Loss leader Strategy For Artists

What is a Loss Leader?

In business, a loss leader is a pricing strategy where a product is sold at a price below its market cost to stimulate other sales of more profitable goods or services.

Can artists benefit from this business strategy?

Well, if popular brands like Walmart and Amazon apply this to drive sales then yes, any artiste who considers themselves as a profitable brand can make use of the loss leader.

Most times as artistes, we are too careful to make decisions about our careers because we’re scared of being exploited.

They tell us to be careful of Record Labels and Recording Contracts and so we approach the music business with a neurotic and pessimistic mindset.

We want our masters but we also want full creative control, as well as the major percentage in revenue. And so, we keep passing on deals without being ready to put in the much-needed work that will give us the leverage required to be in a position of making such demands from record labels or even to be successful by ourselves as independent artistes.

How is this of any help to any artiste?

By all means, artistes all over the world should always be diligent in knowing what they’re committing their signatures to. But after coming to terms with the strategy, implications and structure of what they’re being offered, artistes should be willing to compromise in certain areas for greater gains which is to be successful in the end.

There are truly no perfect contracts. What artistes should do instead is identify their most important interests and make sure that those concerns are represented in the terms to a satisfactory level.

Artistes should also be brave and daring enough to break certain rules that make the music game a difficult battlefield for them to even compete in the first place.

Take for example the issue of sampling. As an up-and-coming band, you may not be able to afford the proprietary measures needed for the clearance of a sample. But if you truly connect with that piece of music, go ahead and create your magic. If it becomes a hit, you might go on to lose most or all the rights to the owner of the sample used, but you’d have made a name for yourself to attract attention (a fanbase and even opportunities) which could be useful in your career advancement.

A text book example of this is “Lucid Dreams” by Juice WRLD. It sampled “Shape of My Heart” by Sting without initial clearance. Majority of the revenue was later claimed by Sting but it never took away from the success of the song nor the artiste.

5 Hard pills artistes must swallow;

1. Little gains are better than no gains at all. Sometimes little gains are enough to give you the encouragement you need to keep pushing while waiting for bigger gains.

2. A Successful Taylor Swift without her Masters is better than a Taylor not so Swift with no money, no fan base and no career but has all her Masters in her drives sitting there and gathering dusts.

3. Sometimes giving a song to a more successful artiste can be what opens more doors for you in the industry.

4. Losses can become Leaders.

5. Less is truly more.

Written my Marshall Muze