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Do you want to start a songwriting business? If yes, then I advise you to read this article. No doubt you have heard so many wonderful songs with great lyrics. Many of these songs have won the very prestigious Grammy awards and gone green, because every time they are listened to, they look as fresh as when they made their charts debut.

Did you take a moment to pause and ask if these singers actually composed the songs themselves?

If you find yourself criticizing the lyrics of the songs often, or can continue on how well you could have written some lyrics, then chances are you have a flair for writing songs. This means that you should consider venturing into this business.

So how can you go about starting your own songwriting business? Here are the best tips that could help you start writing a song by writing songs.

In this article, we will see:

1. Why Start a Songwriting Business?
2. Songwriting: How to get started
3. Songwriting: Success Tips
4. Finding Ideas to Write a Song?
5. Conclusion

Read Also: How To Start A Wine Shop Business

Why Start a Songwriting Business?

Before starting a songwriting business, it is important that you do adequate research on what you are about to face before making a move. Surf the Internet to find ways to do this. You can also buy books on this subject to be in tune with what the business involves.

This type of business does not require a lot of capital and you can start the business with your savings and your home office. . If you work hard and have the right network, you can generate your starting capital from a business. A good thing about this type of business is that you can combine it with other businesses without trying too hard.

Finally, before starting your songwriting business, be sure to read this article and you will be well equipped. You can start your songwriting business from a small town and, if it is consistent and creative, it won’t be long for your brand to become a nationally recognized brand and your business network spans the entire length and breadth of the world.

Songwriting: How to get started

1. Market Research

It is only important and necessary that you do adequate research on what you are going to be facing before you move. It is worth knowing the complex information necessary to launch your songwriting business seriously. Browse the Internet to find ways to do it. Identify everything that might be necessary to do this. You can also buy books on this subject, so that you are perfectly in tune with what this type of activity involves.

2. Learn the Tricks

Now that you gradually become more familiar with how songwriting works; you may also want to search for various lyrics of music. Visit various song sites and take the time to read the lyrics, watch the sound of the lyrics, the choice of words and the rhyme patterns. This is to familiarize you with the pattern of songs that have become hit songs over the years.

3. Find a Niche

In the song industry, the competition is intense, and when you want to create a songwriting business, you must above all identify your niche and determine your strong point, it is therefore essential to find your place in terms of positioning on the market. The top 3 questions to ask yourself at this point are:

• What niche/field do you want to work in?
• What are the required skills?
• Who is your target audience?

Choose the right niche

It is the norm for songwriters to be creative and present lyrics that will capture the fantasy of their target audience; it can be song for artists or theme for organizations. That is why it seems that there are no niche areas in the sector. But, on the other hand, some composing companies may decide to specialize in some key areas or in niches such as:

• Blues
• Kids music
• Classic music
• Commercial (jingles and themed songs)
• Country music
• Dance hall music
• Hip Hop / Rap
• Inspired – Christian Gospel
• RB (Soul music)
• Reggae
• Rock music
• Spoken word
• Capella

Read Also: Why Market Research is Important to Small Business

4. Identify your Target Market

After deciding the niche you want to specialize in, the next step is to determine who you are going to market to and why.

You may want to take on as much work as possible, especially at the start, but be sure to ask yourself if it is serving your target market – if not, don’t be afraid to say no.

When you set up your own songwriting business, it is tempting to make excessive promises in an attempt to attract customers. However, this is a short-term strategy. Be confident in what you can offer and what you can achieve from the start, and while it may take longer to build a customer base, you will prepare for success.

From our experience, customers appreciate transparency in a business. So even if you feel like you’re facing a lot of competition, honesty is really the best policy.

Another aspect is knowing where your target market is located.

5. Ideal Location

When it comes to choosing a location for your songwriting business, the general rule of thumb is that you should be guided by the demand for songwriting Services. Obviously, if you get a central location for your songwriting business, it will allow people to easily locate your office or studio. You do not necessarily need to rent a location, as your location does not necessarily have to be the one you rent outside your home. You can actually start at your home.

6. Start-Up Capital

Starting a songwriting business can be profitable, especially if you choose to start on a small scale, operating at home or in the shared office. Ensuring a standard and well-positioned studio installation and purchasing work tools and software applications needed for a songwriting business are part of what will consume a large part of the initial capital. If you choose to start the business on a large scale, you will need to look for a fund to finance the business, because it is expensive to start a standard large-scale song to write with songwriting publishing businesses.

Without a doubt, when it comes to financing a business, one of the first things you should consider is having a good business plan. If you have a good and workable business plan document, you may not have to work hard before convincing your bank, investors and friends to invest in your business.

Here are some of the options that you can explore

• Raising money with personal savings and selling personal stocks
• Raising money from business partners
• Proposing your business idea and requesting business subsidies and initial funding from donor organizations and angel investors
• Gentle source of loans from family and friends

7. Business Plan

Once all of the previous steps have been completed, you can then embark on the realization of the business plan, an essential document for any business creation.

In fact, the business plan is a kind of summary of your professional project which includes market research, commercial positioning, choice of location, legal status, and of course the financial budget.

Simply put, a songwriting business plan has two parts:

• A written part used to present the project and highlight its strengths
• A quantified part, which is the financial budget, used to highlight the need for financing and the profitability potential of your business

This document will allow you to further explore your project and check its financial feasibility. It is also through this business plan that you will communicate to the banks when seeking financing.

Suffice to say that a business plan must be easy and pleasant to read, give the key information of your professional project, and give enough details without drowning the reader.

Read Also: How to Write Feasibility Study Report for Small Business

8. Find Customers

Every songwriting business needs customers, and we’ll provide you with tips to help you find yours – whether you want one or 100!

While you may want to acquire as many new customers as possible at the outset, it is likely that over time, the focus will be more on retaining customers in the long term, as it can be difficult to continually replace them.

That said, it’s also important to know when to let a customer go.

How can your songwriting business find customers?

1. Networking

One of the most important ways to find clients and market your business is through networking.

Networking is about building connections and delivering value – note that this is not necessarily an immediate source of income. Instead, think of it like this: Connections create customers.

2. Free trials

Nothing makes people more interested in trying or doing something more than the word “free”, and you can also apply it to your business services.

At the start, consider offering your business services for free to show people what you can do. Gradually, you will build your brand.

3. References

Once you have customers to work with, use them to expand your customer base even more.

Being referred by another company could increase your business chances of finding more customers to work with, as this helps build trust.

4. Location

The location where you are based also says a lot about your business. Again, it’s all part of your brand, so choose your business location carefully, because it can say a lot about your business.

Finding the right premises for your business is not only having enough space to work, it is also showing potential customers – and competitors – that your business is a serious competitor.

How to retain the customers

Once your business is better established, you will need to make sure that your customers stay with you and that they are not influenced by what other competitors are offering. Here are a few tips:

• Make sure that everything your business does is customer-focused.
• Keep reports and document work
• Stay up to date with songwriting news
• Creative approach to work

Although it can be fairly easy to manage your time (both for acquiring new customers and maintaining existing accounts) in the early stages, as your business grows and grows, you may need to consider additional tools.

Read Also: How to Make Customers Pay your Price

9. Promote your Songwriting Business

Promoting a business is essential, but for a songwriting business, the question becomes even more interesting: how to promote a songwriting business? Or put in other words, how do you sell song as a song writer? You can approach recording artists, publishers, music libraries, and record labels.

Even if people expect higher standards (this is your business area of expertise, after all), don’t worry – see it as a creative challenge instead. Here are some of the main ways to promote your business:

• Website

First of all, you need to have a professional and well-designed website. This is not negotiable for a songwriting business – customers and others interested in your business should be able to find your business online and see a site that best reflects what you are doing.

However, it does not have to be expensive. At first, you can use a website builder to quickly and easily create a basic website, without the need for a lot of technical skills.

After a while, you can consider hiring a professional website designer to create a website with custom design and increased functions.

• Social media

In addition to your site, your business will need to be on social media to contribute to your overall online presence. Although there are a number of platforms, focus your efforts on connecting with your target market. It’s about knowing what networks they’re using and sharing their content. You can use social media to promote your business, but also to engage and find customers.

In general, Facebook and Twitter are the main networks to use. If applicable, consider using Instagram, Pinterest and other platforms as well. It’s a way for people to see what’s going on in your business and keep you up to date on what matters most to your customers.

• Promotional material

Even if you run a songwriting business, don’t forget the promotional material on paper. It can be as simple as creating business cards for yourself.

Likewise, you might consider creating brochures and other physical materials to promote your business. You could sample a range of work that you think best represents your business in a brochure to distribute as needed.

10. Join a Songwriting Community

This gives you a huge boost in running your business because you will be surrounded by a support group who wants to see you succeed.

You will meet other songwriters and learn a lot.

Also join a private community to share tips & support each other.

Songwriting: Success Tips

Sometimes you can hear that songwriting is easy, and that anyone can do it. Yes, anyone can do it, but not everyone is able to write really interesting song. Writing a song is more than just being a writer. Yes, everyone has tools for creativity (at least the brain most likely exists), but not everyone gets public recognition. Successful songwriters work on developing their abilities often – every day.

The main goal of the songwriting, is to establish emotional contact with his audience

So, the first tip:

1. Never stop working on developing your abilities.

If your main goal is to establish an emotional connection with the audience, then we must constantly improve our existing abilities and acquire new ones. The more ability tools we have, the more diverse and widespread our possibilities in songwriting become. It is important not only to have many opportunities and to be able to use them, but also to constantly experiment.

2. You should not limit your creative thinking. 

The effectiveness of the emotional impact of any – even the most ingenious song becomes dulled sooner or later. Listeners constantly need new impressions, therefore non-standard, unpredictable song produce a more intense emotional effect. 

3. For whom do you write your song? Define your purpose.

If you write songs only for yourself, then you are in no way limited in your expression. If you write songs for other people, then you must be sure that they understand your song. Overly complex songs will never be understood by the average listener. Although, it is quite possible that your fellow songwriters will be able to appreciate your abilities and will take great pleasure in listening to your song. But an ordinary person will let your mega-tuned music pass by.

That is why, every time you write a song, you need to think: “For whom am I writing this song? Will these people be able to understand it when they hear it?”

4. The opinion of the song is more important than your opinion.

It happens that while working on a new song, interesting ideas are born in the head that, despite all their attractiveness, are not suitable for the song being written. Do not spoil the song, trying to attach such ideas to it! If the song gets better after inserting some piece, then this is great! If not, then you have an idea for a new song! Remember – the opinion of the song is more important than your opinion.

Do not confuse your desires and the desires of the song you are writing. You and your song have different fates. And your opinions may differ. When you start to regard song as an independent being, more important than yourself, then you will understand that- song has its own mind.

5. Ideas, ideas, ideas…

Writing a song does not always begin with an emotional impulse. Sometimes the creative process begins with an idea. Ideas do not always turn into songs, but they always help you add something new to your work.

Finding Ideas to Write a Song?

The first way to find ideas for how to write a song is to start with a song theme and then write the words that connect to it.

1. Starting With an Emotion

A first way to find ideas for writing a song is to start from an emotion. For example you want to express sadness, happiness, joy … It can be an emotion that you live in the present moment or an emotion that you want to transcribe.

Read Also: Why you Should Follow Your Passion

2. Starting From a Lived Situation

Another approach is to start from a lived situation. For example, you experienced a funny, sad situation that you want to tell. There can be hundreds of examples that can give subject ideas for writing songs.

The advantage is that through these situations you will automatically express emotions by having a writing axis.  Also, you do not have to transcribe the real to 100%. You can start from a real situation and then insert fictional elements.

3. Starting From a Fictitious Situation

This approach is similar to the previous point but instead of starting from a real situation, we will start from a fictitious situation. But then how do you do it? Well you can either imagine it if you have a strong imagination or you can borrow it while being inspired by:

• Movies
• Theater plays
• Novel
• Mythology
• Comics

But then is it plagiarism? No, I don’t think so, we can very well tell the story from another point of view and in a new form. We must no longer see it as an extension of the original work!

4. Starting From a Character

Instead of starting from a situation, we can start from a fictional or real character. For example, you can tell the story of a person you met and who marked you. This raises the question of the writing angle. How to tell this character? Through a scenario? Through his memories? Through the narration of different facts that have marked his life? In the first person or in the third person? There are many possibilities and I invite you to try them and start writing!

 Read Also: Facts to Know About Entrepreneurship

Conclusion

At this point, you have learned the essentials of starting a songwriting business. We looked at how to identify a target market, as well as what should be included in your business plan and how to get ideas for your songwriting business. Plus, you’ve learned how to promote your business – whether it’s finding customers, attracting talent, or just promoting your brand.

So what do you do with all this information? It’s time to start your songwriting business – good luck!

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