How Music Companies Can Commit To Artist Development: 4 Key Strategies For Success

Artists and the music they create are the life blood of a music company.

The foundation of all artist success stories is their music, however, in order to understand and realise their artistic voice and discover how to create and use their sonic identity, they’ll need professional strategies to develop their artistry and music, ultimately to help them take their artist careers to the next level.

There is a commonly held belief that record labels and music companies no longer ‘do’ artist development. To some degree this may be true, when compared with perhaps the 1980’s and 1990’s when budgets were larger, teams were larger and there were fewer ways to access music.

However, there are still many music companies doing that early stage development, even if it is on a smaller scale - whether that means helping out with studio costs or simply giving creative guidance and critique on musical works-in-progress, it is still happening.

Here are 4 key strategies for music companies of all sizes to show their commitment to artist development:

Strategy #1 - Shrink Your Roster

Taking on too much is never a good thing, especially when working with people. There is only so much one person can do and if you’re attempting to develop a large pool of artists, consider reducing your roster to a select few that can be the frontrunners of your organisation – artists like to feel special and having a smaller roster can help make that experience much more personal.

Strategy #2 - Believe In The Artists You're Signing

Many acts are being discovered online via social media or streaming services alone and whilst that is not necessarily a bad thing, it can (to some extent) give a misleading narrative as not all of the biggest streaming, best performing songs discovered on social media, or a viral chart will go on to be long-term success stories.

Under these conditions, it is even more important to sign artists for more than just ‘a good song’, or a vanity metric like virality, you need to believe in them all the way, you need to want to fight for that artist when nobody else will.

Strategy #3 - Spend (at least some) Money On Marketing And Promotion

 A core way to grow an artist’s music profile will be to identify who they need to collaborate with for a successful release – as in media partners – ranging from radio pluggers, to video producers, to social media influencers, to photographers and PR specialists who can help create electronic press kits.

Also, ‘investing’ doesn’t always have to mean money, it could also mean time - time to research and time to contact potential collaborators and examine or develop strategies to build an audience.

Strategy #4 - Stick With Them

Show loyalty, patience and ultimately, belief. Give artists time and space to discover their artistic voice and the time to concentrate on the music they’re making.

Guide them whilst they’re developing their songwriting skills – including co-writing and writing to briefs etc – just stick by them and see the vision.

Summary

Tools for music production, recording and distribution have never been more accessible. Artists have home studios that allow them to create and record songs in as little as a day, they can distribute their music globally via a simple upload in a few clicks.

However, with this ease of access, comes an abundance of music being published online every day and in order for fans and consumers to be able filter the average from the exceptional, or separate the good from the great, music companies do need some form of artist development program in place, now more than ever.

On a small scale, that could literally mean an artist and a manager, and on a larger scale, that could be a large corporation with an abundance of resources (people and money) – the work remains the same either way, laying foundations, doing initial groundwork to prove the commercial and artistic potential of a future star!

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