Innovative Record Labels

1. Create Conflicting Goals

Conflicting goals are those where two objectives seem incompatible. For instance, maximizing battery life while keeping smartphones slim presents a classic conflicting goal.

In the record label world, it could mean balancing mainstream success with promoting experimental music or offering sustainable vinyl at an affordable price.

Challenge yourself to think of two audacious and perhaps conflicting goals for your label. Engaging with conflicting goals stimulates your brain, pushing you to innovate and find bridges between seemingly opposing objectives.

2. Scratch Your Own Itch

"Scratching your own itch" means solving a problem you've personally experienced. In the record label context, it's about identifying a need or frustration and developing a solution.

This intimate understanding often leads to innovative ideas. For instance, a few years ago with my label, I started a YouTube series on studio tours, which scratched the itch of promoting while exploring adjacent interests, resulting in unexpected success.

Here’s the beautiful thing about scratching your own itch: Best case: your idea is super innovative and you start a new arm or new product or promote your record label successfully. Worst case: you waste time doing something you’re SUPER passionate about.

3. Embrace Failure

True innovation involves risk-taking and the possibility of failure. If your ideas don't carry the risk of failure, you might not be truly innovating.

It's better to try and fail boldly than to play it safe and never know your full potential.

My point is… if you’re afraid to do something… if you’re afraid of being embarrassed… if it’s something you’d be more comfortable NOT attempting… Well, that sounds like something you should move towards!

“It might not work” is a terrible reason to not try something, in fact, it’s a GREAT reason to try it!

4. Focus on Others

Instead of solely focusing on your label's needs, empathize with your audience. Understand their problems, desires, and aspirations. Empathetic marketing resonates more with fans than self-centered promotion.

Learn from bigger brands like Nike or Apple, which excel in aspirational marketing by understanding their audience's desires to become a better person.

Here’s a better idea, think about the times when you did or didn’t buy a record. What ads or label-interactions stimulated you to make a purchase or to add an album to your library?

5. Stop Copying

Innovation often means deviating from the norm. While it's easy to replicate what others are doing, true innovation lies in doing something different. Challenge yourself to break away from the traditional record label model.

Copying the traditional model of record labels, or using the same old templates is not innovating, it’s simply iterating.

Whether it's experimenting with album releases or pricing strategies, find ways to stand out from the crowd that are truly unique to you, your audience, and your artists. Veer left, take risks, do something that hasn’t been done before. To deviate is to innovate.