The Importance Of Following Up In The Music Licensing Business
I've touched on the importance of following up with music licensing professionals a lot in previous newsletters. Today I want to dig deeper into this topic and drive home this point even further.
A couple days ago I interviewed Aaron Bethune, the founder of Play It Loud Music, for members of my marketing service, Renegade Music Marketing. During my interview with Aaron he made the point very clearly that you have to follow up after making initial contact with him or anyone else. As Aaron explained, he receives so many emails on a daily basis that by the end of the day if he hasn't gotten back to you, your email is probably so far down in his inbox that it's possible he's completely forgotten about it.
Aaron explains that your initial contact is like planting a seed, but that you have to follow up to see anything come of your initial efforts. This is completely aligned with my experience. I've told the story before about the first song I signed to my previous publisher. I sent her several tracks and heard nothing back for about six weeks. I assumed (incorrectly so) that her lack of response was an indication that she wasn't interested. I had all but given up on anything coming from the music I sent but decided on a whim to send her a quick follow up email. I heard back from her within an hour and had a contract for my music mailed to me about two days later and about three weeks after that had my first song on national television.
As Aaron Bethune explained in our interview, when you make initial contact with someone, it might just not be the right time. Maybe they're busy with another project and don't have time to respond to you. Maybe they're working on a project that you're just not a good fit for. It could be a number of different things, but for a variety of reasons, you won't always hear back from people right away. If you make it a practice to always follow up with people, in my estimate, you can probably, at a minimum, double your success in this industry.
In a perfect world it would be great if everyone responded right away and got back to you explaining exactly what they thought and what you should do and so on. But we don't live in a perfect world and keep in mind that there are multiple songwriters contacting the same publisher, supervisor, etc... It's hard to get back to everyone. There are only so many hours in a day! So go above and beyond and not only plant a seed by contacting someone but, to continue the analogy, water the seed and make sure your intitial contacts grows into an actual conversation. That's how you move forward in the music business!
Until Next Time....
Happy Songwriting!
Aaron Davison