Tag: Music Business Theory

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Better Marketing: The Bathroom Sticker Theory EXPLAINED [VIDEO]

bathroom sticker theory

When was the last time a sticker on the wall of a bathroom stall changed your life?

Allow me to paint a picture in your mind. It’s the last gap in the lineup before the headliner takes the stage. You’re working your way to the front of the crowd, but then that familiar feeling hits: You have to use the restroom. Frustrated, you push through the crowd and enter a room where the walls and floors are wet. As you wait your turn, you notice stickers covering the bathroom walls for a variety of bands. You take them in, enjoying the designs until you can leave, then rush back into the crowd before the lights fall.

Everyone that attends concerts knows that experience. We’ve all seen band stickers plastered on bathroom walls and stalls, but have those stickers ever made you a fan of someone new? Did they push you to search for that artist when you got home? Have you ever left the bathroom and said to your friends, “You need to see the sticker for [insert band] next to the toilet in the third stall!”

Bathroom Sticker Theory states that anyone promoting their music on the bathroom walls and stalls does not understand branding or the psychology behind good music marketing.

The hard truth is that the vast majority of bands and musicians promoting themselves in bathroom stalls do not “make it” in the entertainment industry. They may become hometown heroes or regional stars, but they rarely become people who can claim music as their full-time career.

Spotting an artist’s sticker in these locations does not mean they won’t become successful, but it does show a misunderstanding of marketing and brand association.

Think about it. How many brands, products, and artists that you love do you see promoting in bathroom stalls? Have you ever caught yourself looking at a Target ad between sets for your favorite bands? How about an ad for Taco Bell adorning the inside of a port-o-potty? Did you notice the new Kings Of Leon album announcement in the arena bathroom during the big sporting event?

I’ll cut to the chase: You did not.

A big part of successful branding and marketing is what people associate with the thing you’re trying to sell. Nike, for example, wants you to associate their sneakers with successful athletes.

Do you want people to see your name or logo and think about bathrooms? Worse yet, club bathrooms? Do you want your name to come up in conversation only to have someone picture the filthy, wet walls of that club in Tucson where the toilets didn’t have seats and the paper towels stuck to the floor like cheap tile?

If the answer is no, you already understand more about marketing and branding than many musicians. You see the value in taking the time to think through how and where you present yourself. You do not act in a rash manner because you treat your music like a career, which again puts you miles ahead of your competition.

Before you follow the lead of other artists, ask yourself, “Would this action make me want to listen to my music?” If the answer is anything other than yes, keep moving and look for the next opportunity.

Music Biz is brought to you by Haulix, the music industry’s leading promotional distribution platform. Start your one-month free trial today and gain instant access to the same promotional tools used by BMG, Concord, Rise Records, Pure Noise Records, and hundreds more. Visit http://haulix.com/signup for details.

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Why Dunbar’s Number Is The Secret To Success In The Music Business

Dunbar’s Number claims we can only sustain 150 meaningful relationships at once. Is that enough to build a career? We say yes.

Too many of us spend our days chasing numbers that don’t mean anything. We develop content to build our email list or grow our follower count. We spend money on playlist pitching and social media ads that may or may not attract new listeners. We worry about our monthly audience size on Spotify while simultaneously complaining that Spotify doesn’t do enough for the artists on its platform.

Is this what we want? Do we want a bunch of passive fans who occasionally engage with us only and potentially stream our music? Wouldn’t you rather have fans that serve as ambassadors for your music? Fans who go above and beyond to make sure everyone they care about knows of your music? If the latter is true, then we have a number for you.

In the early 1990s, British anthropologist Robin Dunbar suggested a cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships—relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person. That figure, which we now call Dunbar’s Number, is 150. We have and maintain one-hundred and fifty personal relationships.

Dunbar didn’t pull his now-famous number out of thin air. He studied data on communities and relationships dating back to the hunter-gatherer age. He looked at how corporations and schools function, as well as the relationships of those within them. While we undoubtedly meet thousands of people in our lifetimes, we typically only develop meaningful relationships with a select few. Those we’re close to may change over time, but the total number of real relationships rarely exceeds 150.

More recent studies from the 2010s found a similar truth in social media. We may have millions of followers, but we only feel a connection to a select few. Those individuals are the ones whose posts we seek out and whose opinion we look for when sharing news or ideas.

Dunbar’s number can also work with music marketing.

Do you know how books become successful? Marketing and celebrity endorsements may play a role for some titles, but most books that reach the bestseller list do so through book clubs. Small groups of people who buy and discuss books select a title, fall in love with it, then tell others. Those who hear of the book then bring it into their book clubs, and the cycle repeats until thousands or even millions of copies are sold.

We may want the world to know our name our music, but casting a wide net rarely gives us the results we seek. Instead, focus on those who already care about what you’re doing. Find your biggest fans and work to improve your relationship with them. Engage with them, give them special access to your career, and make them feel as indispensable to you as your music is to them.

Think about how it feels to tell others about your music. You probably get excited when you recount your story, and others can sense that excitement in your voice. Your passion for the music you make is addicting, and it leads others to seek it out.

The same is true for your biggest fans. They have a passion for your work that is similar to yours, and if you can get them to share that passion with others, your audience will grow.

By developing a close relationship with your biggest fans, you will begin to build a community around your music. Those fans will get to know one another, and as they tell more people about your art, some of those individuals will join the community. If all 150 get a single person to feel similar, your engaged audience will double in size. That process will repeat as more and more people begin to feel passionate about your music and the people who support it. They will believe they are part of something bigger than themselves, which will create a sense of purpose that they cherish and actively work to preserve.

If you don’t have 150 fans right now, that’s ok! Focus on the ones who care the most, build those relationships, and the numbers will rise in time. As long as you emphasize the connection with your audience over your fanbase’s size, you will see your career take off. It may take time, but it’s better to spend years building lasting connections than to waste your efforts on engaging a passive audience who feels indifferent to the longevity of your career.

Music Biz is brought to you by Haulix, the music industry’s leading promotional distribution platform. Start your one-month free trial today and gain instant access to the same promotional tools used by BMG, Concord, Rise Records, Pure Noise Records, and hundreds more. Visit http://haulix.com/signup for details.

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How Parkinson’s Law Makes Good Musicians Great

Everyone aspires to make their dreams a reality, but Parkinson’s Law teaches us why dreaming alone won’t help you reach your goals.

We live in a society built on the idea of busyness. If you’re not busy, people say, then you’re not doing enough. You need to be working toward something if you want to become the person whose lead everyone follows. You should bury yourself in work because that is the only way to get ahead, right?

Wrong.

Nearly seventy years ago, author C. Northcote Parkinson wrote an essay for The Economist. In it, Parkinson proposed the following, which is now known as Parkinson’s Law.

“Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.”

Here are two examples of Parkinson’s Law in action.

#1 – A teacher assigns a student an essay due in one month. The student knows the essay will not take a month to complete, so they procrastinate. They spent almost the entire month playing with friends, listening to music, and ignoring the assignment. As the deadline approaches, the student panics and then spends all of the time remaining working on their essay. It’s stressful, and it creates a sense of anxiety that may not have occurred if the essay was written when the teacher assigned the work.

#2 – Your boss gives you two weeks to plan a birthday party for your coworker. Ordering a cake and sending out party invitations doesn’t take long to do, so you begin thinking of more complicated tasks to complete. You add a DJ to the event, then special lighting. Before you know it, the simple task of planning a party has become complicated because you had more time to complete it than was necessary.

Both examples can help us understand Parkinson’s Law. In the case of the essay, the student’s procrastination leads to unnecessary stress and anxiety. In the party’s case, the tasks were too simple for the amount of time given for their completion.

Vague and incorrect deadlines can make us fall short of our goals. In today’s Music Biz update, host James Shotwell applies Parkinson’s Law to the music business and teaches professionals how to have better, more efficient careers.

People often set ambitious goals with vague deadlines. They say things like, “this is the year I release my album,” but don’t select a release date. They dream of finding a manager but make no clear plan to locate one.

Generally speaking, the most successful musicians and music professionals are those who manage their time best. They set realistic deadlines and meet them.

Instead of saying, “I want to find a manager,” say, “I’m going to find a manager this month.” Then, make goals for each week. Maybe you spend the first-week researching managers and gathering materials you want to share with them. You spend the second week contacting those managers. The third week is spent researching more names and companies if the first batch doesn’t work out. Then, on the final week, you send follow-ups and prepare to repeat the process the following month.

The key is not having a single deadline, but multiple. Set a long-term goal and short-term goals that keep you on track to reach a significant accomplishment down the line.

You can find other examples in the video above.

Music Biz is brought to you by Haulix, the music industry’s leading promotional distribution platform. Start your one-month free trial today and gain instant access to the same promotional tools used by BMG, Concord, Rise Records, Pure Noise Records, and hundreds more. Visit http://haulix.com/signup for details.

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