In this episode I spoke with Cassie Petrey, founder of Crowd Surf, who has worked on marketing campaigns for Backstreet Boys, Camila Cabello, Paramore and more!
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Important Points:
Andrew and Cassie discuss focusing on video content over photos to gain exposure and build an audience online. Well-lit, non-pixelated videos tend to perform better on social platforms.
Cassie shares why consistency in posting quality content is key. Find what works and double down on that strategy. Don’t get discouraged if something doesn’t perform well at first.
Andrew and Cassie talk about having a unique quirk or hook in videos, like a prop, can help drive engagement and commentary. It gives viewers something extra to talk about beyond just the music.
Cassie talks about how for developing artists, staying focused on showcasing your music and musicianship helps build credibility. Personality comes later once you have fans invested in your work.
Podcast Outline:
[00:01:04] Think about why you want to make music and have people hear it, and make marketing secondary to that. – Cassie
[00:05:47] Working with the Backstreet Boys. – Cassie
[00:07:37] Doing more performances takes the pressure off each one. – Cassie
[00:13:02] Ultimate Guitar’s app could be an opportunity for artists good at instruments. – Cassie
[00:19:29] As a manager you handle details but also the big picture of an artist’s career. – Cassie
[00:23:37] For established artists, touring is always the biggest revenue stream. – Cassie
[00:28:12] Picking up an artist from 11k to 500k+ Instagram followers in 6 weeks. – Cassie
[00:34:15] Don’t let perfectionism stop you from posting content regularly. – Andrew
[00:31:42] Posting daily content consistently was key to his Instagram growth. – Cassie
[00:35:09] Better to play 20 imperfect shows and gain experience than 2 perfect shows. – Cassie
[00:36:20] The less shows you play, the more you get into your head about each performance having to be perfect. – Andrew
[00:40:27] I want to encourage women to stick it out and not give up in the music industry. – Cassie
[00:44:05] Running a business comes with tough logistics like getting paid late. – Cassie
[00:45:57] Hearing my team called the most impactful part of artists’ teams felt really good. – Cassie
[00:47:09] For new artists – show up every day and be an artist, don’t worry about numbers. – Cassie
Wise Words:
[00:01:05] “Why are you an artist? What is your goal? Why do you want to make music? Why do you want people to hear it? Why do you want to be on stage? And then I like people to have their goals and then think about music marketing as secondary to that and really encourage artists to think about music marketing and in particular, in my case, a lot of social media marketing.” – Cassie
[00:13:03] “I still have people who have big moments with Snapchat. I think that in general is kind of a sleeper platform that more people should give more attention to.” – Cassie
[00:19:20] “The manager is, it’s kind of like a bike wheel and you’re in the middle and like all the spokes are attached to it and you’re trying to make the wheel keep moving. So you’re really touching everything and you want to make sure that the wheel is balanced and all the spokes are there and that something doesn’t break and it stops moving.” – Cassie
[00:34:15] “Yes, you want the content to be good, but if making this content perfect means you’re posting twice a month and it could be like 90 percent as good, but you’re posting three times a week, I think that’s going to win every single time. Cause like usually the iteration of just doing lots of things is what makes you actually good.“ – Andrew
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If you enjoyed this interview you might also like this one I did with Ben Patterson on how to make in in music.
