Being an independent artist might feel like a tough path to tread – like you need to be a Jack of all Trades to get yourself off the ground. But, instead of working hard, how about working smart? Let businesses shoulder some of that work for you and you’ll spend less time grafting so you can dedicate more time to doing what you love. Receiving sponsorship from a business can secure you a relatively easy and hassle free pay-check, transforming your music biz into a stable and sustainable music career. SoundSight can introduce you to businesses that truly align with your values, leaving you to reap the benefits, until you’re ready to stop, as the service is totally flexible (think of it as a kind of PAYG sponsorship service). No need to waste time sending out tedious emails to target potential sponsors, or build up a portfolio to sell yourself. SoundSight facilitates the connection between businesses and artists, all while simplifying the process.
So, what’s in it for the businesses?
SoundSight will ensure that this is more than just a sponsorship deal; it’ll be more like a meeting of minds or a cool, creative collaboration between you and a brand that suits you. We’ll help to match you by using points of similarity such as the businesses’ style, products/services and sectors that align with you and your audience’s interests. Then we’ll look into the data side of things such as audience demographics to truly perfect a match.
In promoting a businesses’ products or services on your social media (or even live shows), they’ll gain revenue by the increased exposure to your fans and followers. It just so happens that you’re pretty cool and by association, when you affiliate yourself with them, they gain ‘cool’ points too. From a business’s perspective, utilising sponsored content is a much more effective strategy to use: it targets consumers more organically, as it’s less of a stab in the dark than what you might consider traditional advertising. The origins of advertising date back to the heady days where print and television reigned supreme, but those markets are waning, and audiences are branching out across different forms of online media, sometimes hard to reach for businesses. Sponsored content mitigates this by speaking directly to a pre-targeted audience. But audiences are getting wise to the marketing tactics of businesses and so trust in a brand is essential. So, investing in an established figure, such as an independent artist with a large following, is a vital part in securing consumer trust.
Based on their study, Media Kix noted that “a large portion (80%) of marketers find influencer marketing effective.” And over a third (35%) of marketers find influencer marketing very effective—a testament to the strength of the growing marketing strategy. Only a slim 5% reported influencer marketing to be ineffective and 0% of marketers said that influencer marketing was “very ineffective.” Thanks to influencer marketing’s greater range of influence, it is much more effective than other forms of advertising.
One of our business clients, Dave Phillips Music & Sound, being ‘very much satisfied with our overall service’ said that SoundSight helped them most in regards to…
“Connecting our brand with artists that might not otherwise know who we are.”
Among a number of other things including the flexibility, cheaper price, helping them navigate the influencer marketing sector & handling the data side of things.
What’s expected of the artist?
Just as there are benefits for the piano brand when an audience sees an award-winning pianist playing their piano at a show or in a social media post, the arrangement works both ways of course. Bigger brands in particular are likely to promote you as an artist too, so your name will gain greater exposure; that means more people scrolling through your Instagram page, finding out who you are and listening to your music.
Let’s cover what the relationship might look like between a business and an independent artist. As an artist, you decide exactly how much presence/involvement you would like to allow the business on your social media: this ranges from a simple logo placement or tag, to shout outs, product reviews, recommendations, and links to URLs & special offers. In return, you’ll get paid based on the level of your endorsement, size of audience, and the rate of their engagement with your content. Embrace the new digital world and the opportunities it brings for secure income.
SoundSight makes this process very simple, as when we’re championing you, we provide you with your own endorsement asset and a ready-made price catalogue of services that we’ll present to the businesses (with your approval of course). This means you have complete control over your involvement and the flexibility to opt out when you’re done, which beats more traditional sponsorship agreements. Once you’ve provided the content, you get paid, minus a small deduction for our service fees. It’s that simple.
We’re also launching our SoundSight platform this summer, which will facilitate all of the functions just mentioned much faster and with much more ease of access; providing you even more control, flexibility and transparency with your sponsorship deals – we wholeheartedly believe transparency is vital in ANY agreement between musical artists and the business world they (sometimes reluctantly) have to deal with. The platform will allow you to easily offer the endorsement you choose at the touch of a button, and only to businesses that fit with your preferences, audiences & interests. You’ll also be able to negotiate, accept or decline any sponsorship offer, without the long, boring, and often very confusing sponsorship contracts.
If you’re a business interested in sponsoring an established independent artist please sign up here, and artists can check eligibility and sign up here. Also follow our socials to stay up to date on all our news and services going forward!
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