 Hey what's going on it's your man Kory, welcome to The Digital Dash where I be giving you tips on how to market your songs and get those numbers booming. Now today what I want to talk with you about is a really toxic mindset that I've noticed that some artists have. Now it's not all artists but it's enough artists that I feel like I need to make a video to address it and if you are someone that thinks this way, if it's someone that really has this mindset you really think this way. This video convinces you to think differently so you can start to advance so you can start to move on. But before we get into all of that come and follow me on Instagram, I make sure to put my ad name on the screen, come talk to me, come engage with me, come give me some video ideas, all of that good stuff. Now with that being said let's get right into it. So I'm sure you're thinking Kory, what are you talking about? What mindset is so important that you felt like you needed to make an entire video about it? And that mindset is that marketing is cheating. Now what inspired this video was pretty much a comment that was left underneath one of my ads on Instagram. The comment says something along the lines of like, as an artist you should just be able to put your music out and the cream should rise to the top. Something like that, not those exact words, but pretty much the sentiments were that an artist should be able to just put their music out and any artist that actively works to promote his or her music is in fact cheating the game and cheating the system. And it sounds crazy, it sounds wild. But that's not the first time that I've heard an artist say those exact things. That's not the first time that I've talked to an artist, spoken to an artist, or in some way shape and form seeing artists coming and going the fact that those who are promoting their music, they feel like they're cheating, like they're not doing it the right way, the fair way. And if I do nothing else about it in this video, nothing else, I hope that this video can debunk those who think that way and hopefully change your minds if you aren't artists who think that way so that you can start getting your music out there and finally start to get fans and get people to know about you. Now the first reason why this is a crazy idea is that businesses need to market and you may be wondering what does that have to do with you as an artist. Now me and Sean preach on this channel all the time that artists are no different than businesses. You're no different than a McDonald's, you're no different than a Home Depot, you're no different than the Starbucks. You should be operating your career, your artistry, just like a CEO will run their business. And with that being said, there is no business in the history of successful business that has been able to make it without letting the world know that they exist because that's pretty much what marketing is doing. You are letting your potential customer base know that you or your product exists so they can make the conscious effort to come and buy or interact or partake in whatever it is that you're pushing to them. And we all know that no business can survive without a customer base and if you're not doing anything to pull in new fans or potential supporters then your business will start to grow stagnant, you will not be able to progress and you will not be able to grow as an artist or as a business. Now the second reason on why you shouldn't feel like marketing is cheating is that major artists market. Major label artists, all of those top artists who are dominating the charts right now all think of creative marketing plans for their project to get themselves in front of their fan base and new potential fans. And the best example I can think of right now is if you remember earlier this year, earlier this year of 2019 to be making this video, DJ Khaled and Todd the Creator had a small beef over Todd the Creator's album outselling DJ Khaled. Now the reason that DJ Khaled was so upset is that he spent, think the number he said was 5 million to make and promote his album, The Father of a Side. Now I'm sure a large part of that budget went into buying the features and paying for the instrumentals that were on the project but I'm still willing to bet that he spent a couple of hundred thousand dollars marketing that album doing different ads and sponsorship deals and things that he could do to get the album out there. Now I say this to say, if the major artists are dominating this space right and then you have the artists who are here who may not be major artists yet, they're not superstars but they're rising and then you have the artists that are trying to break into the military. If all of those artists understand that marketing is an essential tool to growing themselves out, what would make you the artist who has yet to break into those tears feel like you don't need to do the same thing in order to keep going to the next level. And another personal example I can give or pseudo personal example is a few months ago I was working on an influencer campaign for a client. I reached out to this influencer, we talk about the campaign, the details, the payment, all that stuff. And then he ghosted me for about three or four days. Just don't hear back from him, he doesn't respond to my texts, he doesn't respond to my emails. Out the blue he calls me, he gives me the whole, yo bro, my bad man, we were working on an influencer campaign for Chris Brown and Drake. Chris Brown and Drake have this new song coming out and it's the single they have going right now. I can't think of the name of it off the top of my head but whatever song they have on the radio right now, it was for that song. And in that point I remember asking him, yo, did you do this for Drake off the strength or did he treat you or did you treat him just like you treated me like you charge him and everything. And the influencers manager told me that they probably would have done it for Drake for free but Drake respected their business enough to just treat it as a private marketing plan and pay them the way they should be paid. And that made me think like man, if Drake and Chris Brown, two of the biggest artists in the world, two arguably two of the biggest artists ever, have to sit down and figure out marketing plans to get themselves out. Why would any other artists feel differently? And the third reason why you, the artist should never feel like marketing is cheating is that you need a way to stand above the noise because there's a lot of noise in the music industry. Now it was reported earlier this year, I think April, April of 2019, Daniel Eck, the creator of Spotify reported that there are about 40,000 uploads to Spotify every single day. So every single day, 40,000 artists put their music on to Spotify. That is not including any additional promo that they're doing to reach their targeted fan base and new fans. And just another statistic to throw out there is, I think it's reported that the average person sees about 5,000 ads a day. So I say this to say again, there is a lot of noise in the music industry and there's a lot of noise within music in general. Meaning that if you do not have a game plan on how to cut through this noise so that people can find you, then you're essentially setting yourself up to not even be discovered and giving a chance to compete with these artists that are out here. And kind of going back to my point about the major artists who market as well, right? They also generate a lot of noise. They generate a lot of noise because they dominate most of the major outlet. And in the end, that is who you are competing against. You are competing against Drake. You are competing against Rihanna. You are competing against Kota the Fran. You are competing against your friend who makes music down the street. And you are also competing against their Coca-Cola ad, their Snapchat ad, their Facebook ad that's trying to sell me cologne or stickers or something. This is your competition. This is what you are trying to pull my attention away from to come and listen to your music. And without a strong marketing and content plan to overcome all of this, you will simply get buried underneath the noise. No one will listen to your music and you will be disappointed. That's the best way to put it. So there you have it. Those are my three reasons on why if you are an artist who feels like marketing is cheating for whatever reason, please don't rewind this video if you need to rewatch them again and stop thinking that way. Because remember, there is a lot of noise in the music industry. And at the end of the day, you are competing with these bigger artists who make a lot of noise and you're competing with consumers' attention spans, which is very finite, very limited, and it's already been competed for by a lot of outside source. And if you are an artist who has not even given themselves a fair chance of having that art expressed and seen and possibly liked, I don't know what to tell you, man. It's just a completely wrong way of thinking. Please get out of that mindset. Now, would love to hear what you think on this topic. Do you agree with that comment underneath my post? Should your artist not have to market their music? Should you just be able to drop it and let it speak for itself? Or am I right? And you will pretty much be doing yourself a disservice by not marketing your music and not trying to cut above the noise. Let me know what you think in the comment section below or on Instagram, on Twitter, wherever you feel like it. And as always, if you feel like you learned anything today, please like and share this video. Hit those post notifications as well as I wouldn't want you to miss anything. And as always, my name is Corey and I'll see you next time.