Monday, June 30, 2008

Online promotion: Branding your music and image to engage fans

Creating an attractive brand for your music is one of the most important marketing elements to help gain customers. A bland brand means no sales, and the wrong brand can be a disaster.


With a great brand that fits your music image perfectly, your music image can soar.


But what is a good brand? Is it a nice website? Is it the level of quality in your music? Is it just a catchy name?


It’s all that and more. It’s everything from the logo on your website (you do have a website, right?) to the design of your CD to the values your music conveys. Brand is the perceived value and quality of you as an entertainer.


When you’ve branded well, you’ve created a remarkable and distinct image. It’s memorable. It’s easy to recognize. People know exactly what they get if they're into you – before they even decide they are.


Your brand should capture:



  • The emotion people feel when they think of your music

  • What they achieve from being a fan of your music

  • The overall impression that your music projects

How to find the right brand for you


Capturing all of these impressions can seem daunting at first, but there are few tricks that make finding your brand a little easier. By answering some questions, you can gain direction towards a perfect fit:



  • What feeling do you want people to have when they think of your music?

  • Fill in the blank: A consumer thinking of your music should say, “Wow, these guys seem really….”

  • What type of personality do you have? (E.g. Fun, quiet, casual, dedicated, curious, whimsical, scientific, etc)

  • What values do you want your music to project?

The more you learn about what impressions you want to convey, what your business represents and who you are, the closer you come to building your brand.


A few examples...


Jessie produces and records her own electronic pop. She wants people to feel comfortable with her, not overwhelmed. She believes in helping other people and giving away lots of content so more fans can find out about her and enjoy her music. Jessie is a very friendly person, and she likes having fun. Her friends think she has lots of pizzaz too. Jessie wants to convey that high energy and fun-loving attitude to fans.


Jessie’s brand is: Energized, helpful, friendly, and fun.


Here’s another example:


Martha is an mature, experienced folk singer/songwriter. She likes intimate performances where she can connect people with the deep spiritual energy of her songs and playing. She’s a kind, warm, caring woman, and she’s always mothering people. She wants to provide meaningful an honest music, traditional, nostalgic and comforting and she loves for people to feel right at home at her gigs.


Martha’s brand is: Warm, comforting, welcoming and caring.


It’s all about emotion


Notice that much of building a brand has everything to do with emotion and very little to do with actual marketing. A good brand makes people feel something. It resonates with consumers on a deeper level beyond what they want to buy and the price they’re going to pay.


Think about some big-name business brands, like Apple, Toyota, or Campbell’s. When you think of one of the large brand-name corporations, what kind of feeling do you get? What do you think they stand for? What emotions do they convey? Every brand tries to represent a certain lifestyle or personality to resonate with targeted consumers.


And it works.


Once you’ve figured out your business identity and image, you can start creating marketing materials like a logo, a business card, and a website… All properly branded so you can achieve maximum success.


 


Kurb is an online promotion company specializing in digital music marketing and artist management.



Follow our blog at http://musicmarketingblog.info for cutting edge web promotion as we launch http://newmusicmarketing.com - the exclusive artist community putting artists in control of their online promotion and revenue management.  



Within New Zealand we also provide low cost and hassle free CD DVD duplication and printing as well as poster design print and placement in Auckland.



kurbpromo@gmail.com
















 

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Social Media and Your Music: Basics of Online Music Promotion part 4

Alright it’s time to get on with our “getting your head around the online promotion” series.


In the first three parts we looked at the basics and getting prepared. We talked about being ready to be patient and work steadily, we talked about getting your stuff ready, and we talked about the importance of words.


Part 1 is here:


http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/in-digital-we-trust-getting-your-head-around-the-internet-digital-music-marketing-and-online-promotion/


And part 2 is here


http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/are-you-ready-getting-your-head-around-the-internet-digital-music-marketing-and-online-promotion-part-2/


And part 3:


http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com/2008/06/19/getting-your-head-around-digital-music-promotion-part-3-not-so-much-“who’s-going-to-direct-our-video”-but-“who’s-going-to-write-our-blog”/



Today we’re really kicking this thing off.


So we've got all our digital cotent ready - it’s time to get to some uploadin and some profile makin’.


Now you know I ALWAYS say your website is most important but that’s going to need some proper attention in a whole other post coming up, because you must dedicate serious attention to your website as a place for doing business in the future, so you have to go about it sensibly.


But kicking off your social media promotions and building your network is easy and something you can and should get started with straight away.


Now there are many different types of social network sites so what I am identifying are all those sites where you can create an online profile for you or your music outside of your own website – on somebody else’s website.


The sites I’m talking about today – and yes I mean myspace, facebook, youtube, etc. are social sites where large numbers of people are coming everyday to interact with content and each other, so it makes sense that you should give yourself the best opportunity you can to make this new media phenomenon work for you!


In one way you can think of these websites as channels – entertainment channels that you can participate in, just like your website is your own little channel, but when I’m talking about using these sites for promotion I often suggest these sites as “doorways” which lead back to your website where you’re much better placed to create more valuable interactions based on the attention and connection you can create amongst your audience there.


So what you’re doing here by joining and participating in these social media sites is opening up these channels, opening up these doorways back to your website by giving people are little taste and then gently guiding them towards a positive outcome – at first that will just simply be listening to the song and hearing the story of the musicians behind it, but then you will advance to providing value to a point that you can get an email address or you can succeed in encouraging visitors to download a song so they are at least taking something away from the interaction they’ve had with you.


Okay so setting up your profiles should be pretty straightforward because you’ve got everything ready:


Your mp3, your jpg, your video, your bio, so y’all just go ahead and upload them!


Myspace – artist sign up in the top right corner of the music section


Facebook – register as an individual, or a persona, then create a “facebook page”.


Twitter – generating heat. Do as I say.


Now you see this is why I’m so excited about the artist community is because inside the community I can have a full and fully updated exhaustive list of all the social sites that are worth using and what to consider when doing so.


You see some sites are only worth doing – or particularly worth doing – if there’s a certain vibe on the site for the style of music you do.


But all the big main ones should be covered, and I will also have plenty resources going into what to consider at each stage of developing each profile in relation to what platform you’re using.


Here’s my latest list of all the ones you should sign up for even if its just to make sure you get dibs on your user name or personalised URL.


Video: Youtube


Social Networking: Myspace, Facebook, Bebo,


Microblogging/Micronetworking: Twitter


Social Music sites: Last.fm, Reverbnation, Soundclick.com, mp3.com


Social Bookmarking: Stumbleupon


Socially organised information: Wikipedia, Squidoo


Blogs: Wordpress, Blogger


So signing up for all these sites will probably take a night or two, what’s it supposed to do?


Well it’s like this. You know that you have a website or at least that you should. It will most likely take a lot of hard work to build your website up . . . let me be straight up with you – like a year or something!


So let me mention it now unless it's not obvious - make sure your profile links back to your site!


But jumping on a social network site is you going to where there are already people hanging out cruising round looking to check something out and they’re probably not going to come across your music otherwise unless you are where they are.


But it’s just like any party, and the social web 2.0 is one big party. If you just stand there, no ones going to talk to you.


So first it’s going to help if you look the part. You did upload all that stuff didn’t you? The songs, the bio, the video, the pictures? It doesn’t matter if your profile isn’t all fancy because you’re going to look like a half ass if you don’t have everything looking like you’ve at least made an effort.


I’m going to have to keep the intricacies of profile presentation and specific techniques that we would use when working with clients on social accounts under wraps but I will stress –


This is web 2.0. And a social network is just like any party or gig, you can’t just stand there, you’ve got to get involved, you’ve got to participate alongside those that you naturally affiliate with.


Facebook is a classic example because it's not as easy to engage as on myspace so you’re best just to jump into the groups, jump into the forums, find where your communities are gathering on these sites.


Are they gathering around the profile of a similar higher profile artist?


Get in there! But you don’t just walk up and say “I’m in a band!!! Check us out!!!”


Come on! At least try and be cool about it. You know how to be cool don’t you?


Don’t say “please check out our music.”


If you don’t know anything about profiting from interactions then you’ve got to realise that on social networks it’s not about you.


Honestly. You’ve been to the parties, you don’t want to be that guy going


“Yeah new album, new video, got a tour coming up, yeah working on (me), doing (me) it’s a really amazing time (for me, me, me)


Web 2.0 is about them. It’s about the user. Whether they want to participate in what you’ve got to offer is up to them.


And this is the whole thing, the whole chain you begin when you use social networks as a way to interact with new fans, in order to draw them in you’ve got to engage with them on their level. You’ve got to make it valuable for them – or why should they care?


A lot of bands give their music away free now, it’s a reality. Just it being free is not remarkable in itself.


But the social network is often still the beginning of the mission, to draw them in from first contact, to get them to buy in enough to want to visit the website, sign up for the email, download the free song – that is everything because that is the beginning of the relationship between an artist and a fan.


Notice how I described visiting your site as a “buy in”. That’s because in digital entertainment attention is now the new economy, the relationship is the sale.


We can talk about social networking until the cows come how and surely in the


http://newmusicmarketing.com forum we will.


But next in the series is your website and building the artist-fan relationship into revenue there so lets get on to that!


.


Kurb is an online promotion company specializing in digital music marketing and artist management.



Follow our blog at http://musicmarketingblog.info for cutting edge web promotion as we launch http://newmusicmarketing.com - the exclusive artist community putting artists in control of their online promotion and revenue management.



Within New Zealand we also provide low cost and hassle free CD DVD duplication and printing as well as poster design print and placement in Auckland.


A Marketing Campaign Plan for an Online Music Service Launch



Wow Matt I hear you’re getting ready to launch your new artist community.





That’s right. I’m launchin’ it good and proper!

I have to, my clients probably think I’ve bagged off with their cash and I’m hiding out in Zimbabwe til the heat dies down.

So you’re going to be doing a campaign, a launch campaign?

Sure. I’m pretty confident with my strategy so I’ll let you know how I ‘m going to be doing my launch campaign:

Firstly you got to remember the product I’ve created is strictly limited to 100 people so it’s kind of exclusive – y’know instead of just trying to sell heaps of little plastic discs you’ve got to think of new ways to bring value to people and what that’s worth.

With the new artist community I just wanted the value to be exceptional in addition to the fact it is still a scarce commodity and that’s the main marketing point – persuasive value.

That’s not to say I’m stupid enough to let the thing try and sell itself.

Wait. Consider this. What if you as a musician did what I’m doing and decided to charge $40 per month to complete access to your work?



Limiting it to 100 people would be silly wouldn’t it?



Maybe Charging $40 would be a bit steep?



I mean if you had 1000 people paying $10 p/month to download everything you have and continue to do, as well as getting to make chit chat with the illustrious artist . . . well I wouldn’t be complaining.




That’s only one way of making money from content!


Lets get back to my marketing plan:





Email: Emailing all the contacts I’ve built up and discussed online promotion with.

Yes it’s going to take a whole night to organise my email list but I’m pretty sure this will be a cracker just in itself. Contacting at least a couple of hundred people who I’ve discussed providing service for to tell them we have a new service available at $10 per week AND we’re bringing back the $100 p/month deal and it’s sweeter than ever.

Of course I know what I’m doing with this whole “creating value” thing so I’m just going to be inviting people to join for free at first.


So being that this is my main strategy you can see the value of having a large amount of email contacts who are identifiable as already having expressed a direct interest in my work and then respecting them enough to allow them to check it out at first without paying.




Blogging:





As I’ve already mentioned, expect plenty of posts like this, framing my new product.

If your product is good you should be able to talk about it and tell stories. Stories that engage, like this story I’m telling right now that sort of compares my online service launch to an online album launch campaign but its not an album is it because albums aren’t worth anything and no one wants them so you better figure out what it is that YOU’RE launching that people actually want to buy!



Myspace:



Yup we’ll give myspace a go. If there’s one audience still on myspace its other musicians. And I have a rule with myspace that I only do a campaign if I’m really promoting value.



Facebook, forums and online PR




Publicity is a dark art and I will be happy with some neat, short little posts around some of the relevant gather points online – a few facebook groups, forums, local music communities, that should do it.

I might consider an online press release or maybe I might save that for a second launch once I'm happy with the initial user testing.


I’m actually trying to keep it low key because I can see some people thinking I’m trying to act like a scammy guru selling my secrets or something when I’m just trying to develop a more effective system that addresses problems artists are having right now – cheaply - but I simply don’t have the capital to go . . . look! All done! $37 p/month, all your problems are solved!






Adwords

Adwords is . . a perfect system, as I’ve said, it’s the beginning of the future of advertising.


Often I have compared the power of digital promotion to the Death Star. Awesomely powerful, but only to be deployed in operations once every preparation has been made.


And a perfect system demands a perfect product. A perfect target.

It’s like this. Until we’ve learnt how to make 10 clicks into 1 sale, I don’t want you to pay $5 for 10 clicks. There’ll be plenty of time for pay per click, Google’s not going anywhere.




Video:



Gotta do a video. I’m a hypocrite if I cant just push record and tell people what I think I’m doing and I expect that’s something an artist should be able to do each week.








What I wont be doing:

poster campaign: There’s probably about a million committed music acts in the world.

Probably only about 50 walk around up town Auckland.

CD promo: I’d love to write a song for the launch and treat it like a faux single release. But I’ll be struggling just with a video.

Affiliate marketing: My goal is not to become some rich dude reaping in profits from my “system”, it’s actually because I believe I can create a system that puts the artist in control of their online promotion and revenue management, with all the support they need.

If I can make it work, or actually any way of making a new band famous that doesn’t involves a reality tv show I’m sure I’ll be fine for cash.

Mainstream media: Sure you gotta spend money to make money. But I'm not that stupid!





Kurb is an online promotion company specializing in digital music marketing and artist management.




Follow our blog at http://musicmarketingblog.info for cutting edge web promotion as we launch http://newmusicmarketing.com - the exclusive artist community putting artists in control of their online promotion and revenue management.

Within New Zealand we also provide low cost and hassle free
CD DVD duplication and printing as well as poster design print and placement in Auckland.




kurbpromo@gmail.com




lon tail, flat tail, free tail: free the music already!

The long tail is a term that describes the effect of a digital economy on the former impositions caused by actual physical retail stocks of products sucjh as books, CD's and DVD's that gave a lot of hope to the little guys in a new online marketplace.

But just recently there’s been more discussion – a Harvard Business Review article suggests the long tail won’t deliver a “music middle class” as described by hypebot:

http://hypebot.typepad.com/hypebot/2007/10/the-rise-of-the.html

from http://www.coolfer.com

Anderson's theory of niche-over-mass culture is based upon the belief that the mere availability of niche products spells doom for hits. Given the choice, he argues throughout the book, people will make different purchases. Not only are CD sales down, he wrote, but customers are "losing their taste for the blockbuster hits."
But consumers, Elberse has found, still opt for hits:

No matter how I slice and dice the customer base, customers give lower ratings to obscure titles. A balanced picture emerges of the impact of online channels on market demand: Hit products remain dominant, even among consumers who venture deep into the tail. Hit products are also liked better than obscure products. It is a myth that obscure books, films, and songs are treasured.

In the book, Anderson wrote that "we're seeing a shift from mass culture to massively parallel culture," or "millions of microcultures." But that doesn't appear to be the case. Mass culture is alive and well on the Internet. Consumers know the bad from the good. They know what's popular and they will gravitate towards the hits. Niches will continue to exist, and heavy users will continue to dabble in niches, but the level playing field of digital distribution isn't going to do away with mass culture.


from http://digitalaudioinsider.blogspot.com

Elberse touches on one of my pet themes -- that the ease of online distribution for virtually any piece of recorded music is resulting in increasingly fierce competition for the attention (and dollars) of listeners -- and provides some stats that spell out the improbability of meaningful digital sales for most "long tail" musicians:

“My research suggests that the tail is long and flat, and therefore that content providers will find it hard to profit much from it. It remains to be seen whether the new media environment will indeed make many previously unprofitable niche products profitable. Online channels lower the barriers to market entry for such products, and thus introduce the possibility of additional sales -- but they also lead to a flood of products all competing for consumers' attention. In my most recent correspondence with managers at Nielsen SoundScan, I learned that of the 3.9 million digital tracks sold in 2007 (the large majority for 99 cents each through Apple iTunes), an astonishing 24% sold only one copy, and 91% -- 3.6 million tracks -- sold fewer than 100 copies.”


But over http://www.mediafuturist.com

A post quoting the Long Tail's Chris Anderson on Prince’s little experiment with the daily mail is used to once again highlight – forget the flat tail, it'a all about the free tail!

“He says: "A) Prince spurred ticket sales. Strictly speaking, the artist lost money on the deal. He charged the Daily Mail a licensing fee of 36 cents a disc rather than his customary $2. But he more than made up the difference in ticket sales. The Purple One sold out 21 shows at London's 02 Arena in August, bringing him record concert revenue for the region. B) The Daily Mail boosted its brand. The freebie bumped up the newspaper's circulation 20 percent that day. That brought in extra revenue, but not enough to cover expenses. Still, Daily Mail execs consider the giveaway a success. Managing editor Stephen Miron says the gimmick worked editorially and financially: "Because we're pioneers, advertisers want to be with us..."


My own commentary is that we all know a single track is no longer worth 99c, I think it’s time for the acceptance that recorded music is inevitably moving toward free and that that should inform the discussions on what our best efforts to realise the value created by music and musicians will lie in the not too distant future.

My feelings are that we are in a era of great opportunity for artists and we should reflect on where else creating value online and with digital products, services and partnerships has been already proven to be significantly profitable for creators, and the “free tail” methods being used to do so.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Online Music Promotion Management: When Experiencing Technical Difficulties



Setting up the new artist community at http://newmusicmarketing.com and my new blog at http://musicmarketingblog.info has been slow going as - I’m sure you’re aware, my expertise is in marketing and promotion, I have passable web and graphic design skills, but not so much when it comes to administration and the back end.




The technicalities of building a solid platform for digital promotion and revenue is something I’ve spoken about before, because the harder it is for me, the harder it must certainly be for artists to do stuff like create and host a site, install and administer a blog platform, create a podcast and all the rest.

And it shouldn’t be that way, because artists need this stuff, and they need it to be easy! It’s hard enough worrying about the creative side and the marketing stuff on top of technical details!




In fact it really gets me hopping mad because this technical stuff must be air tight or very very bad things happen, and it happens to the best.





When radiohead released “In Rainbows” online. Media frenzy, 3 million hits on their website in one day. Went down like the Hindenburg because they weren't ready for the traffic.

What about poor old Dubber from New Music Strategies. Didn’t pay his hosting bill on time so they shut him down and took his domain name hostage for about a week or so. http://newmusicstrategies.com. 2000+ subscribed readers and just given short shift, never mind the please and thank you's!




SO - you’ve got to make sure the technicalities of running your website and blog and the platforms artists are using to carry out effective online communication and revenue generation are rock solid. That’s what I’m doing right now with a whole bunch of blogs, websites I’m responsible for and of course the new artist community as well and boy it hasn’t been easy!


Do you know what a host is? A server, A domain? That’s good. Bandwidth allocation, server speeds, security and backup . . . what about frickin DNS, MySQL databases and PHP code. Huh? Any takers? That’s what I thought.


It’s scary business. Now picture yourself in 2010.





You sell digital and physical products from your website

You sell advertising and lucrative relevant niche related affiliate offers from your website




Your fans interact with you and one another through the website



Music industry people with opportunities will be accessing your content and communicating with you through your website

You may even be doing futuristic stuff – automated gig booking, and smart data systems for gathering and distributing information for and about gigs and fans.


Fans may be interacting with your digital products to create their own customisable cd tracklists, cover art, merchandise, etc.

So if your website starts to become directly or indirectly your main source of contact that leads to revenue generating activities – like mine or radioheads is - it’s more than an eeny weeny problem if well . . . there’s any kind of problem that cuts off the cash – like if the website goes kaput, gets hacked, or you just haven't got the service in place to meet the technical needs of doing a decent amount of business on the net – the site doesn’t load quickly, audio and video content is choppy and worst of all, there’s problems using the retail interface when consumers purchase digital products.

Any website that asks you for your credit card or your paypal or whatever and then starts doing weird stuff and not loading up properly is not going to put your average fan at ease.





Remember, marketing is about solving other people’s problems, so I accept that’s what I have to do with the new artist community coming soon to

http://newmusicmarketing.com



create a easy hassle free service for artists who shouldn’t need to worry about having a website and a blog and whatever else they should need –so I’m looking forward to a time very soon when we’re going to have a person on board who’s just going to have it taken care of so our artists never have any problems no matter how many people are coming through their sites and blogs, or whatever they want to try.

That would be a great relief as I wait for progress on these current projects!!!



Understanding the role of technology is part of the uncertainty of the digital environment – knowing what has to be done, getting a fair deal – the difference between getting expert help when you need it and being overcharged.

But realistically, a professional artist just cant concern themselves with these details unless they have the appropriate contacts, they need a resource such as the
http://www.newmusicmarketing.com/ artist community so they have an easily affordable service that is staged to cover all the support required online at each level of their professional career – Administration, Presentation as well as Marketing and promotion.



Kurb is an online promotion company specializing in digital music marketing and artist management.


Follow our blog at http://musicmarketingblog.info for cutting edge web promotion as we launch http://newmusicmarketing.com - the exclusive artist community putting artists in control of their online promotion and revenue management.

Within New Zealand we also provide low cost and hassle free
CD DVD duplication and printing as well as poster design print and placement in Auckland.


kurbpromo@gmail.com


Your Signature is a Great Web 2.0 Promotion Tool

In my last post here I was reviewing a musician’s blog and talking about how using a signature or a footer can be a really effective way of prompting people to take further action on visiting your blog, and of course email, forums, and other online communications.

Blogs and other forms of social media are driven by users generating content and drawing other users who find it and put value in it toward that content. This is called “pull” marketing and it mainly applies to the internets ability to draw other people toward you who are interested in what you have to say and perhaps, what you have to sell also - as long as they know that much!

But executing sophisticated online promotion is not treating people as if they’re stupid and trying to hard sell them on some product or service - it’s giving them a story, giving them a taste and putting something out there for them, then
leveraging the attention created by your free content to be able to make them aware of the next proposition - the next event in the chain which leads to you as the artist getting paid.

This is why using a signature that you attach to your blogs, forum posts, messages, emails, comments etc. wherever appropriate can be an effective way of introducing your proposition to an audience without being seen to be using blunt traditional hard sell marketing.

I can blog about what ever I please, but that’s not going to stop me slipping in the fact that I do the cheapest
DVD duplication in Auckland and New Zealand.


Of course you know I do heaps of stuff other than dvd duplication but you see I’m really focusing in on the dvd printing and dvd duplication because that’s where I create the most value, and the value is passed on to my clients in savings and to me in increased profitability.

Similarly, you might decide to follow my advice and just focus strongly on building up your email contact list as the first step of your online promotion efforts. So rather than being all like “We’re a band from blah blah and we make music that sounds like blah blah blah . . .”

You go straight for the throat all


DON’T MISS OUT! EXCLUSIVE FREE MP3 GIVEAWAY LIMITED TIME LIMITED EDITION – ENTER YOUR EMAIL NOW TO RECEIVE YOUR FREE GIFT!

DISCOVER NOW WHY THEY CALL THIS MAN MADAGASCAR’S MOST EXPLOSIVE NEW NOSE FLUTE TALENT. PLEASE ACCEPT THIS SONG AS AN OFFERING IN SOLIDARITY WITH THOSE WHO SUPPORT THE ENDANGERED MADAGASCAN POLAR BEAR


Or something like that.

Maybe you'd be a little more subtle but the point is you they're not going to know about this whole free mp3 when you join the mailing list thing if you don't take ample opportunity to mention it.

So I stopped including my footer/signature/"link family" ad thing at the beginning and end of each blog – mainly for my own sanity because I was actually trying to tone down my marketing to take the opportunity to improve the efficiency of my operation here at kurb – the result of that of course being a new artist community I am launching soon at

http://www.newmusicmarketing.com/


Also don’t forget this blog is also getting settled into it’s new home at

http://www.musicmarketingblog.info/



Now I'd like to point out that a really professional footer ad or signature thing would probably have a little graphic going on, the links are the most important as always, but ultimately I'd like to be using a lot more panels and banners that give off a snazzy visual vibe.



Okay so lets look at what I WAS working with:


Kurb is a media promotions company providing a regular blog on digital music promotion, marketing digital content and creating revenue from new media online.


Kurb also provides online promotion and revenue management services for musicians and artists internationally And the best value fast turnover physical media services in New Zealand including CD / DVD printing and duplication and poster services.



Our physical media services come with free graphic set up and support, free delivery, and free promotions advice and support for musicians.

http://www.kurb.co.nz
http://www.myspace.com/kurbpromo
http://www.youtube.com/user/kurbpromo
-
http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com
http://kurbpromotion.blogspot.com
http://www.squidoo.com/kurb

All the best with your project, from Kurb
For direct enquiries get us on gmail as kurbpromo

DIGITAL COACHING AND ONLINE MANAGEMENT STARTS @ $NZ250 P/MONTH P/ACT



Oh no no.

Okay there's quite a bit wrong with that. First, obviously it's way too long, it just drags!!! And it's mainly too long because it's stuffed with stupidly useless anchor text especially this:

blog on digital music promotion, marketing digital content and creating revenue from new media online.

stupid. Pick a few keywords - sensible keywords - and stick with them!

As a musician that’s going to be your genre affiliations, your region, any appropriate subcultural or genre based reference points and maybe a handful of key acts that represent the concept of your sound. Narrow at down to the most important niche terms, defining your target, defining your niche.

And this is on the terms of your audience! Do you know anyone other than me who talks about free mp3's as “digital content” in everyday conversation? No. So say "free mp3's".

And all those links are just too much. Sure have links but remember its always about attempting to create value so provide links that create value – provide links to the good stuff, not just everything that could possibly matter.

Let’s have another go




Kurb is an online promotion company specializing in digital music marketing and artist management.


Follow our blog at http://musicmarketingblog.info/ for cutting edge web promotion as we launch http://newmusicmarketing.com/ - the exclusive artist community putting artists in control of their online promotion and revenue management.




Within New Zealand we also provide low cost and hassle free CD DVD duplication and printing as well as poster design print and placement in Auckland.

kurbpromo@gmail.com


Okay now that's better.



Friday, June 27, 2008

Blog review: Discussing an artist's blog.

Okay while we’re bloggasminginging lets start catching up with some of those posts I promised last week.


First we’ve got our very first Kurb blog review!!! I was doing some posters for Tono’s tour and went by his site blog at

http://www.tono.co.nz

I actually got a good vibe off his blog it took me a couple of hours to realise it was definitely worth posting about the examples of what he’s doing right.

Great design – he’s got a wordpress blog and he’s using it as his whole site as I described in a past post, because that’s how awesome wordpress platforms are.

Also looks really professional, looks like he takes himself seriously as an artist and to me that says the music is likely to be of a standard also.

When you’re used to seeing a lot of blogs like I have – its like myspace – you get real sick real fast of seeing the same old busy cluttered blog designs, and if you’re trying to implement a marketing strategy where getting traffic through the blog is part of a chain of events that will lead to leads and sales then you got to have clear focus on desired reader outcomes such as

SIGN UP FOR OUT MAILING LIST AND DOWNLOAD AN EXCLUSIVE FREE MP3!!!!


Tono’s using a classic blogger technique of making “flagship content” readily available - via a little dashboard that lights up in orange when you mouse over. That means it doesn’t matter how people end up on his site it’s easy to get to that page where you can find out all the basic information, extra content and back story about what this blog is and is all about without getting frustrated, bewildered and heading off because the ramblings have no context.

This is the thing I particularly find with blogs is that you never know how or why someone will find you and what page they will land on.

That’s why when I talked about bloggasming and wild unhinged blogging in my last post, well, that’s okay when you’re starting out because weird crazy posts are going to bring in visitors who are searching for weird crazy things if you know what I mean.

And I also talked about bad blogging habits like going off on a tangent which is quite ironic.

Back to Tono’s blog.

Tono’s blog also has a great voice, great narrative and storytelling – There’s a narrative, there’s stories coming through in Tono’s blogs. As a marketer we get drilled about stories. What are stories? Stories connect us to the person telling them.

There’s great examples, Tono reports on his tour describing venues, support acts etc. but he also reports on incidental events such as his journeys from place to place as he goes. There’s also associated content and themes which is something I encourage all my clients to do – connecting with themes outside of music. Tono’s got a number of reoccurring themes in his blog including some overt discussions on green politics.

You see it’s not about being safe and broad any more. You’re not going to sell a million records. You want to be connecting with that proportion of the population who are going to respond positively to your message on a number of levels. Where choice is so prevalent, you’ve got to go for a deeper connection with people than just having cool songs.

But now there’s one big issue I have with Tono’s blog and this is the kind of second tier optimisation that you start to recognise once you’ve got the basics right.

You see Tono has got the basics right and his blog looks lovely and it’s behaving as a proper blog should. But lets go back to the outcomes that I touched on before.

What are we trying to achieve here? Basically we’re trying to sink our hooks in by making a memorable impression and hopefully leaving the visitor with as much to take away as possible.


So there is a very high chance that the high proportion of casual visitors to Tono’s site are going to put 2 and 2 together like I did and realise Tono is a musician.

Instantly it begs the question. What does Tono’s music sound like? We need to hear this music immediately before we lose interest in a split second and decide to do something else.

Tono’s got a player there, but I just don’t think that’s enough! People got to know that they must check out this music!

It’s the most important thing

It reminds me of one other really important thing I really want to mention. Remember when I used to put my “link family” in every blog post? Most top bloggers – in fact most bloggers worth their salt full stop – will have some kind of signature or panel or banner or SOMETHING in each post that gemerally advertises the bloggers own products or services.

The big money bloggers will often have a free thing they are giving away, most usually an ebook, if you sign up to their email list. Sound familiar?

That little signature/footer thingee is a prime example of an area where you will be endlessly tweaking, just coming back every few weeks and saying . . .

In fact lets do a new one for me right now. Coming up next post.

What’s a Bloggasm? On blogging, creative thinking and marketing

Are you having another bloggasm, Matt?



Yes, that’s right.



Maybe it’s trouble adjusting to shifting the blog to: http://www.musicmarketingblog.info



But I will continue to post on both blogs for now.




Well what IS a bloggasm, anyway? Well it’s really a word I thought of, then I figured it could have a meaning. I guess a bloggasm is when you just start blogging uncontrollably.







Really? Can this be healthy?





Well in marketing as well as the performing arts we are most successful when we engage the audience, when we look for ways to make things more enjoyable and useful for those who choose to participate.

This is particularly true of blogging.



People who are the most successful at leveraging their blogs for marketing and revenue have adeptly attuned their blogs to their audiences to maximise income and exposure, but these are professional bloggers who have been building their blogs for sometimes as long as five years or more.

The tone of this blog recently has been very much about learning from top bloggers, top internet marketers and people who already make lots of money online about what they can teach musicians and other similarly creative artists about creating the kind of value online that leads to a full time income.

But the point I’m making by having a little bloggasm over here is that at for me, personally, my blog is not JUST about creating a voice for my brand, it’s not just about marketing.



Last week I was blogging quite vigourously, and getting some really great ideas going! But I also had a record week for visitors. I didn’t quite break the 1000 mark, but I did earn a sum total of $US5.06 from advertising on my blogs on one of the days over the last week, which was another record.



So for the first time I started to anticipate that my blog would begin to play a larger part in sales and marketing as it grew, and that where I the past I used my website and my myspace to generate most of my business, very soon it would be my blog bringing me the business where myspace has fallen off.



So I guess what I’m saying is that if like me, you’re committed to growing your income from the digital music business, when that happens it’s not going to be cool for to just post whatever you like, say whatever you like, or just start bloggasming out and doing multiple posts that lurch from subject to subject, and talking way too much about your own little crusades that your readers really couldn’t give a rat’s arse about. Like I do.



I probably won’t be able to post about rat’s arse’s or tag those posts under the subject: “rats arse” either.



So what can I say, but blog irresponsibly while your blog is young and you have the chance! haha

No, I mean find your voice. Find the voice in your writing that wants to blog every day.

Don’t be afraid to have ideas! Don’t be afraid to use your blog to ask questions to which you don’t know the answer, to seek opinions and to create an open ended discussion, don’t be afraid to have passion!

This is what is making blogging much more than just people writing a diary on the computer that everyone can see.





I figured it’s better that I experiment now, keep writing, keep ranting, keep the passion running high doing it the way I want while most crucially continuing to build up the amount of content on my blog. That way I can keep moving forward with innovative ideas, and draw people who are interested in those ideas toward me and the conversations happening here and basically bloggasm all I like.



Because when I do start to get thousands of weekly visitors and having a bloggasm and just blogging about whatever I feel like blogging about and being sloppy about it . . . will not keep growing my long term success.

Friday, June 20, 2008

The last superstar? 21st century music promotion with Lil Wayne

I just had to look into this situation with Lil Wayne when I heard he had sold a million records in his first week.



I’m pretty sure he could be the only artist to have achieved this in the last year or so.

Not kanye, not fitty.



This could make Lil Wayne the last superstar. He may be the last artist to ever sell a million albums in a week - remember the biggest selling album of 2007 was Josh Groban's Christmas album, Noel which sold 3.6 million albums IN TOTAL, selling 670,000 copies per week at it's peak.



My interest in the charts is purely professional so I didn’t know a lot about Lil Wayne except of course his notorious mixtape sessions.





Checking out his new single “Lollipop” which no doubt is being thrashed around the world right now and is the track of choice for drunken middle class 17 year olds I didn’t see or hear anything remarkable when say held against something similarly huge such as 50 cents smash hit debut “In Da Club”



But of course you probably haven’t heard this song, and you may not have heard the recent collaboration between Timbaland and One Republic “Apologize” which was the most played radio song ever.



Because that’s the way the internet and new media works. If in the 21st century, you don’t care, then you don’t have to. Remember with the internet there's always another channel where somethjing better is on.

I mean - Heard Madonna’s new album? Well actually . . . no one cares. I used to love “get into the groove” when I was a little kid!!! Lets hear that one again. And I think that's how people feel.





I won’t go into too much I’ll just make some points:



- Lil Wayne was a gifted student who went to a special learning school. At 11 he was picked up by a mentor and released his first album at 15. His first solo album in 1999 at the age of 17 was a massive success in Hip Hop.



- Lil Wayne has been largely known since then for his prolific mixtape series of improvised recordings that have been distributed widely over then net through filesharing. As the DJ mixtape tradition is somewhat dubious in the face of traditional copyright law, there was no way he could have profitted dramatically from this phenomenon anyway.



- In 2003 Lil Wayne guested on a Destiny’s Child track “Soldier” that was #1 hit in the US and several other countries. From that point Lil Wayne began a prolific period of guest appearances in 2006 alone he guest featured on 87 tracks.



So what we’re saying here is that although his 2002 and 2005 albums were relatively unsuccessful, selling less than a million copies of each while taking 3 years to complete, the phenomenal exposure he has got on the internet through creating access to large amounts of free music and the exposure he's got from mainstream media piggybacking on every opening to maintain his presence with new content has seen him set himself up to be the only artist on the planet who we can be sure could sell a million records in a week in 2008.

What has Lil Wayne done thats different? Whether he's "worked harder" than other artists is not the point - it's that in a changing market he has adapted by presenting a LOT more content than would otherwise be expected of a top selling artist - maybe only 3 official albums in 9 years but hundreds of featured appearances and dozens of unofficial full length recordings.

ALSO musically, Lil Wayne has leverage the key skill that he does possess - improvised raps or "freestyles" and has flown in the face of traditional copyright to create something of value for fans and although he was unable to profit directly, the profit came when the fans rewarded him by buying a million of his albums.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Getting your head around digital music promotion part 3: not so much “who’s going to direct our video” but “who’s going to write our blog”

This is part THREE of a series on basic basics of online promotion


Part 1 is here:


http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/in-digital-we-trust-getting-your-head-around-the-internet-digital-music-marketing-and-online-promotion/


And part 2 is here

http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/are-you-ready-getting-your-head-around-the-internet-digital-music-marketing-and-online-promotion-part-2/


Just don’t forget my main blog has now shifted to http://musicmarketingblog.info


And that the http://newmusicmarketing.com artist community is launching soon!



Okay Are you ready to start your online promotion campaign?

You’ve got your

- mp3’s of your songs
- jpg of you looking like a musician
- .mov, .mp4 or .avi – a video of you come on, at least saying hi and introducing yourself



But I think there’s something missing here Matt! Why yes Matt I think you’re right.

THIS little band doesn’t have a Bio.



In fact it doesn’t have ANY copy at all!



(“copy” is a marketing type word for um uh words.)

This is why you have a pic of you. A video, and a song of course and you need words.



Because people don’t want to know about something that they don’t know about. Pretty simple. If it’s just some site with some weird pic and a bio that’s says “don’t know what to put here but we rock” it’s hardly going to be getting anyone drawn into the mystery and the majesty of the journey into meaning that is your music.

You need copy. You see there was a reason I left copy until part 3.

Because words are well the most important thing on the internet. They always have been and they still are. Because internet, as you probably know, is computers talking to one another through the phone. But this is the thing. Computers read. They can’t see.

Computers cant see how handsome I am in my pictures but they can read every time someone says “Matt Turner is a handsome man” on the internet.

Because all they know are words. And when your computer talks to everyone elses computer and says look at this picture, all the people on the other computers see the picture, but the computer only sees words that tell it to show the picture! It’s true!



And so when you ask your computer to find you the coolest picture, it looks for the words that tell it where the coolest picture is. And when you ask your computer who is the coolest online music promoter in New Zealand it will tell you that Mr. Matt is the most special because he writes

digital music marketing online

Online digital music marketing
online management marketing promotion

Artist promotion marketing and management
digital online promotion music marketing


on the computer all bloody day long so it must be him.

That’s the way computers think! And I don’t know if you’ve heard of a little website called www.google.com but as it turns out most people care what computers think.


So yeah. Kinda the whole not so much “who’s going to direct our video” but “who’s going to write our blog” is the biggest question.

As in, everyday. Yes! Everyday! I’m not joking!

But lets not get to ahead of ourselves. Your bio. There is a lot of information out there about writing bio’s so I’ll just make the one point that needs to be made.



Look, I don’t know who you are, I probably don’t care but I might want to know what you sound like, and I don’t mean half the silliest words in the dictionary, I mean like who. Everyone remembers The Who, even computers, you type in The Who into your computer, it’s gonna come up with The proper Who. No one knows who your band is. But maybe if you just put that you sound a bit like The Who, one day, somebody’s going to put “bands that sound a bit like The Who” into their computer and you’re going to have a fan.


Break out the Balloons!


Okay before we wrap part 3 which actually turned out to be basically a little mini post about words lets have a plug for kurb.



Obviously making words is not something I would pay someone else to do, because I’m good at it and I can do a good job myself. So usually with my priority clients I do the same thing I would with my own words – I just have a little peak every month or two and just think to myself how that sounds.



How it could sound better.

And also y’know if I REALLY wanted to get them on the email list or at least download one thing so there’s a chance they might remember me again the moment the click off the page I might think . . . hmmm what would be a really sweet way of getting them to put their email in the box or download the song???



Now that we’ve covered words which got it’s own post because I’m good at words, now we have to talk about the NEXT part in our “getting your head around digital promotion” series - about your website, myspace, and all the other profiles and presence you have to ccreate if you want to do this properly.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Are you ready? Getting your head around the internet, digital music marketing and online promotion part 2

This is part TWO of a series on basic basics of online promotion




Part 1 is here:




http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/in-digital-we-trust-getting-your-head-around-the-internet-digital-music-marketing-and-online-promotion/




because we’re gearing up for two big events:


The launch of kurbs new music marketing community @ http://newmusicmarketing.com/



And my very first presentation working with http://www.depotartspace.co.nz/ in devonport.



Jason there is going to be organising a seminar for local musicians covering


- album launch
- tour promotion
- digital strategies (thats me!)



So if you’re in Auckland in late July this should be an awesome opportunity to sponge up vital industry knowledge and hopefully I will get a biscuit.



Don’t forget we’re shifting to http://musicmarketingblog.info/ any day now!!!






Now last blog I talked about facing the reality of digital music promotion.


It is confusing and complex and it is the future. It is also a lot of work.


To me it’s honestly a lot less work because I don’t have to leave the house. You may have not have played as many demoralising gigs in your life to less than 12 people as I have though.




The http://newmusicmarketing.com forum that we’re launching soon is designed so that you can be informed and instructed on the most effective techniques in online promotion and internet marketing. You can begin your campaign by carrying out the tasks yourself at minimum cost and you can decide where you want to take your campaign on your own watch.


It’s hard to start working with an artist and tell them theyre 6 months away from seeing a cent online and you'll drop a grand in my pocket before you get there. But that’s reality, it’s better to get the artist or their manager or their mum or little sister in the forum, learning the basic and most importantly carrying out the tasks, carrying out the maintenance, getting on track.


Playing that gig might work. Sending in that demo, getting that interview, going for that grant, entering that competition – it might work! Might.


But building your website is the most solid promotion strategy you can engage in! The amount of people engaging online is not going to stop growing and the laws of almighty Google are not going to alter fundamentally. If they buy your actual real CD this week . . . theyre not going to want to buy it again next week and definately not on the other side of the world in Sweden, where they love that kind of thing that you do.


You have got to start thinking like it already 2010 and your website is your sovereign media territory where you control the environment. It is your channel and it is your community it is your retail outlet . . . it pays you money.


Myspace and Wordpress and Facebook have built these platforms so that they can generate massive profits from the attention artists and users are creating. People like me and you!


I read it the other day. Myspace has made $11-12 out of each person who has used it. Google has made an average of $66 out of each person who has used their service.



Now you listen to me, sunshine!



This is not about saying “using your myspace as your website is unprofessional” - this is the next level!



It’s about digital ownership of value created through access and attention. Now do you want to give all your money to myspace or do you want to start trying to figure how it is that myspace made $11 out of you when you never even paid for anything . . . and how you could learn to do something like that on your website?


But you gotta build a boat before you can sail it.


It’s like I’m going to tell you how to build your boat and I’ll have some guys around to help out, and after a few months we’ll see how you’re going to see if you’re ready to sail. And then when you’re sailing fine we’ll fit it out with a motor.


I’m not just going to hand you the motor, point at the sea and say, “go promote your content.”


Okay now lets take the elevator to the basement. Lets go back to the start.


Your first tasks are pretty basic. They don’t involve me.



If you’re not particularly skilled in music then you should be at least pretty young an eager, or exceptionally physically attractive or have some other comedic or theatric appeal. Or as we’ve seen more recently with The Gorillaz and Crazy Frog, maybe you’re just really good at cartoons or CGI.



Then you need to create digital content, because I cant help you at all until you do. You need to record your music so it can be converted to mp3, but not only that, almost equally important now, is that you must have an associated image, preferably a photo of you that can be converted into a .jpg, and you should be able to record 60 seconds of video for youtube at least introducing yourself to people who want to meet you.


I’m struggling with this too people, but we’ve got to understand we are living in the 21st century and talking to the camera is not something that you should be making a big deal about. You maybe choose your favourite top, do a quick check in the mirror, you make sure the light is half decent, you push record, you be yourself. It’s not that hard.



Okay we’re ready to start your online promotion campaign!!!!


Tune in next time where we talk about starting an actual promotion campaign on the internet to make more people know about a musician and for the musician to start making money from it!!!!!