TPS #032: Managers Are the Best Marketers
Author: Andre Mullen - 2 min Read
Read time: 2 minutes
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💡 Big Ideas:
1. Artist managers possess 4 attributes that make them the best marketers – they’re experts in human behavior, they’re nurturing, creative problem solvers, and analytical.
2. Marketing is a built-in aspect of the artist-manager relationship.
3. Great managers understand the power of marketing.
4. The current music market challenges managers to change the way they look at marketing to grow their client’s overall platform.
Managers are really the best marketers…
In today’s newsletter, I want to show you the 4 attributes of artist managers who are the best marketers.
Artist managers already have a loaded role and responsibility to their artist clients, especially if their client is up-and-coming.
However, marketing is a “built-in” aspect of every artist-manager relationship. The quicker an artist manager embraces this, the easier their relationship with their artist client can move forward.
In the current music industry climate, managers need to change the way they look at marketing to grow their client’s overall platform.
Unfortunately, managers who view marketing as a role outside of their job description are essentially stunting their artist clients’ careers.
It’s time for a new perspective.
"Great managers understand the power of marketing.”
Great managers are gifted with marketing superpowers.
As a manager, you have an unfair advantage when it comes to marketing your artist client’s overall platform. Many of the skills you have are skills great marketers themselves possess.
And besides, who knows your client better than you?
The foundation of marketing is customer-centricity – looking at how people interact with culture and connecting them to what matters most.
To apply this to your artist client, customer-centricity is the art of knowing how people engage with your client’s platform and connecting with them.
Artist managers who are the best marketers possess 4 attributes:
1. Experts in human behavior
2. Nurturing
3. Creative problem solvers
4. Analytical
These 4 attributes provide the foundation in which you can effectively put together a marketing strategy for your client’s release or even lead a third-party marketing team providing a service to your client.
Let’s take an in-depth look at each attribute:
#1: Expert in Human Behavior
Studying why people make decisions is a marketer’s job. Just like a marketer, you are observing and studying why people are drawn to your client and their music.
Understanding what motivates your client’s audience to take action is a critical management skill.
The best managers have a great deal of empathy and understanding. This empathy and understanding allows artist managers to use a variety of psychological marketing concepts to build their client’s audience.
Marketers know that everyone’s motivations are different. In the end, they can identify and appeal to those motivations. Managers who work with their clients in building their audience are focused on identifying and appealing to the motivations of their client’s audience.
#2: Nurturing
Marketers know that relationships take time and ongoing support. The best artist managers understand that building an audience relationship for their clients is advantageous in the music industry.
Staying in touch is one part, but the message is also important. Like marketers, managers understand that if every contact with their clients’ audience sounds like a sales pitch, the messages will be ignored.
Nurturing your clients’ audience with valuable and appreciated messages is a critical management skill.
One of the best ways for you to nurture your clients’ audience is through an email welcome sequence. A welcome sequence is a series of emails sent to new subscribers in an effort to help them get to know your artist client.
Managers who work with their clients to nurture their audience can build real authenticity and sustainability.
#3: Creative Problem Solver
Marketers bring creativity and strategy to challenging and conflicting moments. Like marketers, managers deal with challenges and conflicts directly and indirectly affecting the bottom line.
The speed in which you’re able to address and solve problems without dwelling on them is a critical management skill.
Great managers, like great marketers, tend to notice trends, problems, and identify solutions others overlook. Managers do this often – sometimes on automatic. The process looks like this:
You are the center of the wheel and if you’re not solving problems fast, the wheel won’t move forward.
#4: Analytical
Managers, like marketers are both creative and analytical. Managers and marketers alike create plans to accomplish goals with measurable outcomes. Both let reason rather than emotion guide decisions to reach client goals.
Managers have access to tools and platforms to assist and empower their analytical approaches to building their clients’ careers.
Platforms like Symphony OS, help to do just this. By helping artist managers automate their client’s digital marketing, it is the easiest way to grow an artist’s fanbase while building their artist business. Additionally, artist managers have access to data to help guide marketing direction and decisions.
Besides marketing, below is a framework of some of the aspects of an artist career you as an artist manager may have encountered having to analyze:
Your ability to blend analytical skills with empathy is a critical management skill.
As an artist manager, you should understand your client’s needs better, and more than, any other person in their professional life.
You are the best person for the job.
I’m rooting for you.
Hope this helps.
✋🏾When you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:
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3. Here on my website, I have resources that can help. Check out The Playbook for more information.