Music is a business — Set Your KPI’s

One of the most uncomfortable things for artists is reporting and goal setting. As you look at your BUSINESS you need to decide what the goals are and how to measure them.

Here is a basic list of KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) every Indie Artist needs to have reports for.

Album Sales: the number of albums sold both digitally and physically. 2. Single Track Downloads: the number of single tracks downloaded or purchased from digital platforms. 3. Streaming Data: platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and Pandora are the standard, monitoring the number of plays or streams is important. 4. Social Media Engagement: track likes, shares, comments, and overall engagement on social media platforms. 5. YouTube Views: number of views, likes, and comments on your music videos or other content on YouTube. 6. Merchandise Sales: how much merchandise (like T-shirts, posters, etc.) you’re selling. 7. Concert Attendance: track how many people are attending your concerts or live events. 8. Ticket Sales: track of the number of tickets sold for concerts or shows. 9. Fan Base Growth: measure the growth of your fan base over time. this can be tracked through social media followers, mailing list subscribers, fan club membership, etc. 10. Radio Airplay: measure how often your songs are being played on the radio. 11. Website Traffic: measure the number of visitors to your band’s official website and their behavior (time spent, pages visited, etc.). 12. Press Coverage: measure the quantity and quality of media coverage your band receives. 13. Revenue from Licensing: measure the revenue generated from the licensing of your music for use in TV, movies, commercials, etc. 14. Audience Demographics: track the demographics of your audience/fan base, such as age, gender, geographic location, etc. this can help with marketing and targeting efforts. Now that you have the list, build out the database to record the data — BONUS if you hire someone from Fiverr or somewhere else to build a dashboard to make viewing the data easy.

With this info you can see what is successful, and where to invest time/money to grow in those areas.