IOTM Blog
Posted: Mar 14, 2022
Category: Merch
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**Guest post written by Atomic Disc, originally featured on their blog.
"Production times for vinyl used to be 2 to 3 months and labels and artists would plan their release campaigns around this. Now, we're looking at 10 to 14 months for vinyl runs...The total capacity of the roughly hundred vinyl pressing plants around the world is about 160 million records per year. The current demand, or orders in the cue, are between 320 and 400 million records...To make matters worse, every stage of the manufacturing process from producers of raw materials, printers of the vinyl packaging, pressing plants and transportation were hit with either shutdowns or slowdowns due to Covid restrictions."
View Full ArticlePosted: Nov 22, 2021
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Leonard Patterson of Artist Collective AKA @ac_leonardp.
"Regardless of the true meaning of the holidays, one thing is universal. People will flock to the stores, click on shiny objects, and buy. the. stuff. Whether or not you have “stuff” to sell already, here are a few easy-to-implement marketing, content, and planning ideas to help prepare you for the season."
View Full ArticlePosted: Oct 25, 2021
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Cyber PR, originally featured on the Cyber PR Blog.
"Do you have a plan for your next music release? This can be a single, a music video, an EP, or an album. In our most popular series The Musician’s Guide to Marketing Plans, which we call Total Tuneups, we address the overlooked importance of having a marketing plan in place...Here in Part 2, we break down the next five elements for your music release so you don’t miss a single opportunity." View Full Article
Posted: Oct 18, 2021
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Cyber PR, originally featured on the Cyber PR Blog.
"In this ever-changing landscape, we see the same issue consistently: A vast majority of musicians don’t create long-term marketing plans. Artists skip this vital part of their music careers. Plans used to be the responsibility of the record label when artist development used to be a thing or a great management team but very few artists are lucky enough to have either (or in many cases, they don’t want a label). This leaves a void in today’s new music business...You work so hard on new music, dedicating hours practicing, writing songs, not to mention spending large sums of money recording, mixing, mastering, creating visuals, and album artwork only to rush the release with no marketing plan in place." View Full Article
Posted: Mar 15, 2021
Category: Live Performance
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**Guest post by Fang from Lords of the Trident, the most METAL band on earth!
"👴HUH? WHAT!? YOU'LL HAVE TO SPEAK UP JIMMY, I'M QUITE OLD."
View Full ArticlePosted: Dec 10, 2018
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Joshua Bloomberg, singer-songwriter for The One 800s out of Los Angeles.
"A lot of you must be wondering, Why the hell is Josh trying to get me to call a 1-800 number?...for the curious, I thought I’d explain why I’ve chosen this archaic method of communication to promote my new album – and why one week later it’s already a success."
Posted: Nov 26, 2018
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Alper Tuzcu, a Berklee College of Music and Denison University alumni, a Boston based guitarist, songwriter and producer, and regular contributor to the Adva Mobile Blog.
"A high stream-count on the first day of your song release can be an indicator of success for your newest song or album on various streaming platforms like Spotify or Apple Music. Why is this important? Because in order to get placed in large playlists with thousands or millions of followers, you have to boost your first-day stream totals AND also be getting fans to save your song to their queue or library."
Posted: Jul 7, 2018
Category: Social Media
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**Guest post written by Ariel Hyatt, originally featured on the Cyber PR Blog.
"Instagram — the most popular visual social platform has experienced a meteoric rise. As of today, there are over 700 million active Instagram users, and 95 million photos shared every day...We hear from artists all of the time that they love Instagram the most because of it’s ease of use."
View Full ArticlePosted: Apr 23, 2018
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Jordan Gates, of Megaphone Agency.
"A huge component of being successful in the music industry has to do with how you market yourself...Creating a powerful brand will help you achieve [lifelong fans]. Your band is the music making machine that will enable your career, and your brand is the face of your music that people will learn to know and love."
Posted: Jan 22, 2018
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Cassie Steele, content editor for GuitarFella.com.
"The internet has opened up a world of opportunity for musicians, enabling you to release music to a wide audience without the gatekeepers of record labels or a distribution company. However, you need to know what you’re doing. Releasing music online without a marketing plan and expecting it to sell is like dropping your CD in Times Square and expecting a record producer to pick it up..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Dec 4, 2017
Category: Social Media
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**Guest post written by Ged Richardson of Zing Instruments as featured in the Ultimate Guide To Social Media Marketing For Musicians.
"The commonest mistake that musicians make is not to consider who they are trying to reach with each platform. That’s right. You need to think who are you trying to reach. And the complexity doesn't stop there. People you’re trying to reach don’t all use the same social media channels either..." View Full Article
Posted: Aug 21, 2017
Category: Touring
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**Guest post written by Ari Herstand, the author of How To Make It in the New Music Business.
"I’ve made a ton of mistakes and got screwed over by talent buyers, promoters and club owners more times than I’d like to admit. I learned everything the hard way and it took me years to figure out how to actually book a successful, money making tour. The biggest thing you want to remember when thinking about setting up a tour is: do not book a tour just to go on tour..." View Full Article
Posted: Jul 31, 2017
Category: The Musician Business
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**Guest post by Vinnie Hines of Artist Collective.
"For ages, there’s been a cliché dream for any would-be musician...You’re immediately bombarded by these different suits throwing you offers from every record label you could think of, and finally, you’ve made it. You’re “signed...It’s all bullshit.” View Full Article
Posted: Feb 21, 2017
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post by Garrison Snell of Crosshair.
"Placement on playlists is the digital equivalent of radio placement, except that playlists aren't limited by geographical location AND they can be used to work your song into bigger playlists...Influencer marketing (placing stuff with influential digital celebs) is still the most organic form of promotion and word of mouth..."
View Full ArticlePosted: May 2, 2016
Category: Touring
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**Guest Post by Ezekiel Morphis, San Diego based Americana/Folk Singer-Songwriter.
"If you just started playing music last week, this article will aid you further down the road as long as you stay committed and work on your music first. If you are like me — two EPs completed, well practiced, working on an album, playing for a handful of years, don’t mind smelling like beer and shame for days on end and still want to know how to tour DIY — then this is the article for you."
View Full ArticlePosted: Feb 22, 2016
Category: Selling Music
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**Guest post written by Corey Koehler, an indie singer-songwriter from Minnesota, as featured in his blog MusicGoat.com.
"For the past 30-40 years musicians have been releasing albums. Many times the time between those albums was a year or more. Many bands and musicians these days still model their own release schedules after this same one. This is a mistake. These days you should be learning how to release a single and doing it often. Here's why..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Nov 2, 2015
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Matt Bacon, Senior Campaign Manager at Independent Music Promotions.
You look out on the crowd after a high powered set opening up for one of your favorite bands – and then instead of playing another song off your latest release you instead pull off a killer cover of Just Like Heaven...People love artists who pay tribute to their influences.
View Full ArticlePosted: May 18, 2015
Category: Social Media
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**Guest post written by Melinda Lewis of ScatterRadio.
"The evolution from simply surfing the internet on a computer to consuming content on mobile phones has put a growing emphasis on social media. And, the pressure to be “good” at social media has never been stronger...Your audience may be inundated with the same messages from different people and the quest to stand out oftentimes seems like an uphill battle. Instead of focusing on the quantity, cultivate quality..."
View Full ArticlePosted: May 11, 2015
Category: Promotion
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**Guest post written by Hugh Mcintyre via the DIY Musician Blog, originally posted on the SonicBids Blog.
"These days, everybody’s email inboxes are fuller than ever, and people are becoming more and more selective about what newsletters they sign up for. Here are six tips that could help you..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Feb 23, 2015
Category: Sponsorship
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**Guest post written by Anelka Argiro, VP of Brand Partnerships for Wind Up Records.
A good song just isn't enough [to break through the clutter] these days...Enter your new best friend -- brand partnerships.
View Full ArticlePosted: Dec 22, 2014
Category: Promotion
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**Guest post written by Wade Sutton of Rocket to the Stars.
"It is no secret that creating and adding to a list of e-mail subscribers is one of the most important marketing tools for singers and bands. It is also one of the most difficult and frustrating tasks to undertake..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Nov 4, 2014
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Brandon Seymour, musician, SEO analyst, web designer, and social media marketer.
"I know - I'm not the first genius to point out that the music industry is dead. I'm also not the first person to point out that artists have been complaining about this for a very long time. I just can't help but wonder if maybe - just maybe - the music industry needed to die..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Jul 28, 2014
Category: Promotion
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**Guest post written by Erica Sinkovic, CD Baby's Web Product Manager and general music enthusiast, as featured in the DIY Musician Blog.
"Whether you’re an independent artist or signed to an independent label, you’re sure to have a lot on your plate already. Between booking shows, debating merch, planning your next big marketing move, juggling social media-insanity, oh yeah, and writing new material, the last thing you want to add to your plate is a radio campaign...I’m here to tell you: don’t abandon radio."
View Full ArticlePosted: Jul 7, 2014
Category: Live Performance
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**Guest post written by Wade Sutton of Rocket to the Stars.
"Saxophonist Dave Goldberg has been getting a lot of attention lately for an open letter he wrote to operators of venues that host live music. The letter was Goldberg's way of sounding off against venues not paying artists as much money as they feel they deserve. The text, while not hostile in nature, was extremely misguided and managed to ignite another round of firestorms by similarly misguided artists. It was missing a lot of important information concerning why the music scene is the way it is right now and really offered little in the way of how to improve it other than to say venues should simply pay bands more money..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Jun 30, 2014
Category: Promotion
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**Guest post written by Alan VanToai of SimpleCrew - the mobile app for street teams. This article originally appeared on the SimpleCrew Blog.
"Street teams are a powerful force for independent artists - they’re a win-win all around. You get to engage your fans, give them a chance to get closer to you and “in on the fun”, and you get to spread the word about your shows." Read on for ways that you can use online and offline technics to power your team...
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