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We use these tools every single day, so we stand behind them 100%. In the spirit of full disclosure, however, most of these are affiliate links, so you are helping us if you signup through the links. But our main priority is sharing what works for us and our artists in hopes that it inspires you. :-)
Project Mangement: Nifty
From daily tasks, to career roadmaps, to planning tours, I use my project management software, Nifty, to manage all the things I and my team needs to do for every artist. I also use it to manage my other business ventures as well as tasks I need to get done for my daily life. Not only is it great for my team and I, my artists love it to! That's right, it's so easy to use that I invite all my artists to join so they can see the work that is being done to help their career, they can keep us honest and we can hold them accountable as well, as tasks can be assigned to anyone. They can also use it to keep track of todos for themselves. This has been the such a life-changer for my artists that they thank me for finally bringing much needed order to their lives.
Meeting Scheduler/Automated Booking: Trafft
Ever try to setup a meeting with someone? You go back and forth over email or text endlessly to find the right time that works for both your schedules. Welcome to the future where you don't have to waste time doing that anymore. Simply send someone a link, and they can choose an open time directly on your calendar that works best for them! Or better yet, do what I do and embed the booking calendar on your website, include a link in your email signature, put it on your social media/linktree, and put a QR code on your business card! It saves you SO MUCH TIME and will actually get you more valuable business meetings when someone can simply book a meeting with you instantly all by themself without having to wait for you to coordinate a time. You can of course integrate it with your calendar and meeting tool of choice (Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, etc.) so it knows when you're available, creates the calendar invite for you and the attendee, along with the Zoom link automatically! Easy peasy! Plus, if you get into paid consulting or other services, you can even charge for your time directly on the booking page. How awesome is that! There's so much more that it can do, I've barely scratched the surface. I've used other tools like Calendly, and while it was great to start with, Trafft is much more powerful, customizable, and the team behind it is really awesome!
Online Course Creation and Marketing: Zenler
You know how in the Artist Management School Jamie told you how creating a passive income business is a great way to diversify your revenue and supplement your management business? Well, this is the all-in-one tool to enable you to do just that by creating your very own online courses! (If you haven't taken the Artist Management School course, be sure to take it! It's super valuable!) I have built an online school teaching music gear and technology, but you could create courses around anything you like, even outside the music business if you have expertise in another area! The great thing about Zenler compared to other online course platforms (and I've used several of the most popular before switching to Zenler) is that it really does have everything you need in one amazing, east-to-use, online platform. From sales pages and funnels, to email marketing, to drip automation, to payments, to blogs, community functionality, and it even includes Zoom to allow you to do live webinars, group coaching, and/or 1:1 meetings. On top of all the amazing features, it also has a fantastic community of fellow course creators and friendly staff, all willing to help you along your journey. They are constantly releasing helpful content and live sessions for free several times per week. It's awesome!!! There's even a FREE PLAN so you have no excuse to get started today!
Livestream Video Software: Ecamm Live
I started out using this when I was livestreaming my own musical performances during the pandemic. Now I use it both for live webinars, livestreams on YT/FB/Twitch, game streams, as well as just for recording video offline. What Ecamm Live gives you is a whole video production suite that you can use for both live video as well as simply recording offline. It allows you to select between multiple cameras, screenshare, PiP, add countdown timers, green screen, and much more. It is a more feature-rich and easy-to-use alternative to OBS. Plus it's got a super helpful community for support.
Brand Management: Baseline
How do you keep all your branding straight for your own business? Do you have a brand guide dictating colors, fonts, logos, etc.? What about your artist's brand? It may not be something you considered, but keeping all these details organized in one branding guide will make life a whole lot easier over time, especially when you start to scale up and delegate tasks to others. In addition to creating a brand guide, Baseline has image editing and logo creation tools (many even for FREE!) that makes it a great alternative to Canva.
Community (Memberships and More): Heartbeat
One of my goals in creating my record label was to more intimately connect artists to their fans, and artists to other artists. I use Heartbeat to create communities for each artist to do just that. I even have a Freemium model so that super fans can join a paid membership so they can support their favorite artists with recurring revenue, similar to Patreon but without the fees (as I'm already taking a cut as their manager) and white-labeled so it's branded specifically for the artist. Signup with my link and get 20% off your first 3 months!
Social Media Post Scheduler: Postly
(I do not receive anything for your signup)
I use this tool for automating posts for pre-release, post-release, and tour social media campaigns. It makes it easy to create all your content upfront, load it in ahead of time, and never miss a post date so you can keep the algorithm and, most importantly, your artist's fans happy! It also has some cool new AI tools.
Audio File Sharing: Myxt
(I do not receive anything for your signup)
This is a new service (that is currently FREE to use) which is focused on sharing of music files. It was created as an alternative to generic services like Dropbox that don't handle audio very well. It also provides a bunch of tools, such as an inbox for artists to drop their files into without signing up, public links to share one or more audio files with play-only or the ability to download, automatic lyric and key generators, and more! I'm working with the founder on providing my feedback to improve the service. I'm currently using it to get masters for releases, as well as to share masters with music supervisors for sync licensing. Check it out!
Artist/Song Data Analytics: Chartmetric
(I do not receive anything for your signup)
If you don't already know about this site, you're missing out! This site has data on millions of artists and has a plethora of great data analytics tools that are too deep for me to get into here. I use this with all my artists to measure their digital footprint, effectiveness of campaigns, comparison to other artists, fanbase for booking, and so much more! It is an essential tool in my toolbox! It aggregates data from streaming platforms, social media, Songkick, and more! (Checkout Songkick as well; alternative to Bandsintown)
Artist One Sheet/EPK: Onesheet
(I do not receive anything for your signup)
This is a fantastic tool to quickly generate a one sheet (EPK) for your artists. In fact, I have several for each artist! One for playlist pitching, another for sync pitching, and another to include with booking pitches. It is owned by Chartmetric and thus all data is pulled from Chartmetric and synchronized. You can also customize it to your liking. It is currenlty FREE while in Beta. An alternative tool is MediaKits.
Lifetime Software Deals: AppSumo
Want to get tools like these and more for ONE, single upfront payment instead of paying recurring subscription fees? Take a look at AppSumo, who partners with companies from startups to well-established brands to get you great deals on software for your business or personal use so you can pay once and never have to think about the expense again! I got a lot of the above tools through AppSumo. But hurry, becuase the deals aren't available forever, so score these lifetime subscriptions while you can!
This should be more than enough to get you started. Good luck and feel free reach out with any questions!