Welcome to The Manager’s Playbook, my personal newsletter where I share insights, tips, and strategies for artist managers on how to navigate through the music business.

Note: For any links that are behind a paywall, copy the URL and paste it into this paywall ladder to read the article without any issues.

Ruiz Note:

If you stay reading this newsletter that means you!

Wondering about first-party data? Let Tyler Budd and Yasser Pervaiz, the nerds of 8 Til Faint Advertising, break it down. 

What is first-party data? It's your direct connection to fans, boosting your career's foundation. Learn how to leverage it for growth and resonance. 

Check the strategy section below for more. 

Email [email protected] to learn more about how to help your artist grow.  

CONTENTS

Strategy:
• What Is First-Party Data and Why Should You Care? 

Pay Attention:
• You're Using the Term 'Industry Plant' Wrong
• The Beyoncé Sales Funnel
• Teen Usages Per Social Platform

Industry News: 
• UMG Inks New Deal With Spotify
• Spotify is Now Offering Video Courses For Its Subscribers
•Universal Music Invests In ‘Superfan’ Platform Weverse

What We’re Watching:
• LeBron James Keeps It Real

Check This Out:
• Music Industry Job Openings

STRATEGY

What Is First-Party Data and Why Should You Care? 

We’re going to hit you with a few definitions and terms to set the framework for the conversation.. 

Queue the 🙄…

We’re nerds. It’s the truth, but bare with us. Our currency isn’t cool, it’s capital. 

What is first-party data and why should you care? 

First-party data is information that an artist collects directly from their fan (customers). This is typically expressed as contact, demographic and fan interactions data. It allows the artist to own the relationship with their fans and is the accelerant to the foundation of their career. Full stop. 

Moving from programmatic (e.g. streaming) revenue to transactional (eg. selling) revenue is one of the most important steps in scaling an artist's business. It's the difference between menial year-over-year growth from consumption and 🚀. 

“Content you pay for with your eyes, Art you pay for with your wallet.”

How do you acquire it? 

You take a consumption or engagement point for an unknown potential fan, serve them specific messaging (via retargeting advertising) with something of value (it can be as simple as a ticket giveaway) where they exchange their contact information for the offer and you (the artist)now have a direct line of communication to build resonance, revenue and maximize the lifetime value of your audience. 

What can you do with it? 

Here’s a real-life example with an artist that consistently does 2,500 cap rooms. We turned a $46K investment into over $346K in revenue. 

The Playbook Breakdown: 

We invested $46K in TikTok, Meta (Instagram) and Snapchat Retargeting Ads to acquire 23K new members for this artist’s customer rights management solution (CRM), Community (popularized as a text-message or SMS App).

The Average Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) was  ~$2.00. 

When the artist’s tour was announced, artist presale targeted these Community members first.

We sold 15k tickets on Day 1 of the pre-sale, with almost 50% of the tour sold out by end of presale.

We did ~$345k in ticket sales with no additional advertising.

There was approximately a 7.5x Return on Investment (ROI), with an opportunity to continue to build resonance with these same fans at no additional charge. 

The real kicker? With a few more texts after the initial campaign, this artist did over +$1M in merch sales…

“When’s the best time to collect first-party data? Yesterday. The second best time? Today.” 

It may seem intimidating or may even look too good to be true at first, but this isn’t novel. It’s utilized by every other industry in the world, except for music.

Why? Who knows, we’re just the nerds - but you best believe we’re catching up. 

-Yasser & Tyler from 8 Til Faint Ads, a new venture and division of Ruiz’ 8 Til Faint ecosystem. If you want to learn more, reach out to [email protected].

PAY ATTENTION

You're Using the Term 'Industry Plant' Wrong

An artist being "industry plant" will always make for fun debate, partially because there’s no real definition for what an industry plant is.

It’s a bit of a wash at this point, maybe even a good thing as it makes people have to do their homework on you.

And if you’ve done your job right as an artist (or manager), you’ll have a catalogue waiting for them to binge.

The Beyoncé Sales Funnel

A nice visual showing you how strategic you need to be if you want to play at the highest level. Everything is connected and intentional.. Every move is thought through miles deep and years ahead.

Teen Usages Per Social Platform

Chart representing teenager use of social apps. FB on decline but hints to minimal growth in 2023.

Youtube by far outpacing all socials. As if I needed another reason to be bullish on the search engine platform for breaking artist, here it is.

INDUSTRY NEWS

UMG Inks New Deal With Spotify

Universal Music Group (UMG) and Spotify are teaming up to allow Spotify to distribute music videos, and new music snippets in the US, following its fallout with TikTok.

This expanded partnership aims to enhance engagement for UMG artists and offer deeper experiences for listeners on the Spotify platform.

It seems like Spotify continues to find creative and strategic ways to pull ahead of its competitors.

Spotify is Now Offering Video Courses For Its Subscribers

Spotify just introduced video-based learning courses in the UK, partnering with educational tech firms like BBC Maestro and Skillshare, offering lessons in music, creativity, and business skills, aligning with its broader strategy to enhance user engagement and diversify its offerings beyond music and podcasts.

Spotify users, what’s your take on this? Would love to know.

Universal Music Invests In ‘Superfan’ Platform Weverse

Universal Music Group (UMG) deepens its ties with HYBE, striking a new 10-year agreement that includes exclusive distribution rights and a minority investment in HYBE's fan platform, Weverse.

Let’s take a closer look at Weverse for a moment..

Weverse President Joon Choi joined the Weverse Company in 2021 with one key goal: “Build the ultimate fandom platform”.

Three years on, Weverse – owned by Korean music giant HYBE and originally launched in 2019 – is a key case study for what can be achieved with a ‘superfan’-serving music product.

In case you’re unfamiliar with Weverse: It enables artists to deliver content directly to fan communities – from music videos to text messages, live streams, albums, and even movies.

Weverse also makes serious money… mainly via its e-commerce arm, Weverse Shop, which sells everything from exclusive merch to books, photos, and annual fan-club memberships.

Last year, Weverse surpassed 10 million monthly active users, and 113 million lifetime downloads.

(Source: Music Business Worldwide)

Adding further context, WeVerse is operated by HYBE Corporation, formerly known as Big Hit Entertainment, the management company behind popular K-pop groups like BTS.

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING

Everybody Wants to Be Great, But..

This clip ruffled some feathers, but those who get it, get it.

CHECK THIS OUT..

Music Industry Job Openings

Have a look at ROSTR’s job board for paid work in the industry.

Stay hungry. Stay open.

Bio

I’m Mauricio Ruiz, the Founder/CEO of 8 Til Faint, an Artist Management company with over 5 billion audio streams worldwide. Our past and current clients include Grammy nominated, Juno Award winning multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter Jessie Reyez, Marley Bleu, Skratch Bastid and more. I am also the Co-Founder of Mad Ruk Entertainment, a content agency with over 3 billion long form video streams worldwide. Our client list includes The Weeknd, Eminem, and Celine Dion, along with renowned brands like Nike, Pernod Ricard, Canon, and the NBA.

Follow me on IG @mauroisruiz

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