Why Does The Industry Need High-Performance Agencies? Here's What The Industry's Leading Labels Are Doing To Stay Ahead

For the past decade, labels have been mired in a financial quagmire. With increasing funds dedicated to platform marketing and fierce rivalry on daily release counts, labels, both established and emerging, are at a crossroads in terms of how to make their artists shine.

Unfortunately, there are no miracle fixes. The best technique is to collaborate with high-performing agencies. But what exactly constitutes a high-performance music agency? The following is from Music Promo Today, with whom DMN is pleased to collaborate.

MPT Agency has been increasing its resources, assets, and capabilities to match the current dynamic environment of music marketing and promotion, having recently inked a partnership with Warner Music.

Anto Dotcom and Raffi Keuhnelian are well-known in the business for their high-performance strategies, but the firm has chosen a fresh approach to accommodate their independent and major label clients.

With a considerably denser market to navigate, the firm has massively invested in both AI and a slew of media acquisitions to exponentially expand their artists’ digital reach.

For example, the company has launched its own AI platform, Virtual Publicist. An sophisticated search engine that aggregates media and outlet contacts from all over the world using artist data. After using the technology internally for a few years, the team decided to deploy a beta version to test the waters and improve the user experience. Virtual Publicist will be fully operational by the end of the third quarter of 2023.

Managers, label executives, and artists have so far used the tool to streamline outlet discovery and optimize communications.

With a 37% response rate for the AI’s targeting and messaging capability, Virtual Publicist enables many professionals to up their game while saving critical time throughout their campaign.

For their clients, the team uses the software to help coordinate the campaign and transfer contacts back and forth. Both the agency and the label now benefit from a more fluid and transparent communications architecture.

Ahead of the technology curve, digital assets are another angle the firm has used to bolster their offer to labels. MPT Agency has just incorporated four specialized communities with thousands of active followers into their network with the acquisition of four music magazines: Sweet n Sour Magazine, Pinch of Sol, Popcultr, and Stereo Saints.

Why is this more important than typical PR pitching?
Labels now have direct access to press and engaged fans across all social media platforms. This streamlines and expands freebies, announcements, tour promotions, ticket sales, and content reactions.

It also provides labels with access to a third-party community with which to create and evaluate artist engagement. This can be expanded to include listening parties, demo releases, and exclusive features that would ordinarily require hundreds of hours of relationship development or thousands of dollars in payola style placement.

High-performance marketing and promotion organizations like MPT Agency are establishing a more accessible industrial ecosystem by bridging the gap with worldwide media communities.

“This round of funding was a huge success, and our mission is nothing short of empowering the artist’s journey to create a more fair and open exposure path for their work.” Raffi Keuhnelian explains, “Every day, 100,000 songs are released.” Despite the exponential expansion in global access to music via streaming, discoverability is getting increasingly challenging. With the fragmentation of fanbases, labels will need access to niche communities in emerging markets as well as digital tools to connect them directly to outlets.”

“The big three are a powerhouse, accounting for nearly a quarter of the music market cap; their need to access both new talent and regional or community audiences is an absolute necessity to sustain their growth.” “With a string of acquisitions in our iron site,” Anto Dotcom continues, “our capacity to grow both big and small acts is about to be multiplied.”

MPT Agency has been collaborating closely with its new subsidiaries throughout the previous year. Sweet n Sour, for example, launched its first print magazine in 2022 and is now a content partner with top labels such as Armada, Mau5trap, Monstercat, Wall Records, Hau5trap, and Ministry of Sound.

Labels must collaborate with agencies to optimize their artist exposure, since they require greater access to niche market listeners and high-performance / low-latency campaigns.

Without a robust monetization plan, fueled by direct network connectivity, labels will continue to lose market relevance to digital solutions.

MPT Agency is an excellent example, having doubled down on tech and traditional media during the recession and now reaping the advantages through worldwide collaborations. Redefining artists’ freedom and redefining campaign reach will be required for the next generation of artists to succeed in this international economy.

Why Does The Industry Need High-Performance Agencies? Here’s What The Industry’s Leading Labels Are Doing To Stay Ahead

For the past decade, labels have been mired in a financial quagmire. With increasing funds dedicated to platform marketing and fierce rivalry on daily release counts, labels, both established and emerging, are at a crossroads in terms of how to make their artists shine.

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