When it comes to being an artist, making the music is the easy part. The more challenging and profitable aspects are usually associated with building your music business. However, making music and building your brand are entirely different skill sets. 

We’ll take a look at the simple yet effective 3-pronged approach outlined by music marketer extraordinaire Adam Ivy to building your music business quickly and efficiently below. 

The Three S’s To Success In The Music Business

“You need to focus on three things – Structure, Streamline, and Scale to build any business”

– Adam Ivy

As said best by Adam, any business can thrive so long as it’s provided with three important ingredients on a regular basis. This extends to building a lifelong brand around your music and can help artists simply their business-building process: 

1. Structure

As creatives, we’re constantly incentivized to embrace free-flowing schedules and ways of thinking. However, Adam explains that a lack of structure could work against your ideas, preventing them from lifting off the ground– 

“Structure starts on a small level from how you build your days expanding to how you structure your overall business. To grow you need to stay on track and be accountable for your time.” 

– Adam Ivy

To build your music career, you need to be series about how you schedule your time and how you use it. Something as simple as a traditional planner can make a huge difference in your productivity as a musician. Making a schedule to stay consistent as a musician might not be the most fun aspect associated with being an artist, but it is an essential one. 

2. Streamline 

Once you’ve built the foundational structure of your music brand and business, it’s important to streamline and optimize to make your process as efficient as possible. Your process for making music, creating content, and executing shouldn’t have any unnecessary roadblocks so that you can consistently fuel your success.

Your fans should have the same experience, too– they shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to find your latest project. You can create a seamless experience by curating a supercharged link in bio–

“Koji is a link in bio with built-in apps and a whole ecosystem that makes it easy for you to streamline your backend business, but also your experience for fans. It’s a free pocket website that only makes money if you make money.” 

– Adam Ivy

With Koji, you can create multiple experiences for your fans in one place. Whether you’re challenging your fans with Duet or Dare U mini apps, or sharing excluding audio via NFT Listening Party or Audio Player, your link in bio creates a unifying experience for your fans across any platform. 

Have friends and family walk through the experience of discovering your music via streaming platform to becoming an active fan. Is this experience easy? Are there any roadblocks? Treat your music pipeline as any other business (because it is one)! If there’s anything technical blocking your conversion from passive listeners to active fans, it’s time to make some changes.

3. Scale

It’s one thing to have a strong brand identity around your business, it’s another to scale it. Oftentimes, artists focus far too much on the upper limit of their audience, trying to hit a certain amount of sales or streams. However, it’s much more important to focus on boosting your averages– 

“You can have great days and you can have bad days, but what does your average day look like? It’s all about boosting your averages. Cater to your middle.” 

– Adam Ivy

Growth is fueled by your core audience, not those who are outliers on either end of the spectrum. So, focus your growth strategy on improving your experience for your average listeners. Artists are given a wealth of analytics that can help inform future strategy. 

Take a look at when and what you’re posting and analyze what’s resonating with your audience. You can start to create a fan roadmap of your fans to help plan future releases, tours, and find ways to connect with your audience on a deeper level. 

To boil it down, building a successful music business is all about consistency and constant adaptation to meet the needs of your fans. With the help of the three S principles, you’ll have no trouble finding new ears for your creations. 

To hear more, check out Adam’s full video: 

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