Wisdom Wednesday: Episode 3

Welcome to Wisdom Wednesday, a live monthly series where we answer your questions about music marketing. This week we discuss EPKS (what they are, what to include, what NOT to include), email marketing, and more!

Want to be a guest on the show or have questions you need answered? Email us at hello@marketingwithwisdom.com.

Kat:
Well, hello there and welcome back to Wisdom Wednesdays. How many of these have we done now?

Wisdom:
On CMM, has it been like two or three?

Kat:
Yeah, I guess this is probably the third.

Wisdom:
Because yeah, the first two we had guests on it where we were answering their questions.

Kat:
Yeah, so this must be our third. Welcome back everybody. We're glad that you are here, and we got some really great questions this week.

Wisdom:
I'm hoping that you can answer all of them because some of them are like, are they just looking up the hardest questions to ask in music marketing?

Kat:
I think what makes a lot of the questions truly difficult to answer though, is that it all changes so quickly. Like rhythms change or this changes or what Spotify prioritizes or whoever. It just all feels like it changes all the time.

Wisdom:
Yeah, and there's so much misinformation out there too that makes it really tough. Like there isn't like everybody can just go here and know that it's all true and factual. There's a lot of people putting out just a lot of bad information. And there's a lot of just opinions too, that are out there from people that have no experience.

Kat:
Well, you know what they say, opinions are something that everybody has, but not always things that need to be shared. What are you going to do? Well, we're so glad that you're joining us. This will also be posted live afterwards if you... Well, not posted live, but if you have to jump off, don't worry. We will be posting this on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram after this is over so you can always come back and watch it too. So don't freak out if you feel like you missed something.

Wisdom:
Yeah, and for those of you that love podcasts like me and Kat, I listen to podcasts every day when I'm getting ready, going to bed at night. Any chance I get, I listen to a lot of podcasts. So I consume content that way more than any other way. So if you're like us, then you can actually find us on your podcast app as well under Christian Music Marketing.

Wisdom:
So well, I guess we'll release the previous ones too, but this will be one of the first ones that we put out on that podcast feed. Because we recently rebranded the podcasts that we did have it called the Artist Mentorship, but we rebranded it to Christian Music Marketing and we'll be sharing these lives on that.

Kat:
Yap, so wherever you prefer to get your content, we are probably there offering this in the same most digestible way that works for you. So be sure to check it out and definitely the podcast, we're really excited to be offering content on that platform again. Especially like Wisdom said, I too spend a ton of time listening to podcasts. So I'm really excited to have it available in that format as well. Should we get started?

Wisdom:
Yeah.

Kat:
I feel like we're just prolonging it because I'm nervous.

Wisdom:
We've got to let people in, let people join us. It takes a little bit of time for Facebook and YouTube to notify people.

Kat:
Yap. Did you get to finish your protein bar? So do you feel fulfilled?

Wisdom:
Yeah, I feel all proteined up now. A lot of times I actually don't eat breakfast, but I was like should have pack some extra energy for this live. So Mike, thanks for subscribing to the podcast. Let's try showing comments on here because I know that's possible. We haven't done that much.

Kat:
Could you do it?

Wisdom:
You want me to do well here?

Kat:
Well, here...

Wisdom:
Yeah, awesome.

Kat:
Sweet. Thanks Mike. Also, I have a question just to see what people prefer. I too do not eat breakfast, but the people I know who do eat breakfast cannot live without breakfast. So you should tell us in the comments, whether or not you are a breakfast person and if you are a breakfast person, what is it that you eat for breakfast? That you feel like your life is incomplete without.

Wisdom:
Lucky Charms.

Kat:
Great plastic. All right, well, here we go. Do you have a preference on where we start Wisdom? Or do you want me to just fire questions at you?

Wisdom:
Surprise me.

Kat:
All right. Then let's start by talking about email marketing. Because I do think this is something artists, especially, I don't always have a reason to understand why it's helpful, why it's not and/or how to set it up.

Wisdom:
So email marketing, how to set up email marketing network? So email, if you don't have an email list, it does take time and really intentional work to actually create an email list and build it. So it can take you five minutes to actually set up an account on MailChimp or something like that.

Wisdom:
But to actually collect emails, it takes time. So you want to give yourself the patience to really cultivate that list. So what I would recommend is starting where you can partner with somebody that already has an audience. Because if you don't have an email list, most likely you don't have a built in audience yourself.

Wisdom:
So for example, maybe partner with a website like newreleasetoday.com, freeccm.com, noisetrade.com. Websites that already have a pretty healthy traffic that's already built in and the audience that's already built in where the audience is used to giving their email address for some free things.

Wisdom:
So for example, like Free CCM, we partner with them a lot because we're trying to promote the artists that we work with as an agency to the different audiences that are out there. So we'll do like a MP3 giveaway with Free CCM. And so when you partner with certain websites, they have a built-in where if you give away your music, the person that downloads it, they have to opt into your email list.

Wisdom:
So it's a requirement to get the freebie. And once they do, then you can add that person to your email list. So slowly over time, you can build your email list this way. So to give you a real life example, several years ago, I started building an email list for this brand that I had called All About Worship. I had started at 15 years ago. It was a podcast actually. And I started a website with it.

Wisdom:
And for years I fought against building an email list and I heard some people out there saying like email's dead. Don't waste your time building an email list. But then I also had friends in marketing that I really trusted their opinion. And they said, email is where it's at. You have to build an email list. So I had very little budget.

Wisdom:
So everything I was doing was really guerrilla marketing with all about worship. It was very organic. I was like, literally on My Space, just reaching out to people and connecting with them. People all over the world and building this audience for the podcast. And so I finally decided years into having all about worship to try to build an email list.

Wisdom:
So at that time, one of the biggest tools that I had that was free was noisetrade.com. So I set up an account for All About Worship. And I basically had this idea of putting together a compilation album of different worship songs from different artists. So I reached out through social media and also personally reached out to people and said, "Hey, we're putting together this compilation of 10 songs or eight songs.

Wisdom:
If you want to be considered, email us your song." So we had independent artists sending us songs, churches sending us songs. And then also labels was sending us songs. So every release, we had an overabundance of songs that were being submitted. So we were able to pick some really great songs for these compilations.

Wisdom:
And then we would give it away on Noise Trade and people would download it by opting into the email list. So over time, we literally went from zero emails and I spent $0 on marketing this besides social media, our podcasts, and people that we were kind of cross-promoting with. And by the time I actually sold All About Worship, we had 26,000 people on the email list. Most of it through Noise Trade and the strategy that we had built.

Wisdom:
So about every three months, we would give away a compilation and it was a big win-win because it actually opened up the door to really collaborate with labels and publishers and artists. And a lot of the artists that would pitch their songs, I'm actually to this day good friends with and stay in contact with.

Wisdom:
So I mean, if you look at the value of going from zero emails to 26,000 emails and how powerful that list is because social media is borrowed real estate. So you can't control what Facebook does on their platform or what Instagram does. Whereas an email list, those are actual pieces of data that you keep.

Wisdom:
So you have their name and email and maybe you require also a zip code and that data is something you can use, whether you're using MailChimp and maybe after a year you decide, oh, I don't want to use MailChimp. I will then move to Active Campaign or something else. You get to take that data. MailChimp doesn't own that data. So, that's huge.

Wisdom:
Data is really the biggest asset that you have these days. So you want to build your email list, but I would say the most important thing to remember in the email marketing conversation is to make sure you never send marketing emails to somebody that did not opt in to receive them. Because you could get in some big, big trouble by the government and get fined like crazy.

Wisdom:
Especially if you're emailing people overseas. Europe has this whole law called GDPR that you don't want to mess with that because that will basically shut you down. It will take you a long time to recover from that. I think I've heard some big numbers as far as fines, if they see that you're going against their laws and things around the data.

Wisdom:
So it's not even just email, but just around digital data, whether it's Facebook or whatever else. So do you have anything you want to add to that?

Kat:
Well, yeah, I was just thinking about this. And thinking too another very cool thing you can do with email marketing that do this as well on, is a lot of times, well, pre COVID, we used to get email addresses in person at events primarily. And something that I think is really cool that you can do with email marketing is you can target those segments.

Kat:
Say you get 100 or 200 emails from one event. Maybe you want to send all of those people a specific message just to them. And if you've categorized those emails correctly, you can communicate to people in a way that can be much more personal by being able to segment them accurately. You can't do that on Instagram.

Kat:
If you want to say thank you so much to this place last night, you're still talking to your entire audience instead of giving people, being able to reference them directly.

Wisdom:
Yeah. I was talking to Derek Webb one of the founders of Noise Trade years ago. And he said that he would rather... Because he was kind of comparing it to the old way of people buying CDs at a bookstore or music store. He said he would rather go to a music store. And if somebody is trying to buy his CD, say here, have the CD for free.

Wisdom:
Let me get your name and email address and zip code. He said that's more valuable to him than that person paying 15 bucks for a CD. And he would actually plan a whole tour around Noise Trade email lists that he was creating or growing. Because people would put in their zip code and he would be able to see, okay, this is a hotspot for my fans.

Wisdom:
So he'll plan the whole tour around the data that he was seeing. And of course, you could do that with even Spotify analytics now where you can see the big cities that are listening to your music and plan tours around that.

Kat:
Yeah. To sum it up, email marketing is one of the most effective inexpensive ways to really understand where your audience is and who you're talking to. And to be able to communicate information directly to them without having it be controlled or changed or whatever, by any type of platform, which is really cool.

Wisdom:
One thing I forgot to mention too is if you don't want to partner with another website that already has an audience and you want to just go for it yourself, one of the most effective ways to grow your email list that way is to do a big giveaway. So not just your music, but maybe give away I don't know, Bluetooth earbuds or a mug or something where you feel like your fan base, the people that you want to reach would really get excited about.

Wisdom:
So you want to think about like, what would actually make somebody want to give their information to you? Most people aren't going to do that for a new artist for just an MP3 if you're pushing that as a giveaway, as a brand new artist. It's different when you're partnering with another website that already has that audience.

Wisdom:
But if you're trying to do it yourself, I would think about what's something big. Maybe it's even just an Amazon gift card or something for 50 bucks. But that investment of 50 bucks is going to be worth so much more if you can grow that list.

Wisdom:
And so I would say doing giveaways is another great way or getting people early or exclusive access to content that maybe they can't find anywhere else, whether it's like a special video or something like that. So there's ways that you can definitely grow your email list on your own. And then maybe that giveaway, you run as an ad on Facebook and Instagram.

Kat:
Yeah, it's a great tool. And I mean, the other thing too is just like with Instagram or Facebook, there are such intense analytics that you can access and reporting from email marketing that can really give you a lot of insight into, well, why did this email get 75%?

Kat:
Why does it have a 75% open rate compared to this email, which has a 35% open rate and six people unsubscribed? Those are the types of information that you want to be collecting as an artist or as a business to let your audience tell you what they value from you. And we talk a lot about how a lot of times with brands and artists the issue's that you're not listening to, the audience that you have.

Kat:
And a huge way you can listen is through analytics and measuring your reports and making adjustments based on what your audience is telling you. All right, that was a lot about email marketing, which is awesome. I feel like we haven't talked about that at all on one of these. All right, let's go to EPKs. Another huge topic, especially-

Wisdom:
So what's the question?

Kat:
The question is all things EPK, what to include and basically what to do with it.

Wisdom:
Okay. So an EPK, first of all, is an electronic press kit. So back in the day, a publicist would put together a press kit and it was a physical kit. So with the technology, now things have evolved everything's digital. So now it's called an EPK and most people will send out an electronic press kit versus a physical press kit.

Wisdom:
So the purpose of an EPK is to really give especially press media outlets an easy way to really get to know you and get the assets that they would be interested in in the most easy, accessible way as possible. So that allows them to kind of get to know you and really find out a little bit more about your music versus just sending them your Spotify link.

Wisdom:
So a good way to develop an EPK is really create kind of like a landing page on your website. So maybe you put it as one of the navigation menu items on your website or in the footer, or maybe you don't even list it because you only want to be giving that to people that are in media or to people in the music industry. So there's a couple of ways to go about it.

Wisdom:
If you want it to be more private then you can keep it unlisted and just send the link to people that you want to be able to access that. So I would make sure on this EPK landing page that you have just the basic stuff that if you were... Kind of put yourself in their shoes. So if you were this Christian music outlet, media outlet, a blog or whatever, what would you want to know about the artist?

Wisdom:
And also think about how they're getting tons and tons of emails pitching to them to review different artists music or whatever. So you want to think about what's the best way to present yourself to these media outlets and make it as easy as possible, eliminate as many barriers as possible for them to get to know you and hear your music. And just at a glance, be able to know what you're all about.

Wisdom:
So think about having a bio, but don't write a book. Just make it short and sweet, like a paragraph or two about yourself, but talk about things that they would care about. Not things that you care about, because sometimes those two are different. So talk about what they should know, why they should care about you as an artist and make sure you proofread it, have somebody else proofread it because the worst thing is for it to have grammar or spelling errors.

Wisdom:
I get a lot of resumes because I hire people. And one of the biggest things I noticed immediately on the resume is if there's a spelling error or grammar and I'm like, you're presenting this to me as your resume, to get a job. And if you can't pay attention to the details that are pretty simple, you have to just read through it and have somebody else read through it.

Wisdom:
It's not hard to make sure you don't have grammar or spelling errors. So make sure it's concise and clear and there's no mistakes in it. Also includes some professional photos, not like selfies. I mean, if you have like an iPhone 12 and you have good lighting and you know how to take a picture, it could look professional. So Kat takes professional photos of her dog now with her iPhone.

Kat:
It's a bit weird for me people, you don't understand. I had an iPhone eight until about four days ago. The biggest change is the camera on here. Because you're right, some of them look professional. It's wild.

Wisdom:
Yeah, so you could start there. You don't have to necessarily hire a photographer, but if you can, that's great. Because they know how to capture, especially the ones that do artists photos. They know how to capture artists photos, and they know how to capture press photos. Because there's a difference between an artistic artists photo versus a press photo that you want to provide media outlets.

Wisdom:
So just give some options there. And then you also want to make sure you include your music, which should be obvious. But wow, iPhone 6S, that's like half... We're at double that number now. That's crazy.

Kat:
Impressive though, Mike, because I remember when those came out and were the big turning point for Apple. It's huge.

Wisdom:
I actually met my son's friend who still hasn't... Or his first phone, I guess is the iPhone one, the original iPhone. So I got to see that in person a couple months ago. So you want to make sure you include your music. I would recommend making it streamable right there on the landing page on your EPK and then also downloadable.

Wisdom:
So you could use like a SoundCloud widget on that page. If you're using a website like Squarespace, they have that kind of built in as well. So you could have a player on it and then let people download it too. So if you think about a radio station, for example, and maybe they come across your EPK, they want to play your music, but you don't let them download it.

Wisdom:
That's a huge opportunity that's missed because they'll probably move on to somebody else at that point. So make your music available, make your videos available. So this, you don't need to provide the video file, but just embed your YouTube videos. So you could embed your top videos, like music videos, but maybe also, I don't see a lot of artists doing this, but maybe also include an introduction video where you're talking to the media outlets or the industry folks or radio folks.

Wisdom:
So one way to kind of think of it is you know those... I've never used dating sites and apps or whatever, but I feel like I've seen where you can do a video... Like in movies, they show you can record a video of yourself and put it on the dating website or whatever. So think of it that way. And having been a worship pastor too, I know that churches, sometimes will require that as part of the application.

Wisdom:
You have to do a video of yourself. So think of it that way, just really wanting your personality to come across the video, letting them know who you are. And within 60 seconds, maybe let them get a really good feel of your personality, your brand. The other things to include are your website, your URL, your social media links.

Wisdom:
And then also at least your Spotify and Apple Music links. Those are always good to have pre-prominent on the website. And then if you have upcoming shows, whether it's in person or online, list those out and then also ways to contact you. So whether that's you have a manager or a publicist that they need to contact for different things, or maybe it's your mom that manages you.

Wisdom:
And she's the point person, having email address. If you want to have a phone number, list your phone number. Just make sure that whatever that they might be looking for, they don't have to go dig around somewhere. It's all right there.

Kat:
Well, that's the real thing. And part of the reason that EPKs, I feel like have sort of taken over is because they made it so much more streamlined for the outlet to get your information. You're wanting to make it as easy as possible for them to find out exactly who you are as quickly as they can.

Kat:
So the more you can do to eliminate clicks unnecessarily and to communicate who you are, is going to help you stand out when someone's getting a hundred emails of pitches every single day. That was great. I love talking about EPKs because I feel like they really can be a make it or break it piece for people.

Kat:
And just even thinking about how many different versions of EPKs we see all the time. It's really interesting. Okay, we have time for one more question, do you think?

Wisdom:
Yeah.

Kat:
All right. Let's talk about this because I feel like this is a question lots of people have. And this question is, how to get connected without the backing of a label.

Wisdom:
So, I don't know if you've talked to this person for more information, but what do you think they're talking about as far as getting connected?

Kat:
I think they're probably talking about playlisting, writers and producers/general industry connections.

Wisdom:
Got you.

Kat:
And maybe even booking, how to get in front of more people without a promoter or a manager or whatever.

Wisdom:
Cool, yeah. So first hire your mom.

Kat:
Although probably would be a wise financial choice.

Wisdom:
Yeah. A lot of managers, dad managers, sisters, brothers, relatives, I mean, that's one way to kind of get started, husbands or wives. Because it's a little different when you're the one pitching yourself versus somebody else's kind of representing you and going to bat for you.

Wisdom:
So, if that's your first step is to have a family member help you or boyfriend girlfriend help you, I think that could be... If they're strong in the areas where the skillsets needed are there. If they're super shy and they don't like to talk to new people, they don't like to be vocal about things, that's probably not the right person for that kind of a role.

Wisdom:
But maybe you could recruit somebody to help you to kind of represent you that will go to bat for you. That will champion you and actively look for opportunities for you. So one of the benefits to being signed to a label is those connections and relationships that naturally come with that. And if you're not with a label, it's still doable.

Wisdom:
And a lot of my friends who are independent artists have some great relationships and know a lot of people in the industry, but they're very intentional about it. So one thing I'll say is, let's say like, you're it, you're the only person that could do this for now. Don't reach out to somebody with an ulterior motive. Meaning when I would work at a label, I would get hit up by a lot of random people every week, almost every day.

Wisdom:
And this was Nashville, and it was a lot of people that had just moved to town and saw me around on Instagram or social media, or different places. And they would reach out to me a lot of times through social media and want to get lunch or coffee or pick my brain.

Wisdom:
That that is the biggest thing you should avoid is reaching out to somebody that's at a label or a booking agent, or whatever that the case might be to pick their brain, because they have better things to do than to open up their brain for you to pick. So that's very frank, but that's the truth. They have a full-time job and their primary responsibility is to their artists, their label, what they do for a living.

Wisdom:
They don't really have this urge to go let somebody pick their brain. So I would really advise against approaching it that way. And if you truly care about somebody that you're wanting to talk to maybe as a manager, maybe as a booking agent and you want to just build a relationship with them, then yeah, reach out to them and say, hey, could I grab a coffee with you for 30 minutes and give them a time frame so they know what the time commitment is.

Wisdom:
And you're very upfront about, there's no strings attached. I'm not trying to pitch you my music, and follow through on what you said. Don't show up and then give them your CD or something. I've had that happen a lot too. That's the worst. So don't do that. I think all my friends in Nashville are thanking me right now for saying all this, because they probably are too nice to say this to people.

Wisdom:
So I'm saying it for them. So if you truly just want to build a friendship with the person, then do that, but don't have the string attached to it. Because people can smell that. If you have a different motive, they will smell it quick and then you're going to be kind of blacklisted. So, if you don't want to go there.

Wisdom:
And then if you are wanting to work with the producer, typically producers are going to be way more open to meeting with you for coffee or doing a Zoom call because you're a potential client. That's potentially, I mean, that's mainly how they make money is through producing other people's projects. So if you're interested in working with them, they have that time.

Wisdom:
That's one of the priorities is to chat with new clients, new artists. So I think producers are very different when we're talking about connecting with people, but if you're talking about people that mainly already have a roster of artists that they work with, or radios programmers, you do have to approach it really differently.

Wisdom:
One of the biggest things I would say is if you are trying to pitch your music or whatever, first of all, don't directly pitch your music to them cold call, just emailing them and going like, hey, I'm the best thing since Sliced Bread. Here's my music. Nobody wants to hear that. And they're getting 100 emails a day with the same kind of email and pitch.

Wisdom:
So really how I would encourage you to approach those relationships is to really think about it as a relationship. Because even if you were, let's say interested in a romantic relationship with somebody, you're not going to go on the first date and then expect them to marry you on that first date. So that first date, you're just kind of getting to know each other.

Wisdom:
So, if you feel like you have what it takes to get somebody to be interested in you in the industry then build that relationship. But do it the natural way, let it kind of happen organically and not pitch. And I think a lot of artists get very eager and overly zealous and that's where you can really become blacklisted or just it's a big turnoff.

Wisdom:
So dial it back. Whatever your passion and energy level is for your music, dial it back. Because those people that you're wanting to talk to, they're not there yet. Maybe they will get there after a few months, but they're not there. So don't be a salesman, but be a friend. And also approach it more in that relationship, think of what you can give more than what you can get.

Wisdom:
So, don't even think about what you can get out of that relationship, but really have a servants approach to it and think about how you can serve them, how you can help them. Get to know maybe what they're dealing with in their life, what their challenges are and look for ways that you can help them, whether it's just encouraging them.

Wisdom:
Because I'll tell you a lot of people in the industry are very discouraged and they're not going to show it when they're just first time meeting you or whatever. But if you can create that trust and that rapport with them I think a lot of them will open up to you and in a lot of ways, it's a lonely job because they do have to kind of guard themselves from getting bombarded with all kinds of things.

Wisdom:
So if you can be that person for them that encourages them and checks in with them just out of the blue and goes like, hey, how are things going? I think those things will speak volumes. Does that answer the question you think?

Kat:
Yeah, totally. And another thing too, we just had Chris Clayton over on the artist mentorship recently talking about he did a whole webinar on how to find and work with the right producer. And to your point about working with people, I think a lot of times Chris said this, if there's someone you want to work with, don't be afraid to just shoot them a message.

Kat:
They can always just ignore you or turn you down, or you never know, they might be looking... Have some openings and be looking to work with new people. So there is this element of, especially with producers like you were saying, they're looking for new clients too most of the time and really just putting yourself out there sometimes too, and not being so prideful to think that you're above that and everyone should be coming to you, I think is a huge difference in the way people can approach these types of things as well.

Wisdom:
Yeah. And the word I would use to describe what not to do is don't be opportunistic. I think that's something that is very easy to detect when somebody's just being an opportunistic person. Because when I started working in Nashville, I would literally have friends just come out of the work that I haven't talked to you in a decade and all of a sudden want to grab lunch or chat or whatever.

Wisdom:
And then towards the end of that call or conversation is the pitch. I've literally heard people say, oh man, I feel like this is so like... God, like such a God thing and ordained by God that we reconnected because I'm working on this music and maybe your blank label might be interested. I feel like it will be a good fit for them. Yeah, that's just trying to take advantage of people.

Wisdom:
So people can really smell that. I think you mentioned curators on Spotify. So when it comes to curators, that does take a lot of work as well. I know artists that do it themselves and don't work with agencies like ourselves or other services. They try to build this list of curators that they pitched to themselves.

Wisdom:
And I've literally talked to guys that are spending like 10 hours a day building this list of curators, but then they also don't have time to actually build a relationship with them. They're just literally just pitching them new music. So it can be done. You can literally go on Spotify, look up whatever keywords you want to look up for your music and see if there's a contact on their bio or their playlist description.

Wisdom:
If not, you're going to have to just play investigator and try to find them on social media or something or Google. So it can be done. But curators are the same situation when it comes to cold calling because they're being bombarded with stuff. And most people, I would guess based on us being hit up for our playlist too, I would guess that 99% of emails they get are straight up pitching.

Wisdom:
Artists going like here's my new song, here's the link. Please consider it for your playlist. 99% is that, and the priority level when you get an email like that is down here. You can't even see it because it's not very like a win-win relationship. It's not like, hey, you scratch my back. I scratch your back. Even though that's not a good approach, but it's not even that. It's like you scratch my back, period.

Wisdom:
Yeah, I think really I've always just approached everything valuing the relationship. So I think that would be my biggest suggestion is value that relationship. Think of it as a relationship, not a transaction.

Kat:
I mean, I keep referencing Chris. Sounds like he sponsored this video, but he talked so much about that in that webinar for the artist's mentorship in just saying that even a lot of times, he's met people that he felt like he always wanted to work with. And then you meet and sometimes it just doesn't work.

Kat:
There's just personally a disconnect or whatever it may be. And that's not a bad thing. Sometimes it doesn't work, but that relationship, you want to be building relationships with people that you want alongside you for your whole career. And I think a huge part of that too to all of you who are listening is the first step for you might be that you come and work with someone like us. Let us help you.

Kat:
We would love to represent you with integrity and really help you establish relationships with the right people for you and for your brand and your music. And do it in a way that is authentic for you and for the other parties. Because that's what music is. There's an audience for almost all music. It's just, how do you get it to the right people?

Wisdom:
Yeah, and a lot of people think of playlist pitching as like, oh, I could do that. I could just send music to curators, look up their information. But it's so much more than that. It's the relationship and the trust that we've built with people. So we have a lot of partners that we will send artists to or songs to, whether it's for selling their core char or stems or whatever.

Wisdom:
Or even producers, we'll connect a lot of people to producers or videographers, but they all know from experience that anybody we connect them with has been vetted. And there's already that trust that's built in. So yeah, anybody can... A 12 year old can go and pitch [inaudible 00:44:25] email with the Spotify link.

Wisdom:
That's very narrow-minded because you're not thinking about the relational aspect of it and how for curators or people in the industry, they trust things from people that they trust. So me telling somebody, let's say an ANR at a label that this artist I think is really great and has all this potential and they should consider it.

Wisdom:
They're going to listen to that music because of that relationship and that trust versus you sending your own music to that same ANR person going, my music is great. You should really check it out. And the curator is the same thing.

Wisdom:
We turn down a lot of people that won't play this pitching services from us because we have this certain bar of what we know curators are looking for. And they know that we have set that expectation with artists that we work with. So anything we send them, they know it's not going to be a garage band recording in somebody's basement.

Kat:
So we hope this has been helpful for you, whether you're watching this with us live right now or whether you're listening to this in your car on our podcast format, or whether you're watching it later on Instagram, YouTube or Facebook. We're so glad that you're here and that you've tuned in. You have any last words Wisdom?

Wisdom:
I think the elephant in the room right now is just how crazy our world is. We live in a world that nobody has ever experienced. Whether it's just the pandemic or the political divide, the racial tension. There's a lot going on. And a lot of people also have been impacted financially with everything going on.

Wisdom:
So I don't want to dismiss that. I think a lot of artists watching this are probably discouraged and hurting and feel like they want to give up. And it's easy to give up. It's actually a lot easier if you just say, I'm going to throw in the towel today and give up, nobody cares. Nobody's going to notice that I stopped releasing music.

Wisdom:
But I will encourage you to think about your calling. If you truly believe this is a part of what God's created you for and God's gifted you for, then that's the reason why you want to keep pushing. And even when it is hard, you want to keep going and not give up because that's part of the stewardship of God's gifting.

Wisdom:
And there's a reason God's gifted you with music and he didn't give your accountant with music abilities. Because he's wanting you to use that gift, not just keep it to yourself. So, yeah, I hope that encourages somebody. And I think you have to go into it also knowing just because God's gifted you in something, it doesn't mean he's going to just hand everything to you on a silver platter.

Wisdom:
I think that's called entitlement. So I haven't found entitlement in the Bible anywhere yet. And the ones that were entitled, it didn't end well for them in the Bible. So I would encourage you to just be willing to put in the work and let God do what he does with it. But you also have to do your part. So don't give up and keep going for it.

Wisdom:
And every stream, every engagement that you see on social media, that's an actual person that you are administering to. So don't downplay that. Celebrate those wins, those streams each and every single one of them, because that could be potentially somebody whose life that you've really impacted or changed.

Kat:
Yeah, what a good word to end this, Wisdom Wednesdays. We are skipping next week because it's Thanksgiving and then we'll be back the week after that, is that right? The first week of December, we'll be doing another live, but over on our Marketing with Wisdom pages and that live will be focused more on business marketing in general. Is that accurate? After Thanksgiving. I cannot believe it's Thanksgiving next week.

Wisdom:
Yeah, it's really weird.

Kat:
So that will be Wednesday, December 2nd, I think if I'm counting correctly. Wednesday, December 2nd, we will be back with our next live. We'd love to see you there. We hope that you all have a great and safe Thanksgiving and that you and your families all stay safe. Thanks so much.

Wisdom:
All right. Thanks Kat.

Kat:
Bye Wisdom.