“Playlists are not a marketing plan.” The Charles Alexander Interview

Penny Lane is a show about the business, economics, and technology of music streaming, hosted by Matt Squire and Shawn Yeager, and presented by Trustream.

Charles Alexander is an independent singer/songwriter, digital strategist and artist manager. He recently launched Systemic, an artist & label services company specializing in streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, YouTube and Pandora. He also owns Outside The Box Music, an artist management & marketing company where he helps artists, musicians & songwriters create and extend their online presence. He has run digital campaigns for such diverse clients as Ryan Cabrera, Curb Records, Keb’ Mo’ and Lacy Cavalier, amongst others.

We asked Charles to join us to discuss streaming’s evolving role in artists’ careers, from the ways they create, to how they market and promote their music, to the ways in which they earn a living.

In this episode, we cover topics including:

How to value stream counts
Why playlists are not a marketing plan
The importance of knowing by whose rules you’re playing
The measurements Spotify uses to determine how audiences respond to a song
Paid vs ad-supported, and the cost of free
How streaming factors into a holistic marketing plan
What and who artists should trust in the age of streaming

Resources

Is Spotify making songs shorter?
Systemic Music
Tastemaker Music