Jason
Welcome to the podcast today. My name is Jason Tonioli. And I am here with a new friend, Mark Roberge, who I’ve learned is very similar in a lot of ways to me. Mark, you’re an artist, but you’ve kind of been a successful artist along the way. And you’ve seen the frustrations that many of your musician friends have gone through and you’ve created some solutions that have, with the goal of helping people that are musicians to be successful, which is awesome. I’d love to just, I’m excited to dive into your story and kind of share some of the wisdom you’ve learned over the years. But Mark, maybe fill in the blanks a little bit. Tell me a little bit about your success and then let’s dive into how you ended up becoming a musician.
Mark Roberge
Awesome. Yeah. Thank you for the intro. I appreciate it. Yeah. I mean, ultimately it’s funny, the pre little conversation we had, we’re both very similar in regards to what we’re doing, probably too much at a time, right? My team is always trying to wrangle me and reel me in cause I’ve got my hand in a lot of different things, but I think it’s just because I like to solve many problems. I’m a problem solver ultimately, right?
And that’s what I think ultimately songwriting is. I look at songwriting as a problem, right? You have to create a solution for whatever it is that you want to convey. But ultimately, I started my band when I was in high school. I can go back to what motivated me because this is a funny story now. My father threw a CD on my bed when I was a kid. And it was a band that was local that he goes to. Hey, I went to high school with this guy and he threw it on my bed. And I was like, you know, 11 years old, kind of like. You think of rock stars and you think LA, you think huge, like too far away from you, not this little city in the north of Boston where you’re from. And I’m like, okay, cool. And I put it on and I listened to it. I was like blown away. It was like my favorite record now. Like I’m like, this is amazing. Who is this? And it was Godsmack. And so Godsmack’s, they’re local. They are actually from the area where we named our band called Prospect Hill. And so that basically motivated me as a kid to go, wow, if he can do it and he’s from where I’m from, I can do it, right? And so my father was a drummer, had a drum set in the basement and I just did, you know, I’m just gonna play drums, I guess. So I started playing and my motivation was to start a band, to do that thing that I just heard on that CD. And so it was really a trial and tribulation of like grabbing friends and making them play instruments. And cause you know, you didn’t have that much access. It wasn’t connected like you do on the internet now. It’s like you just.
I made a friend learn how to play bass. I brought my cousin and had him play guitar and we tried to find this band that I wanted to create. And eventually I found it. And we started playing in high school and we became pretty much the most popular band in high school selling out like VFWs. It’s crazy. I got a video of it. It’s like there’s hundreds of kids from the high school there doing mosh pits and security trying to stop it. And then as it continued to grow, MySpace came out and we figured out a way to utilize MySpace.
We use MySpace very strategically to become the number one sign band on MySpace at one time. And we utilize a very key strategy. And then we were always in like the top 10 to top 20. Every major label was looking at us because ultimately not only were we at the top of the MySpace, but we were also now bringing anywhere from, we went from like 50 people to a hundred people to our shows. And then all of a sudden at the peak of, you know, our time at when we were putting out records, it was like 1200 people in our backyard, and at $25 a ticket where we were making 100% of the cut, we were doing pretty good because we had no capital and we had to figure out how to make money so that we can continue to dump it in and build more markets. And so that’s ultimately how, how we ended up. I mean, there’s more details to that, but ultimately that was the big piece. And we became pretty much the biggest band in New England at the time. And then from there started venturing out, going down the East coast, hitting the Midwest, ultimately landing songs at radio, songs with licensing deals with Fox NFL with ESPN. We signed a deal that was a total mess. We had a song chart at Billboard. We’ve done all the things. We actually got flown out by the Armed Forces Entertainment out to the Marshall Islands, which was the coolest thing I think I’ve ever done, you know? And so like, we, as a band, we’ve done some amazing things and we had some major momentum and…
Jason
Very cool.
Mark Roberge
We were making money at one point at a significant rate, and then we signed a deal and that was kind of a no-no. You know, it became a mess once we did that. Typical VH1 behind the music.
Jason
Interesting. Well, and it’s so funny. You think that’s going to be the thing that’s going to be your big break or your deal. And mean, there’s lots of situations where signing the deal was the right thing for the right person or right timing and all that. I mean, there’s just so much that goes into that. But I do think if you’ve been an independent person and you’re doing sounds like you were doing a lot of the marketing all of a sudden when you get told what you have to do, sometimes that doesn’t, you know, personalities probably aren’t in sync. And frankly, I think for a lot of years, the record labels were trying to figure out what all these independent musicians were doing. If you were doing MySpace, that was Wild West and the labels were kind of caught back on their heels for a long time, not knowing what they’re doing when it comes to that.
Mark Roberge
Yeah, and you know the thing about it too is nobody’s gonna care more about your project than you, right? That’s a fact, right? And so, and especially if you’re already having success and you’re doing so well, when you try to put some of these things that are working on to somebody else, they don’t care like you do, right? And so things fall through the cracks and that’s where frustrations happen. And so your expectation of what you would do for yourself goes to somebody else, but there’s no way they’re gonna do it like that, you know?
Jason
Yep. Yep.
Mark Roberge
Ultimately, you hope you sign a label with a label and they come up with the backing and they can do things that expand what you’re doing, right? Sometimes they can replace some of the things you’re doing, but ultimately it’s like they’re not going to do it as good as you if you have it down to a science. And that’s what I’ve realized too, over the years. It’s like, if you have something that’s winning and it’s doing well, you just keep pressing it. Don’t put it on somebody else. Cause the minute you do, that’s where things become an issue.
Jason
However, I would say, and I’m sure you agree with me, if you can get the process in place, the checklist, and be able to have somebody trained to follow those checklists, it can be very liberating. And I’ve seen that to be very successful for people, you know, so long as you have the things that need to happen and somebody kind of understands what goes into it. But, you know, getting that person trained is a lot of work.
Mark Roberge
Well, 100 % and if you can systemize that process 100 % you have to, you have to systemize your processes, right? Just like in any business ultimately. And so what happens though is if you try to systemize that when you sign with a label, that label goes, no, those aren’t our systems, we do things our own way. And you go, well, it’s been working now for five years for us. I’m like, no, too bad, this isn’t what we do. And so that was kind of the issue there. And then ultimately there was guaranteed money behind a single that we had and it disappeared overnight. That was really the big issue.
Jason
Yep.
Mark Roberge
Money and we had a single on the impact date of the rate of this at the radio. So our single was already getting picked up by all these major stations because of the work we did prior, right? We were on the road. We would stop in at all these radio stations. We bring them coffee and donuts in the morning. We’d go say hi. We’d make friends with him during lunchtime. We’d bring pizzas with stickers on them like the boxes of Joe with stickers on them. And we just always like making relationships. Some of them would say, come on in, let’s do an interview or someone would say, thanks so much.
We’ll try to make it to the show tonight. So we did this all over the country. So everybody knew who we were, all these major stations. So when the initial announcement went out to all the stations who probably play in PE, they all knew who we were. And so a lot of those stations jumped on early. We also got Octane because I went to New York with the whole team. I met Jose Manchin and Kayla Riley at the time. And we made a relationship with them and then we sent them a big box of stuff and they picked up the single at number eight on the big ones at Octane. And we were doing all these things. So when they announced the radio, we already had all these stations ready to go. So there was a full team in place from Capitol Records. Their former full team run by Bob Divney at the time was the reason why I signed with that deal. It’s supposed to be a huge label. It’s supposed to be the next road runner, right? Major money behind it. The full radio team from Capitol Records stayed together and this was the team. All of a sudden on that Monday, silence. No one’s answering our calls and you know, it’s awful. And so we’re freaking out. What’s going on here? And then all of sudden the head of marketing Bob texts us and says hey call your lawyer. He said I just walked away with the whole radio team The money’s gone and we’re like what and so the money that was budgeted for our single was gone and the radio team didn’t get paid and so therefore our single went to radio on that Monday with nobody behind it to push it. It was awful. And so it went up the charts by itself, which was supposed to be a top 10 ultimately. And it broke number 38 in the mainstream. So top 40 at mainstream rock and then number 42 at active with no support, no budget, nobody could make phone calls. And so we scrambled, we called our lawyer and he threatened to sue. And instead of suing, he negotiated to get our masters in publishing back.
Jason
And everybody kind of walked away with a bad taste in the mouth and blew the lunch.
Mark Roberge
…and killed the momentum at the time and, just like you said, everybody, this was like the pinnacle, right? We were like, this is going to do it, right? And, so it was a big up and then the biggest down you could possibly have. And there was already some, you know, inner turmoil. We’ve been, we’re like brothers, right? We’ve been touring for now at this point, like eight years on the road, right? Maybe around seven years. And so we’re, you know, at each other’s throats, but love each other. And then this happens and it just kind of didn’t keep things going. So we all, you know, we toured for another year and then we took a break and we came off the road and we were.
Jason
Ugh.
Mark Roberge
I needed a break. It was a lot. It was a big blow. And so at the same time, Sean Lichtenstein of the band Lansdowne did the same thing with his band. They were kind of a band that was coming up with us. They were signed to the same management as Pop Evil. They were out on tour with Puddle of Mud at the time. And we were playing shows all over the country together. They’re from Boston as well. And he came off the road and I started having him engineer. He’s an amazing engineer. Engineer some records for me. And we decided, hey, we’re a good duo. We’re going to start producing and writing for other people. We started developing artists and writing and producing for all these different artists. And that’s how we kind of switched and started going down that road.
Jason
Well, I mean, you’ve been in the business a lot. You’ve been in the ups and downs personally, and you’ve watched other people around you. And gosh, I mean, you’re out in that New England area near Berkeley. And so you’ve probably been surrounded by crazy amounts of talent and probably watched. I mean, you’re more of that marketing type of brain. And most musicians are not. And I feel like one of the challenges that call it the education system, whether it’s the actual schooling or hard knocks. I musicians oftentimes don’t want to dive into the marketing or the promotional side. And I think that’s why the labels for a long time kind of held the keys in a lot of ways because they’d tell these musicians, we’re going to do all of that for you. But if you could rewind the clock, or even if you were sitting in front of classroom of, let’s say, Berkeley students even, and you were going to give them some advice on just taking career matters into their own hands and things they need to make sure they do, what advice would you give that group?
Mark Roberge
Well, I mean, the biggest thing is like, got to lead with a great product, right? Your music has to be competitive. So it’s first and foremost, the biggest thing. Like I remember when we first started out, we were putting out records that we thought were records, right? But when I look back at it, listen, there were demos, right? And those are demos. Those weren’t ready for consumption, but it was all we could do at the time. So it is what it is, right? And so, and I remember, we put out these records, we’re starting to build a fan base, right? But it was like, you know, it was local and we were still looking at it as like a local band, right?
And then we went and worked with the biggest producer in the area, whose name is Anthony Rester. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with him. Great guy. I actually want to introduce you to him based off of the orchestra stuff that you do, because now he’s doing big scores for films. So I think it would be a great connection for you. Great producer. He’s worked with everybody from Elton John to Blondie to Collective Saul, Duran Duran. Guy is great. And he’s amazing. And he is the reason why I feel like my brain, you got to the level in regards to production songwriting as it is, and even as a drummer, that he pushed me to another level that I didn’t even know existed, right? And that’s the biggest thing too, is like, if you’re not working with people at that next level, you’ll never know what that next level is. And so that’s what I think that’s another piece of advice is like, go and work with a higher level guy or higher level team on the production side, whether it’s a higher level songwriter, producer, engineer, and be in that and learn from it, right? Ultimately, it doesn’t mean you have to always go and work with them, but it’s gonna expand the way you think about things. And so I think that’s the biggest thing, because when we worked with him, we did one song. And yeah, it was a hefty price on getting that song done, but I’ll tell you what, that song changed our lives. That song overnight changed the perception of what we were. It changed, okay, these guys are local, wait, no. They can compete at major label level, right? my God, and then things started to happen. The buzz expanded a lot faster, and then radio stations started finding the single, and they started playing it.
We started getting regular rotation across the country in weird little spots and it just built momentum. The first thing is the product. That’s what I tell everybody, make sure don’t cheap out on that. Make sure that you’re, that you have a competitive product.
Jason
Well, speaking of that, it’s funny because you’ll watch these students, they’ll go to some college and you’re spending thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to learn to be, to get your degree, piece of paper. And I think there’s some fantastic things that you learn in that but then I watch people when they finish their degree and all of a sudden like the idea of spending even a couple hundred dollars you like go from like I just invested tens of thousands of dollars because that was supposed to get me there and then when they get the thing sitting in front of them where go to the studio or work with the person and they just like shrink at the idea of spending, you know, 2000 or 10,000, whatever the amount is, it doesn’t even matter. But they go into this like, I can’t afford to do that mode all of a sudden. And frankly, when you’re going to school, you’re poorer than you’ll probably ever be in your life. So why would you change that mindset of investing in yourself? I don’t know. I see that as a big hurdle that artists often have.
Mark Roberge
It doesn’t matter, yeah. Well, it’s the scarcity mindset and that’s what it is. And so, you know, ultimately too, it’s like we have a, it’s a funny thing about Berkeley artists, right? Berkeley musicians and just Berkeley, you know, anybody that has graduated. Sean, my business partner, went to Berkeley and he didn’t graduate. And so the joke is everybody we know that was successful didn’t graduate. The people that have gone on to do major things usually did not graduate. And you know, there are some that I do know that have, but mostly it’s like they either utilized Berkeley at the time to then launch themselves into a full-time touring career typically, or got a job and left, or started their own startup company or management company. Those are the people that I know that have been most successful, are the ones that don’t complete Berkeley ultimately. The ones that do typically end up getting a teaching job or some random jobs at either a guitar center or doing sales somewhere ultimately is what I’ve seen. It’s unfortunate.
And so the thing we tell everybody is like, the best way to be successful at Berkeley is to leave before you graduate.
Jason
Well, I do think it’s a low-key, any music school, it’s a perfect time to learn, you know, make friends and just meet great people. And frankly, those relationships, you know, the fact that you take time and you practice your craft is super important. That’s how you’re going to get good music, but taking extra time to build the relationships is probably even more important. And I’ve had several people on the show that, you know, some have been Berkeley people and they’ve flat out said it’s the relationships you build.
Mark Roberge
Exactly. Yep.
Jason
It doesn’t have to be Berkeley. Wherever you go to school or if you go to conferences or just take time to meet people and build that relationship when you meet somebody like, my gosh, this person’s awesome. I need to maintain and take care of that relationship.
Mark Roberge
Networking is the number one thing in this industry and just creating relationships. And, you know, like I like to think that my team and I were one person away from everybody in the industry. We have that ability now. It took us a long time to get there. A lot of trips to LA, a lot of meetings, a lot of national trips, New York, Miami. Like we have really built that, but it took from the ground up where I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t know one person in the industry. And so I had to build it from that. And that’s a big piece of how I’ve been able to navigate and really just get in certain rooms and get on certain opportunities and help by ourselves in certain ways. So it is a big piece.
Jason
Yeah, so if you’re still sitting in front of that class, what other advice do you have for these kids in that class that are like, man, what should I spend my time doing?
Mark Roberge
Well, I think it’s threefold. Really, I put it into three processes. You got a product, you got branding, right? What’s your message? What do you represent? Who are we trying to speak to? What are your lyrics about? What’s your message? What’s your story? What’s your aesthetic? What’s the look? Understand what that is, right? Because that’s a big piece too, especially now in the content era, you know? So you got to know exactly what you are to exactly convey who you are to then draw in people that are similar to you, right? Ultimately, you’re trying to build a community of people that are into what you’re doing and can relate to what you are. So that’s another piece. And then the final piece is to go to market. So, you have to spend money to get your product out there no matter what. If you’re selling shoes, if you’re selling hats, you’re selling t-shirts, you need to advertise that to get to a greater audience. And if you’re not, you know, putting money in and it’s about consistency too. I tell everybody, if you can only spend $50 a month, spend $50 a month. If you can spend $5,000 a month. The difference is the money’s a time machine. It just reaches more people faster. But you move at your own pace, but you have to do it consistently and you have to understand the value in that.
Jason
Right. Well, and I think as you are investing, one of the things that’s often hard for artists is that you can mean the old school mentality of like a car company would put an ad out there for branding. And, know, that’s cool. I saw a Ford truck or I saw a Coca-Cola bottle or whatever it is, but there’s no way to track conversions and know whether it worked. And, you know, the beauty of just advertising in general online is I can now spend a dollar and I can know.
What is it that I got out of that? And, know, 20 years ago, when I started in the marketing industry, nobody could tell me, they tell me how many thousand people saw my ad, but I didn’t know whether it was the right person or if they did anything or if they, and, now you can pretty much zero in on the type of person you want to see that ad. And you, you’re burning money. You’re, stupid. If you just spend money to boost a post, if you think about it, it’s like, okay, cool. A thousand people saw or 10,000 people saw it. That’s great. Did it make you feel good? You know, that’s your payoff.
Mark Roberge
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s your pay up. And you know, there needs to be more strategy than that from the point of view of that first piece of content, which I call like a fan magnet, ultimately, to drive a new audience. And then what’s the purpose of that? What’s the call to action? Then what are you doing from there? And you got to get them through a whole, you know, ultimate, ultimately, it’s a funnel, right? And every other industry has this, right? You can understand the cost per acquisition, the lifetime value of your clients, right?
Jason
It’s stupid.
Mark Roberge
The music industry doesn’t look at it like that. And that’s been my biggest thing was there was no platform. I mean, this kind of gives us leeway into what we built, but that’s why I built it. Literally what you’re saying is why I built Fan Flowy because there was no way to understand what the cost was for the actual fan. And ultimately like the whole industry is right now playing the lottery. Everybody in the music industry plays a lottery. They want to post something and they want it to go viral, but there’s no system in place that’s running all day every day to ensure that you’re driving and making new fans.
Every day, well, you even if it’s five to 20 new ones a day, you need that system and then you get an understanding, okay, how many of them converted to, you know, which streaming platform? How many of them converted on a sale on the first offer, on the second offer, on the third offer? How many of them actually came out to the show in this market, in this market? So there was nothing built like that. And that was my whole thing. Every other marketing, every other industry with marketing has this and the music industry didn’t, so we built it.
Jason
Well, it’s funny you talk about that. I mean, that fan magnet, people spend all this money to bring somebody in, but it’s kind of like you’re going to Walmart or Home Depot and you spent this, you know, as a musician, you got them to come to see your thing where your music was. Then, you walk into a Walmart and all of a sudden you get, you know, 30,000 things on the shelves all around you, you get distracted and lost. So that’s great. You brought somebody into Spotify, but you know, now they just get distracted by everything else. So if in a real situation, if I, if
Let’s say that you were that person at the Walmart and you had to have them do, you know, buy the next thing or come to your concert and you only had one person coming in. I guarantee you, you’re going to meet them at the door. You’re going to greet them. You’re going to hold their hand. You’re going to go walk them over to say, Hey, check out this thing that we’ve got here. You know, tell them the story behind it. And, now, that’s just, it’s interesting that the whole.
What happens after you get somebody that likes you or people go perform at concerts all the time and I’ll watch these like openers, know, people that, you know, they’re sometimes better than the main act. And, but then all of sudden it’s like, okay, I watched this person, I loved them. But then there was like no next step.
Mark Roberge
Yes.
Jason
Do I connect with a QR code or can I give you my email address? I gotta go like, I’m sitting there often at a concert and I’m Googling, well who’s this person? They don’t have a webpage, they don’t have, I can’t even engage with them or try to connect with them if I wanted to half the time.
Mark Roberge
Jason, our brains are almost exact with this. This is crazy to me because what you’re speaking, like the way you’re talking about this is how I tell everybody. Because the way you gotta think about, the way I structured our system, right, is the same exact way when you play a live show and you’re the opener, like you just said, and you catch the attention of somebody that’s there for somebody else, right? They’re on the internet, they’re on Facebook, they’re on Instagram, they’re on TikTok for something else. And then you catch their attention. It’s like them going on the show and watching the headliner and you catch their attention. Same idea.
And they go, my God, I love this, this is amazing, this is really cool. Awesome, what are the next steps? Like you’re saying, great. Typically, you have them and you meet them after you perform at the merch table, right? You go there, they wanna come meet you, and it becomes a human connection. Hey my God, you guys are amazing. And then the artist goes, thank you so much, what’s your name? My name’s Ben. Ben, nice to meet you, thank you so much for coming to the show. Where are you from? I’m from, you know, it’s a real conversation. Then from there, it’s like,
If you want, would you like to sign up for our VIP families? You know, that way, you know, when we’re coming back in town, we got a new release, here’s the QR code or back in the day, here’s the clipboard, you know, like, but it’s like, ultimately you’re doing that. And then, by the way, look, we got some merchandise here. You want to buy something? That is the natural funnel of that relationship from a show to there. So what I did was I go, let’s recreate that digitally and let’s make it automated. And so that’s what Fan Flowy does. It’s literally the thing you just said. It makes that whole system. And then it also automates it from the live show itself from that QR code and then it puts them into that funnel as well. So like that was, it’s so funny that you just said that.
Jason
Well, and I’ve even thought about it, you spend so much money on these tickets to go to a show anymore. And there’s a ticket list somewhere. And sometimes the artist is the one taking the risk. Sometimes it’s somebody else, but you have this ticket thing. And frankly, whoever’s putting on the show, they want to put on another successful show. So I’ve always thought, like, gosh, as an artist, if I could deliver some really cool value that the person who bought the ticket thought was awesome that person sending the ticket emails would probably be cool with me sending out some awesome extra value or music video or something to just connect with them so that you’d want to come to the next show if we came back another time. And I can’t even name a single big act that I’ve bought a ticket for and have ever gotten an email from the artist to say, Hey, thanks for coming to the show.
Mark Roberge
Yes, exactly.
Jason
It’s free. Like you just spent, you know, 1000 10,000 people in an arena, or whatever the size is, even as 50 people, like really, you’re gonna just go perform for them then just ignore them. It’s like going on a date and then just like ghosting her for, you know, 12 months later, like, Oh, hey, I’m coming back. Do you want to go on another date with me? Like, no, you didn’t even text me.
Mark Roberge
Never calling it back. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s so true. You’re so right. So we’re trying to build a ticketing system into what we’re doing as well to also solve that problem. That’s a big piece that we’re doing. And also solve the conversion tracking problem, because that’s the other issue is like, most of the promoters you work with are venues, have their own ticket. And so when you try to get them and follow the conversion,
all the way through, can’t, obviously you can map it to a button that will take them there, but ultimately you can’t do it all the way through and know that that ownership happened through that sale. So we’re working on that stuff too. But that’s all integrated, everything you just said.
Jason
That’s amazing. Well, and if you rewind back 10, 15 years ago, I mean, you’ve lived it just with me. I mean, you used to have to get an email program. used to have to get, know, there was 15 softwares that you were band-aiding together with a Frankenstein and duct tape and they just did, they talked to each other and then they, all of sudden there, there are things you can get that’ll make things talk together. But you know, with the, way the world’s been, like really in the last three to five years, I feel like the CRM customer relationship management software, know, Salesforce was kind of that original one, you people may have heard of Infusionsoft, then you had the funnel builders, mean, just all these amazing problems that were solved. But, you know, how do you bring that together? And then the problem is you have for musicians or for plumbers or for all these other people, everybody has a different process, like a plumber is going to talk to somebody a whole lot different than a musician.
Mark Roberge
Yes. It’s not the same. Yeah. And ultimately the strategy on how that relationship gets from start to finish has to be done properly with all the minutia inside of there, right? For instance, like, know, my whole thing is I like to track and make sure that I know exactly where the fans stream so that those emails and communications can be catered to how they stream, right? Ultimately, you know, and you want to have little things in play to ensure that you have forever pre-saves built in and that you have the ability to monetize merch and then do a funnel inside of that so that then there’s the potential to get an upsell with inside of that you know so there’s so many different elements that it’s just the music industry is a different animal and the fan experience is different and so like would work for like a salon or for a plumber doesn’t necessarily work for the a musician for an artist and their fans and that’s what I was frustrating me because I tried all these things and they didn’t work and they didn’t utilize the system that I had in place and I was patching things together like Frankenstein and then things were going missing and data was getting lost and things weren’t communicating properly and it was just a nightmare. And I was like, why can’t this all be in one place? That’s what we did.
Jason
Yeah. Well, and the beauty of it is I think as an artist, you know, just for advice for any artist out there, the reality is you there’s a bazillion great softwares and part of the problem is just like, can you just zero in on like two or three things? Because if you’ll just, if you’ll do even one or two things as a marketing piece that can be done consistently, you’re going to be like the top 10 % of artists, to be honest with you. I just see most artists, they just never implement the thing. They’ll, you know, it’s great if they put their stuff on Spotify and that’s a whole, I mean, that’s a process in and of itself, but then most of them just never do anything. And so as an artist, I think it’s just super important to decide on, okay I’m gonna do this and this, this is non-negotiable and find a platform that will help you do it. The beauty of today is there are some platforms like, I you’ve got FanFlowy, I’ve probably worked with 15 different systems over the years that I’ve sent emails and texts and the marketing funnels, they all do things really well and so just as an artist, it is important for you to do some research and decide what will have the biggest impact to move the needle. The reality is it’s the list of people. Like you’ve got to have a fan list. If without that, you may as well not even bother. Like if nobody was going to listen to your stuff, you’re not going to have a successful career. Unless you get some movie behind you, I guess, that makes you a big deal.
Mark Roberge
Well, the thing that you just said too is owning that fan list is so important because ultimately I have PTSD from MySpace. My band was one of the biggest unsigned bands on MySpace. We had hundreds of fans on there, hundreds of thousands of fans. had millions of streams on there and then one day it was like gone. And so it was insane. We did a very good job of captivating an email list at every show. And, you know, and we did have a lot of sales through our website at the time. And so we had a lot of emails. We were able to find like 10,000 of them right away off onto Facebook. So, but it was like, 190,000 of them gone. It was, so, you know, there’s a lot of strategies that try to drive streams over at Spotify and drive views on YouTube, but ultimately you wanna capture that fan first, then get them there. And if you’re driving them there, they’re gone. And so that’s my thing is every dollar needs to go into actual fan acquisition that way you own that information. You can pick up the phone and call them, right? Like that’s my, my biggest thing is if you wanna build a fan base, the first thousand is hand to hand combat.
You literally need to find which platform you wanna use and you need to find a strategy to grow them, whether it’s ad or whether it’s engaging on other things and getting them to follow you that way, right? Pick your budget. If you have no budget, you could still grow fans, but ultimately bring those followers in and every time you get that follower, you need to message them, DM them. Hey, my God, thanks so much for the following. What do you think of my music? Open-ended conversation, start a conversation, get them to speak to you, get them to, hey, would you mind if I added you to my fan list? Even if you don’t even have one yet, start to acquire that information and put it in a spreadsheet. Hit their name, their email, their phone number, their location, and then you can start to, and then you can start utilizing stuff like FanFlowy or, you know, anything else that you want to patchwork together, but ultimately, my system does all that from start to finish, and if you don’t want to do it, you want to do it yourself, you should still manually do it this way.
Jason
Well, the scary reality is whether it’s Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, whatever the thing is, you don’t own your list. About a year ago, the worst thing ever happened. Somehow somebody hacked into one of my attached accounts. It wasn’t even my account that got hacked. They weren’t really able to do anything, but YouTube within about 10 seconds shut that. They did a live video feed to some I don’t even know what it was, but it was shut down so fast, but it immediately blocked the YouTube account. And it was gone. Like I couldn’t log in. I didn’t exist. And it was I mean, I have over 300 videos on YouTube that we’ve done of all my music. I mean, we’ve got millions and millions of views on these things. And I literally did not exist. And I was shocked at how much from a search standpoint when that goes away, like It was almost like you didn’t exist. was like, Holy cow. Like you want to talk like Thanos snap or we call it the Zuckerberg, the Zanos, know, if we make it Zuckerberg Zano snap, can be, you can be shut down, blocked and gone and you don’t have access. You will not be able to message people. Like it’s, it’s one those as an artist, you absolutely have to have that email list because you never know when Facebook’s going to be gone. It’s just, it could be gone tomorrow.
Mark Roberge
Yeah. You’re erased. Yeah. Well, well, or goes down or gets hacked. I have it all the time. And there’s been instances where TikTok didn’t work or that Instagram went down. And what if you ever released that day? It’s kind of, you know, it’s like, want to own that, aren’t you? You are in charge of that. You want to have that ability because otherwise it’s almost like if you had a company, right? And you had one eight, one client that actually serviced all the other clients. You don’t have a hundred clients. You only have one client. And if that client, you lose that client, you lose all the hundreds that were attached to that one.
Jason
Yep. So, yeah, no, I really, I think it’s just something that as artists, no matter what type of musician you are, that list of people who like you and want to support you is absolutely, probably more important than even your product quality. So any other last bit of advice you’d have for if you’re sitting in front of your old self as a musician?
Mark Roberge
I would just say ensure that you surround yourself with a great team. You can’t do everything yourself. Make sure you’ve got great people to do the things around you. Focus on product. your message. Know who your audience is. be consistent. Just be consistent. Release consistently. Market consistently. Make sure that you’re growing in between those releases. Otherwise, there’s no purpose in releasing that next song. You need to make sure it’s a ladder. Every song is a ladder to make sure that you’re growing. And if you’re not growing in between those, you’re not going up the ladder.
And so that you know, that’s a big thing, you know and and and develop tough skin because this is an industry that’ll test you over and over again the highs are the highs and the lows are the lows and I’ve seen some of the greatest Songwriters and artists that have never been because of how hard this this mute industry is and the ones that that have everybody that I’ve worked with that is broken It’s taken ten years to break at the major label level. It’s it’s a long road to the top If you want to rock and roll they work it
Jason
Yeah. Well, just be patient, think about just enjoying the journey. There’s so many cool moments when you’re, you know, whether it’s just, you’re with your band or your friends, whether it’s with a concert, whether it’s even with your family, there’s just moments throughout life that, that are, that are awesome. And I think oftentimes you’re chasing, sometimes I see people chasing, you know, what’s that perfect thing. And the reality is they’re probably, you might be living right in it right now and you’ve missed it.
Mark Roberge
Yeah. You’re in it, be present, know? That is the experience that you wanna appreciate in them. I agree, because when I look back, I did that. My head was always forward, forward, forward, and I kinda missed a lot of those big moments that we were in. And then sometimes I’m like, wait a minute, we did that? And someone will say something to me, I’m like, I probably wasn’t even there mentally, you know? My level of where I wanted to be wasn’t where I wanted it at that moment, but I was not focused on, we’re actually pretty successful right now. Let’s be in this, you know? So you’re right, 100%.
Jason
Well, Mark, I think you’ve dropped a whole ton of gold nuggets. This is one of those podcasts that I think people ought to go probably go rewind and re-listen to and make a punch list of to-dos that they need to maybe focus on as an artist. If people want to find out more about, mean, Fan Flowy is awesome. You’ve got your own music. Where should they go to check out if they want to listen to some of your music, if they want to find out about Fan Flowy?
Mark Roberge
Yeah, if they want to listen to my music, you know, my band’s called Prospect Hill. They can search us on all the streaming platforms. We’re actually going to be heading out on tour with Lansdowne. We’re all back at it. Lansdowne’s actually crushing it in Europe right now. So we’re going to be out in Europe in April. We’ve got some US dates as well, which is exciting, you know? so, and then, you know, Sean and I actually have a pretty cool side project where we collaborate with other artists where it’s like a producer project. It’s called Oh No Octopus. And we do hip hop and pop records through that. And that’s a fun one.
And then ultimately, you know, the company now that’s for independent artists to help them, right? We built a company that’s specifically for that outside of Red 13 Studios, which is more like our major label, major management company for that service. But our initiative right now is called Make Our Music. And that is ultimately, you know, the tools that we’ve created, which is Fan Flowy, Industrial Flowy, the, now, Indie Artist Compass, which is the book we just put out, and the Make Our Music podcast. These are all tools and educational ways and ways to solve the problems for independent artists. And you can get it all at MakeOurMusic.com.
Jason
Awesome. Well, we’ll put all the links down in the show notes. So if you’re listening, go, go pull up the notes and you can find the links instead of having to try and remember what, what we just said. But, definitely, I mean, there’s, there’s just some great value. Mark, I feel like a new friend, but great, great stuff that you’re producing. The music’s great. Thank you for sharing your time and just sharing with others to try and help them be successful. Thank you.
Mark Roberge
Yeah. Thanks so much Jason, I appreciate your time as well.