Michael Walker: Yeah. Alright. I'm excited here today with my new friend, Andrew Apanov. Andrew, let me give you a quick intro. He is the founder of Dotted Music and the host of the Music Growth Talks podcast. He brings over 20 years of music industry experience to the table. He's the former editor-in-chief of Ultimate Guitar. He's a seasoned growth marketer, helping artists and music companies thrive worldwide. In addition to that, he's also a speaker. He does live events, promotion. He's a DJ, a mentor, and so I'm excited to connect with him today and talk a little bit about online marketing for musicians. In this market—with more music than ever—in many ways, it's hard to cut through the noise. How do you actually share your music in a way that can reach the right people and build an audience? How do you grow? So, Andrew, thank you so much for taking time to podcast today.

Andrew Apanov: Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm super honored to chat with you. Let me know where we start.

Michael: Absolutely. Yeah. It's great to have you here. And the place I usually start is just getting a little bit better of an understanding of your starting point—your story—and how you learned some of the insights that you're going to share on the podcast today.

Andrew: Yeah, sure. It is very important to give some context to what I do and my background. I have been doing many things in the music industry over the last 20-plus years, like you mentioned. I started at Ultimate Guitar, which gave me a lot of experience and industry connections. I was there for seven years as one of the first employees. It's now a huge company. It's now a part of Ause Group.

At the same time, I was organizing live events, DJing—it was a long time ago. I don't DJ anymore, but I actually just co-started a live techno band. I do modular, like Eurorack and so on. So I got very much into music personally lately, but yeah, not DJing anymore.

I've been working with musicians, companies, and involved in conferences. I had a membership community for musicians called WI at some point. I don’t release any podcast episodes right now. I released over 150 episodes of the Music Growth Talks podcast, so it's on hold for now.

For anyone who may recognize my name, they may have noticed that it's not been out there in the past five years. I haven’t been doing too much public blogging or educational stuff. I’ve just been focusing on growing the agency, which exists for around 15 years now. It's called Dotted Music, and we focus on helping musicians.

In the past few years, we started working with music tech companies a lot more—audio, music AI, artist-friendly tools for musicians, physical instruments, synthesizers, things of that nature. But we do still work with musicians, to be clear. We are very much in the performance marketing area, and I can talk more about that in a bit. But yeah, we work with musicians, record labels, and music tech startups and companies.

Michael: Hmm. Awesome. Cool. So having had 20-plus years of experience working with artists and probably witnessing quite a few different ups and downs, different waves of the music industry, I'm curious to hear from your perspective what you think some of the biggest problems or challenges are in the market right now for musicians or artists who might be listening to this. What do you see as some of the biggest problems that you’ve set out to solve with the agency?

Andrew: Yeah, the problems are pretty much the same as always—getting heard and breaking through the noise. I do see some patterns. To me, even though I'm not that old or haven't been doing this forever, looking at the music marketing space in 2008, for example, there are some things that are quite similar to what's going on today—not in terms of the platforms; everything has changed, of course—but in terms of what it takes to make it in music.

What's funny is that the answer to that is often pretty much the same as before—not on the tactical level, because everything is different right now—but in terms of the mindset and approach to being recognized.

The problems are generally not monetization. It's getting a real audience and getting heard, and finding the right place, the right audience. Because we compete not only with other musicians, but obviously with all forms of entertainment. So the market has definitely become more saturated than ever before.

It's a weird answer to that question, but to me, the problems are pretty much the same as they were 40–50 years ago as well: how to build an audience.

Michael: Hmm. Good stuff. Yeah. So it sounds like what you're saying is that the platforms have changed, and tactically the situation has changed, but if you actually look at the pattern, the underlying fundamentals have been exactly the same. It's about building an audience and connecting with people.

Andrew: Connecting with people is key here. Maybe we’ll chat a bit more about that as well, but really, music is all about networking, connecting, building relationships, communities. It's really a very human thing—not technology or algorithm first.

Michael: Hmm. Absolutely. Cool. So with that in mind, I’m curious—what you’ve found, because obviously it's always changing, it's constantly moving around—but for you right now with your agency and the artists you're working with, are there any particular strategies or—well, let me pull myself back. Before we get into the specific tactics, which I think are really powerful and I’d like to go there, maybe you can speak first to addressing that fundamental of like, okay...

If the problem is building an audience—from a fundamental level—what are some mindset shifts, or what do artists need to do to fundamentally make that happen and build that connection?

Andrew: Understanding that you cannot—as an artist, talking to an artist right now—cannot do it all alone. So build a team. And it is not about hiring an agency like ours. It's often, on the contrary, finding people who are ready to help you out for free. Building a team. And these days it's even more—well, now it's pretty much as important as it's ever been—because all these different platforms and tools require so much time that it's completely impossible to do it all on your own. You can automate a lot of things, and you can do something on your own with the right knowledge. But you need a team. You need to understand it.

It's like learning to market yourself is like learning to play an instrument. You need to be open and accept the failures and mistakes. Just as when you're starting to play an instrument—it doesn't just happen overnight—it takes time and practice and a lot of testing and experimentation. So being consistent and deliberate in trying things out and finding what works for you specifically in terms of the message, the medium, the platform—it's just like trying a lot of things out and seeing what works for you, because everyone is different.

There is a lot of negativity and complaints about the industry and just overall... I'm missing a word here, but just being too critical of what's going on. It's not exactly helpful. There are reasons to be relaxed with what's going on in the industry and on social media right now. But yeah, it's something that I see across all the artists that succeed, is that they are being open to making things work in whatever environment they have, in whatever industry they are in. They're making music right now, not 10 years ago. It doesn't really help to, you know, remember the old good times. It helps when you are young and you don't remember the good old times, of course, but...

I could answer—I know we're still in the kind of very philosophical value kind of... sorry, sorry. But I hope it's still somewhat useful.

Michael: Oh yeah. I mean, I think it's super helpful. Like, I think this is really what matters, because it's the fundamental. It's the thing that doesn't necessarily change and it's gonna serve, you know, anyone that's listening for the long run—like in the music industry, but also in general.

What I'm hearing you say is that one of the most fundamental things is around mindset and how you approach what's happening. Do you have a willingness to show up and try things? Do you have a learner's mindset where you're not trying to get everything perfect, but you're just actually showing up and trying things and seeing what's working, what's not? And that adaptability—especially when things are changing so quickly—is the number one thing to focus on. It's building the resiliency, building the right mindsets to be adaptable and to show up. And it's gonna change based on you and your situation and how things are evolving around you. But as long as you do that, that's maybe the best way to actually thrive.

Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. And just to add to that, you cannot allow yourself to be too stubborn. Because sometimes—I mean, I know that what we're talking about is applicable to anything in life and not just music marketing—but you don't want to be stubborn and just stick to doing something that doesn't work because you think that it will.

Some years ago, when I had this round of speaking at conferences and doing some more educational stuff than I do now, I was trying to promote the idea of growth hacking in the context of music marketing—taking it from the tech world and applying it to music. And it didn’t stick too well necessarily, but some of the specific tactics did. But I still do think that having this mindset of collecting feedback early on what you do—even musically, in terms of the sounds and the content that you put out, like short-form video content or whatnot—and being flexible with your creations and maybe getting others involved in the process. So being really... not separating yourself is important.

It's a very delicate subject, because as an artist—as a creator, as a true creative and artist, I mean, and not just a content creator (which is not to dismiss that)—but creating a solid piece of art, like an album, for example, may require solitude and just being in your mind and your zone and not letting the outside world affect that. I respect and understand that. I've read so many books and watched documentaries about creators and so on. It's really different. Just have different approaches to that.

But allowing the world to interfere with what you do may help you grow. Otherwise, if you just sit on stuff for too long and don't get it out, you may be disappointed if it's not perceived the way you thought it would be. I think that’s related to the topic a little bit.

Michael: Good stuff. Yeah. I love starting with the fundamentals because, yeah, that's kind of like the foundation on which you build your house. And if you have a solid foundation, then when a storm comes, you’re not constantly crumbling down. So I do think that what you just shared is really important.

And I know a lot of folks do, including myself, find it very helpful to have examples of what's working right now on the ground. At the time of recording this, there are different tactics and things, but sometimes there are strategies that are working right now and tactics that plug into that.

So I'm curious, right now, at the time of recording this, are there any specific strategies or things that you see that are working for artists in order to be able to cut through the noise and connect with their audience?

Andrew: How granular can we go? Like super specific and tactical is fine, right?

Michael: Yeah, I would say as tactical as you want to get.

Andrew: Okay. I... And for the context, there is one type of service that we do, which is pretty much the same — has been the same conceptually for years — and it's performance. We really like running ads for music — Meta ads, it can be Google as well. This is of course what we do for music tech.

For our tech clients, it's a lot more straightforward performance — where we're bringing subscriptions, revenue, sales, and so on. With musicians, it's a bit more difficult. Trying to grow an audience on Instagram or Spotify and all that stuff — but it's not exactly what...

Like, I can talk about that. There are some ways to make it work, and it does work. You absolutely want to know some ins and outs — that's why you may want to hire someone or complete a course about the topic. But it’s... we can talk about that.

What excites me a lot is... I work with a limited number of artists right now where I'm actively involved. It's more about me — it's like an R&D, the way I see it — and learning new stuff from working with interesting, young artists who already have some traction and following, and where they are very open to experimenting, and where I can test new things as well.

So this is why right now... when you ask about specific tactics, I’m thinking about something super specific. Repurposing your content that you have from any kind of live shots, for example, and testing short-form video content on Instagram Reels, on TikTok, on Shorts — using the new feature, as we are recording this. It’s a relatively new feature, even though some of our artists had access to it for quite some time — running “trial” Reels. You can repost the same Reel as a trial, where it’s shown only to a new audience.

And if it’s performing well, you just repost it — and every time it can go viral. This probably will not work in several months the way it does right now. It happens all the time — a platform introduces a feature that works really well, it’s like a cool hack, and then it stops working because the algorithms change and so on.

But being on top of all the interesting trends — so we’ve got this artist who... this is something from literally today. There are different audiences in Europe, in the US, in Latin America, with multiple languages involved. And what we just launched — and we learned this from someone in marketing, but also something we see ourselves — is that releasing videos where we don’t have any voice of an artist talking on the video, but just some text captions and the music in the background, performs better. Because the platform — Meta in this case — will know that it’s not just for people who speak English, for example. So we will reach more people if we don’t include any voiceovers.

These little things like that — we experimented with some fan tools. Just signed up with Core Brands — I love what these guys do — where you can collect a lot of information across different platforms in a really effective way. And you can do text marketing and drops.

Tools... I’m kind of skeptical of the wave of superfan tools. And obviously, it's only relevant to bigger artists anyway. So I'm not in the camp of recommending to put a paywall behind your best content. I’ve been one of the first users of Patreon and Interview Conti, and I really love the platform, for example. Some of my clients still use it. But I’m not necessarily the person who, these days, recommends locking content — your best content — only for paying superfans.

So I’m not going to give too many recommendations there. I am seeing a lot more interesting things happening with WhatsApp communities, with Discord communities for superfans. I try not to even use the word “superfan.” But it’s about trying to get people involved and not treat them as fans, but invite them into small-form communities.

This is what we’re doing — one of my artists (it wasn’t my idea) is doing it — with WhatsApp communities, for example. WhatsApp groups. It doesn’t even have to be a “community.” It can be a group where, similar to Discord, everyone is communicating. But again, you don’t want to push Discord to an audience that doesn’t use Discord in their day-to-day life. If they use WhatsApp, use WhatsApp.

The problem with Patreon — which I just mentioned as an example — is I see no engagement on most of the posts there. Because people may be subscribed and paying you through the platform — they use it to support an artist or a podcast or a YouTube creator — but they may not be spending much time on that platform.

So we're constantly trying to see how to capture contact information of people. It can be a phone number, an email address, an Instagram handle for automatic DMs. We've used Lila for that as well. There are all these bots — like ManyChat. So it's a lot of...

I don't even... like, it's more — we can talk about specific tools, and I mentioned a few — but it's more about this crazy, almost chaotic experimentation. But having a fundamental system where you can capture content information, for example, and data — and work with that — but you constantly experiment with different themes.

So you want to capture new audiences with short-form content, for example. And again, if you have an event — any kind of live performance, music video, show — even if only five people showed up, you want to get as much content from there as possible: photos, videos, and repurpose it for different platforms. Repost it with different captions, just trying to get as much as possible from it — all while continuing to build this funnel from just reaching strangers with videos that you hope go somewhat viral, or running paid ads to promote some of them, to capturing those who are interested for one-on-one conversations.

You don't want to start the community too early on when there is no community just yet, but just give a lot of attention.

And these days it's a lot about using some tools unconventionally — sending out behind-the-scenes videos via WeTransfer links to people on your email list, or things like that.

So it's also something that’s quite a trend that I’m seeing — trying to bypass... I’m not sure what exactly to bypass — but trying to reach the audience in a way that they may not be expecting, necessarily. So anyway, I would need you to stop me and ask something more specific because I can go on for hours like that.

Michael: Yeah.

Andrew: Just let...

Michael: Oh man, it's great. Yeah, there's so much gold there. I think the first thing that kind of stood out to me was — coming back to the fundamentals that we were just talking about — is, like, what I heard you say is that this is a constantly evolving landscape, where when there's a new feature that comes out, often these platforms want to prioritize that new feature.

And so, now that works really well for a period of time — then it moves on to something else. So often there's a new thing that comes out. And so maybe the lesson to learn is — it's sort of like we're surfers in the ocean. And there's always going to be new waves.

And we have to learn how to catch the wave. And the nature of the wave is that it comes and it goes — but we can learn how to read the wave, learn how to swim along with it. But really, a big part of it is the practice of being adaptable, resilient — catching the wave as it's happening.

So I really liked that point that you made around just how things are changing and you have to stay on top of it.

One thing that I want to point to — and also, you may not know this — but about a week from now, we're launching our software-to-service platform, which is essentially a CRM platform that is meant to take on platforms like Patreon and Facebook groups and Discord, but to give artists more direct access to their fans, and to be able to do things like...

It’s like Shopify meets Patreon meets Discord. But I think the thing that I really appreciated from what you just said — and I think a good lesson, and maybe again, I’m biased — but this lends itself nicely to what we’re building for artists, is that you want to be careful about locking away your best content so that not everyone gets to see it.

That’s maybe a trap with something like Patreon or membership, where if you have a private group, but they’re the only ones that get your best content, you're losing a lot of the benefit of sharing your best content with everyone.

And so, you want to create a platform where you can connect with as many people as possible — and then do unconventional things to build a community that you own, and not rely on a platform you don't own.

That's one of the main takeaways I got as well. So you want to have a funnel — you want to be able to capture that contact data, so that if there’s a MySpace situation and a platform dies, you still own that audience that you built.

Andrew: Yes, yes, yes. It is super cool that you are working on that. I didn't know exactly, but yeah, sorry for my ignorance. I'm excited about that. When I mentioned that, I also hope you could hear that I'm not opposed to community-first platforms. When I was saying that I'm not a fan of the super fan apps, there is—just to me, it's like—I think that some of the companies get it wrong when it's more focused on a few A-list stars who can do anything they want, and they will collect a huge amount of followers on anything. Like, they will start a Google Doc and people will join them and leave comments, which would be a best idea, to be honest, actually. I need to write it up.

So it's absolutely great that you are doing something like that, because a lot of existing platforms, even if people have been using them for a long time, they're not adapted to the needs of a modern musician. There is a problem with Discord and Patreon and so on. So this is great.

You just don't want to—I have a problem with exclusivity. When you just kill everything, it's the same idea as with not getting your music out on DSPs. Let's not get into the topic. I understand why artists pull their music from Spotify and so on and so on, but I do believe that you want to be present on the platforms that work for you.

Also, to be very clear, this is something that I've been always cautious about when working with artists, educating musicians. I don't push one specific strategy on everyone, because short-form videos that I'm talking about don't work for most of the artists I work with. They hate that, and they really are not authentic when they make videos. So I will be the first to ask them not to do it or adapt the strategy with video content.

It's another kind of topic which maybe we don't want to go into now, but in short, you want to find what works for you in terms of how exactly you communicate. It will involve some uncomfortable moves and trying—maybe learning how to perform on camera. Maybe you will find that it works really well for you if you learn a few tricks.

But yeah, back to what you mentioned—just as long as it's not exclusive as the only platform. Because you still want to be elsewhere. You don't even need all that much exclusive content, because people need to have a different incentive to join a community of an artist they like. It's about being recognized by an artist. The value is in being noticed, really, and then bringing value back and supporting you.

When a listener pays you $1, it's a sign that they are a fan. They are showing you, as an artist, that they see you—that they notice you. So you coming back to them with a simple comment—anything—it can be much smaller than you even imagined. Just showing them any kind of appreciation is all they need. It doesn't have to be a constant DM-ing kind of situation. It's a beautiful dance. I really like that.

So having a good platform for that is important, but it's not like you need to stop sharing your life on Instagram Stories, even if it's available for free to everyone.

Michael: Good, good stuff. Yeah, so what I'm hearing you say is that often a trap is the exclusivity of sharing your best content but not actually sharing it in these channels where it's gonna reach as many people as possible—especially when it's so saturated right now. It's so hard to cut through. If you're trying to save your best stuff and you're not even telling people about it, then it's gonna be hard to even get people there in the first place.

So maybe instead, what you'd recommend is more like leading with your best content, giving it out for free and using platforms like Spotify and Instagram. And then maybe flipping it around—so it's actually the people who are in your inner circle that appreciate more of the raw—not necessarily your "most polished, high-quality" stuff—but it's actually just more you. It's more connecting with you. So flipping that around is maybe a better approach.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah. And again, it's always about experimentation as well, because I've seen different scenarios in terms of what exactly is being shared. Sometimes it's really just noting a community and letting people talk, and that can be it. You don't even need to—

So I've seen so much resistance in that because of the pressure that an artist feels in terms of how much extra content they will need to be making for that platform. The reality—and Patreon being a popular platform is a good example—there are so many creators who have not been delivering for months and have felt really bad about that. But the supporters have been there.

Someone cancels a subscription not because the artist doesn't release anything. Usually, the reasons are different. But if someone really likes what you do, they will keep supporting you even if you just go forward with a break for a few months.

I just also want to remind everyone that it does require—there may be a playbook, best practices, and you really want to educate yourself on that—but you will want to find your own balance. It just will be a bit different for everyone, which is obvious if you think about that. But maybe not always. You don't have to do everything exactly like everyone else.

Michael: Absolutely. Yeah. It'd be kind of a boring world if everyone was literally the exact same, doing the exact same things to all people. It'd be like a song where instead of playing a harmony chord, it's just all the same note.

Andrew: Exactly. We don't want—we cannot live in a world like that. We need variety.

Michael: Hmm. That is good. That's a pretty good analogy, isn't it? Like, you want to have the harmony notes. So often you come together and you can collaborate and do something unique, and it resonates when it's together. Yeah. Get the right progression—ooh, now you're talking.

Andrew: No, absolutely. It's very musical, and I really do see it like that. This world of marketing and promoting yourself is very creative. All these analogies make a lot of sense. And if it's not fun for you, then you may want to adapt how you do it, how you approach it, and the mindset and so on. Because it can be frustrating—but isn't touring or making music frustrating at times? So it's just like any creative endeavor. You can certainly make it a fun process to build this audience and to spread the word about your art and so on.

Michael: Awesome. Cool. Well, Andrew, yeah, this has been a lot of fun, and I appreciate both the zoomed-out approach and being able to go deep on the fundamentals and the things that don't change, but also just getting your perspective as someone that clearly is working with a lot of artists on the ground as an agency. So I appreciate the conversation.

And for anyone that is listening right now and they're interested in connecting more with you or learning more about the agency and how to get in contact, what would be the best way for them to reach out?

Andrew: It's agency.dottedmusic.com—yeah, the website. There is a form that you can fill out. Anyone can find me on Instagram as @metaandrew. That's that. I'm always happy to hear. It will help if you mention the way you came from and how you heard about me.

Michael: Yeah.

Andrew: That's all.

Michael: Cool. Fantastic. And I guess for anyone that's listening or watching this right now, who would you say is sort of your ideal client that you like to work with? Or who’s the best fit? Who do you see getting the best results and where it's just the best connection?

Andrew: I really am thinking about very specific verticals in the world of audio and music technology. In terms of artists, we are not even looking to—we are being quite selective these days. So I guess, yeah, someone with a bit of traction, a bit of a following, a bit of a foundation in the mindset, who wants to get to the next level.

Because we work with—I would say this makes sense for a very particular segment of artists. So if we are talking about musicians and not music technology companies, then someone not just starting out, but ready to grow their brand to something bigger and have a budget. Unfortunately, I have to mention that, because in our case—I can help with advice—but we do need a marketing budget to execute on what we do best.

Michael: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Makes sense. Alright, well Andrew, thanks again for being on the podcast. A lot of fun talking today.

Andrew: Thank you so much. It was fun. I hope it was useful. Thank you.