Modern Music Marketing


00:00
Andrew
Wendy, if you only had one minute to give music artists the best advice you possibly could to help them succeed in the music industry, what would you say? One minute on the clock.

00:08
Wendy
Trust your inner voice. That's it. Everything else that I do teach, coach is to help you do that. It's listening to your own impulses. It's following your own dreams and passions. Obviously, get good mentorship, get. Listen to advice. If you're saying no to everyone, you're in trouble. If everyone's just saying yes to you all the time, you're in trouble, like career and soul. But it's really key that your innovation, your risk taking only is going to come by you following your impulses and not what someone else thinks you should be doing, not what you're getting from social media. And now you're. And again, I think it's important to take what I say with a grain of salt or know that there are variables. Right. Go where the love is.

00:59
Wendy
But if the love is here and you're like, I don't want to keep doing that kind of music, then those two things don't matter.

01:06
Andrew
Yeah, you said the go where the love is thing. When I, when I saw your talk at namm, and I found that to be very empowering because I was kind of looking at my life and all the different music projects I have and all the, like, my businesses and everything, and I'm like, there's certain things that I do where I get way a way better response naturally from the world, from the people, from whatever it is, you know, And I. And there's other things I do where I have to try a little bit harder to get a kind of response. And it kind of let me second guess a lot of what I was doing and kind of rethink my plan. And we're going to get into that.

01:45
Andrew
But first, I want to let you introduce yourself because you've done some pretty amazing things over your journey. You've worked with, you've coached Melanie Martinez, Gina Specter, Sara Bareilles, a whole bunch of other people. You've won, you've won a Grammy. You know, you've done TED talks, NAM talks, stuff like that. So, yeah, give us a little. Who is Wendy?

02:03
Wendy
I was 3 years old and I knew I'm here to use my voice. Like, I love singing. This is what I'm going to do. And I pointed to, you know, one of my musical heroes was like, I want to do what they're doing. Right. And I started working professionally when I was 8 as a performer, singer, musical theater, voiceovers, acting, TV, all that stuff. And so I was pursuing a career as a recording artist. At 15, I found my own agent. At 16 and a half, I was up for Les Miserables, Eponine. I went to the final callback for that, or up till the final callback, and then same West End piece and Carrie in the West End. I made it to the finals for those two things. And that was the end of my musical theater career. Like, right up to that edge.

02:46
Wendy
And then it was like, long, weird, horrible story. But it was basically the world going not that direction, this one, because it was like Crash, you know, Tsunami. Okay, at the time, it was heartbreaking, but it was the world just moving me where I was supposed to go. At 15, I was talking to Nippy, to Whitney Houston's manager. I don't even remember how I got their number, but I had their number. So was sending my demos and calling, and he was like, I love your persistence. Keep calling me. Just keep sending me. Keep calling me. So at 15, like, I'm hustling and, you know, songwriting. And in those days, there was no. I say in those days, like, as if it was like the, you know, early 1800s, but when I was coming.

03:30
Andrew
Up with the hat you're wearing, people.

03:32
Wendy
Yeah, right. Well, Peru. And this is Navajo. That's amazing. It's hilarious. When I was 15, there were no home studios, right? So I was recording at one in the morning on reel to reel. And my demo was a record. Like, there was no. Like, here's a quick demo. It was. This is record ready. Like, my first recordings had a string section. And it was. It was a record. And that was pitched to Motown. Motown loved it. Didn't know what to do with a white R B singer who was 15 years old who had a big, mature voice. So here I'm going. I'm going. But basically, I experienced all the things that artists experience. Being told, you know, we can't market you that way. Being told, you should sing more. Like, so. And so you're. This is more your style. And I'm like, it's not.

04:20
Wendy
That's not what I like to sing. Right? So being, you know, all the things artists still go through, and it made me the person and the coach that I am. I started studying with my voice teacher, who was a very famous voice teacher when I was about 15. And at about 19, 20, he invited me to be a teacher in his studio. And I was like, I don't know how to teach. And he said, yes, you do. I helped you with your voice. You can help other people make this your career and job while you're pursuing your recording career. And what happened was it became really apparent to me very quickly that I loved coaching. To say, I'm not a teacher, it's literally an archetype.

04:57
Wendy
Like, if you showed me how a carburetor worked, I'd be showing someone else tomorrow, hey, did you know you could fix your car by doing this? Like, I share, you know, like, I share information. I love to empower people. I love to grow and evolve as a person. And I want to. I believe it's important for all of us to grow and evolve. So I love to help other people. So it really was years of coaching that, like, evolved my philosophy and value and purpose as a coach. And it, again, it comes from my artistry. My coach was an amazing vocal teacher and technician. However, what happened for me was. And I could play you a recording. I. I got them. I found the recordings. Well, you know, the master reel, the reels, like, I hadn't heard myself since 1985 whenever I recorded these.

05:45
Wendy
And a couple years ago, got them out of storage and digitized them. And I'm hearing me at 15, I'm like, so many thoughts, so many feelings, right? One of the things that happened for me with coaching was I became a really good singer singing, right? But my soul and my heart was locked up here and no longer attached to my voice. I just was like a good voice. And I hated singing. I hated singing, didn't like what I was singing, didn't like the music, didn't even feel connected to it anymore. And I was like. And I didn't like the sound of my voice. I was like, what happened to my voice? I didn't like it. And when I hear those recordings, I could hear, like, pre training, early training, and later, and went, oh, yeah, If.

06:28
Wendy
If this person was a artist who came into my studio right now, I'd be like, oh, I hear her potential. And I could help her. And I could help her come out of herself more again. And I could hear the training just, like, making me less interesting and making me stiff and afraid. So I, as a coach, sorry, I had to unravel that. What happened? What went wrong? How did I lose myself? And I had to find myself again. And it took me time. And to do that, I had to throw out technique. I'm like, all. Fuck all this. Let me just get back to singing, because I love it. Let me just get. I'm going to sing Men's songs.

07:07
Wendy
I needed to sing men's songs actually to find my bottom again because I'd spent so much time, like, wailing over here, and it was like, here's your powerhouse, like, voice. Right? I'm like, I used to sing lower. Where's my lower register? Like, where'd it go? So finding my way back to myself really became the core of my coaching. If I can help an artist avoid being misdirected. If I can help an artist staying true to themselves. If I can help an artist get back to the fun of singing, If I can help an artist enjoy their own voice and have what they are singing be their voice, not like a version caricature of or. Well, I figured out how to get this sound, so that's what I sound like. But it's really, like, limited.

07:48
Wendy
So freedom, authenticity, being emotionally vulnerably connected to your work is what I'm about.

07:55
Andrew
I think a lot of artists get in their head about the money side of things when they're like, I'm in this because I love what I do and I love music. And, you know, people are telling me I need to post in social media 15 times a day. I need to be running these ads. I need to be. I need to be playing these shows. I need to be having a Patreon. I need to sell this merch. I need to, you know, all the different things, like, you need to do, promote yourself or make money.

08:24
Wendy
Yeah.

08:24
Andrew
And I think a lot of artists, the whole idea of being an artist is almost like antithetical to. It's like the opposite of that. Also.

08:29
Wendy
It's, you know, it's challenging because the. The entire industry is different. So there's always been the thing the artist didn't want to do in the past. Right. It used to be for magazines. It used to be like. And because the artist is now the entrepreneur, there's. There have always been artists who succeeded because they were great at marketing or their marketing team was great at marketing them, or they had great business marketing ideas. Like, there's always in any type of, you know, from films to whatever, like, to find artists. Like, there's people who succeed because they're really good at networking or really good at marketing. And then there's artists who have a rep who does that for them. And they're like, reclusive. Right. So you've got to find what's going to work for you.

09:15
Wendy
But the business is so different now that you are a small business and an entrepreneur. The artist's job is to do everything now on your own. Amazing. You can really hard that you have to.

09:29
Andrew
Yeah, there's definitely some artists that. The influencer thing, like they do amazing with that because it fits their personality and they'll go on tick tock and post every day.

09:40
Wendy
Yeah.

09:40
Andrew
And there's this decently big artist, Nick D, who that's there was his path. Like he kind of. He basically almost makes the social media content before he makes the music. And he makes the music to suit the content.

09:52
Wendy
Right.

09:53
Andrew
At least that's what I've gleaned from being an outsider from his world. But for him that works great and a lot of people have been able to take that and just do that and replicate his success, which is amazing. But like there's so many people I know, they see that and they're like, I would rather go become an accountant than do that. Like I would do anything in the world before that.

10:13
Wendy
And there's a lane, there are influencers who are now going into music. They don't always succeed because if they don't have the ability to perform, they don't have songwriting skills. They, like a lot of them are not succeeding. They're getting picked up by labels because they've gone viral, but they get another song out of it. I mean, and if they're an artist who's had the success that way, of course they're going to succeed because they would succeed through any platform. Like they're going to find their way through no matter what. But I think an artist has to create a career that you love and that works for you and that you want to keep replicating. You know, if you're an introvert, create asmr, like literally sit in a chair and you read a book and don't even talk, just film yourself reading a book.

10:59
Wendy
And then what are you going to share on that? You could put your music with lyrical content. You could put your favorite quote from the book. You could put your thoughts and ideas that from, oh, I read this book this morning and this is what it stimulated. I'm going to go write this song now. You don't even have to talk. But there's your content and there's content like, oh, I could do that. You'd be like, yeah, I love reading. I'm just going to take a little bit of my time during the week to film myself reading five books and then. Or seven books or five books. And out of each book or one book, I'm gonna do one book. Like, look at me getting the ideas right.

11:32
Wendy
Do this book this week, and every day I'm gonna do it, say something different, either about the book or my lyrics or something that. And just shoot you in that book. There's a week of content, right?

11:44
Andrew
And with your song and as crazy or other people's songs, like, that idea is like, there's. There's an audience for stuff for almost anything. Like, even as. As we, like, some people heard, like, who the hell would ever watch me read a book? It's like, well, there's a pretty big community of ASMR people, and obviously they also like music. And so I'm sure a lot of.

12:05
Wendy
People who love books and there's a lot of people who are introverted like you. I'm just saying, like, you don't have to be a talking head to do it. You can find the way that suits you. One of the things that works for me is I do a video shoot once a month, and I shoot all the content for the month in a few hours. And then we, you know, map it out on the schedule it on the scheduler. And then some content I make. Like I'm taking a walk and I'll shoot something and I'll post it, or I'll put it into the cycle of going in that month. But I do that so that I'm not every day going, oh, my God, what am I shooting today? What am I shooting today? Oh, making crazy once a month.

12:45
Andrew
I filmed three YouTube videos today. One is this talk we're doing now. And then right before this, I filmed two different videos. So for. For those of you, my audience, if you see two other videos where I'm wearing this sweatshirt and this blue shirt, that's because they were all filmed on April 22nd. So, you know, you change clothes. Yeah, I. I try to remember that, but then sometimes I'm just like, yeah, no one's gonna notice now. They're gonna notice because I told them. Yeah, but. But people don't notice.

13:12
Wendy
Series. I'll shoot, like one outfit. I'll shoot a series, and I change my clothes, change the location, shoot another series. So.

13:18
Andrew
Yeah, and.

13:19
Wendy
And you know, when you see that series, oh, she's talking about vocal technique or another outfit. Oh, she's talking about that subject. But that for me was really changed things when I was like, once a month, video shoot. And then the rest is organizational and making the copy and stuff. But it just means I'm not pressured every day trying to figure out something.

13:38
Andrew
You know, I mean, the one thing that I, when I was at. At Namm you know, because I was trying to like be an active part. Like you had us all break into little groups where we. Where we had like you basically which I. There was one example, like exchange with your neighboring group. You know what. What are three things that you feel like you're doing really well right now. And then what I realized from doing that because I feel like I kind of know what I'm. I know what I'm proud of, I know what I want to do and I know what I inspired by. But then when you're forced to think about it to explain it to someone, I realize I don't know who the I am. That was. That was the big thing that I realized from that was like.

14:21
Andrew
Because some of the people that were in my little group just like immediately. Just like this and this immediately without second guess. And then I was like struggling to think of answers to these questions, like at least applying to my music project. And you know, fast forward several months that. That kind of let me to decide that for my solo music. I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm doing. Focusing on my. My other two bands because they. I'm more. I'm more happy doing with them. I know what they are, why they're important to me and they. The response I get from them is better too. So go where the love is.

14:59
Wendy
That's amazing. And you might like collaborative music making like if you're in that too.

15:05
Andrew
Yeah. Yeah. Because it also kind of takes some of the pressure off me and it also fit my kind of overall thing where like the solo music was confusing because it has the same name as me and my brand here on YouTube for music marketing. So it's really confused. Confusing on multiple levels. And like I was thinking like, okay, go where the Love is. This YouTube channel at least for Andrew Southworth. Andrew Southworth is known as the music marketing guy that's on YouTube.

15:27
Wendy
You.

15:28
Andrew
Yeah, he's not known for his music. I mean like a lot of people like my music and that's cool. I'll probably still release some stuff under.

15:33
Wendy
My name, but I'm not gonna put under another name.

15:36
Andrew
Yeah. Well, now I have my two bands that I also. I. I like. I realized that I love doing them just and more actually just the style of music works best. People seem to like those projects more.

15:48
Wendy
Right.

15:48
Andrew
And I enjoy them more and I get to have fun with some of my friends, be more social. And I felt like I understood what they were better.

15:57
Wendy
Yeah.

15:57
Andrew
You know, than like what is this Andrew Southwest project, it's like, well, I don't know, but I know what these two are and I know that I love them.

16:07
Wendy
That's awesome. I love it.

16:08
Andrew
And those questions that you asked are part of, you know, part of your compass and part of navigator and all that. And I think a lot of artists should take a bigger introspective look at, like, who they are, what they want to do, what they think they're good at, who inspires them, but not just to themselves. Like to like talk to a stranger about it.

16:33
Wendy
Yeah. You know, so 30 years of coaching, I would say that very few artists have an aesthetic and an awareness of who they are outside of their music. Like an idea of their aesthetic, idea of, like their bigger purpose outside of making music. And even then with the music can be like, well, we just go in and we make music. But it might not have a really strong, like, clear, like, what is this for? How do I want to move my audience? Like, it just. Again, 30 years of coaching is just a small percentage of artists that have that.

17:08
Andrew
Yeah.

17:09
Wendy
And as a general rule, it takes seven to ten years to know who you are to find your artistic voice. I think it takes longer right now because of social media, because of the demands on the artist. So it's not like, oh, I'm going to wait till I know who I am before I release. It's like album one and EP, it's always an evolution. But when you get more clear from the get, I mean, again with Compass program, what I'm hearing from everybody is, oh, this is a no brainer. Every manager and every label who signs an artist should have them do this first because if they can identify who they are and then share that with us, the team, we can now market who they are instead of trying to figure them out while we're marketing them.

17:53
Wendy
And then the artist like hitting the stop, the brakes all the time. And then the artist being unhappy with things they're producing. Like, do this from the beginning and you're defining yourself so much more. I think of it as a. You can point everyone to the dartboard. That is you. This is me. This is my truth. This is my authenticity. And then you have the tools to communicate it as it evolves as well.

18:17
Andrew
One of my bands is called Murder Night and it's the definition we have in the brand. It's like, I love marketing it. We took like two years off just because of life, you know, and I was focusing on my other music stuff. But we're getting, we're building a catalog now so we can get back and releasing. But the beautiful thing about it is because it's one, it's not my name, it's under a different project so I don't have to think about in this personal context. It has all this baggage of my life behind it. It's its own thing. And it's a dubstep metal project. So it's like super laser targeted. Like we mix electronic dubstep and like metal. The vocals are catchy, but it's also super heavy.

18:55
Andrew
Every song, the lyrics are either about some type of conspiracy theory or about some horror thing or about a TV show or a video game.

19:03
Wendy
Amazing.

19:05
Andrew
And the, you know, we're trying to figure out, well, how can we make social media content for this because like we're both busy so we're both like, well, let's figure out some ways that we can make volume content that like we're not necessarily in it.

19:19
Wendy
Yeah.

19:19
Andrew
And so like. Okay, well we have a, the artwork we've had a lot of fun with because we kind of blend AI artwork creation with manual artwork creation. So like what if we start doing the same thing for AI videos with but like kind of a hand created AI but also human element to it and then make AI videos with that. So it's like it. Because the brand definition is so clear.

19:41
Wendy
Yeah.

19:41
Andrew
The ad targeting is clear, the visuals are clear. Every time I'm writing a song, it's like I can just go online and look up what are some like awesome sounding conspiracy theories. What are some really crazy TV shows or video games that are popping off. And then I just have fun. I wrote a song about this super popular video game Helldivers 2 that it was just super easy to write because I, I, because of the brand clarity.

20:08
Wendy
I love it. Yeah. Because you're clear like this is what we're writing about, right? Yeah. And, and it's not the same thing for an artist. One artist did sound chart and they said to me, and I won't give their thing away, but they're like, I realized doing sound chart that my love songs are all this kind of love song. It's not a pining love song. It's not that they're all this kind. So now they're very clear about any our song they write. This is the kind of love song they're writing. That's what they love, that's what they're attracted to. That's what they want to say. Great. Now you're not going to waste your time. Also, your. Your concept is amazing. It sounds to me like the video stuff could be its own, like. Like, if it's.

20:47
Wendy
If it's a Hellraiser video, or you could make the content look like that a little bit. Right. Or you could ultimately, like, make your own kind of characters that are their own type of. Like, you're just creating your own video in a way. Right. Of your band. Also, it sounds to me like you could absolutely pitch this stuff to, like, my favorite murder podcast to. Right. Like, there's. Yeah, there's.

21:14
Andrew
We had a guy that heard one of our songs, and he loved it so much because he's, like, huge into conspiracy theories for fun. Fun. And he started a clothing brand inspired off of our music.

21:25
Wendy
Oh, my God.

21:26
Andrew
And he, like, he made. He got like. He kind of re. Like, reworked the concept of one of our songs into, like, a clothing brand, which was really cool. And he didn't. He didn't copy us or anything, so were, like, super happy about it. And I feel like that when you have that clarity on, like, what you're doing, you're. It allows you to attract the right people because, well, it's just. For me, it's just super fun.

21:49
Wendy
Like, I find doing commercials for that. Using your song.

21:51
Andrew
I hope he actually. He did hit us up and asked if we could use it and tag us and stuff. And I was, you know, have a field day. As long. As long as you tell people it's our track, you know, do whatever you want.

22:04
Wendy
Yeah. And again, is he doing a Runway show? Are you playing live? Is he. Is he doing a fashion launch and playing all your music? You know, like, there's so. And then that's one brand. But, like, especially if you're doing TV shows, like, oh, every song you do should be tagging the show that inspired it. Like, there's so much ways to break out and. And reach not only the fans, but potential business partnerships with the various people that you're, you know, connecting to or writing about or.

22:34
Andrew
You know, I hated marketing when I first started. I was learning out of necessity, and now it's literally what I do most of the time, and I enjoy it, you know, so that's, like, irony for you, right?

22:47
Wendy
That's amazing.

22:48
Andrew
A lot of artists are the same way. Like, almost every artist hates marketing, but once you start getting. And some people always hate it, but there's a lot of people that once they start getting results, it becomes addicting, and it becomes, like, a fun game that you play and some people end up loving it, some people end up liking it enough tolerate it. And some people just never like it and they hate it. It's the worst time.

23:10
Wendy
I mean, we're all built differently. And again, I think that we have to learn to look at things. Like some people, you know, the phone and the camera is like, the camera for me is like, I'm talking to you right now. But for me it's, there's an audience on the other side of this. So I just feel like I'm talking to people. I'm not. The camera isn't a piece of equipment. Like it's, oh, there's a whole audience on the other side of this. So when I work with artists, that's what I encourage. I'm like, see this as like there's a, you know, there's an arena on the other side, there's a stadium on the show, there's a stage. You know, you're on the stage and that's the audience. So can we just communicate to them?

23:44
Wendy
And they're like, oh, okay, wait, that's, you know, but you don't get the feedback, you don't get this, you don't hear anything and that's hard. But yeah, I love that you're like, I hated marketing and now it's my full time gig and I love it. That's everything now. That's how I became a coach. I started coaching and found, oh, I'm putting more energy into this than putting myself on tour. I love doing this. I love empowering other people. For me, theme of life is like authenticity, integrity, vulnerability, connecting, being truthful, like being true to myself and like, oh, somehow I feel it's important enough for me to like empower other people to do that. And I think that if we had a world that people felt safe to be vulnerable and be your wonderful, weird self, we have a better world.

24:30
Wendy
So this is my way of making the world better.

24:33
Andrew
Basically my mission statement is that I want to help artists who hate the idea of releasing music that they put their heart and soul into and then no one listens to it. And that's how I started, you know, I started trying to market my music and surprise, there's a whole bunch of other artists who also release their music that they spent dozens or thousands or whatever hours of their lives making. And then that just fell on deaf ears and it punches a hole in your heart and you want to go fix it. Yeah, that mission statement's powerful.

25:03
Wendy
Amazing.

25:05
Andrew
Anyways, Wendy, you're wonderful. It's a great way to wrap it up. Anything you want to tell the people before we call it a call it video?

25:13
Wendy
Yes. Follow me on Instagram. Sign up for my mailing list because I'm going to send offers. I send out creative tips and like this in a blog and because I have so much to share. Don't be shy. DM me, Ask me questions. I do. You know, I do one one coaching. I have my online courses, I have Compass. Like there's a place for you in my ecosystem. And I have a group of artists, a PAR pack where we're gonna get real busy this year of as you said in namm, everything I do is not just me to you. It's about getting the people in the space to connect with each other. So the PAR pack is really about encompass as well.

25:52
Wendy
Everything I do is about getting the artists to know each other, be a support system, have a resource center with each other, be able to call someone up and be like, hey, let's do this together. So come be a part of my world so I can support you and you can connect with other awesome artists.