This episode was previously published on the Profitable Musician Show.

Today, Audrey Marshall from Thematic will talk about how their platform helps musicians create new and cool ways to make money, get the word out about their music, build their fanbase and many more.

About Audrey
Audrey has a huge passion to help musicians. Her family is not super musical but she has always been a huge music fan. She grew up in the era of Backstreet Boys and NSYNC. Her favorite musical artists changed over time but she has always followed bands and gone to concerts throughout high school. She also handed out flyers and always wanted to help artists she loved to get discovered by new people. During college, one of her first internships was with her two favorite artists, Giant Drag and Ames. There she got to be a part of one artist’s DIY album release and she got to understand distribution platforms .

When Thematic started
It was at that independent record label where Audrey met her now co-founder, Marc Schrobilgen, who co-owns the label. They worked together to figure out new digital strategies to help support music artists.

In that early era of 2008 and 2009, one of the creators they worked with was Michelle Phan. She wanted to make a beach summer video and what Audrey and her partner did was to make the connection to an artist who has an amazing song that fits what Michelle is looking for. That was what they honed in on over the years — they worked hands on with a handful of independent music artists and different YouTube video creators who wanted to get their music and concept out there but can’t afford a big marketing campaign.

They officially incorporated in 2016. They were in a private testing area for a few years. It was free influencer marketing for their music. They can get their music featured in YouTube videos and launch a song campaign for totally free, no charge. On the video creator side, it’s almost automated music supervision. Here’s the best music from the hottest new artists based on what you are creating, what your favorite musical tastes are, and what your aesthetic is.

Lead Times
Audrey recommends that if you plan to use Thematic for your releases, you can upload your music to the platform ahead of time. For example, you can upload holiday music as early as August for release on the platform in October. That will get them infront of more people.

Creators can find your song through a section called Weekly Matches, which consists of ten songs that are most relevant to them that are going to perform well in the type of content that fits their musical aesthetic.

They mainly cater to YouTube but will also be doing it for Twitch and other platforms.

Copyright and Social Media
Artists can be concerned about copyright claims. Thematic built it into it, so it’s all preventative. As long as the creator has the proper credit and license information and promotion for the artists included, they will never see a claim. There is a checks and balances system, and anybody who doesn’t have a license at all gets claimed and monetized for the music artists as well.

For other platforms such as Instagram, they reduce the time and friction and do it as a distribution channel.

Eighty percent of their artists said that their following has increased from using the platform.

As of now, artists need to upload the full song into Thematic. One needs to log in to get the full experience. This is so people do not use them as a streaming platform. They are looking into adding alternate versions of songs such as instrumentals and slowed-down versions. Artists also need to specify where they want to drive traffic from the YouTube video. They can select the Spotify music player, their latest due to video, a SoundCloud, and adjust this at any time. Then when new people discover their music from watching these videos, we are driving the streams where they want it, and they can also check out all the other social links from the music artists.

TikTok is a great additional distribution and marketing strategy for music artists. A lot of the people on TikTok wanted to cross-post their TikTok on YouTube. The only way for them to be able to do that in a legal way is to get a license for the song. Thankfully, we had it available on our platforms that they are not getting penalized for sharing their TikToks on YouTube because the music clearances don’t transfer. There are different mechanisms and infrastructures for using songs across platforms.

Campaigns in Thematic
They have new music releases every Friday, so they put out a cohort of songs. They try to make sure there is good variety of songs. If an artist is putting out their chips on the Thematic table, they try to strategically release them in a way that’s going to be most beneficial to them because they want every song to have its own moment. If you put up 20 songs at 1 time for the creator, Thematic will try to match them as best as possible. As soon as they get more data about who’s using it and where it’s being used, they get to start sorting it and servicing it to the right creator, but it’s also a matter of letting each song have its moment.

Where to find them
If you want to submit a song, it’s HelloThematic.com/Artists. You can also get a link if you go to HelloThematic.com. They also have a private Discord where all types of creators can come together and support each other and get feedback. You can also find @HelloThematic on their socials.

Links mentioned in this episode: