The 5 Steps to Landing a Sync Deal 🔑

How to land a sync deal in 5 steps, the future of sync in AR/VR, and how the creator economy is the next big opp for sync artists.

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Hey happy Thursday! Hope you’re doing great ⚡️

Today’s newsletter covers:

  • 🎩 Sync Tip Of The Week: How to land a sync deal in 5 steps (the sync musician lifecycle)

  • 🎙️ New Selling The Soundtrack Podcast Episode: We interviewed Jennifer Richey, Co-Founder of Gravity Jack. With a portfolio that includes tech projects with Maroon 5, Live Nation and brands like Oreo, Ford, Audible, Coca-Cola and more, Jennifer shares tips for musicians that want to get their music into AR/VR video games and experiences.

  • 🗞️ The Latest News: How the massive growth of influencers in the content creation economy, are creating a huge opportunity in sync licensing

  • 🫴 Resources: DISCO.ac the gold standard in the sync licensing industry

Sync Tip Of The Week

Landing your first sync deal requires time, effort, and strategy. Fortunately, the internet is a goldmine of information, offering access to valuable resources, networking opportunities, and websites that make the process easier.

Infographic created & designed by Selling The Soundtrack ©

  1. Ensure High Production Quality & Prepare Instrumental Versions.

    • Your music must be of professional quality. Listen to tracks used in TV, films, and games and honestly assess if your production meets that standard. If not, hire out what you don’t specialize in (i.e. hire a music producer to polish up your sound or a mix engineer). Always have instrumental versions of your tracks ready. Many deals require instrumentals, and not having them could mean missing out on significant opportunities.

  2. Optimize Metadata:

    • Properly tag your music files with essential metadata: artist name, track title, genre, and contact info. This ensures music supervisors can easily identify and reach out to you. You can do this all via DISCO.ac 

  3. Build Connections with Key Industry Players:

    • Instead of directly approaching music supervisors, connect with publishers, labels, sync agents and music libraries who have established relationships with them. You can find music libraries and their contact info to pitch to via this link. You can find sync agents and music supervisors as well as their contact info via LinkedIn, Google and the Selling The Soundtrack Podcast available on Spotify, Audible, Apple Music, YouTube + more. Make sure you listen to the kind of music they usually work with and ensure you are a good fit before reaching out - listen to the music on their websites, social media accounts and the music in the TV shows and movies they’ve worked on.

  4. Make a great first impression in your initial outreach email or DM.

    • First impressions are incredibly crucial – if you make a mistake at the beginning, you seldom get another opportunity to make it right. You can check out these sync outreach email templates we made to make it easy for you. They have all the necessary info and terms included in the emails so you can plug and play, as well as signal to sync industry professionals that you’re on the level and understand their needs for licensing your music.

  5. Make sure your follow up game is strong

    • Be patient. Sync industry professionals don’t owe you a response or feedback. A lot of the time they’re busy. If they offer you revisions that is a great sign because it means they’re interested in the track. If they don’t respond, follow up in a month with new music that you think they would like.

Following these steps, and you'll position yourself better in the sync licensing landscape. Best of luck and shoot us an email with any success stories to be featured in a future email newsletter issue!

New Selling The Soundtrack Podcast Episode

In this week’s episode, we sit down with Jennifer Richey, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Gravity Jack, to explore the dynamic world of AR, VR, and Mixed Reality. With a portfolio that includes tech projects with Maroon 5, Live Nation, and brands like Oreo, Ford, Audible, Coca-Cola and more, Jennifer shares future trends as well as tips for musicians that want to get their music into AR/VR video games and experiences.

Tune in now to the Selling The Soundtrack podcast and hear the full episode!

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The Latest News

For musicians involved in sync licensing, the increased demand for licensed music driven by the surge in content creation presents significant opportunities. With platforms like YouTube reporting that 84% of videos contain at least 10 seconds of music, there is a vast market for musicians to license their work.

Musicians can take advantage of this by joining music licensing libraries that specialize in providing music to content creators. Some reputable companies are: Hoopr, Songtradr, and Artlist. These platforms connect musicians with content creators seeking licensed music, providing a streamlined process for music licensing.

Read more here.

Resources to succeed in sync

  • Check out DISCO.ac to upload your sync music. You can embed metadata easily and when you include your DISCO stream link in your email - you quickly signify to music industry professionals that you’re on the level

  • Check out the Selling The Soundtrack Podcast for interviews with sync industry veterans sharing tips on how to succeed in the world of sync

  • Scroll through www.ispot.tv (it’s free) to listen to the music in some of your favourite commercials for inspiration before your next recording session

  • Check out our sync outreach email templates - it’ll help you streamline your emails to sync agents, music supervisors and music library owners

Questions or anything you want to learn more about in sync? 🧐 Let me know here: https://www.sellingthesoundtrack.com/contact-us

Keep hustlin’ guys, you got this and I’m here for you! See you in the next podcast episode and email newsletter :)

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