1. Come up with a plan!

“In any market you’re thinking about going to, you should start building yourself a team and have a year and a half strategic plan. Something about how to tackle that market, think about how do you want to make your first entrance into that market. Then come over and also have a part 2! You can’t just come once and think you’re going to conquer America in one 5-day trip.” – Adam Lewis, Founder, Planetary Group (USA)

This quote is excerpted from Midem Digital “Artists: A Guide to Promote yourself in the Main Music Markets (Germany, USA, UK)” conference, where panelists give you concrete tips and the questions you need to ask yourself to prepare your strategy per territories.

How can you make that worthwhile as opposed to just coming over and playing? What can you do, that year prior, leading up to that? So that when you come, it means something, people want to see you and there is excitement for you? So that for instance, you will end up playing on a better stage, at a better time and in front of real bodies as opposed to a bunch of people from your home country.

2. Keep the ball rolling

“Once you have your plan in place, you can’t stop. The British media like to feel they have discovered things. If they feel they have gotten something and they have got excited and then things got quiet for 6 months, it’s kind of hard to turn that excitement back on.” – James Windle, Associate Director, DawBell (UK)

This quote is excerpted from Midem Digital “Artists: A Guide to Promote yourself in the Main Music Markets (Germany, USA, UK)” conference. When you make your first entrance to a market, you need to keep deep-feeding the local market all the time. There is so much going on, so many production that interaction is key to keep momentum on your project.

3. Come as you are!

“We’re not looking for the Brazilian version of “fill in the blank” of American act, we want the original stuff, and that’s always something to really keep in mind when you’re coming into the market.” – Adam Lewis, Founder, Planetary Group (USA)

This quote is excerpted from Midem Digital “Artists: A Guide to Promote yourself in the Main Music Markets (Germany, USA, UK)” conference. New music is popping up everywhere and markets like the US or Germany are now, more than ever, ready to embrace new trends. However one cannot predict what the world will be willing to see or hear until it actually sees and hears it…. but when you will see or hear it, you will know…! Authenticity is key to deliver your message with passion. For sure, it will also be the best way for fans to be moved and engaged.

4.Fine-tune your storytelling and share it to the world

“You should share your passions, fans love to know more about you, not only about your music, they like to know what you’re passionate about. For instance, if you like playing video games like Animal Crossing or Fortnite… I’m sure they would want to play with you!” – Cyril Delon, Global Head of Creative Marketing, Believe Group (France).

This quote is excerpted from Midem Digital “Believe Workshop”. To cut through the noise, you definitely need to identify what’s unique about your sound, your story, your background, your artist brand and what makes you stand apart in a very crowded marketplace. The story needs to be bigger than the music itself, something that has wider significance. Then you will need to share it with the audience in a creative and authentically way, involving interaction and conversation with your fans.

Good examples are the band Bastille who love movies, so they created a film club called “Distraction Tactics” where they share films for their fans to watch, and then discuss them together during a live session. Or Lizzo, who created her own meditation group to promote healing on Instagram.

5. Music and Data: Data are key to fair artists’ distribution revenues  

“Each royalty society around the globe has to make sure artists get paid fairly based on limited data. About 2.7 billion dollars is lost to artists this year and less than 1% of real world data is how an artist is actually compensated in public performance areas.” – Ryan Edwards, Founder & CEO, Audoo (UK)

According to Xavier Tumminello, Innovation and Music Tech Conference Manager, data have become crucial for businesses to better target customers and maximize revenues. It has helped entire industries make strategic decisions in a more a more competitive global market. What has been made available for companies over the years can now be duplicated for artists at lower costs. With data science innovations, artists now have access to services that help them target the right audience at the right location, make strategic music promotion and marketing investments and create value from music. Startups like Audoo also analyze global public performance data to offer more fair revenues to every artist.