#014: Dear Indie Artists, Stop Shooting Music Videos

"Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends." — Alphonse de Lamartine

Dear Indie Artists,

Stop shooting music videos. Ok, not all of you. And that does sound extreme. But for many independent artists, the music video shoots and budgets are getting in the way of achieving success in the music industry. It’s becoming an all too common trend for artists to shoot a music video with a large production budget, but then not have the proper budget leftover to promote the video accordingly. What is the result when that happens? The result is very likely a beautiful music video, with 312 views on YouTube and no one there to watch it. A statistic came out this month that 88.2% of all videos on YouTube have under 1,000 views. This speaks directly to the issue of a lack of foresight and strategy on how to execute the production and marketing for a music video.

There are two solutions to be sure that you don’t fall into this same problem:

1) Stop shooting music videos entirely. This doesn’t mean that you should cease all visual content. But instead, shoot short-form visual content that will perform well on social media and can be used for digital advertising.
2) Shoot a music video, but be sure that you have a marketing budget that is equal to or above what it cost to shoot it. And be sure that you have an even larger budget to promote streaming.

The music industries ‘Chicken or the Egg’ is ‘Acquiring Funding vs Having Your Breakout Hit’ (if you haven’t read this past article, CLICK HERE). It is extremely rare to move the needle in acquiring funding and/or getting a quality deal from a distributor or record label through a music video. The metric that moves the needle in 2020 is music streaming. Period. So a logical result is to put all, or nearly all, investment into areas that will drive your music streaming. Once a larger budget is achieved, then it makes perfect sense to resume shooting music videos, which can be such a powerful marketing tool and allow the fan to achieve a deeper understanding of who the artist is. If you are an independent artist, don’t fall into the trap that is holding back so many artists in the industry today.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

JAY’S SONGS OF THE WEEK

BJRNCK - “Real” (feat. Boogie)
Tate McRae - “don’t be sad”
Brasstracks - “Golden Ticket” (feat. Masego & Common)
Jordan Mitchell - “Without You”
Pharrell Williams - “Entrepreneur” (feat. JAY-Z)
FLETCHER - “Feel”
Tiny Jag - “Twin Flame”