First announced last October, AIM’s Associate Membership is now open to all clients of AIM’s Distributor Members. In light of the British Business Bank’s findings that Black, Asian and Other Ethnic Minority entrepreneurs receive less access to free advice, AIM’s Associate Membership tier levels the playing field by granting free access to crucial resources for nearly anyone building a career or business in music. These include self-releasing artists, managers and other entrepreneurs.

Associates will have access to valuable industry knowledge via the specially-designed Associate Knowledge Base, an Artificial Intelligence-driven search engine built on Zendesk’s customer service platform. This has been made possible with the trust and commitment of AIM’s Distributor members, which are dedicated to supporting their clients. 

The Associate Membership will deliver access to knowledge, people and platforms. Associates can navigate exclusive guides to the music business and digital distribution, as well as educational webinars, ‘tip sheets’  and general advice and support. Additionally, AIM’s ‘Platinum Partners’ Amazon, Facebook, Merlin, PPL, Spotify and YouTube Music will update members on how best to engage with their services via the new ‘Platform Gateway’. Other benefits include special access to AIM conferences and networking opportunities.

AIM has appointed a new Community Support Manager, Char Walsh, to implement and manage the Associate Membership tier. Char has nearly a decade’s experience within music licensing and memberships, having held previous roles with PPL (Phonographic Performance Limited) in Relationship Management and as a Membership Specialist. Prior to this she was a professional musician. 

The new tier is expected to see AIM’s total membership grow from the current 1000+ labels and associated businesses to 100,000+. The Associate Knowledge Base is currently in Beta, constantly evolving and improving thanks to Secretly Distribution and EmuBands’ involvement in testing the service. These members collectively represent 20,000 labels and self-releasing artists.

The launch of our Associate Membership tier is a significant milestone for us at AIM. Opening up access to industry knowledge and networking opportunities is one of the most important steps towards creating much-needed change across the industry and supporting the next generation of artists and entrepreneurs. As we broaden our reach and expand our membership, we hope to strengthen both AIM’s Member businesses and the UK independent music sector as a whole. (AIM CEO Paul Pacifico)

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