{"id":5166,"date":"2011-10-16T13:45:39","date_gmt":"2011-10-16T20:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/?p=5166"},"modified":"2015-09-30T18:56:37","modified_gmt":"2015-09-30T18:56:37","slug":"if-you-are-over-30-years-old-you-are-starting-over-read-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/if-you-are-over-30-years-old-you-are-starting-over-read-this\/","title":{"rendered":"If You Are Over 30 Years Old You Are Starting Over, Read This!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MickBob Lefsetz<\/a> has delivered another great post. This time Mick Jagger and his new band Superheavy are the focus of his commentary. Do the dinosaur acts and artists know how to market and sell their music in this new era? Do they even know how to contact their audience?<\/p>\n

96. Superheavy<\/span><\/p>\n

Sales this week: 7,399
\nCume: 29,710
\nWeeks on chart: 3
\nPercentage drop: -40.1<\/p>\n

1. Mick Jagger doesn\u2019t know who his audience is.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying he doesn\u2019t have an idea who might buy this album, it\u2019s just that he doesn\u2019t have a personal relationship with them, he has no line of communication, HE DOESN\u2019T HAVE THEIR E-MAIL ADDRESSES!<\/p>\n

That\u2019s your number one promotion job, finding out exactly who your audience is. So you can make them aware of your new work and infect them and get them to spread the word. This is the most efficient marketing system. It\u2019s direct to fan. And it\u2019s incumbent upon all acts to do this.<\/p>\n

2. If you want sales make Top Forty music.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You can get around this if you\u2019re the Dave Matthews Band, if you know who your audience is as per #1 above. If not, you\u2019re gonna sell bupkes.<\/p>\n

3. If you\u2019re gonna make Top Forty music, work with Dr. Luke or Max Martin, the producer\/writer du jour.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You might think the Top Forty game is simple, but it\u2019s not. The winners in the field have not only worked in it for years, they\u2019ve studied it, they know what works, they\u2019ve put in the time. Respect them for it.<\/p>\n

4. If you don\u2019t make Top Forty music, you must go on the road.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s where you build careers today, that\u2019s where you maintain them. But if you\u2019re doing something new, you\u2019ve got to break all the rules. People don\u2019t expect the solo band member to replicate the group hits, they expect to be disappointed. So they don\u2019t want to go, they certainly don\u2019t want to overpay. So you\u2019ve got to underplay and undercharge as an investment in your career. And you\u2019ve got to over-deliver, so when you come back again, soon, patrons will bring their friends, so you can build. It\u2019s a lot of hard work, something that\u2019s anathema to the superstars going solo.<\/p>\n

5. TV can sell music.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re on the show and the track is perceived to be good. Ergo the success of “Moves Like Jagger” and the failure of the Steven Tyler track.<\/p>\n

A guest shot is almost meaningless. What you\u2019re selling here is your connection with the viewer, who sees you every week. They feel like they know you. They\u2019ll buy the track in solidarity if they believe it\u2019s great. Tyler\u2019s track was a joke, a boring, perfunctory exercise. Today you\u2019ve got to be better than great to succeed. J. Lo delivered a track better than what she\u2019d done in years, so her fans bought it, but no one else did, because J. Lo\u2019s a great dancer, can be a good actress, but she\u2019s a no-talent musical artist.<\/p>\n

6. You have to ask yourself if you\u2019re a musician or a star.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mick Jagger is certainly a star. But no one thinks he\u2019s a musician. Most people believe he hasn\u2019t done anything great since the sixties. You can no longer coast, unless you\u2019re going on the road and playing those ancient hits. You\u2019ve got to prove it every day.<\/p>\n

7. Mainstream publicity reaches the mainstream.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And the mainstream is last, they\u2019re the followers, not the chance-takers. The movers and shakers, the early adopters who\u2019ll spread the word, ignore the mainstream press. Better to reach a few fanatical bloggers than the “New York Times”.<\/p>\n

8. Everything above is known to everybody under thirty. But it\u2019s all a secret to everybody over thirty, especially those who\u2019ve had success in the past.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Artists don\u2019t realize that today your past history gives you a foot in the door and nothing more. Youngsters know it\u2019s all about the grass roots, building community online, or playing the overly-promoted Top Forty game.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fine if you want to give up. But if you want to make new music and have it get traction today you must obey the above rules. And the music must be great. But that\u2019s no guarantee everybody\u2019s going to pay attention. This is where your history hurts you, people expect your new material to be crap. If it\u2019s great, you have to wait for the hype to die down and for the music to percolate in society. Traction will be slow and small. This album may not ever blow up. It may be the one after or the one after that.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re starting all over.<\/p>\n

Believe it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

via Lefsetz Letter \u00bb Blog Archive \u00bb Superheavy<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bob Lefsetz has delivered another great post. This time Mick Jagger and his new band Superheavy are the focus of his commentary. Do the dinosaur acts and artists know how to market and sell their music in this new era? Do they even know how to contact their audience? 96. Superheavy Sales this week: 7,399 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[79,1154,1155,1156,1157],"class_list":["post-5166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-marketing-2","tag-bob-lefsetz","tag-know-your-audience","tag-mick-jagger","tag-superheavy","tag-top-forty-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11591,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5166\/revisions\/11591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbrandvold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}