He chatted with Digital Journal about his respected career in music marketing and publicity, as well as being a professor of music marketing at Temple University; moreover, he opened up about the digital transformation of the music PR and marketing industry.
Schutzman has been doing digital marketing since 1994, and he started doing more digital publicity work with his company Miles High Productions in 2002.
Regarding his inspiration to pursue publicity and marketing, he said, “I was always interested as far as I can remember wanting to help artists. Ever since I was a child, I knew I wanted to do music promotions of some sort. At the time, I didn’t know it would be digital as it wasn’t around then!”
Schutzman is a professor of music marketing at Temple University, and he is a guest lecturer at academic institutions across America. “I’ve taught music marketing for Temple University for several years, and the,n I speak and lecture at about 10 universities around the United States each year. This is something I really like doing: teaching and educating students about the business and about PR and digital marketing,” he elaborated.
Each day, Schutzman is motivated primarily by music. “I’m a music fan first before anything, then a music professional. I also have a great workout schedule where I go running four miles everyday in the hills of Hollywood with great inspirational views of the city. That is a great way that I usually start my day with before I start working with our artists,” he said.
On his proudest professional accomplishments in publicity, he acknowledged that there have been quite a few. “Having several of my artists on CNN. Promoting rock band Heart for 20 years in the digital age. It continues by meeting some of the greatest names of the music business and learning from some legendary publicists and artists,” he said.
Digital transformation of the publicity and music marketing world
On the impact of technology in the PR and marketing industry, he said, “Technology is like Pandora’s box, something good can come out of it and sometimes it creates havoc or chaos. Technology is that love and hate relationship I have with it.”
Regarding the use of technology in his daily routine as a publicity, he said, “We use software tools to help us analyze data for social media that helps and aides us with how to improve upon the social media aspects of that campaign with our artists and helps us with demographics, geo-targeting and understanding just who is the clients fan-base with regards to data. We also use technology with use of various apps for graphics to apps for productivity and for meetings with remote employees.”
When asked about the hardest part of his job, he said, “Everything we do is labor intensive – no chat-bots for following up with media! It involves finding out what media thinks of our artist and music to determining best timing or positioning of the planned featured article or interview. The hardest part is always finding enough time to do everything for our artists as there is always something that can be done.”
For aspiring publicist and marketing agents, Schutzman offered the following advice: “Organization and attention to detail is a must. Get to know your fellow media folks however possible when communicating to customize to their tastes and preferences. Having the ability to know your media folks’ music types and interests are vital to your success.”
To learn more about Miles High Productions, check out his official website.
