E-commerce pioneer, lifelong musician, and technological guru, Patrick Faucher is the CEO and Co-founder of Nimbit . Patrick graduated with honors from Berklee College of Music with a background in computer science and database architecture. Preceding the web’s explosion as a commercial marketplace, Patrick helped launch some of the very first e-commerce websites for renowned artists such as Aerosmith and Phish. In the late nineties, he led the development of BuyItOnline.com, an online shopping mall, which was sold for $60 million in 2000.

Background:  Formed in 1983, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones are often credited with the creation of the ska-core genre, a form of music that mixes elements of third wave ska and hardcore punk. The band released seven full-length albums, three EPs and a live album while touring continuously before their announcement of a hiatus in December 2003. They reunited in the fall of 2007 and performed at Cambridge’s Middle East club.

At the beginning of this project, the Bosstones had no fan database, an inactive (fan run) Facebook page, and had not released an album in seven years. 

Campaign Goals:  

• Recapture fans and build contact database
• Sell 500 VIP ticket bundles
• Market new album release to U.S. fanbase, sell 10,000 units
• Create a basis for future touring, merchandising, and promotion
• Sell out venue for Hometown Throwdown concert series

 

Strategy: 

Step 1 - (re)Engage Fans:Create multiple entry points for fans to receive free MMB tracks in exchange for offering new/updated contact info.  Provide opportunity to join "VIP" list with exclusive access to pre-sale Hometown Throwdown tickets. 

Step 2 - Reasons to buy:  Place pre-sale bundles (including tickets and merch) in VIP-only storefront on MMB’s new website.  Bundles have multiple offers/price points:  single ticket, ticket plus CD & vinyl, ticket to 3 shows plus CD & vinyl, t-shirt plus CD & vinyl.  

Timeline:

October 2009

• Start promoting via Facebook, MySpace and website, offering free track of a new song, and teasing the new album.
• Use redemption codes to track three different giveaway campaigns (via email and download cards).
• Start recapturing fan contacts through website and Facebook.
• Set up VIP offer to hard core fans for special presale bundle of new album with ticket to upcoming holiday shows in Boston ($50-$100 price point).
• Oct 31 (Midnight) – Message sent to “VIP” list.  Ticket presale bundles up for sale on website for three Hometown Throwdown shows. 

November 2009

• Nov 1^st – General ticket sales for HOB shows go on sale.
• Public pre-sale of new album available at website and on Facebook MyStore.
• Added a 4th show after original three sell out, blast to email list and Facebook.

 

December 2009

• New album ships to major retail outlets.
• Special bundles with vinyl album offered exclusively on website.
• Appearance on Jimmy Kimmel live.
• Shows at House of Blues and Middle East in Boston.  Over 8,000 people attend.

 

Results:

• 600 VIP ticket/album bundles sold in 25 min. from MMB’s website.  Average price:  $40.00
• 2,800 fans redeemed promotional codes for free music
• 7,000 new Facebook fans added (100% increase)
• 5,000 new contacts added to fan list including sales and demographic info
• 4,000+ units sold of new album

 

Nimbit Platform tools used:  Nimbit MyStore for Facebook, nimbitSkin storefront, download cards, promo codes, redemption widget, print and manufacturing services, nimbitRetail+ account ($20/month)

Eric Hebert is CEO of Evolvor Media and blogger at evolvor.com, in addition to co-founder of Label 2.0, and online music marketing community that teaches musicians the ins-and-outs of marketing and building a brand online. Eric has an extensive background in SEO , Social Media, and content development, working for some of the biggest names in the business and sharing his knowledge to assist artists and musicians to help promote their music.

 

One of the most important aspects of being a musician these days is trying to understand how to efficiently use the web to promote your tunes to people in the hopes of creating a rabid fanbase. Unfortunately, most do not understand the underlying principles of how to use your website in order to actually get the attention they are looking for.

Most view a website as a “traditional” advertisement and construct one with that mindset. Many bands build glossy looking Flash-based websites that, while visually appealing, do very little to help the band out. They think a website needs to be a pretty-looking page that visually grabs the viewer into wanting to listen to the music. Other then maybe some bio information and pictures, their usually is very little content on the site for the viewer to learn more about the band and the music. And usually these websites take forever to load and are just downright annoying to navigate around.

If you’re not using flash, chances are you just have an old-school static html site. Again, the graphics might be pretty and your music might be available to stream or download, but there is probably little in terms of interactive content.

And that’s the big thing about marketing online that everybody misses – building content. The goal is to increase traffic, and building content (and knowing how to get that content indexed in Google to gain visitors from Search) is how you go about getting people to come to your site, learn more about you, and then perform calls to action that will being them into your fan “filter”.

Now, while you CAN add content to a traditional website the old-fashioned way, chances are most musicians aren’t entirely web savvy enough to do it themselves. And, after you start adding a LOT of content, trying to mange all of it by constantly adding new links becomes tedious and inefficient.

If you REALLY want to get serious about using your website to interact with your audience, then you need to get with the times and build a dynamic website using s Content Management System, or CMS.

A few years back you would have had to pay an arm and a leg to get one custom built; luckily today (and thanks to the open-source movement), you can download FREE software to get you up and running with a state-of-the-art CMS in literally a few minutes.

Wordpress is an awesome piece of software that, once you learn how to use, will completely change how you view publishing content on the web. It’s easy to install, customize, and has a back-end where you can easily add new blog content using a visual-rich text editor that allows you the freedom to add content right from your browser. You don’t need to know code in order to get it up and running (but hopefully as you get comfortable using it you’ll teach yourself how to work around the code for further customization.

Here is a screenshot of what a basic post/page layout looks like in the Wordpress dashboard to give you an idea on how it works:

What’s really cool about Wordpress (other then being free and easy to install) is the large community of developers that support the software and help make it more powerful. You see, Wordpress is open-source – which mean anyone can take the code and add whatever they want to it. This large community of developers creates “plugins” which takes the deafault Wordpress software and adds extra functionality to it.

So while by default Wordpress is primarily a blogging/publishing platform, it’s capabilities are endless with the thousands of (mostly) free plugins out there. Want to optimize Wordpress for SEO? Need to add social media buttons to your posts? How about a contact form? There is an endless supply of plugins that make your site 10x as powerful.

So what about design? By defauly Wordpress has a simple (but boring) design. Luckily you can easily create a CSS driven “theme” that can alter your Wordpress install’s design – because, as with the plugin community, their is a large Wordpress design community that creates professional themes that are also available for, you guessed it, 0 dollars.

So lose that flash site and start building interesting and interactive content that engages people to want ti become a fan; you have no excuse to learn how to install and customize Wordpress and start building relevant web presence to promote your band.

Fiona McLaren is a Label Liaison with Last.FM and based in London

Promoting your music online these days is meant to be easy - but due to the sheer number of sites out there it might not always seem that way. This is a brief guide to why Last.fm should be one of the main sites you use to promote yourself, and how to get the most out of it with minimal effort.

The Last.fm music database

First off, you might already have a page on Last.fm without realising. Huh?

This is how it works. Last.fm is built on the data generated by our community of music fans (21 million of them!) ‘scrobbling’ their music collections. ‘Scrobbling’ means that when a Last.fm user listens to an MP3 on their PC or iPod, the title of the track and artist name is entered into our database – and, if a page for that track and artist has yet to be created, we automatically create one. In this way we’re building a massive, ever-growing database of information about all the music ever made.

So, if you have any music out there already, chances are one of your fans is a Last.fm user who’s scrobbled your music to our database – so you might already have a page on the site. (If not, you can always create one yourself.)

But don’t panic: even if a page already exists, this doesn’t mean we have your music actually on the site. We’ll only have this if you’ve given it to us or we have a deal with your label. So the first thing you need to do is register and upload your music: http://www.last.fm/uploadmusic.

What makes Last.fm different?

The important thing to note about Last.fm (and what makes us different to other services) is that we start promoting your band for you from day one. As outlined above, as soon as one of our users listens to your music it is ‘scrobbled’ to Last.fm. From this point on, we’ll start recording the number of times Last.fm users listen to the track, and more importantly, start actively recommending it to other users with similar music tastes to the people already listening to you.

We know you’re busy, so we also get our users to help out on a lot of stuff: they can upload band photos, write biographies and describe your music using tags. All these things are essential in maintaining an active community, based around music discovery and sharing tastes. What it means for you is that once you have a page on Last.fm, it can be kept up to date thanks to our users.

The Artist Royalty Programme

What’s more, by uploading your music you’re not only helping people discover it, but you can also get paid every time anyone listens to it on Last.fm as part of our Artist Royalty Programme. Enrolling in this scheme allows you to earn money each time your track is played by someone using our On Demand service, or if it is streamed on one of our radio services.

What next?

If you want to go all out and make sure that you get the most out of Last.fm, then here are my top tips for promoting your music on Last.fm.

1. Make your music available for free download

Assuming you have already registered for our Artist Royalty Programme then your songs will automatically be available as free on demand streams for our users. However by making one or two songs available as free downloads your artist will instantly become more visible on Last.fm as we promote free content more vigorously than anything else.

2. Upload Videos

Just as we promote free content, we also push videos straight to users who might be interested in them via their recommendation dashboard. You can upload as many videos as you like and whilst promotional videos are the obvious first port of call you can also upload live performances or anything else you have kicking about, which leads me onto...

3. Create special content

If you want to raise your profile on Last.fm by leveraging your existing fanbase, a great way to do this is to upload special content to Last.fm. This could be in the form of a video tour diary, studio diary or interview, or it could be a preview of your new album interspersed with you chatting about the tracks. Not only will this be promoted automatically on Last.fm, adding interest for existing users, but you can also promote the content via your own mailing lists or MySpace page using our range of embeddable widgets.

4. Add upcoming events

Last.fm has an extensive events system that recommends events users might enjoy, as well as allowing them to invite their friends and see what other people are attending. Adding your artist’s upcoming events is a great way to keep people informed and interested. Plus, if you’ve followed the above steps, hopefully you now have a few of our users who are curious to check your band out!

5. Get involved

Last.fm is a community-based site and so conversation is important. Start using your own personal account, and join some groups. As you start to figure out the landscape you’ll be able to work out when it’s appropriate to mention you’re in a band. If people already trust you, they might be more inclined to listen when you mention an upcoming release or gig. You can also communicate with existing fans through Last.fm via things such as journals, so jump in and have a play!

6. Get an extra boost

If you’ve got an album coming out or a tour to promote, and thus some money to be spent, Last.fm also offers highly targeted advertising. We know what our users like which means that you can make your budget stretch further by only reaching those people you know will be, or should be, interested in your music.

 

The goal of the Indie Artist X Project is to develop a basic, actionable music marketing plan designed around simple strategy, prioritization of tactics, easy to use tools, and a reasonable budget that can be implemented by any artist who has the inclination to follow it. About.com Music Careers, Artists House Music, Hypebot, KnowTheMusicBiz.com, MusicianWages.com and Revolution Number 3 have banded together to create this community based music marketing plan.  We will be working with one anonymous artist to design and implement this music marketing plan then track and report the actual results over a four month period. To keep up with the latest news on the IAXP follow the project on Twitter and Facebook.

Below are the Indie Artist X Project statistics for the month of July. Since July is the first month of the project we plan to use these numbers as our baseline. Now the goal is to see if we can implement marketing strategy and tactics that will move all these metrics in a positive direction through the remainder of the project and beyond.

July Stats:

Band Metrics Score:            183 / Bronze

Website Unique Visitors:    355* (10 days only)

Website Total Visitors:        628* (10 days only)

Website Sales – CD’s:        Waiting on Report

Website Sales – MP3’s:      Waiting on Report

Website Sales – Merch:      Waiting on Report

Fan List:                              739

Live Show Attendance:      1120

Live Show Net Sales:          $1650.00

Live Show CD Sales:          $510.00

Live Show Merch Sales:     $460.00

Distribution Sales:               Waiting on Report

Licensing Royalties:             $0.00

BMI Royalties:                      $0.00

Soundexchange Royalties:  $0.00

MySpace Royalties:             $0.00

 

Some notes about July’s IXAP reporting:

• Band Metrics is a relatively new service so it’s not yet entirely clear how to interpret the score of 183. It’s assumed that if the IAXP marketing efforts are successful that the Band Metrics score will increase accordingly.

 

• Indie Artist X launched a new website on July 21^st so we only had 10 days of website traffic data to report during July. The indie label that released IAX’s two previous records hosted and managed the original website and didn’t provide site traffic details to the artist.

 

• The Artist’s indie label also handled direct e-commerce transactions and fulfillment from the artist website and only provided semi-annual reporting so we don’t have any data to report for website sales during July. The label is winding up their operations and has agreed to let IAX handle direct website sales and fulfillment moving forward. Since IAX is now using the Audiolife for ecommerce sales and fulfillment on their website we will have monthly sales figures to report in the upcoming months.

 

• Distribution for the indie label is handled through InGrooves. Again, since the label only provides semi-annual reporting we don’t have distribution sales for report for July. The label has agreed to allow Indie Artist X to work directly with the distributor moving forward so we expect to have more frequent and better distribution sales reporting available in the months ahead.

 

Where are the streaming and online radio royalties?

Many indie artists have long complained about not receiving PRO royalties for terrestrial radio airplay. The census taking methodology the Performance Royalty Organizations (ASCAP, BMI and SEASAC in the US) have traditionally used to track terrestrial radio airplay falls well short of capturing actual plays for individual songs.  In defense of the PRO’s, trying to track actual terrestrial radio airplay for every individual song from every single radio station is no easy task since up until the last few years terrestrial radio stations traditionally used manual, hand written logs to track what songs were played. Given that compiling aggregate terrestrial radio airplay data from hand written logs is all but impossible the census methodology did seem somewhat reasonable, even if it was bound to exclude plays and ultimately royalties for many indie artists.

I am a big fan of the opportunity Internet radio provides for indie artists. However, after reviewing the Indie Artist X statistics from July it’s hard to comprehend why there are simply no royalties from BMI or Soundexchange at all. A quick check of IAX’s profile on Last.fm shows the artist is approaching 4000 plays. I personally hear Indie Artist X’s music daily on my Pandora station. Despite clearly receiving Internet radio airplay, being registered with BMI and Soundexchange and having their most recent record posted on multiple Internet radio stations for the last two years, Indie Artist X has never been paid any royalties for Internet radio airplay or on-demand streaming. Yes, IAX did write the songs and owns the copyright to all their music.

So where are the Internet radio and streaming royalties for Indie Artist X?

Is the problem that Last.fm, Pandora, Imeem, etc. are simply not reporting all their plays to BMI and Soundexchange? Are BMI and Soundexchange collecting royalties from the Internet radio stations but not paying royalties to Indie Artist X? Are the royalty organizations applying the same dated and flawed terrestrial radio census methodology to calculate Internet radio royalties even though the play data for each song is captured electronically and stored in databases by the providers?

These are all troubling questions. Admittedly, I don’t know where the breakdown in this process is occurring.  I’m no copyright attorney or topic expert but I’m operating under the assumption that the copyright law and court rulings that have set current royalty rates are supposed to apply to all artists receiving Internet radio airplay, not just those in the Billboard Top 200.

All of the above mentioned organizations and companies owe their very existence to the songwriters and musicians that create music.  It’s time they figure out how to calculate and pay royalties on a per play basis for all artists. Even a few thousands Internet radio plays deserve compensation.

Despite the very public debate and the tremendous amounts of time and money spent lobbying Congress and the Copyright Royalty Board over Internet radio royalties it appears the Internet radio providers and royalty collection organizations have left Indie Artist X out of the equation.

Noah Dinkin is a co-founder of FanBridge , the world’s most popular email and mobile fanlist management platforms.  The service is free for most bands and just $7 and up for artists with huge fan databases.  Feel free to leave comments or advice of your own below and check back often in weeks to come for more tips on this important topic.

 

#1. Own YOUR List!
I can’t say this enough to musicians. Having MySpace or Facebook friends is not a real fan list. Same with Twitter. They are all great services and each has a different purpose, but how much of the actual real info do you have of your ‘fans/friends/followers’ on those places? Can you easily view a list of everyone’s real name, email address, location, phone number, etc? The answer is no, yet many musicians forget this because the service is the hot internet site of the moment and everyone says “oh, you need to be on [insert site here].”

You should have a presence on these social networks (more on that in a later post), but you need to use these services to feed people to YOUR fan list. Fan Relationship Management services like FanBridge give clients html code that let them put a signup form on their MySpace, Facebook, website, etc, so their fans can sign up direct to the band’s own list.

Once you have built your own list, you can do amazing things with it that you couldn’t do otherwise…things like:

• Targeting messages by zip code and radius (so you don’t need to blast your whole list)
• Scheduling messages to be sent at a certain time
• Grouping fans based on custom criteria (street team, bloggers, groupies, etc)
• Tracking your messages to see who opens, clicks, and much more
• and a ton of other cool features that save you time and build your career.

#2. Communicate Regularly
Most musicians know they should regularly communicate with their fans, yet they are often at a loss for things to say. I’m here to tell you that you shouldn’t be stuck on what to say, but rather make sure you talk to your fans on a regular basis!

Why do fans signup for your list? To hear from you!

Don’t be boring and only tell them about this show, that show, and your new album. Tell them about YOU. They want to be fans of your music AND you as a person. Talk about great movies you’ve seen recently. Talk about other artist’s albums you’ve recently listened to. Come up with a “special” city of the week/month and explain why.

When we look at the fan list size of artists who communicate regularly and artists who don’t, it becomes very clear. The artists who talk to their fans regularly (whether it is once every two weeks or once a month) have lists that are constantly growing and better interaction (opens/clicks). Artists who send an email every few months because they have “nothing to talk about” are ones whose list sizes either stay flat or actually decrease.

Make sure to use a service, like FanBridge , that includes a “Forward to a Friend” link in the footer of every campaign.  This lets fans easily pass your message on to their fans and services like ours will allow you to track who’s doing it.  It’s a best practice to take this info and reward those people that are spreading the word about you. They’re likely your most avid fans, and rewarding them will incentivize them to continue to promote you and your music among their own groups of friends.

#3. Include Links to Places You Want Fans to Go
This one seems obvious, but you’d be surprised at how many bands do not include a link to their website in each message. Not only should you be including a link to your website, but you should have a link to your MySpace/Facebook/Twitter/etc profile, your merch store, a place where they can download your music, your tourdates, and anything else that’s important. You’ll be surprised how much more traffic you get when you start including links.

A service like ours will make it as easily as possible for clients to include links in their campaigns. For example, by checking one box, you can automatically include links to buy your music. We also track every link you put in a campaign, so you can see EXACTLY who clicked on which link in your message, and when they clicked. This is very valuable info, and will help you target future campaigns to specific people based on their past actions.

#4. Go Professional
Don’t try and do it yourself using outlook/apple mail/gmail/msn/hotmail/yahoo/aol/entourage/custom server scripts. Unless your core skills are computer programming, email/mobile deliverability, and related things, you are probably better off leaving the fan list management to a professional service and focusing on what you do best: making and playing music. There are a few providers out there (some suck, some are great), and obviously we’re partial to FanBridge for a band’s fan relationship management needs.  You want something that’s simple, intuitive, and will help you to easily and efficiently maximize that relationship between your fans and your music.  And you don’t need to pay an arm and leg these days to get that.

 

Loren Weisman is an accomplished music producer and drummer based in Seattle, Washington. Having worked on over three hundred albums, Loren has also worked on numerous television, film, video game and radio productions, from New York to Los Angeles, Boston to Seattle. Loren is the founder of Brain Grenade Entertainment LLC , and the author of the Freedom Solutions Recording Plan. Loren has also written The Artist's Guide to Success in the Music Business, a book to help independent musicians achieve self sufficient and sustainable success coming in early 2010.

 

Seriously. It's time for some artists to get a clue about social networking sites, specifically MySpace and play counts, page views and friends. It has gone from ridiculous to completely freaking insane.

For those of you who might not be aware, there are a number of artists out there that actually spend money on “marketing firms,” as they have been calling themselves, to get more Myspace hits, friends and plays. This is foolish. This does nothing positive for these artists' careers. 

In fact, it hurts them. Now while a few people might think they look cool because they have hundreds of thousands of friends, the industry as a whole is recognizing it for what it is: an artist who is wasting time trying to present a false fan base and a presence that truly does not exist.

Yes, at one time lots of hits, friends and play counts on MySpace had a small level of significance. These factors stood as something that people paid attention to some four or more years back when MySpace was new and these “add or play bots” did not exist. As MySpace was in the forefront and more artists were joining, there was a large and wide differentiation of who was being looked at and who was not.

These were contributing factors to some artists even receiving deals, but only contributing factors. NO ONE--repeating here--NO ONE has gotten a record deal or contract based solely on the amount of friends and plays they have on MySpace. Yes, the stories are out there, but at most it was only one small factor that added to a number of other factors and justifications that got the artist a deal.

Getting a deal just based on Myspace stats sounds much cooler though, doesn’t it?  Just not true though. Think about it: who with the money, the means, the understanding of the industry and the resources would sign an artist off of just those facts alone? NO ONE.

You want friends? Plays? Hits? Then earn them. Personally add a few people a day to your Myspace, Facebook, Bebo, etc.  Add a message and market yourself by reaching out to people and groups on these sites. Take the right and professional path to truly get people to hear you.

Sometimes, and those times are few and far between, these bots and programs can cause a few real people to find out about you and create new honest friends and download sales.  Most of the time, however, it is not like that. Instead of real fans, bots and programs play your songs, ping your site and push to spam up your friend count. Some of these spam additions are people that will just approve and never even check you out. That makes it a worthless contact and nothing that is helping you at all.

Now, let's really do the math.

Yesterday, I was on a Myspace site of a really shady artist I came across and had never heard of before.  I found this artist while searching a genre and a few keywords. This artist had 765,781 page views, even though the pages was very weak and the music weaker. Yet every song had over 100,000 plays. RED FLAG ONE! All the songs had over one hundred thousand plays? So over one hundred thousand people decided to listen to every single song on their page?

BULLSHIT.

Let's add to the equation that they have almost six thousand friends. But if every person checking out this artist also listened to every single song and added the artist as a friend, wouldn't the artist have a lot more friends? For the 765,781 visits that of course must have been from all different people, only on person, that’s right, Houston, one person in every 127 decided to add this artist as a friend?

Umm, uhh, let's see here...and NO.

And then it gets even worse!  The industry is completely aware of these bots and programs to add friends. The people you want to listen to you often do not have that much time. So, when they immediately see the traits of someone faking popularity, instead of impressing, you are immediately discrediting yourself. Think about this when writing your press kits as well. Do not highlight friend counts, page visits or song plays. Highlight the things that matter, like show attendance and  sales. Highlight your logo, your professionalism, your music and how you are ready to go to the next level based on your efforts and achievements, not your contrived appearance.

Also… Stop using quotes from Facebook, MySpace and other online sites where any one can review. It may good a good review but at the same time, you could have written it.

It takes more time to professionally and honestly achieve your goals.  It is more challenging, but it is worth it to appear strong and solid in front of your fans and industry professionals alike.  You will shine brighter than most others.

Conclusion

Spend the cash on advertising on MySpace or Facebook. Spend the money with the pay-per-click advertisements or the small localized marketing ads. They are worlds more effective. Keep track of your actual sales instead of hits in order to show potential labels, managers, and talent buyers your viability and profitability.

Take the steps to appear as professional as possible to leave a lasting impression on those you are really trying to impact. It will help you move forward productively and effectively, while also bringing you more exposure, creating a better buzz and, hopefully, deriving profit.

You are an intelligent person.  Act like it. Spend your money on things that will actually help your career and not things that give the appearance that your career is more than it really is. 

 

© 2009 Loren Weisman

www.braingrenademusic.com

Watch out for Loren Weisman’s book “The Artist's Guide to Success in the Music Business” coming soon.

 

I recently participated in a panel discussion on online music marketing with Jed Carlson of ReverbNation, Lindsey Kronmiller of Merge Records, Mike Robinson of the Annuals / Terpsikhore Records and moderated by Heather McDonald of About.com’s Music Careers. The panel was hosted by Secondhand Freespace at The Local 506 in Chapel Hill, NC. Below is a recap of some of the topics we covered and my take on the top priorities for successful music marketing.

1. Write Great Songs

If you are trying to attract the attention of music fans it all starts with great songs. It’s understood that this is much easier said than done but it is a critical starting point. Great songs with mediocre / poor marketing will ultimately trump mediocre / poor songs with great marketing when it comes to attracting and keeping the attention of music fans over the long-term. Artists should make sure they have a reasonable balance between the amount of time and effort they spend on social networks, designing merch, creating videos, email campaigns, etc. and the time and effort they spend perfecting their craft.

2. Get a Website

If you are serious about a career as a musician you should own a url that includes your name (or bands name) and have your own website. If you don’t already have a website check out Bandcamp and Bandzoogle, they both provide full featured and inexpensive website solutions specifically for musicians. The central point for all marketing activities should be the artist’s website. Marketing efforts that drive fans to MySpace, YouTube or iTunes help foster relationships between fans and MySpace, YouTube and iTunes, instead of directly with the artist.

3. Direct Marketing

I firmly believe an artist’s success in achieving a sustainable career in music is tied directly to their ability to build and nurture an ongoing, direct relationship with their fans. Both FanBridge and ReverbNation offer an impressive set of direct marketing tools that can help artists communicate directly with fans and drive traffic to their website and live shows. Both companies help gather and provide important information that can be used to better understand their preferences and demographics.  To learn more about effective email marketing to fans check out this blog on Email 101 for Artists.

4. Direct Commerce

Buying directly from an artist helps strengthen the direct to fan relationship. Direct commerce also provides better margins for an artist than selling through a third party like iTunes or Amazon. Selling direct also provides the artist with more flexibility and creativity when it comes to bundling sales of music with t-shirts, tickets or unreleased tracks. Make sure fans can easily purchase music, merchandise, tickets and anything else you sell directly from you / your website. Both Audiolife and Nimbit offer direct commerce solutions for musicians that can be easily added to any website, MySpace or Facebook page.

5. Metadata

Metadata is all the collective information associated with a particular track, release or band, summarized and available in a digital format. Metadata typically includes track titles, track lengths, ISRC codes, album art, genre, band bio’s and publishing information. Accurate metadata is of significant importance since it is the information fans need to identify a particular artist or song in the very crowded digital music world. Digital retailers, MP3 players, computer based media players, online & satellite radio and mobile phones all use metadata to provide their users with information about the songs and artists that are playing. Not having the titles of your MP3 tracks or CD show up when it’s being loaded into a media player will appear amateurish at best and at worst prevent your songs from ever being played by that fan again simply due to the hassle factor of trying to locate an another unlabeled track in a large digital music collection. Be sure to register the metadata information with the three primary companies that manage metadata databases for the industry: All Music Guide, Gracenote and Muze.  All three companies have different procedures for accepting metadata from directly from artists. Check out each of their websites for details.

6. Digital Distribution

Even though artists should encourage fans to buy music directly from their website it’s still very important for artists to have their music available for sale at the leading online music retailers (Amazon, eMusic, iTunes & Rhapsody at a minimum). The leading online music retailers have large user bases and fairly good recommendation tools for music fans to discover artists similar to the ones they already enjoy.  Retailers typically work exclusively through distributors and don’t accept music directly from artists. There are many very good, inexpensive options now available to artists for digital distribution including CD Baby, ReverbNation and TuneCore.

7. Live Shows

Playing live shows is one of the most important aspects of an artist’s career since it provides a great opportunity to directly connect with fans, sell music and merchandise, add fan names to the email list and (hopefully) earn money from ticket sales and / or the venue’s door receipts. Electronic press kits have emerged as a very effective and low cost way for artists to submit their music, bios, photos and videos to promoters or music buyers at the venues they would like to play. There are several companies now providing electronic press kits for artists including OurStage, ReverbNation and Sonicbids.

8. Internet Radio

Internet radio is continues to grow at a phenomenal rate. According to a recent Arbitron study, the weekly online radio audience in the US has grown by one-third in the past year alone. Internet radio now provides independent artists with unprecedented access to a large and growing audience and promotional opportunities that had only been available to label backed artists. Many of the leading Internet radio stations such as AOL, Imeem, Last.fm, Pandora and Yahoo accept submissions* directly from artists so there is no need to incur the cost of hiring a radio promotions person or firm to work a new release to Internet radio stations.

Another benefit of Internet radio is that artists actually earn royalties. Soundexchange collects royalties from internet, cable and satellite radio stations then pays those royalties directly to the performing artist (and copyright holder) for streamed tracks. Make sure you are registered with Soundexchange!

9. Awareness

It’s important to have a presence in the primary places where music fans discover new music. The big social networks, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, are good places to start. It can seem like there are endless options available to artists for promoting music online. What’s the best way to prioritize them? Before signing up for the latest / greatest site for promoting music to fans be sure to check out their site traffic through Compete or Alexa. The data isn’t perfect but it will give you a general idea of whether or not they have enough fan traffic to justify the time required to regularly maintain another presence on their site.

Once you have an online presence established it’s very important to keep the content, especially tour dates, regularly updated. Managing and updating each of these sites is a painful, time consuming hassle. ArtistData is a free service that solves this challenge by automatically updating “artist websites, social network profiles, concert databases, Twitter, official news feeds, iCal, local press, fan newsletters, and even tour books” when artists upload tour dates to the ArtistData site.

10. Hire a Fifth Beatle

Finally, don’t try to do all this online music marketing by yourself. Give serious consideration to Pandora radio Founder Tim Westergren’s Fifth Beatle for The Digtal Age suggestion and you just might have time left over to write some great songs!

*Internet Radio Submissions Info

AOL Radio:

Mail Submissions To
AOL Radio
Pete Schiecke
770 Broadway
4th Floor
New York, NY 10003

Immem:

Artists can build their own profile page and directly upload music

Last.FM:

Artists can build their own profile page and directly upload music

Pandora:

Mail Submissions To
Music Genome Project Submissions
360 22nd St. Suite 440
Oakland, CA, 94612

Yahoo / LAUNCHcast:

Mail Submissions To
CBS Radio
Seth Neiman
1515 Broadway, 46th Floor
New York, NY 10036

Jed Carlson is Co-Founder and COO of ReverbNation.com, the leading marketing services provider for Artists, Labels, Managers, and Venues with over 335,000 registered Artists since inception in 2006.  To date, ReverbNation has sent out emails to over 65,000,000 unique fans on behalf of their Artists, Labels, Managers and Venues, sending emails at a current rate of over 10,000,000 per month.

Email is an essential part of the fan relationship equation for artists, labels, and managers.  While it is difficult to say the exact value of collecting any individual email address for musicians, marketers from other industries peg the generic value of getting an email at about $1 each.   But it’s all about what you do with it once you are given the great responsibility of owning it.  We have seen Artists generate as much as $10 per email address on their list, when used properly.

Email has some interesting attributes going for it, like:

1. Ease of collection. All you need is a clipboard at your show and a 'fan collector' (email signup form) on  your websites.
2. Anonymity. Fans are comfortable giving an email address b/c they can remain essentially 'anonymous'.
3. A-synchronous communication.  It isn't done in real-time like text messages.  Most fans find this way more acceptable.
4. Scheduled output. With most email programs you can set the time of when you want the message to 'go out'.  This is important if you have limited time from the road to message the fans about something that is timely for them - like a show you will be playing in their area that weekend.
5. Powerful links. Artists can embed links to exclusive content, music players, music purchases, ticket sites, social nets, etc.
6. Trackability. Most email services provide tracking on how many people opened the emails, how many people clicked, etc.  This data can be a powerful learning tool for the Artist to figure out what 'works' and what doesn't.
7. Repetition. Most people don't unsubscribe from the list once they are on it.  As a result, you have a long time to prove your value to them.

But the key to using email resides squarely in how it is used, not in the attributes inherent to it.  We encourage Artists to think about their mailing list as if it were full of email addresses from their relatives.  Simply put, Artists should treat their fans the same way they would treat their sister or grandma.  Doing so will lead to the highest open rates, highest response rates, long-term retention of fans, and growth of their brand.

Specifically, here are some 'best practice' tenants to consider when it comes to email marketing to a fan base:

Always...

1. Always respect a person's desire to unsubscribe to your list. IMMEDIATELY UNSUBSCRIBE THEM IF YOUR EMAIL SERVICE DOESN'T DO IT FOR YOU.
2. Always give before you get.  Give the fans something special before you ask them to do something like vote for you in a contest.
3. Always talk to them without swearing.  It may be part of your 'persona' as a band, but some people don't like that language.  The Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Yahoo mail, hotmail, AOL, etc don't like it either, and your message will go directly to the junk box.  You wouldn't talk to your grandma that way, would you?
4. Always avoid 'scam' words in the subject line.  Words like 'Free' and 'Help' will land your message in the junk box 100% of the time. 
5. Always message them no more than 4 times per month.  Ideally it would be less than 3 times.  Fans want to be kept up to date, but they don't want to feel like they are your only fan.  Messaging them all the time gives the impression that you don't have anything more important to do.
6. Always target them with messages that are RELEVANT to them.  If you have a show in Seattle, don't message your fans in Miami.  Keep your powder dry for a message to them later about something else.
7. Always give them the basics about the information you are conveying.  Reporters call this the 'who, what, why, when, how' model.  If you have a show coming up, do your fans (and yourself) the service of providing dates, times, locations, ticket links, and lineup of the show.  Over 75% of Artists miss this essential piece when they email.  If you want someone to respond and come to your show, for goodness sake, go so far as to give them driving directions if you can.  Each ticket sold is money in your pocket.
8. Always link them to some place to find out more info about the band.  This could be ReverbNation or MySpace or a homepage or blog.  But ALWAYS give them a way to find out more.

Never...

1. Never add emails from people that haven't given explicit permission to you to be placed on your list.  It’s natural to add the editor from Pitchfork or New York Times to your list in hopes of getting them to notice your email.  RESIST THIS URGE!  This will ultimately count against you in terms of deliverability and credibility with your fans and those sources.  Email is about permission, not spamming.  Most email service providers (including ReverbNation) will turn your service off if you are adding people that haven't opt-ed into your list.  BEWARE.  Instead, write those editors from your personal email, asking them to join your mailing list if they so choose.  If you get them to agree, you are in good shape.
2. Never buy email lists or share lists with other bands or labels.  This is tantamount to spamming people that haven't opt-ed into your list and it will be met with resistance from the fans as well as your service provider.
3. Never ask Fans to take an action to help you out if you haven't first given them something of value.  Reserve some songs for use as 'chips' to play with your email list.  Give them a link to some exclusive content from time to time, BEFORE you ask them to go to that radio station website and vote for you to get on the air.  Don't underestimate the power of reciprocity with fans.  Reciprocity means giving before you get.   Give away.  They will remember.
4. Never respond to the responses to your emails later than 3 days after they are sent.  Fans are time sensitive machines.  Keep good track of when responses come in and handle them immediately.   You will be rewarded with loyal fans.
5. Never take aggressive action against a fan that has had any problem with your message.  Simply unsubscribe them.  It doesn't pay to fight with your customers, Period.

Advanced Strategies

Most Artists have a MySpace page, a Facebook page, and a homepage/blog.  That's good.  But the key to approaching the internet as a whole is finding a way to 'own' the fans from all of these different networks, rather than 'renting' them under the terms and conditions of each particular site.   Your email list is the best possible 'home' for all of these fans.  It gives the Artist the most flexibility to communicate, make offers, and conduct their business, regardless of which network the fans come from.  As a result, we promote a philosophy of looking at each of these 'networks' as a lead generation source, as opposed to the home base for conducting their marketing.  Why turn your marketing and promotion over to the whims of MySpace?  Labels, venues, and sponsors will take much more stock in a band that has a robust email list that they 'own' over Artists that just have a ton of 'Friends' on social nets.

In order to break from the concept of 'renting' fans, Artists need to do a few simple things:

1. Add 'fan collectors' (join our mailing list) functions to all of their sites that lead back to their main list.
2. Provide an incentive for joining the mailing list, such as access to exclusive content like a song they can't get anywhere else.  ReverbNation provides exactly this feature when an Artist uploads a song.  They can designate it as a 'fan exclusive' and we create a 'download' widget that they can add to their MySpace page. This widget will require them to join the mailing list for the Artist in exchange for receiving the content.  Artists post this to their MySpace page, blog, etc. by simply providing their login to each site and we post it there for them.  Artists who use this tool grow their mailing list 600% faster than those who do not use this method.
3. Email your fans regularly with relevant info, and not too often.  Fans who receive 'high quality' emails from Artists tend to stay on the list over 95% of the time. 

If Artists follow this method, in addition to the best practices outlined above, they will see their emails lists grow substantially, and they will have real control over their future.

Producer and musician George Howard founded his first independent label, Slow River Records, in 1993. In 1995, Slow River entered into a co-venture with Rykodisc, one of the world's largest independent labels. In 1999, he became president of Rykodisc. Today George teaches in the College of Business at Loyola University, New Orleans, and online for Berklee Media and blogs at 9GiantSteps.com.

 

This is a thought in progress, but it’s coming together. At the very least, as with blogtailing , I think I’ve coined a phrase. Here goes.

Marketing today is a straddle between the online world and the offline world. Only those who do the straddle right will survive. Err too far online, you fail. Too fair offline, you fail. What I think justifies this post’s existence is that no one (that I’m aware of) is really (yet) talking about the straddle.

Doesn’t mean people aren’t doing it.

For instance, I’ve blogged frequently about how artists like REM are leveraging the tech by using wonderfully articulated social media marketing strategies to allow their constituents to engage in participatory marketing. However, I didn’t emphasize enough in these posts that it was the straddle that really allows REM to leverage the tech. That is, it’s their interplay between their offline world (touring) and their online world that allows them to be successful.

Similarly, another person I’ve written about frequently who is doing the straddle well is Wine Library TV’s Gary Vaynerchuk. Certainly his use of tech is about as good as it gets, but what makes it work is his commitment to offline activities (wine tastings, appearances, etc.). It is wine that he’s talking about, for goodness sakes; you sort of have to have an offline presence.

Another example: I believe that the reason Facebook is just crushing MySpace (random sample of the hundred or so students I teach: Q. How many use Myspace? A: None; Q. How many use Facebook? A: All) is because Facebook helps them do the straddle (sounds like a dance); while MySpace is a closed online only experience.

Think about it: Facebook works because it allows you to enhance and augment your offline experiences. You post photos of things you do with your friends; you write on each others’ walls regarding offline experiences.

MySpace is more of (and I use this word in the loosest possible manner) a portfolio (or, what I really believe it’s become, for bands at least: a demo). MySpace has nothing to do with your offline life; it’s only related to your online life, and, thus, falls short.

Musicians and others too often feel that the new tech allows them to forgo what is really important: building real connections via playing live. I.e. they emphasize the online and forget about the offline. It makes sense. These online tools are so easy, and they give the illusion of progress and (sometimes) accomplishment. However, this indeed is illusory. Without leveraging whatever you, perhaps, built online in order to grow your offline presence (and vice versa), you will fail.

This holds true across the board. Businesses, authors…whomever…must do the straddle. If you’re a real estate agent, why would you not be tweeting up a storm, Facebook-ing up a storm, blogging up a storm, so that when you have an open-house for one of your listings you can connect with your online constituency in an offline manner. If you’re a restaurant who isn’t tweeting out your specials (and I don’t know ONE restaurant who is), and even perhaps creating events/menus for your online peeps so that you can then have the offline experience with them, it seems to me you’re missing something.

I want more than anything to have some 9GS offline experiences with those who read the blog/follow my tweets . Sadly, so far the only thing I can currently come up with is to tweet out to those who follow me to come over to the house and shoot pool and drink tequila with me. This would, of course, result in me being fired and divorced, so I will keep thinking.

The rest of you, I look forward to your straddles.