Online Music Promo - Engaging, Email Lists and Actually Monetizing: Lucky 7 Final chapter

Okay on we go with the very last episode of our 3 part series on getting your head around online promotion basics and then it just mutated into a seven part whopper!

In today s stunning conclusion it’s just all business. It’s not basic anything anymore because we’re actually engaging fans and we’re actually monetizing it.

Here's whats happened so far:

Part 1 is here: In digital we trust - preparing for digital music marketing and promotion

And part 2 is here: Are you ready? Content you need for your digital online promotion campaign

And part 3: Google and the importance of words on the web: more “who’s going to write our blog copy” now then “who’s going to direct our video”

Part 4: Getting your head around using social media and web 2.0 to promote your music

Part 5: Setting up a music artists website

Part 6: Music Artist Website promotion: Marketing and Sales

And don’t forget: Our new artist community has launched @ http://www.newmusicmarketing.com/ - it’s still free to join in July and we’re starting to add new in depth content already.

And of course tomorrow @ The Depot in Devonport I’ll be be giving a presentation on all this stuff Check it out if you’re in auckland.

So it was cliffhanger end last time when we suddenly discovered while we were promoting our websites and building the power of our musics brand message to connect with audiences – it was the good old email list that formed a fundamental strategy for monetizing all along!

There are many unique propositions you can be using to monetise this valuable, influential brand you’ve built up and these relationships you’re building with your audience, but your potential fans don’t want to be bombarded by what you want to sell them. That's not real. They want to connect with a message that makes them open to having you earn their trust. And this is where the proposition of having new fans sign up for an email list is probably one of the most successful strategies to create income long term, because the relationship is based on respect for a fan who welcomes your interactions, and will be prepared to spend money as the relationship and the unique value grows.

As the music industry evolves, I always say well . . . the last time I saw the rulebook on making money, it was flying out the window. Only one thing holds true and that is creating value for the fans and managing the relationship leads to artist success.

I think most of the old music industry think Radiohead was just a bad dream. They need to wake up.
Okay so lets wrap up this thing by describing some different ways you can innovate to create revenue from your website and email list – and remember what I’ve said about new music business models – its not a horse race! You can ride every income stream that is worth the effort.

The idea is to continually innovate and optimize so that you are enhancing the value of your most profitable interactions and minimising the effort of your least profitable interactions. This is fundamental in guiding the innovative process.

Lets look at some areas for innovating monetization:

Pricing structure: Trent Reznors last Nine Inch Nails release was remarkable for the number of pricing iterations he created on different products available, so there was a product for fans at every level from a basic $5 download all the way up to a limited edition item valued a $300 that netted him $750,000 over the 48 hour period they took to sell out. The remarkable thing was also that this was an instrumental album, that though creating further options for licensing and synching, however was not really NIN's core content. But NIN's core fanbase is fully engaged and they dont care.

Income streams: The asian music market, where rampant piracy cripples the value of physical goods and copies, has led the way in showing how developing wide and deep ranges of products and service under the brand of an artist can actually leverage the effects of piracy.

The opportunities here to innovate abound. Maybe you need to have a serious and open minded think about what kind of products and services you can provide. I realised I could go to 6 year old’s birthdays and play pirates for $200 a pop, there’s this guy I heard about who offers to write and record love songs - mainly for the wedding market.

There's Bob Baker's buddy who sold 15,000 CD's on the pier playing cheesy love ballads twice a week for 18 months.

What have you got? Is it your raw technical skill? Is it your charisma? Is there are specific message around a common issue that peopel conenct with through your music? Do you have prolific output?Do you make a fashion statement with what you wear or a sexual statement with what you don't?

You need to identify exactly where you can creating the most value with your specific skills and doing those things that you love that dont seem like work and leverage it!

Fan supported: In the fan supported model which has already been demonstratably successful, the artist set up a system by which there was increasingly personalised rewards for example - $10 pre ordered a copy of the CD, $500 gave you a thank you in the CD liner notes, $5000 gave you a trip from anywhere in the US to stay courtesy of the artist for a weekend during the recording and participate on the backing vocal of one of the songs.

Ad supported revenue: We often talk about the digital revolution creating an “attention economy” that is, in a digital environment where copies of content cease to have financial value, the value is then transferred to the attention created through content and the opportunity that remains to create revenue from attention through advertising.

Advertising networks online are getting increasingly sophisticated, and although I hold fast to the assertion that in 2008, 1000 page views should equal 1000 cents earnings - and currently after blogging for over 9 months, that’s about what I earn from my blogs in a week – I honestly believe that conditions for online advertisers will improve across the board as the medium continues to improve and show its effectiveness. First, muso’s will start out with Google adsense ads, before looking into joining an ad network potentially capable of delivering more lucrative and more consistent targeted ads charged per impression, finally a successful established musician should be able to attract sufficient interest to be able to cut out the middleman and sell advertising directly to niche partners.


Affiliate marketing: Affiliate marketing is a lucrative form of online marketing that drives online sales with high commissions, thus attracting many like a modern day gold rush. Those with online products will join an affiliate network that will provide its “partners” (bloggers, webmasters etc.) with ad offers. The tracking of these sites and offers is a highly sophisticated commercial operation and once a sale can be traced to somebody who once visited your site with the corresponding ad displayed, you will be accredited with a 40%-75% commission on the sale value. As I’ve discussed before the range of products is staggering, and sure, miracle diets etc. do tend to sell better BUT what you’ve got to realise is that there are free offers that pay out. This means you can leverage your email list to present a variety of offers to your fans. But the fact that you are able to collect 75% commission on digital products does raise possibilities about relative product value.

E.G. – Buy a month worth of digital movie rental for $US40 (of which the band gets $US30) and get our new album (worth $10) free!!!

You getting me? Things could get interesting.

Monetized communities:

So monetizing communities is based around the concept that the content that drives your promotion and monetization through advertising etc. becomes exponential once you have harnessed fans to actually create content for you.

Discussion about you, discussion with you, discussion about content, interaction with content, deconstruction (“mash up”) of content . . . when your fans are doing this for you, you’ve now got a a wild freeform content generating, web ownaging machine!

You want them designing their own t-shirts and selling them to one another and taking a cut. “c2c” means “consumer to consumer”.

The way we do business is about to be fundamentally changed online.

But yes. Artists must accept relinquishing control.

In 2013 If some kid photoshops your face on a dogs body and sells 50,000 t shirts online then you’re going to have to take your 25% cut and massive exposure and sulk in the corner.

But on communities gotta touch on what I’m doing personally with kurb – as a working model – so you can see in practice the model of a high value online community that is monetized. And the fact that you can see that I’m doing it, it’s not some huge leap for you. Cost me a few hundy.

With http://www.newmusicmarketing.com I’ve set up a forum platform from which to distribute high value content. In my case it’s content that I feel is to valuable to share freely – in your case it’s most likely your music. But in creating a platform on which to monetize premium content and your fan relationships you can create dynamic propositions.

You can build a list of 1000 hardcore fans who are happy to commit to paying $1 per week ($1 per week????) and be part of a premium experience that gives them premium access (you stop in the members over the week to interact) and access to premium content: your music, videos, special exclusive content, giveaways, competitions and prizes, special free gigs, seriously, innovation can run wild!

BUT

like I said. It’s just one horse in the stable. Your making $1000 p/week of your premium membership sites – your also making pocket money out of advertising, digital retail, royalties and licensing, your gigging of course – even your good old CD’s and merch . . . y’know? The futures not dark.

But you gotta get started now. It’ll take years for your online presence to dvelop and mature.

Okay, So I hope you’ve enjoyed this series!

I’ll be doing a post soon about going back over your blog and editing it for optimisation as a clean up each of the articles in the series.

Part 1 is here: In digital we trust - preparing for digital music marketing and promotion

And part 2 is here: Are you ready? Content you need for your digital online promotion campaign

And part 3: Google and the importance of words on the web: more “who’s going to write our blog copy” now then “who’s going to direct our video”

Part 4: Getting your head around using social media and web 2.0 to promote your music

part 5: Setting up a music artists website

And don’t forget: Our new artist community has launched @ http://www.newmusicmarketing.com/ - it’s still free to join in July and we’re starting to add new in depth content already.

And of course tomorrow @ The Depot in Devonport I’ll be be giving a presentation on all this stuff Check it out if you’re in auckland.

It’s time for me to get on with developing my community at http://newmusicmarketing.com

And I’ve got work to building my blogs presentation to build a more powerful brand and develop more and new ways of monetization.

Look for me at http://musicmarketingblog,info as I'm getting my act together here!

And make sure you subscribe by RSS because I just know I’m going to be talking more about branding, engaging fans and more about developing these relationships and monetized interactions soon.

Cheers!

John Reese’s Traffic Secrets: A music industry perspective on internet marketing

“Finally.

The time has come.

4+ years in the making.

A small fortune spent.

Thousands of tests conducted.

A valuable system made even better.

“Traffic Secrets 2.0″ gets officially released
today at Noon EST!

If you’re serious about making money
online and growing an online business
then this is the course for you.

And I’ll stake my reputation on this… this may
very well be one of the last traffic-generation
courses you’ll ever need to buy.”

 

 

 

So today is the launch of John Reese’s “Traffic Secrets 2” and it is a big event in internet marketing.

This should be a great post because not only can we learn from John Reese in regards to applying online promotion ideas from his amazing free video material . . .

. . . but we can reflect on how John was able to create such a huge buzz for his product in an already overhyped and oversaturated market.

I understand the reason a lot of musicians come to me is because they understand the importance of promoting themselves and engaging fans online, but they’re not really interested in learning and practicing “IM” or internet marketing themselves, they wanna do their music.

Which is cool, that gives me a job to do, especially as there seems to be so very few music industry people interested in IM.

Which seems pretty strange to me, I mean call me crazy but if you were say in the recording industry and you kinda figured your whole industry was shifting to a digital, web enabled environment and you were wondering how to make money . . .

 

You’d probably start by looking at people who were already making money in a digital web enabled environment.

And I don’t mean like bill gates. I mean like garden variety twenty something geeks with a handful of computer skills (who me? haha), who to which the idea of not having to leave their bedroom to make money appeals.

You see no one who is involved in IM is interested in the music business because these kids are just trying to make quick bucks and there are no quick bucks in music.

Quick bucks are in diets and porn and peddling get rich schemes, and don’t forget the cornerstone of IM, the ebook. And when people are focused on one thing such as making fast, easy money selling whatever they can online, they begin to get very good at it. And a whole economic ecosystem has sprung up to support those who either work full time as a professional or part time or as a hobby earning extra cash as an internet marketer, and the industry has become ever more streamlined.

And it’s true that a lot more people are interested in miraculous weight loss cures than they are your music, but given that people make so much money out of weight loss online and anything else you can think of probably with a lot less resources then you have - while you’re still thinking about how to quit your day job - kinda suggests there’s some things we can learn.

And so that’s what I’ve been doing. Watching and learning from the ways that marketing is carried out on the web for RESULTS.

As in money results.

And I don’t mean results for Bill gates or Radiohead or anyone who doesn’t need my help.

 

I mean for you, at the arse end of the music industry, in a sinking ship with the rest of us, working out how to turn a crust.

 

So you can focus on your music, and I will focus on getting you to the best place online to get paid for it.

Lets get back to John Reese’s traffic secrets. I think the thing about Traffic Secrets is that it’s done a radiohead. Or is it a led zep reunion? The point is, within the internet marketing and blogging world people are hyped up about his product.

People that are masters of hype are hyped. Why?

Well the whole point of this post was to highlight his Free videos.

He has 3 free videos totalling almost an hour of free material where he discusses several in depth online promotion strategies and techniques.

You should watch them because theyre great, they’ll teach you a lot . . .

But - If you want direct access to these free videos then you have to jump into our new artist community.

http://newmusicmarketing.com

 

It’s free to join, (currently the whole site is free but there’s not much happening just yet, early days – by August should be a different story)

So back to this massive launch campaign. The first thing I noticed when I heard about this was that a lot of top IM people were blogging about the free videos from their friend John.

 

What if you had a dozen top bands all telling their fans you had a new album coming out?

 

But it wasn’t just talking about the videos it was what they were saying. Needless to say the free videos were packed with info and insight, they were distinctly authentic and valuable in content. In fact its only in the last half of the last video he even starts talking about the product itself.

 

But it wasn’t just the content. These bloggers and IM gurus couldn’t stop talking about the quality of the presentation, as although video has been growing in IM for the last 18 months, the general consensus was that he had risen the bar in promotional videos for internet products with the standard of his presentation.

And this is what many of the marketers touched on: They were personally excited about the product.

What they had seen and been given free was of such high standard they couldn’t help but be connected with the product and feel confident about purchasing it.

And this is the world we’re now living in. In order to stand out, you have to demonstrate superior value in a way that is accessible before you even create the opportunity to realise significant revenue.

Interesting aside:

I saw an ad emblazoned “John Reese is a scammer and owes me $30,000” I clicked through to a sale page for . . .

 

Traffic secrets . . .

I guess that’s one way of advertising. I don’t see myself running a “Matt Turner is a scammer and Kurb ripped me off” campaign . . .

Sign up now! Kurb Online Music Management Clients are Getting $US250 Worth of Free Advertising

Yes that’s right.

When I say that Kurb is an outfit preparing artists for the future, I seriously mean it.

When I’m talking to potential clients I always emphasize that it’s not just the technology we have access to or our experience in digital and web 2.0 strategies.

It’s not even just deep awareness of opportunities that are becoming a reality due to the digital revolution.

It’s that me and my team – yes, that’s a team now as we welcome Altaf on board who will be our new specialist Myspace and Youtube promotions person, which means more time for me to work one on one with artists developing strategy and Altaf being the man who executes said strategies on Myspace and Youtube.

But as I was saying – I was stressing the point that we are the ones who are online day in day out ready to jump on top of the opportunites that are opening up everywhere in the digital economy.

Kurb is the digital early bird getting the juiciest worms online.

That’s why I’m really excited to be offering our clients a free $US250 facebook pay-per-click ad campaign.

I’ve touched on pay per click advertising before with google adsense (for content providers) and adwords (for advertisers) and how it is the most effective form of advertising due to the way it can be targeted and that you only ever pay when someone actually clicks through the ad to your website. That is you only pay when your ad has been effective in getting someone interested and you can see why this is the future of advertising.

100% of my marketing budget (which is fairly modest given that I am afterall, a marketing expert) I spend on PPC.

I also insist when working with clients that although ppc marketing, when you use your head a bit, can be extremely effective, you need a bit of sales nous.

Getting a hundred people to come to your website is only going to be effective if you understand how to convert that attention into value, which maybe as simple as selling them something, or maybe building a relationship thats a bit more complex.

The point is that all kurb clients are getting the opportunity for $250 worth of free advertising.

Did you know that could equate to up to 2500 targeted clicks through to your website? And don’t forget this is Facebook so you’ve got the middle class 18-35 market nailed. Gee what if that turns into 250 new fans? Not bad at all!!!

Of course further good news is that technical clouds we’ve endured attempting to launch our brand new artist community seem to be clearing, we’ve got Altaf on board taking care of Myspace and Youtube, The http://newmusicmarketing/ site should be launching in Beta next week SO . . .

If I were you I would get an email off to me at kurbpromo@gmail.com so we can start discussing your online strategy, pronto!

Packages that have just now reopened for the first time in 6 weeks start at

US$500 for a full 3 month online campaign

While we still have an ultra special starter pack deal for New Zealanders @

NZ$400 for a basic 3 month digital coaching consultation period


And of course for those are hearing what I'm saying and understanding how important it is for artists to get involved now with the kind of stuff I'm talking about - creating a dedicated online promotions and revenue strategy - we're launching a new artist community for resources and tools at http://newmusicmarketing.

It'll be free for an initial trial period, and then be $US37 p/month from that point though I may consider a special $NZ37 rate for kiwi muso's.
If you are one of my clients expect an update in your email soon giving you instructions on how to grab your $250 worth of free facebook advertising, and an update on how things are getting moving again with our expanded staff and new artist community.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 21^st 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!!!!!

In digital we trust: Getting your head around the internet, digital music marketing and online promotion

 

This is part one of a series on basic basics 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.

I am not planning on showing you how to set up a myspace account. I'm not going to be talking about what you would do if you already had as much money behind you as people who have already made it do. To me, a digital strategy is a strategy to go to part time hours in your day job or get off the benefit within 12 months.

Glamourous huh? OK lets go!

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

*

Remember, marketing is all about delivering products and services that are solutions to peoples problems.

Now that my blog has become a half decent platform, I can start using it to draw in certain targets through the content I provide. Those targets of course being the ones who have the most to gain from the value I provide. I mean it’s nice to have a community. It’s nicer to have a community that gives you money for fixing their problems.

 

And needing an effective digital music promotions strategy in place that they can afford in the months before it provides even a hint of income is a massive problem for many artists.

If you end up signing up for the new http://newmusicmarketing.com  forum when it launches soon - I’ll be able to reveal many effective techniques that I wouldn’t otherwise share because its too valuable and it takes so long to explain why and how it works!

In the new Kurb private music marketing forum, I won’t just be explaining the idea behind things that work, I’ll actually just give out step by step instructions to follow, so you can just get it done with minimum hassle and brain numbing internet marketing talk.

Just late last week I sent out a task for my clients while theyre waiting around on the new forum – I carried out the rather lengthy task too and have been really happy with the result. Sure it was several hours of long and boring work. But romance aside, I had a lot more fun that night than some of the worst gigs I’ve ever played.

 

When it comes to the deepest levels of what I do, once all the long boring internet marketing stuff is done – it really does just come down to engaging the fan. And this is how we do it. By providing access to content that draws the prospect into the value, that makes them want more value.

 

So a lot of the stuff I’m going to be writing here for awhile is going to be directed towards those for whom the new http://newmusicmarketing.com music promotion community will be of most value – those who know enough about needing to promote online but are totally confused by it - because these concepts ARE complex.

 

The digital revolution is turning everything on it’s head and it’s a whole new world online. I’ve been learning this stuff for years, it’s no wonder artists are so confused!

 

The http://newmusicmarketing.com community recognises yes, it is work carrying out online promotion tasks but the craziest thing about web promotion is getting your head around how it works and knowing what to do, where to start, where to focus.

 

It’s a bit like music itself. You don’t have to know how to read and write music to make great music. You don’t have to have me explain everything about internet marketing for it to work for it. Obviously you would get a lot of benefit out of it, but it is a time vs. benefit equation, and you’ve got more hit songs, blogs and video updates to do, haven’t you?

See, I don’t think musicians want to be worrying about online promotion, they just want to get it done. Artists have enough on their plate writing great music, making meaningful artistic statements that resonate, looking cool, being cool, and interacting with their fans in a meaningful way

 

Do you think when you’ve made it, you’re going to be interested in building SEO backlinking strategies, administering mailing lists, optimizing ad revenue, keeping two dozen odd social and distribution avenues updated and all the rest.

Hosting on a dedicated server? Domain names? Podcasts? Blog administration – back ups and spam protection . . .

You don’t even want to have to think about it. That’s why we’re here. When you’ve made it, you’re going to pay me well and it won’t even be discussed until there’s a problem.

 

But until then - you don’t have to worry about how and why it works. Absorb what you can and carry out my instructions and you will have an internet campaign happening that you can afford. And when you've seen the results and you're ready to lift it to the next level and quit doing all the boring stuff yourself, we'll be there to take you up to the next level with your online promotion campaign.

 

I don’t promise to make anyone a star. The reality is there may not be stars anymore, just muso’s who can pay their mortgage, and that’s what I’m trying to create.

The thing is you’ve got to remember that now music is going digital, you’ve got a chance to make it that you never had before. But so has everybody else, which as it turns out, is probably just as much work as it used to be.

Now the next blog is going to introduce more fundamental theory and practice on what to know when initiating your online campaign.

 

Making money online with your music

...There is an even bigger philosophical question—why does a hobbyist "deserve" a break in the first place? The most common argument is that big media do not play indie music, and indie artists and labels would receive free promotion they otherwise would not receive. While I wish this were true, I am just not as convinced as others that this type of promotional webcasting greatly benefits artists or labels.

There may be some anecdotal evidence that some listeners "find" new artists and then "buy" the music. But I think the point is way overblown. I am more inclined to believe—based on the experience of my artist and indie label clients—that some listeners "find" new music and then, more often than not, illegally download the music.
Think about what you just said for a moment: Following that logic, the U.S. recording industry might just as well turn off the lights and go home!

Why? Because you're implying that no matter what you do—get people excited about music again, get stellar reviews in the press for a great new band, showcase an artist on Letterman and Leno—there's no point to it, because the people who learn to like an artist's work are simply going to illegally download it.

I think that sums the essential malaise of the record industry, Jay. It seems to me—and to friends of mine who've left the major labels in recent years—that the music industry has given up on trying to sell music, and is just trying to legislate and sue its way into protecting whatever cash it can as it fades into its demise.

But it doesn't have to be that way! Let me suggest six ways the music industry could take advantage of the growth in webcasting—and other related technological developments—to maximize its health.

(First, though, I would like to circle back to your above quote for a moment. When I discovered an artist named Bruce Springsteen back in 1973, I lived in a dorm where there were more copies of Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. dubbed onto TDK SA-90 audio cassettes floating around than there were actual copies of the LP. In other words, as you say above, "more often than not" people had an "illegal" copy. But records still sold! In fact, it was thanks to the illegal copies that Springsteen gained new fans who later went on to buy actual legal copies of his future releases! If you think about this from a lawyer's perspective instead of a marketer's perspective, things go haywire, because your instincts are to try to stop the dubbing, but if you succeed, you're worse off than if you didn't. Whoa, there's a parallel here! If you think about Internet radio royalties from a lawyer's perspective instead of a marketer's perspective, things go haywire, too, because first you get the laws worded in your favor, and then you field the more aggressive legal team, and then you win a super-high royalty rate. But it shuts down an industry that was actually good for you; so by succeeding, you're worse off than if you hadn't.)

So, trying to get back on track now, here are my six suggestions:

1) Take advantage of the Long Tail: To expand on what I wrote on Monday, Internet-delivered radio is revealing the true "long tail" of consumer demand for different musical genres. Example: Even though reggae isn't a popular enough format to deserve one of the 20 available slots on a given city's FM band, there in fact is a reasonable amount of consumer interest in a reggae-formatted radio station. (In any given city, perhaps only a few thousand people. But nationally, that's hundreds of thousands of people!) And there is a reasonable amount of interest in traditional jazz, Broadway, blues, Celtic, electronica, bluegrass, yoga music, classical oboe... This is the direction that music sales will move in—fewer sales of the big hits (which you may think is caused by casual CD burning or peer-to-peer file sharing, but very well could be primarily due to this phenomenon) and more sales of everything out there at the long tail. Labels who adjust to this change in consumer behavior will have a better chance of thriving.

2) Rethink CD pricing: A typical music CD contains about 50 minutes worth of audio and sells for about $12—and a Best Buy shopper back in 2001 might have thought that was an OK value. But in 2007, in the "TV Series on DVD" section of the store, that same Best Buy shopper now sees that somehow the video industry has managed to pack 20 hours' worth of video, plus audio, often with incredibly expensive production values (e.g., Alias season 3), into more attractive packaging, and somehow offer it at a price point of $30. So, you hold one in each hand—in your left hand, 40 minutes of audio for $12; in your right hand, 20 hours of video plus audio for $30. And you think, "Hmmm..." Other industries are learning that you have to compete on price and value, and that sometimes when you lower prices, you increase your total sales volume. Given the improved value your indirect competitors (DVDs, video games, etc.) are offering, I really don't think your clients can hold the $12 price point.

3) Rethink download pricing: Technology has handed the music industry a potentially wonderful new opportunity—tens of millions of people now own MP3 players that hold up 20,000 songs each. What a potential market for download sales! But what's the ideal price point? Let's take a teenager as our example: Jeremy owns an MP3 player that holds 20,000 songs. At the right price point, you can get him to buy a lot of songs. Is the right price point $1 or $1.30 a song? Do you reasonably think that Jeremy is a prospect to pay $20,000 or $26,000 to fill his MP3 player with music? No, he isn't! That simply cannot be the right price point. (It's also ludicrously high on its face—when there are no costs of shipping a physical product, the price should obviously be lower than when there's a physical product. Consumers know this.) Find the right price point, and you'll invigorate your industry. (BTW, I know you offer "rental" plans that can fill an MP3 player for $15/month. But they lack broad appeal because we live in an "ownership" society.)

4) Rethink your approach to peer-to-peer file sharing: Record labels in the 1930s tried to prevent radio stations from playing their LPs because they thought it would hurt sales—after all, why would someone buy the disc if the radio was playing it for free? As it turned out, airplay actually helped sales! The Bing Crosby records that got airplay sold a lot more copies than those that didn't. The same may be true of P2P. Remember, the music industry's best year ever coincided with P2P's strongest year ever (i.e., the year Napster was at its peak). People sampled vast quantities of music via P2P and they bought the stuff they liked on CD. It's counterintuitive but it might be true.

5) Quit being a jerk to your customers: Every month, the record industry causes an untold amount of pain for thousands of consumers by suing them for exposing song files via P2P services. You're causing tears, heartbreak, stress; you're taking away vacation savings and college funds. And you do it in such a way—a slow steady stream of lawsuits every month—that you derive virtually no worthwhile public relations value from it. You guys simply severely damage thousands of people's lives every month because you can. (You might respond, "They're infringers! They're not 'our customers'." But I'll bet that's not true—I'll bet they buy as many CDs as anyone else. Downloading tracks and buying CDs are not mutually exclusive activities.) You do have a point to get across: "File sharing is illegal. Don't do it." But there are better approaches that would be more effective in delivering the message and would hurt fewer people. Perhaps, for example, you could use the concept of "flighting"—if you're going to do lawsuits, do them in infrequent batches, with concomitant publicity. (Gets your message across more clearly and hurts fewer lives at the same time.)

6) Embrace your friends: Most of my recommendations above are about phenomena associated with the webcasting era but not about webcasting specifically. Here, I'd like to address that point. Virtually all Internet radio properties today were launched by music fans—people who love their genre (or genres) of music and want to see the musicians and labels involved succeed. They've designed Internet radio products that are, in fact, getting people excited about music again. (Again, see here.) Regarding this whole royalty imbroglio, to quote Jack Bauer, "You're making the wrong play." Instead of asking for a royalty rate so high that it would bankrupt webcasters and shut them down, as you did in your successful case to the Copyright Royalty Board, you'd be better off offering webcasters a livable royalty rate and a plan to work together to sell more product to consumers. If you guys do, you'll be surprised how effective working together can be!

Ariel Publicity: Goddess of music PR 2.0

I’ve been meaning to write about Ariel Hyatt and Cyber PR for a bit, she had some great notes from a seminar with top manager label guy Terry McBride of Canadian management firm Nettwerk.


Ariel’s specialty is web 2.0 artist promotion, and I just had to do this post after checking out her audio interview with Bob Baker online, because this is exactly the kind of stuff I’m doing with artists and I was REALLY excited to hear someone talking more deeply about the kind of approach to online promotion I’m into.



Well it’s not really exactly the same thing, it’s the more the same approach, you see Ariel is a publicist, that means her main bag is as far as I’m aware is getting your music exposure through media channels, except her service is completely online. Here’s what it says on Ariel’s site.



Our Affordable Music Publicity & Internet Music Promotion Campaigns place you on Internet Radio Stations, Social Networking Sites, Podcasts, Online Magazines, Blogs, Vlogs, Audioblogs, Zines, Music Directories, Video Sites & Lifestyle Sites. We also handle tour publicity for artists on the road.



Publicity, I don’t really do much of at all, my strategies tend to be directly related to building fans and revenue. Logistically it’s a bit of a task to manage all those contacts. But I’m getting there! Usually I encourage artists to research their niche and find those where there’s a fit with your sound or what you’re doing, that’s where you’ll find your target audience. I also mention looking into http://radiodirectx.com and http://musicsubmit.com but more recently I’ve been looking at this other company to outsource all that work to - but they don’t look authentic at all!!!



When these people say they’ll submit mp3's to 600 music blogs, e zines and internet radio stations for $20, eyebrows get raised here at kurb.



So I first heard about Ariel with the launch http://musicthinktank.com site when I read her short bio and was struck by this statement:



"Ariel started Ariel Publicity, a traditional music PR firm in 1996. After 10 years of supporting mostly indie artists (1100 of them) she took the company 100% digital and renamed it Cyber PR, slashed her rates to 1/10 of what she used to charge and quadrupled her client base - and has been having a blast ever since!"



And to me that showed innovative, forward thinking, putting digital concepts into new music business practice and creating value in new ways.



See, in the old days if you were uh “lucky” enough to be signed you’d have access to publicists who spend up grands of your cash to get your song on the radio or a review in some magazine. Now you got people like Ariel and myself, who have a good understanding of how the internet can connect artists directly with people who are interested in their music.



So basically if you’re thinking of spending money on using the internet as a promotional tool - and if you don’t have a top 40 sound then online promotion is assuredly your best investment - check out Ariel’s interview with Bob baker.



This is talking all about web 2.0 and using it to promote your music. I really loved this audio because here’s Ariel, this publicist from New York, who was talking about everything I’ve been thinking, and shared my outlook in a way that really resonated because it's not just about having the tools (myspace, blog, twitter etc.) it's about using them. This stuff works if you do it right, it doesn't just happen overnight though. You can spend a lot of money on a real fancy lawnmower. But you still have to mow your lawn and weed your web 2.0 garden!!!


http://www.bob-baker.com/musicpromotionblog/2008/05/ariel-hyatt-web-20-audio-interview.html


And here’s some excerpts from Ariel’s report on Terry McBride from Music think tank.

http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/looking-ahead-into-the-new-music-business-aka-what-i-learned.html


I had a distinct honor and privilege to be in the audience where I saw the unflappable music business icon Terry McBride of Nettwerk Music Group (Avril Lavigne, Dido, Sarah McLachlan, Barenaked Ladies), be interviewed as the keynote for the Le Recontres conference in Montreal last Thursday.

On why Nettwerk was structured the way it is:
"Artists are inherently lazy, so we had to do everything for them.”

On the 360 deal & The Barenaked Ladies:

“At first with Sarah we had a 360 deal, but as she grew, we gave her publishing back, and she owns half of her merchandise company. There is no business without the artist.”

Barenaked Ladies started their own label called Desperation. They own the masters and publishing, and so far they're on $10M in sales using only Nettwerk as their label and management firm – Nettwerk’s team manages all of the aspects of their career and leverages them through their own management company and connections.

Bands are brands and emotions

With the advent of the CD and computer, we went from pushing to pulling, and it created a change of behavior with having the “repeat” button on all CD players and listening to the same track over and over, which was something that was not possible with cassette tapes or LPs

Music is free
Terry has always believed that music is free. Back in the 1930's, music companies were terrified about radio and it took an act of Congress to get music played on the radio. His question is: How do you monetize free now that the fan owns the song, and the fan is part of a tribe?

Wherever there is fear, there is always opportunity
You will never change the behavior of tens of millions of teenagers, but you can monetize that behavior. If you shut down one avenue of dispersing free music another opens. Terry asks: “How many tens of millions of songs are being sent via IM?” and points out that we are so focused on suing the kids that we forget that they'll just go around us, and I'm not about that type of negativity. Litigation is an awful thing to do.

The consumer does not understand copyright. They never have and they never will. So, educating the consumer on “why it’s wrong” will get us nowhere.

Bury the suing paradigm and figure out how to monetize.

The new paradigm = more profits
A CD in the old paradigm of traditional printing and distribution used to cost something like this: $3 for the disc, $2 to get it on the shelf, $1 for marketing, $1 for the publishing royalty, and maybe $2 went to the artist, then you get 20% to 40% of those CDs returned on top of all of this.

In digital, there is no manufacturing, no distribution, and no return. The profit on digital is so much higher. When you go digital, you will be more powerful and more profitable.

Digital profits are currently up 300%.

Controlling intellectual property worked for between 30 and 40 years, and it does not work anymore.

If a share of the profit from cable companies could go directly to artists
music industry profits would double overnight
Terry is always looking at who is making money from this and are they sharing it? Cable companies, tool manufacturers like Apple and iPods, blank CD manufacturers.

Terry also thinks there should be a compulsory license, and if there was, the music business revenue would double overnight.

So where is the music business in 10 years?
Terry thinks music will be available everywhere. You won't pay for it
10 years from now, music will be in the clouds. You will be able to audit one company to get all of the numbers. It's not going to be Bell, it may be Google. Consumption of media knows no borders.

I believe the price of music has to come down. The millennium generation looks at value, and the value of music is not 99 cents a track.

Music is the connective glue between the fans and the artist.

We must ask: What causes that artist is related to? What causes is that artist supporting? What does that artist stand for? Who is this artist? Using those pieces of information, we can put ads on websites and links on websites to monetize the fans' behaviors. Everything you do around or about needs to be directed back to a lifestyle and back to that artist.

Last Advice?
If I were a long-term investor, I'd buy servers and the buildings that all the servers are going in. The millennium generation does not care about ownership. They go where the data is.
http://www.digitalmusicforum.com/mcbride_bio.html


And, if you have been living under a big rock and did not see the article on Terry Mcbride in Wired:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.09/nettwerk.html