Taylor Swift's business strategy for success.

Taylor Swift makes money professionally in the entertainment industry thanks to her unique strategies regarding personnel, marketing, customer building, and continuous innovation.

At age 33, pop star Taylor Swift is one of the world's most influential entertainment business leaders, according to the WSJ .

She holds control over the copyrights to her songs instead of the music labels, is willing to go head-to-head with the giants, such as in her battle with Spotify, and has sold record-breaking albums. She maintains fan loyalty by chatting with them online.

Taylor Swift's tours are so popular that the online ticketing system Ticketmaster is overloaded and crashes its website. Her "Eras Tour" is currently predicted to be the biggest tour of all time, with the potential to earn over a billion dollars.

While other stars like Rihanna actively pursue careers in various fields, Taylor Swift focuses solely on the entertainment industry. Below are some management lessons the WSJ has compiled from Swift's successes and setbacks.

Taylor Swift attended the 65th annual Grammy Awards on February 5th in Los Angeles. Photo: AP

Lean team

While many artists in the music industry outsource their business ventures, Swift prefers to run them herself. Her company, 13 Management, has a lean staff. The business is supported by close friends and family, ranging from family to a select few.

She typically avoids hiring outside managers, brokers, and lawyers to save on operating costs. Meanwhile, the company's office is housed in her private hangar in Nashville, Tennessee.

Go from basic to complex.

At age 11, while her mother and younger brother waited in the car, Swift went door-to-door to record studios in Nashville, inviting them to listen to CDs of her karaoke songs. When that didn't attract any interest, Swift bought a 12-string guitar and practiced for hours every day.

Along with that, she began practicing songwriting. Two years later, her original songs helped secure a development agreement with RCA Records.

Seize the opportunity

Before releasing an album, unknown country artists often perform on around 200 radio stations across the United States because the ratings from these stations contribute to their chart-topping. If one of their songs receives positive feedback, it will continue to be played repeatedly and climb the charts, prompting the record label to decide to release the rest of the album.

Rick Barker, who took Swift on the first leg of her 2006 radio tour and later became her manager, said the arduous journey could be demoralizing and impactful for many artists.

During a performance at K-FROG radio station in Riverside, California, Barker was reminded not to bother the busy executives about getting Swift on air.

However, while playing the song "Tim McGraw" in the radio studio, when the lyrics came to the line "someday you'll turn on your radio," Swift glanced at Barker and changed it to "someday you'll turn on K-FROG." This quick thinking paid off, and the radio station immediately wanted to introduce Swift to its listeners.

Taylor Swift performing "Tim McGraw" at the 2007 Academy of Country Music Awards. Photo: AP

Building and engaging an audience.

Swift quickly built her online fanbase, first on Myspace, then on Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok. These platforms allowed her to get her music to her adoring listeners faster than radio. "When she saw people on Myspace, she saw it as a performance venue. She played music for thousands of fans every night," Barker said.

During a commercial break at K-FROG, Swift announced to her fans on Myspace that she would be appearing on the station. The station's phone lines were then flooded with calls thanking them for playing Swift's song.

Swift's pioneering use of social media is now seen as key to the artist's relationship with consumers. "The way she uses technology to create authentic connections with fans has shaped the modern music industry in many ways," commented Lucian Grainge, CEO of Universal Music Group, Swift's record label and publisher.

Taking care of partners

CEOs, radio programmers, and other business partners describe Swift's keen memory for details about their spouses and children. They say they still keep her handwritten thank-you cards.

Some people close to Swift say that she or a member of her team will save important information about partners so that Swift and everyone else can review it before they meet again.

Tom Poleman, Director of Broadcasting at iHeartMedia, describes Swift as knowing where everyone she meets has stopped in their previous conversation. "Doing that at such a young age is admirable – to engage in building relationships not only with listeners but also with business partners," he says.

Keep yourself fresh and vibrant.

A key part of Taylor Swift's enduring strength is her constant reinvention, according to music executives. Rod Essig, Swift's agent in her early years, said that no two recordings are ever the same, and no performances are ever the same. "That's why people love it," he said.

When Swift decided to release her first true pop album, she invited them to "Secret Sessions," held at various of her homes, where she played unreleased songs from her album "1989." This album propelled Swift to new heights in sales and fame.

Create leverage for yourself.

When sales skyrocketed a few weeks after the release of "1989" in 2014, Swift pulled all the songs from the Spotify music platform. She fought with the giant, demanding that Spotify only offer "1989" to paying listeners.

"Things of value should be paid for," she wrote in an editorial for the WSJ . "In my view, music shouldn't be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will one day determine the price of an album," she stated.

To mend the relationship, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek flew to Nashville multiple times to talk to Swift. But it wasn't until three years later, before the release of her album "Reputation," that she agreed to re-release her songs on Spotify. By that time, "1989" had sold 10 million copies worldwide. Avoiding a free release helped boost those sales.

"I don't think Spotify did anything to convince Taylor. She's very independent and makes many decisions on her own," Ek commented. Recognizing the huge audience on Spotify, Swift chose not to release the album "Reputation" on the streaming service for the first three weeks to maximize sales. The album debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart, selling 41% more copies than the other 199 albums combined.

Breaking precedent

In 2018, Swift signed an agreement with Universal allowing her to own any music she recorded. However, her first six albums remained under her independent Big Machine label. Despite numerous attempts, she was unable to acquire the rights to them. Therefore, she decided to re-release new versions to obtain her own copyright.

And as a result, no artist has ever been as successful with this method as she is. Swift adds unreleased songs to her albums and encourages fans to buy the new versions.

She rallied fans to participate, explaining why ownership was important. Streaming services and radio stations also supported the move, replacing older album versions copyrighted by Big Machine with new versions owned by Swift. According to a WSJ analysis, the new versions of albums like "Fearless" and "Red" even outsold their original versions at a 3-to-1 ratio.

Phiên An ( according to WSJ )

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