IOTM Blog
Posted: Jun 3, 2025
Category: Fans
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**Guest post by Morgan Coates, Head of Music Partnerships at IYK.
"Most artists don’t know much about the fans attending their shows. That detailed demographic data is often siloed in ticketing platforms and with promoters, who aren’t incentivized to share fan data with artists. This is a massive issue for artists looking to maximize their return on the touring investment. After all, the people that show up to support you on tour are your most engaged fans. Over the life of a tour, thousands of fans could attend your shows and buy your merch, yet you don't know who they are."
Posted: Feb 11, 2025
Category: The Musician Business
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**Guest post by Eric Todd, Founder/CEO of iProdigy, a Grammy-winning artist development and funding platform for artists at every career stage.
"With the dominance of streaming platforms like Spotify offering unprecedented competition and dismally low payouts, independent artists are finding it nearly impossible to earn a sustainable living solely from streaming revenue...The reality is that success in the music business no longer revolves around simply getting placed on playlists or racking up streams. Instead, artists must cultivate dedicated fan bases and build direct-to-fan (D2F) communities that they can monetize outside the constraints of digital service providers (DSPs)..."
Posted: Apr 20, 2020
Category: The Musician Business
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**Guest post written by Jordan Gates, of Megaphone Agency.
"This isn’t the first time [the music industry] has been forced to adapt to tremendous change and adversity. No one is immune to the threats of disruption, volatility, and hyper competition that exist in this industry. Despite the fickle nature, there are things artists can do to set themselves up for success in the long run. Here are some thoughts on how to weather the storms and come out on top..."
Posted: Nov 11, 2019
Category: Online Presence
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**Guest post by Randy Chertkow and Jason Feehan of MakingMoneyWithMusic.com. Reprinted with permission.
"What not every musician knows about or takes advantage of is there's a second way to make ad revenue off of your videos -- even if you can't become a YouTube Partner. The key is to register your entire back catalog of music with YouTube's ContentID service..."
Posted: Nov 4, 2019
Category: Online Presence
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**Guest post by Randy Chertkow and Jason Feehan of MakingMoneyWithMusic.com. Reprinted with permission.
"YouTube is the top music search engine in the world, so having your music there is critical. But when it comes to making money, YouTube has raised the threshold for creators to become a YouTube Partner. This is important since it’s only Partners who can monetize the ads being played on their channel and videos...In this article, we'll share two more critical ways to boost views, hours, and subscribers."
View Full ArticlePosted: Oct 21, 2019
Category: Online Presence
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**Guest post by Randy Chertkow and Jason Feehan of MakingMoneyWithMusic.com. Reprinted with permission.
"YouTube is essential for getting your music discovered and heard. But to make money from your channel's advertising, you need 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours. In this three part series, we'll give you the techniques you can use to hit this threshold so YouTube starts sending you checks for the ads running on your channel and videos."
View Full ArticlePosted: Nov 5, 2018
Category: Fans
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**Guest post written by Evan Price, Music Mentor and Founder of Artist Collective.
"Instagram focuses in on content gold like photos and videos. Luckily for us, they are still running an interface with few ads that allows pages to be grown easily. Careers have been built on the back of strong Instagram followings and I’ve seen it work."
View Full ArticlePosted: Oct 10, 2016
Category: Online Distribution
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**Guest post written by Corey Koehler, an indie singer-songwriter from Minnesota, as featured in his blog MusicGoat.com.
"Here’s the good news: These days if you want to sell music online it is pretty damn easy. You find a nice music distribution service, upload your songs and BAM… you are worldwide. Your music is blasted out all over the world in less than an hour. Here's the bummer..." View Full Article
Posted: May 4, 2015
Category: Merch
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**Guest post written by Carlos Castillo of Schwilly Family Musicians - music marketing strategist, web designer, live performance recordist, international road-tripper, lap steel player, and Captain of the Schwilly Family.
""Don't rely on the promoters. As long as you put on a killer show and have killer merch, you'll always have enough gas to make it to the next stop"...The bottom line is that if you want to be a professional musician, you should have a solid merch setup and promote it effectively at your gigs. Because it might be the only money you make that night..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Apr 20, 2015
Category: The Musician Business
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**Guest post written by Deuce Ellis, Buffalo-born and Brooklyn-raised rap renegade. Originally posted by Cyber PR.
"Here’s My Guest Blog After Attending the #YourMusic Seminar; maybe this whole thing is easier than you think…First things first, let’s demolish whatever train of thought you may have. Demolish it. Let’s destroy and rebuild..."
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