As a digital marketing agency, a lot of the work we do involves paid media - often social advertising with carefully curated targeting. A recurring request we see from our clients, often before we even get started, is asking that we distribute their digital ad budget so that it only targets the U.S. market. From a logical perspective, it makes complete sense to only target ads towards audiences in markets where you know you want to build a fan base of real people who you can re-engage for show promotion when the time comes. But, from an ad-buying perspective, there’s a little more nuance. Beneath the surface, there’s an advantage to targeting your ads to international audiences with cheaper cost-per-results and even potentially a Spotify algorithm “hack”. This may seem counterintuitive, but by targeting internationally, you can actually build your presence in your own country. Here’s how it works.

As an independent artist, it can sound like a dream to have a team of people working on your behalf. And when it’s the right fit - it can be. But getting the right artist managers, booking agents, publishers, publicists, and others in place can be a long process -- often one that has to be tweaked as you go. It's important to keep your expectations in check, to trust your team and empower them to do their jobs. At the same time - only you can set the right expectations for your team - you can't rely on your manager, label, or anyone else to do it for you. If you’ve got your team in place and you’re feeling like something’s just not quite right, it might be time to re-evaluate.

It’s time to stop paying for playlist pitching.

To clarify, if you’re an artist, it’s in your best interest to never pay for a company to pitch your music to third party Spotify Playlists again.

Simply put, there is no longer a viable path for success when hiring these services. It can only either damage your data or your pocket book.

Venture Music has a deep history when it comes to playlisting that has led us to this conclusion. A conclusion we’ve been whispering into as many ears as possible. Well, we’re tired of whispering.

There comes a time for every artist when they make the decision to transition from viewing music as a hobby to trying to make an actual career for themselves. As with all industries, the independent artist’s success is highly dependent on the team they surround themselves with. While the size, composition and complexity of each team varies from artist to artist, the fact remains that knowing when and how to effectively build your team is one of the most important steps in ensuring a successful career in music. 

Partnerships between musicians and social media influencers have created some of the most popular and impactful forms of marketing over the past few years. While there’s endless opportunities of engaging the new and exciting approach, it can also come across as an expensive investment that seems too overwhelming to include in your next campaign. 

Before you completely scratch a social media influencer partnership off your list, let’s go over some creative and effective ways you can plan to build your social media influencer collaborations.