What Are The Benefits of Having an Artist Manager?

It’s a common thought for artists to either not understand the full role of a manager, or to believe that one is not needed (depending on artist aims and the achievability of these). The following tips will help to understand the full potential of having a manager, their roles, and how this can help develop you and your portfolio as an artist.

Before thinking about getting an artist manager, its important to set goals and strategies of where you plan to go. For instance, do your goals involve becoming a renowned local artist guaranteed to sell out a small venue, or do you aim to become a global celebrity? Remember to keep these aims realistic in relevance to the appeal of your music.

Exposure

Your manager will help to expose you to the masses, using his/her contacts to help gain such things as: gigs, reviews, attention from record labels, and further helpful platforms to push and promote YOU as an artist. After all, the manager’s name is associated with your act, so they will want to promote and expose you as much as possible in a mutually beneficial way. There is often no limit to a managers contact list, and this is arguably the most useful aspect, having awareness raised about your artist within the industry as well as to the public.

Thinking about the next step

A manager will deal with the everyday logistics of thinking about the next step and appropriate career moves for you as an artist. In relevance to the ‘exposure’ section previously explained, this next step may include: contacting a music PR agency to create a promotional campaign for a single/album release, getting in touch with a booking agency to help with the booking of gigs/live shows, or contacting a producer with the decision of recording some material in the studio. These are just a number of examples to evident the non-limiting boundaries of an artist manager. A manager can also help with the decision and encourage what to release next with the consideration of industry and public appeal.

Day-to-day operations

Although a constant thought about the next step, a manager will deal with the day-to-day operations for the artist. The manager will be the voice of the artist, responsible for speaking for them in order to make the correct moves. This will include dealing with those that get in touch, which may include: gig offers, blogs asking to feature the artist, and any other industry attention as previously mentioned. As the voice of the artist, it’s very important for the manager and artist to have a positive relationship and be on the same ‘wave-length’. This will ensure the right decisions will be made with no confusion or conflict. It’s hard to develop as an artist if your manager does not understand your ambitions so its highly important to bond and have a good relationship, after all this will affect the health of your career as an artist.

Advancing your career

An artist manager has the ability to efficiently and effectively advance your career as an artist to the next level and beyond. By creating connections within the industry and keeping these consistently intact, advancing to the next level becomes increasingly viewable. A manager should understand your needs and desires and therefore will help to find you a well-matched and meaningful record label. As the industry attention floods in, your manager will help to deal with this by replying with appropriate action in the most professional way, helping to create a positive name for the artist within the music industry.

Organisation

Similarly to a manager role within any occupation, an artist manager will help to keep you organised and on schedule. This becomes increasingly helpful in such situations as national tours – knowing where to be and when, as well as keeping you together as an artist by working with you hand-in-hand, as opposed to you working for them. This means that the artist can put their main focuses on what artists do best: performing live, creating a good show, and recording new material.

At Music Gateway, Artist Managers regularly post new project opportunities in search of new talent so make sure your profile is complete, including enough details for the management to understand you as an artist. Having a story and an image can arguably be as important as the music, so make sure these things are clear on your profile to give an idea as to what you are about. Location is an important thing to consider in terms of artist management, but always think about what works with you as an artist, with a clear mind to pick out the benefits. These project opportunities posted can help to determine the suitability to you as an artist, and can lead to a great advance in your artist career. So make sure your Music Gateway profile is the best it can be to find a suitable artist manager for you.

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