In the Spotlight with Des Dreckett

Being a Indie Artist means that everything is on you as an Artist/Band. That doesn’t just mean the music itself, creating the videos, booking gigs, and all that legal stuff. When all that is done, you have to know how to marketing yourself.But at least in that area you can find some help and advice.

And today I have the great pleasure to have a chat with the always interesting Des Dreckett from The Music Marketing Academy on Twitter.

Thank you Des for taking this time to have a chat with us “In the Spotlight”!

Music marketing. What was it that draw your attention to music instead of something else??

To be honest, I’m interested in all types of marketing. But, I particularly like music marketing because it’s so devise and a lot more interesting than other marketing categories. I also really enjoy the daily interaction with musicians.

What would you say are the most common things that most musicians get wrong/right when they are on social medias?

I think they try to be on all platforms at once and don’t really get good at any of them. They may have their favorites, but they never really sit down and focus on being good at just one.

In fact, I constantly advocate spend up to 90/95% of your time on just one platform. This will then allow you to focus your efforts. In turn, you should also start to get better results.

Musicians often forget why they are on social media. Yes, you’re there to be social. But, the main aim is to 1. Build an email fanlist, 2. Build a relationship with your new fan as fast as possible.

What are your plans for the future?

The main aim of The Academy is to help as many musicians make money with their music as possible. So the plan is to produce as much useful content as possible to help them do that. There’s so much to learn and strategies change daily, they really do need an organisation to keep them updated with all of the updates that happen in the industry.

What is the one thing you would like to tell all the Indie musicians out there?

Focus on building relationships with a small number of fans and then build from there. You’ll find it much easier to encourage fans to stream and download if they already know you, than to continuously look to get new fans. Don’t get me wrong, you should always look to grow your fanbase. But, just don’t forget that your existing fans are the most important.

What is the one thing you would like to tell the music industry?

This is a hard question to answer since there are so many things. I understand the streaming model very well and even though they don’t make much money (Spoitfy doesn’t even make a profit), I feel more should be done to level the playing field for indies. I’m a realist, so I’m under no illusion this will happen any time soon. So, I recommend musicians take matters into their own hands, build their own brand, send people to their own streaming or download portal (3rd party websites like Bandcamp help) and start to monetise that way instead of depending on Spotify and Apple so much.

If you want to know more about Music Marketing from Des Dreckett you can find him here.

https://www.themusicmarketingacademy.com/

https://twitter.com/MusicMarketingA

https://www.instagram.com/musicmarketinga/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4ODcFJ58gWUNU3iW9b3Asg

https://www.facebook.com/Themusicmarketingacademy-105506457832650/