Dalton Piche is Founder of Members Media, a music marketing platform revolutionizing the industry. Members Media boasts over one billion annual streams for clients, including high-profile artists like Billie Eilish and Bruno Mars. With a background in music as an artist himself, Dalton was motivated by the challenge of promoting music effectively, leading to the creation of Members Media. He empowers artists with opportunities to reach new audiences and has expanded to offer services like playlist promotion, social media advertising, and agency partnerships.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- [03:28] Dalton Piche discusses the inspiration behind Members Media and its mission to support artists
- [05:15] The evolution of Members Media from an à la carte service to a full-scale agency
- [07:40] Why Spotify playlist promotion is a popular and effective strategy for reaching new listeners
- [11:42] The power of Facebook and Instagram ads in the playbook of Members Media’s music marketing strategy
- [16:00] How Members Media acquired its initial clients
- [17:57] Dalton shares success stories in amplifying his music
- [20:30] The transition journey from an employee to an entrepreneur
- [23:43] Tips for hiring a culturally valued team
- [31:00] The focus of the Members Media label and catalog on purpose-driven music
In this episode…
In today’s music industry, independent musicians face the daunting challenge of standing out among mainstream stars. However, with the right strategies and an understanding of the complex landscape of music promotion, they can carve out their unique space in the spotlight. So, how does one navigate the complex landscape of music promotion successfully?
Dalton Piche, the mastermind behind Members Media, reveals the hardships and triumphs of innovating within music marketing. He describes how he transformed his struggles as an emerging artist into an opportunity by founding a marketing platform that assists musicians in gaining the exposure they deserve. Dalton dives into the evolution of his agency, detailing its expansive range of services that propel artists into newfound fame. He shares valuable insights on playlist promotion, social media advertising, and the strategic transparency that guides their approach. He also opens up about his journey from starting out, managing a team’s growth from one to 18, and the critical learning curve of the business.
In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, host Dr. Jeremy Weisz interviews Dalton Piche, Founder of Members Media, about finding success in music marketing. Dalton discusses the inspiration behind Members Media and its mission to support artists, why Spotify playlist promotion is a popular and effective strategy for reaching new listeners, and their success stories in amplifying music.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Special Mention(s):
- Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
- Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction by Derek Thompson
- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini
Related episode(s):
- “[Top Agency Series] Navigating a Merger and Becoming an End-to-End Digital Partner With Kevin Hourigan of Spinutech” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
- “[Top Agency Series] Growth Through Acquisitions – What is Your KPI and Northstar? With Jason Swenk” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
- “Building a Great Team and More Helpful Insights with Jason Swenk Host of The Smart Agency Master Class Podcast” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
Quotable Moments:
- “Once you provide value, everything just comes together.”
- “Transparency is key — not just for hiring, but for all our services.”
- “We’ll turn down money if it doesn’t serve the client’s best interests.”
- “Skills can be trained, but fit and character are what we prioritize in our hiring process.”
- “Music should add something to your day, not just demand attention — we market based on purpose.”
Action Steps:
- Cultivate a transparent company culture: Transparency fosters trust and allows for well-informed decisions, eliminating the need for hard selling or fear-based management strategies.
- Focus on hiring for fit and character rather than skills alone: Bringing in team members who align with the company’s mission and core values ensures a cohesive team that’s motivated by more than just the job description.
- Capitalize on purpose-driven marketing: Marketing your product or service as a solution to a specific need or purpose can create a more engaged and targeted audience.
- Embrace the value of data in optimizing your offerings: Using available data to monitor and adjust your strategies can lead to more precise targeting and a higher return on investment.
- Turn personal challenges into business opportunities: By addressing personal frustrations, you can innovate and carve out a unique business niche.
Sponsor for this episode
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The relationships you form through podcasting run deep. Jeremy and John became business partners through podcasting. They have even gone on family vacations and attended weddings of guests who have been on the podcast.
Podcast production has a lot of moving parts and is a big commitment on our end; we only want to work with people who are committed to their business and to cultivating amazing relationships.
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Rise25 Cofounders, Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran, have been podcasting and advising about podcasting since 2008.
Insider Stories from Top Leaders & Entrepreneurs…
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:01
You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr Jeremy Weisz.
Jeremy Weisz 0:22
Dr Jeremy Weisz here, founder of inspiredinsider.com, where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today is no different. I have Dalton Piche of Members Media. You can check them out at members.media. And Dalton, before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes of the podcast people should check out. Since this is part of the top agency series, I had someone on Kevin Hourigan. Kevin Hourigan had an agency Dalton since 1995 so it was interesting to hear the landscape of the internet business and then the agency world at that time, and then how it evolved. So that was interesting. Another one was from Jason Swenk. Jason Swenk built up his agency to eight figures and sold it. Then his next soiree was buying up agencies, and then he has an agency mastermind group where he helps agencies grow. So again, talked about the valuation space agency space, and that was a very interesting episode as well. Check those out on inspiredinsight comm. This episode is brought to you by Rise25.
At Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. How do we do that? We do that by helping you run your podcast. We’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast, and we do the strategy, the accountability and the full execution. So Dalton, we call ourselves the magic elves that run in the background and make it look easy for the host, so they can create amazing content, create amazing relationships, but most importantly, run their business. For me, the number one thing in my life is relationships. I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships, and I have found no better way, over the past decade, to profile the people and companies I most admire and share with the world what they’re working on. So if you’ve thought about podcasting, you should if you have questions, go to rise25.com or email us at [email protected].
I am excited to introduce Dalton Piche. He’s the founder of Members Media. And Members Media is a music marketing platform that delivers over one billion streams for its clients annually. Members Media has done work for some of the biggest names in the industry, such as Billie Eilish, Bruno Mars, many, and many, many more. Members Media was actually born out of necessity. Dalton was an artist facing the same challenge that so many musicians encounter, which is investing a ton of time into your craft and struggling to get your music heard. And he was frustrated by the lack of effective music promotion options, so he set out to create the solution he wish he had, and he built Members. And Members provides the artists with opportunity to reach new listeners. Dalton, thanks for joining me.
Dalton Piche 3:12
Thanks for having me how they do that sums it up. That was great. We can wrap it up, right?
Jeremy Weisz 3:16
Cool. That’s it, done. Just tell people a little bit about Members Media and what you do, and as you’re doing that, there is a video piece. If someone’s listening, I’m gonna pull up their website and we’ll poke around.
Dalton Piche 3:28
Awesome. Yeah, so I think you covered a lot of it there. To unpack a little bit more when I was making music back in the day, not that it was great, but I think that was a big part of it too, is that I didn’t know if it was great, and I wanted some way to get it out in front of more people so I could figure out, is this something that I should be doing or should continue doing? I had a good job, it wasn’t even so much of, am I willing to spend money on this? I absolutely was. It was just that there was nothing out there that I felt good about putting money into to actually get some kind of information or data back to say, is this good? Am I happy with this? Do I want to pursue this?
Do people like it? Do I have opportunities? So it was really just about, where can I find a place to do that, to get that kind of exposure, or that reach, or just whatever, just to see what could happen? And I think a lot of musicians are in that same position, where they’re making music, they think it’s good. I thought my music was good. Maybe it was good to some level, but more so about it can’t just be me and my friends listening to it. It needed to see the light of day before I could obviously ever make a living or do anything with it. So that was kind of how it started.
Jeremy Weisz 4:52
I want to hear more about, obviously we were talking before you record. Obviously you have independent artists that come. On, you can see there’s a la carte. People can get things for as little as 249, and then obviously you have more kind of enterprise, and you work with labels and things like that. But when you first started, what did the services look like?
Dalton Piche 5:15
Great question. Yeah, it kind of it started out actually, initially as a website, not too dissimilar from this, a lot more simple. We started out doing just playlisting as a service, and it was really slow to get started, but over time, it actually ended up shifting more into an agency than an a la carte kind of website like this. So we ended up kind of shifting into more working directly with labels and distributors and the larger clients. So for the longest time, that’s really how the business kept growing.
Jeremy Weisz 5:52
Started out with bigger clients rather than the a la carte, smaller kind of value propositions.
Dalton Piche 6:00
Well, we kind of started with the a la carte initially, for a short period, and then it quickly shifted into the agency side. I think the harder part of the reason we started with a la carte was, getting into the industry is quite difficult if you don’t initially come from that industry, especially with music. It’s very gate-kept. And so for us, we just didn’t really have the bigger clients. We didn’t know where to get them. It’s all very word of mouth, and it took us a bit of time to build that. But once we did build it, we leaned into the agency side of things a lot more so the label clients, the distributor clients, bigger songs, bigger projects. And since then, or after doing that for some time, reinvesting into this more a la carte service was a way for us to take all these new services that we built over the years and offer them up to independent musicians. So that’s kind of game full circle this website that you’re looking at, actually, we just launched about a month and a half ago, so we had something running before, but it was nowhere near as developed as this.
Jeremy Weisz 7:09
Yeah, and for people who are listening, we’re on members dot media, and what we’re looking at is they have music promotion services. Obviously, there’s an enterprise thing here, but for artists, specifically, we are looking at playlist promotion, offering monthly listener, offering Facebook and Instagram ads, TikTok music, YouTube video promotion. We are talking about popular service, and you were talking about Spotify playlists. Talk a little bit about that.
Dalton Piche 7:40
Yeah, actually, you’re super zoomed in here too. I haven’t seen the website this format actually, because I’m using a lot more zoom out. But yeah, so play this promotion is super popular. Reason it’s really popular with a direct type offering like this, where there’s no agency necessarily involved or account manager, is because everyone knows what it is. Spotify is the largest streaming platform out there, and because of that, it doesn’t require as much explanation or understanding for what we do. There’s a lot of different companies that offer playlisting services, and that’s what’s led it to be the most popular. What I like about Spotify as a platform, regardless of the playlist thing is just how much data they make available.
Of all the different streaming platforms out there, Amazon, Apple, etc., no one gives as much data to listeners and to the artists as Spotify, and that makes it a lot more or gives you a lot more control over the entire marketing experience, more data you can read, the more optimization you can implement. And I think there’s just a lot more freedom for not just us as a company, but also for the artists, to be able to read what’s happening. How are people reacting? If I’m on this playlist, or if I’m doing these types of ads, or whatever it might be, being able to quickly make decisions on just what’s happening pretty well in real-time.
Jeremy Weisz 9:15
So let’s say I’m an independent band, and I’m like, I can get 10 to 20,000 streams by clicking here and doing the service. How does it work?
Dalton Piche 9:29
Sort of. I don’t know if there’s a little star that zero-risk policy. So our services for playlisting specifically, we can’t approve everything. And that’s really, just the entire process of playlist promotion is we’re operating as a middleman between our network of curators. Ultimately, it’s up to our curators whether or not they’re going to approve music. So we’ve got this network of curators. They’re very picky about what they approve and what they’re willing to put on their playlists. For some of them, they are independent labels, and they are really just looking to maximize the value of their playlists.
For some of them, they do this for a living curators, that is and so, yeah, it’s super important for them that they’re putting good music, high quality music, on their playlists. And honestly, that 70% is probably even less now, we’re trying to just increase the quality of the music that we work so that’s the thing. Is, you can purchase a product, you can go through this entire process, and there’s a chance we can’t help. In each case, it’s just immediately refunded, yeah, or just cancel. We don’t even take the payment. But, yeah, that’s essentially the idea is that you can pick a product, pick the size you want, submit your music. From there, we’ll do the work on the back end, submit it up to our network and guarantee a minimum reach if you are approved. And that’s what the 10 to 20,000 streams is based on us working on your behalf to ensure that we get there if we’re willing to take on a campaign.
Jeremy Weisz 11:02
No, that’s pretty cool. I wonder. I haven’t seen anything, but if something in, like the podcast space exists, that’s like, per episode, right? Like, hey, this episode with Dalton, that’s amazing, and submitting it to get 10,000 stream somewhere. I don’t know if that exists. Maybe it does, and I’m just not aware of it. So we’ll add that service to here, and then we’ll purchase it for your episode. I imagine people just kept asking you for different things, is that how these other services kind of came up? They’re like, hey, we want to get exposure on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube? Is that how these other ones cropped up?
Dalton Piche 11:42
Some of them for sure. I mean, TikTok is a big one that, you know, there’s a ton of demand for TikTok and Instagram. So naturally, you know, it was just a matter of time for us to try to find the most effective way to get into TikTok, which is, we can chat a bit about that, but for ads, that was more so, you know, we want something that we can scale, that we can bring the highest value experience or kind of marketing to musicians. And now you can see it’s new, the Facebook, Instagram ads, I would say, that is probably the bread and butter of what we do. It is, without a doubt, any conversation we’re having, even on the agency side, with anyone independent or with less than, let’s say, half a million monthly listeners on Spotify, that’s going to be the service that we’re going to suggest, because it’s just so valuable in what it does and what it can do.
Playlisting is great. It serves a purpose. TikTok is great. It serves a purpose while it is very high risk ads, you have total control. You’re driving high in 10 fans your music. There’s just a lot of things that you can do creatively to get value out of this service. It’s something that we use on our own music consistently. We spend a lot on ads, not just for the business, but primarily for music. And we just found that it just works so well. So this one was honestly, no one was asking for this. This was just something that we started to play around with, because we knew that people were running ads for music, and we figured that there was probably a more creative way that we could do it. And so it’s just a matter of testing, figuring that out, moving it out, and then ultimately offering it. That started about two years ago. We started doing this one.
Jeremy Weisz 13:29
I’m curious, so what objections you get? Because this kind of seems like a no-brainer. If I’m an artist and I go in, I’m like, oh, cool. I pay $500 and I get 500 conversions, that sounds great. And I just want to say, I know you have a marketing side of the business. You also have a label catalog side of the business. So when you’re saying, yeah, we use this, you’re using these things for your own label and catalog, I imagine, as well. So what are the objections you get from this?
Dalton Piche 13:59
But with that, I mean, each service has kind of its own objections. Ads, anyone can technically go and run ads themselves. There’s a ton of different ways to do it. That’s the thing is, when we say conversions, we and this is, if we want to get really into the weeds on one of these, when we say conversion, we’re referring to someone is going to see this ad on Instagram or Facebook. We run all of our ads on meta for this service, and they’re going to hear the song. They’re going to see some visual. It’s going to connect to the song that we’ve made in-house. They’re going to click through. They’re going to go to a landing page. They’re from there, they’re going to select their streaming platform, their DSP, so they might select spot five, and that’s what we consider conversion.
So you can run ads, you can drive traffic, you can send as many bodies to something as you want from any countries in the world. For us, it’s tier-one countries trying to make it as hard as possible for this person to get to the music, so that by the time they do get there, they’re incredibly valuable. So I think this is, like, this service does require a lot of explaining, a lot of explanation, and that’s something that we’re working on now, is a bit more of an in-depth kind of walkthrough. And I’d say, for the service specifically, the biggest objection would just be a lack of understanding of what this actually is, what it can do for you long term.
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