Respect My Region has been bridging the gap between music and cannabis culture on the West Coast and beyond since 2011. By elevating local artists and like-minded brands, we’ve been able to grow from a small clothing company at Central Washington University into a full-blown lifestyle and music marketing platform. One of the ways we’ve been able to grow and support local artists is through running music ads.
In the last seven years, Respect My Region has found a near-proprietary method of running ads for music artists. This is one of the main ways that we’ve been able to grow. While simultaneously supporting our home in the PNW and underrepresented artists. There is a unique way of approaching ads for each artist. As well as a specific place (and location) to run those ads (Facebook, Instagram, Google AdWords, and Youtube.)
What Respect My Region offers music artists is the power of a third-party platform. We’re able to frame questions around content that it could not ask itself that cause engagement. Then, knowing where to geo-target our music ads in combination with defining similar interests gives us data. This data allows us to then run even more effective ads. Our method of running ads for music artists asks engaging questions. It also provides calls to action to click, view, or stream any content we put in front of them.
Respect My Region’s founder and CEO, Mitch Pfeifer, has built an extensive knowledge about running ads. He’s garnered this experience from his own personal efforts with RMR, as well as through his role as marketing director for Keller Williams Marysville. Through real estate marketing, as well as music marketing, he has accrued a wealth of knowledge on running geo-targeted ads. I spoke more in-depth with Pfeifer about his process for running ads for artists.
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Find Your Online Strengths
Where is the best place to run your ads? Facebook, Google, Youtube, Instagram? Mitch said that it’s essential to identify platforms an artist is already active on. As well as finding out where they want to grow. Pfeifer said, “it depends on their demographic, the content being promoted, the assets they give to promote it, and what their goals are.”
Framing Engaging Questions
Mitch has found a lot more power and cost-effectiveness in running ads on RMR versus an artist’s account. “From my experience of running ads for artists on their account versus ours, I can almost guarantee more clicks at a cheaper cost by running it through our platform.” One of the most common ways RMR accomplishes this is through framing engaging questions.
As a third-party platform, we’re able to ask questions such as “is this rapper the next Young Thug out of Atlanta?” That same question from the artist isn’t as strong. Pfeifer continues, “it doesn’t cause as much interest and engagement. By asking that question we can then target that question to Atlanta. We can also target it to fans of Young Thug, and find out if they’re Spotify users.”
He goes on to say, “you can build an audience around an engaging question and use that to get engagement and attention.” He states, “it’s all about grabbing interest and engagement to then take action.” “It could be a question or a co-sign. Or, it could be a call to action or some version of all three.”
Photo by @OD1Take
Does Ad Budget Size Matter?
“Yes,” Mitch said quickly. “Any ad or organic traffic has a lot of variables to success, and ad budgets get you more chances at-bat and further spur other organic activity.”
Pfeifer said it’s not about putting all your ad money into one beefy ad. “You need to have money to test,” he said, “and then have a real budget to target that specific audience.”
He said if the artist or manager understands the gravity of this potential to reach a crazy amount of people, it’s an easier conversation.
“If you gave me $1000, I can fully nerd out 10-20+ different ads to find out what’s converting. Then, I can really put the ad spend into where we know it’ll work,” Mitch said.
“It’ll give you more chances to hit the right people at the best performing cost.”
Conclusions
No matter how you look at it—ads are beneficial to music artists. Artists, PR agencies, and record labels often come to Respect My Region to run hyper-targeted ads because we have the ability to ask unique questions and position content in unique ways.
We can engage with our niche audience of cannabis and music lovers more effectively than any individual or outside entity. “We’ve worked with record labels and major artists across the country, and they’ve come back saying it’s some of their best ROI (Return on Investment) for targeted cost-per-action.”
For 2 years, Respect My Region assisted with the marketing for the DOPE Music Festival held at the Tacoma Dome in Washington State. It was this opportunity where we were given thousands of dollars to promote numerous artists that are legendary today.
A few of these include Meek Mill, Gucci Mane, Russ, Lil Uzi Vert, and Lil Baby. “We ran ads for Lil Baby’s first show out here [Seattle,]” Pfeifer said.
These artists, at one point, were running ads in every new city they came to in order to more effectively leave a lasting impression.
No matter what level of success you’re seeing as an artist, there’s always room to grow with the ability that running music ads offers. Especially through a third-party platform that has a firm rooting in multiple states such as Respect My Region.
