Kyle Lemaire - Disrupting the Traditional Music Business with Powerful Marketing Techniques that Build Successful Careers in the Industry

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Be ready to turn everything you’ve learned about the Music Business upside down, and learn how successful entrepreneurs are building their careers and longevity. Kyle Lemaire is an entrepreneur, marketing expert, and disrupter on how things are traditionally done in the music industry. We go right into what he believe major record labels are doing wrong, and how their marketing departments are failing their artists. He’s a firm believer that there is an audience out there for everyone, but how do you find this audience? Kyle uses some very successful marketing techniques that are highly effective for entrepreneurs that the traditional music industry is either completely ignoring or not even aware of. He’s the owner of Indepreneur, where he strives to educate musicians, and has a mission to impact the careers of 1 Million Artists.

In this interview, Kyle and I discuss some of the background of major labels, and why he believes their marketing departments are failing. He shares some success stories with specific marketing techniques that have build audiences and brought in thousands of dollars for his artists. Kyle discusses strategies that successful entrepreneurs are using that also work in the music business, and that artist’s should be using, and much more. This was a very inspiring conversation, and challenges you to break to wheel of the traditional music business. As Ari Herstand has said “There isn’t just one way to make money in the music industry anymore.” Kyle shares some ways he’s had success in creative ways with his artists.

Highlights from this Episode
(7:00) Artists and record labels
(11:36) Labels and marketing
(15:44) Artists and marketing
(22:20) Education material
(27:11) Nino Bless story
(34:20) Retargeting
(36:25) Calls to action
(38:20) Building an audience on Facebook
(42:00) Opt-ins
(46:32) How often to release content
(49:33) Post opt-in engagement
(52:52) Campaign budget
(55:40) Marketing great products
(57:20) Campaigning for live shows
(1:00:47) Ads for tours
(1:06:21) Building an audience as a promoter
(1:12:00) Kyle’s Full Sail journey
(1:14:25) College education
(1:16:28) Kyle’s taking a course
(1:17:50) Indepreneur courses
(1:21:07) Static percentages
(1:24:00) Managers
(1:25:57) Artists who aren’t entrepreneurs
(1:27:59) 1st person that comes to mind as Successful
(1:32:50) Goals
(1:37:25) Kyle’s favorite album and concert
(1:38:42) Kyle’s favorite books
(1:40:08) Exciting recent discovery
(1:40:56) Morning routine
(1:41:53) Drinks with dead or alive
(1:42:29) Fill the blanks

Quotes from Kyle Lemaire
“We don’t rely on record labels nearly as much”
“People don’t discover music on owned platforms like radio anymore”
“Labels don’t now how to keep attention”
“[artists] the skills that enable to connect with humans on a one to one level, makes you perfect for marketing”
“It’s to what you can do, it’s what you believe you can do”
“Twenty people in a thousand will get signed and of those who do get signed, one in twenty get to release an album”
“Make more transactions per customer, that’s what this [music industry] is terrible at”
“The goal is to generate as many supporting fans as you can”
“An indirect introduction is the best kind of introduction”
“It takes six to seven touches to generate a sale from a new customer”
“Instead of having [people] join an email list, we have them join a Facebook messenger list”
“On Facebook the content that works best is content that doesn’t look like an ad”
“You wanna give a way more than any label ever would, and then you ask for a sale”
“The more people you have on your list, the more offers you have to be making”
“Don’t do this [marketing campaigns] if you don’t have a great product”
“If innovation is there, marketing must follow”
“People don't just buy because they’re the right people, they buy because they’re the right people and they’ve been put though the right sequence of interaction”
“Leaving home is incredibly important, people who don’t leave home they to stay at home”
“There are tons of jobs in the industry that they pay people to do, that technology can already do”
“I see a future where indies can get themselves to 100k a year, and then hire a manger”
“The only reason you give someone a percentage is because you don’t know what they should be doing”
“I think we should empower musicians…tell them that they’re enough”
“Being clear about what you want and then getting it, that is success”
“Literally saying outlaid what you want has such dramatic impact”
“You can choose your future, and your decisions model that you have chosen”
“The meaning of life is to not let others determine what life is for you”