment for artists and brands! Learn about how Down Right Merch got its start in the industry as we discuss what artists often overlook about merch and fulfillment, how to create unforgettable customer experiences, and the pros and cons of print-on-demand, the different types of merch deals, and much more!

If you're looking to make your merch operations great, the insights from Seamus on this episode will give you a dive deep into merch from design and product to fulfillment, bonuses, and beyond!

DISCOVER:

1. How Seamus Built Down Right Merch After Time On The Road

2. What Artists Miss About Merch and Fulfillment

3. How To Create Amazing Customer Experiences

4. What Pros and Cons Exist For Print On Demand Merch

5. How To Understand Different Types of Merch Deals

6. What You Can Learn Merch Operations of Artists Like ICP, Taylor Swift, KISS, Misfits, and More

7.  

RESOURCES:

Learn Top Music Marketing Strategies Inside IndiePRO

Learn More About Down Right Merch

Looking to expand your team or need marketing help? Apply to work with IndieX!

Join Us In The Indepreneur Discord Server!