

Will you be a cassette tape-only label and keep costs low? Are you going to invest in runs of vinyl? With your vision ready to go, it’s time to come up with the brand aesthetic you want your record label to have.īranding encompasses everything from the kinds of artists you sign to the tone of your copy, website design, typeface, logo, cover art and merchandise. This is especially true if you plan on representing your community-consider bringing in diverse opinions and voices about how your label will exist and make sure to include the artists who live and work around you. Will you focus on your immediate community, are you looking for certain kinds of people to support? What kind of music should fans expect to see curated?īeing clear on this from the outset is valuable for setting the course and it may even excite your fans and get people on board with what you’re doing. It’s healthy to have a written mission statement about who you want your label to be in the eyes of the world. It’s healthy to have a written mission statement about who you want your label to be Your vision for your label involves everything about where you’re at right now and where you want to be. So while no one person should be pigeonholed into any specific role, having some clear expectations laid out won’t hurt down the road. There’s so many roles and responsibilities that come with operating a label and ultimately it will take teamwork to make the dream work. While another person might be in charge of creative direction, design, running social media accounts, and planning events. One person could be responsible for handling the business side- getting artists on board, A&R, finding PR opportunities, writing grants and planning album rollouts.

If you’re founding the label with someone else make sure each person has committed to specific things. To make sure expectations are in line with who’s doing what, make sure you meet with your team and clearly lay out who does what. Is it just you running the show? Or are you going to have other people involved? Make the different roles in your label abundantly clear Having some know-how and a bit of planning will go a long way-you’ve got some big decisions to make before launch day so let’s tackle the main areas you need to think about.

Landr plans how to#
How to start a record labelĪlright, now that you have an idea of why you should get into the record label business in the first place let’s look at a few practical steps to consider on your journey. In my past experiences with starting a small tape label, it was easier to get radio stations and press to care about my emails once I started emailing them from my independent label. Instead, you’ll now have a central place to serve as the marketing arm for all your projects. Starting a record label takes some of the pressure off of the marketing for your individual projects. You want a marketing channel to engage new audiencesįor many artists marketing is a mundane, even painstaking activity that takes away from creative time.Īt the end of the day, you got into this because you love creating music-not because you love marketing. Plus, having everything under one label takes the pressure and confusion out of correspondence for each project. It’ll also work well as the central vehicle for selling all your merch. Having a central place to find everything you’ve worked on makes it super easy for fans of one project to discover other things you’ve done. If you create and collaborate under a variety of monikers or in different configurations with different creators-it’s not a bad idea to have all those projects represented under one umbrella. You need a central platform to publish your own art It’s so rewarding to be that special supportive presence in a music scene, whether online or in person. Your scene deserves to have someone representing it-so why not take up the burden and help give the yet-to-be-discovered artists in your world some well-deserved attention. If you want to elevate your favorite artists and help them potentially find a bigger platform for their art, starting a record label is an excellent and totally righteous way to do that. Get fast, insightful support and promotional tips, tools and tricks and distribution to 100+ music streaming platforms when you release your tracks with LANDR.
