marketing and monetizing a music artists website

 Okay so we been doing this series on online promotion, in the last post in the series we talked about the importance of your website and how to set one up.

 

Today we’re going to be revisiting a lot of ideas we’ve discussed about promoting your website - and talking about how you can use your website to create value for fans that leads to income.

Now we're getting into the real nitty gritty and moving beyond the basics. So this time we're going to be going through website promotion and we're going to cap it off in the next part by continuing to discuss building email lists and building deeper engagement with fans by fostering interactions and ongoing relationships.

Lets look over 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.

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 when I’ve talked about building your website and how important your “internet property” is, it’s about creating an online channel for you to present your content and develop profitable interactions, and retaining control of that environment and those interactions.

 

Blogs and websites are very similar in the way that they are used as a platform to deliver content, and can be both used to conduct highly valuable propositions such as building an email list of fans from which to monetize continued interactions. Though if you’re innovative and creative your website can be used to create opportunities to drive deeper fan interaction with content that can be managed for monetization.

I tend to explain website promotion in terms of two concepts: Sales and Marketing. First comes marketing, that’s about bringing people to your website. We discussed Social Media, and we also talked about creating digital content, writing and blogging – making a lot of words in particular - to increase your depth of presence, “owning more of the net” and improving search based results. In this way, you can say content IS promotion.

 

But as your building your content and “owning more of the net”, committing yourself to developing your website into a platform that creates income from your music becomes a long and cumulative process.

Once you’ve worked to bring traffic to your site, we have to examine the sales process, because “Please buy our CD” in big letters wont work.

 

 

When I talk about increasing “sales”, or “conversions”, we are optimising the content that visitors to your site experience in order to produce a desired outcome. That is, put in broad terms, when a visit to your website results in the desired action by the visitor, whether that’s downloading a free song, signing up to an email list or even . . . engaging in an interaction which leads to monetization!

How can optimize your website to encourage more “sales”?

Often we can start with basic tweaks - increasing the access, the value and the uniqueness of the proposition.

 

But this is where we start to discuss the power of building relationships with fans. It comes back to engagement, it comes back to branding. The reality is, unless you engage you’re not likely to even get people interested in downloading your music free. So what engages people?

Well music obviously. But the problem is we’re moving beyond the era in which they used to just play music at you on the radio until you liked it. The struggle is getting them to listen. Getting them to get that far.

What will make them give your music a chance?

Branding. Branding through content that carries powerful messages fans identify with.

The house music videos of Benny Benassi and Eric Prydz carry strong visual messages about sexuality. The Hip Hop music videos of P Diddy et al carry strong visual messages about the rewards of financial success, while Coldplay alludes heavily to personal struggles intepreted through monogamy. These examples abound. Bob Marleys music is depicted as spiritual and political, Radiohead's music is depicted as having intellectual and political undertones. 

Successful artists connect with their audience through strong brand associated messages.

Here again the importance of continuing to create content that enhances the brand value to the fans of what it is you represent. If you don’t carry strong messages in this way then you don’t really represent anything powerful or meaningful to people and so they fail to engage.

It’s not just about branding but also about being unique.

But it’s also about the proposition you’re presenting. It must carry value for your potential fan as well as being unique.

When I talk about the proposition that you are using your social networks and blogs and content to draw people to your site and draw people into, it’s not only a unique and valuable brand proposition such as:

 

“we UNIQUELY represent a brand powerfully associated with your identity”

 

but also a uniquely valuable proposition in order to capture the value in your brand as a relationship that can lead to profitable interactions such as:

”So sign up for mailing list so we can continue to have interactions based around uniquely valuable propositions that benefit you!”

So let me cut the marketing speak for one moment:  It means unless people think you’re cool, they don’t care about your free mp3’s. they don’t.

 

It’s up to you to give them something to care about.

You gotta create the greatest opportunity and encouragement to sell the interaction that will escalate the relationship with the casual visitor.

That’s why you’ve got to go back to Rapino’s statement and recognise the role your website plays in building your email list.

“ . . . and it’s all about the website. Collecting email addresses and maximizing revenue . . . ”

 
So here we see the value of the email list. We can grasp the simple email list as a way to foster deeper relationships with fans and then and only then arriving at a point at which you can actually start making some money.

So coming right up is our last post in the series before we accept we've well and truly moved beyond the basics into the business of building relationships and innovating to create new value from those interactions.

 

blogging for musicians: search, revenue and relationships

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 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.


A lot of my readers and clients are tuning into what I’ve been saying about blogging - except I know I can get a bit rabid at times at run away with myself so I thought it was important to do a solid post outlining some more basic concepts here for musicians to think about approaching their blogs:

- what blogging represents for musicians in 2008

- benefits of your blog as it develops: from google juice, to revenue, to engaging your audience

- what to post about and good blog karma

- what about blogging on myspace / facebook?

After this weekend I have no doubt musicians can make money blogging! But that is just ONE part of the opportunities blogging represents for artists.

So as I've described, in the last 3 years Myspace normalized a lot of behaviour, especially amongst younger people, that was previously perhaps considered geeky or isolated to techies such as actively socializing, bookmarking, blogging and discovering music online.

But users are leaving myspace and they’ve matured in their social behaviour online. Artists are also maturing with their promotion, looking to engage audiences, build relationships and create value in new ways, and this is why the return in popularity of blogging over the last 6 months or so has resonated with artists. Lets go over the reasons:

Blogging for musicians in 2008 represents:

First it represents independence from myspace, facebook etc. in creating your own platform in which to present content, be found and interact with fans, and control the way revenue is created from those interactions.

These other points I think will have value if I make them chronologically in order of development.:

STAGE 1: SEARCH ACCESS AND GOOGLE GOODNESS (SEO)

When I first set up a blog for an artist I am aware only a handful of people will read it in the first few months but you just gotta get in there and get those 50 first posts out. 300 words. You’re creating text content that represents accumulative search authority.

Most fortunately, I have managed to maintain my wordpress blog’s page rank at a respectable 4 out of a possible 10. And the value of having a page that is highly ranked for authority – I PASS ON that authority to every site I link to through my blog. That’s why I regularly link back to my site and to my clients sites, to pass on the google goodies I’ve earned.

If you use the term “downbeat/chill out artist from Auckland New Zealand” A LOT in your blog . . . then your blog is going start ranking for those searches.

That’s why you find a lot of blogs like mine full of dumb SEO sentences like:

”If you’re interested in cd or dvd duplication and printing in Auckland New Zealand you should see budget cd and dvd duplication specialists kurb promotions in Auckland New Zealand for all your cd and dvd duplication and printing needs in Auckland, New Zealand.”

Google really likes blogs, (they own one of the biggest blogging platforms, blogger, where I’ve been making my $US1 a day or so with adsense.) because:

1: they’re tidy and organised as a platform which is part of bigger network of platforms. No dead links and the navigation of links is already set up to accommodate users as well as Googles “search spiders” which run around on your blog trying to work out if you're any good.

2: They’re updated regularly. Google definitely ranks older more established sites higher BUT also likes fresh content - not crusty old sites that haven’t been updated with new information, so making a weekly posting on your blog is a bare minimum.

3: All those words. Googles spiders read they don’t see. The only thing theyre interested in is the text on your site. Though video and audio present other exciting new opportunities online, when it comes to google and search optimization its about words!!!!

STAGE 2: GROWTH AND REVENUE:

After around your first 6 months or 50 posts, Google and the rest of the internet is going to start taking you a bit more seriously and it will be time for you to start taking your blog a little more seriously.

I’ve done 88 posts in almost 8 months.

You’ll be moving to the point where I’m at, where having 100 or more visitors to my Wordpress blog in a day isn’t surprising and I’m actually earning a few dollars a week from my Blogger blog through the easy instalment of Google’s adsense program.

By this stage you’ll recognise the need to be active constantly on your blog posting every few days to keep the momentum building. But just like anything that grows you’ll face new problems.

Recently I’ve had to accept my blog is getting too big for simply copying and pasting articles to my blog. Google loves content but can be very dubious about “duplicate content” so although other bloggers love it when you link back to them, when you copy and paste a whole article without any commentary or point of difference at all, it can make some bloggers a little disgruntled.

That means posting lame spider friendly SEO articles is probably out to, because your readers are not going to get value and thats the most important thing.

STAGE 3: RELATIONSHIPS AND ENGAGING YOUR AUDIENCEA lot of people say the best reason to start a blog is simply for visibitlity and networking but the final point of value to be found in blogging usually comes a couple of years in - building that relationship with your fans that they have access to you and you remain continuously visible to them, maintaining your engagement.



I firmly believe a well kept blog should prevent you from ever having to spend hours a day corresponding by email to your fans, which I don’t think serious artists have time for, unfortunately. The commitment to bloggin creates the compelling depth you need to develop your true fanbase, especially as you develop what they call your “voice”. The character of your writing in your blogs.

Your blog allows you to keep your fans engaged without having to actively maintain relationships, and as you go further down the path of ad supported and fan supported revenue ideas . . . when you have the attention of a trusting and loyal audience (an audience that you probably engaged when you offered them a free mp3 they enjoyed or they “stole”) making money in the 21st century is not going to be a great leap, trust me.

Again, look at the way I use my blog for a few cues. My blog is active and out there, and a major part of my marketing as well as communication and branding strategy. The message there is inviting - come to my blog, get this free, valuable information, learn about the work I do, BUT the emphasis is always lurking there on the desired outcome: come to my site where you can think more seriously about giving me your money.

MUAHAHAHAHA

Am I running round the street screaming “I’ll make you famous on mysapce and youtube for $50 a week!!!!”

Should you be running around screaming “Buy! Buy! Buy my album!!! It’s NEW!!!! Buy it! You have to! I don’t care who you are, I’m a musician and this is my new album and it’s new!!! Buy it!!!”

that’s not going to work is it? Slowly building a relationship and maintaining a relationship with fans is how you’re going to eventually quit your day job.

SO WHAT DO I BLOG ABOUT? BLOGGING KARMA . . .

Here’s the point of difference between me and you. I blog about a very specific and topical developments in a popular industry niche.

You blog about your music, your self and the things that are important to you that represent your music, and I can see theres a challenge there in keeping the content coming.

But if you’re not obsessed about creating art through your music or other mediums you may as well not be here. If you are obsessed, share it!!!

I’ve never been able to release my own solo project album of recordings because I was so deeply obsessive about it! How many songs? Which songs? A mixture of songs or just the upbeat ones or just the downbeat ones? What about the album art? WHat about the name???

Share your obsessions!!! Share that passion for what youre doing – let peole know! whatever problems you’re facing, other musicians and artists are facing them too, and as an artist, talking about problems and solutions and reflecting on them for the benefit of others is ultimately what youre about!

Got other interests, political or religious views that are part of who you are as an artist? Interested in other artistic or technical endeavours? Don’t take the safe, palid, non offensive route! Fans are engaged by artists who are not afraid to speak their minds and become three dimensional characters, with personal brands that represent clearly defined ideals.

Now building Blog karma is a great way to start out if youre stuck for posts. Don't feel interesting? then blog about something related that is!
Remember you want to blog about things relevant to your artistic image to build the keyword and search optimisation of your content. If you’re a rock band from Melbourne . . . blog about other rock bands from Melbourne!!! Eventually theyre going to find out you blogged about them and they’ll feel special, strengthening your network.

Look it happened to me just yesterday

http://www.nerdy-frames.org/2008/04/dj-romantech.html

Your fans and readers will get increased value out of finding out about new underground artists and you could become an authoritive source! Sure, you want to get in the media, but whats better than being in the media? BEING the media!!!!

Next year, I want to be working with artist who have built loyal readership fanbases on their blog and are able to partner with high quality product and service providers that equate to killer affiliate earning opportunities!!!

WHAT ABOUT BLOGGING ON MYSPACE AND FACEBOOK????

Well lets just get facebook and reverbnation and squidoo a couple of other important sites out of the way because web 2.0 means its relatively easy just to hook your RSS feed from your wordpress or blogger blog up to display on your facebook or reverbnation whenever you post.

For my clients I will be developing more concise content management techniques based on RSS feeds – as it is I will be cutting and pasting this to 8 different blogs/myspaces and that’ll take me half an hour alone, not to mention the forums.

But this is a good question asked by a couple of my clients to highlight some elements of what blogging is all about.

From a search perspective, it does add value to search engine optimization but not that much. You should already have quality links back to your site from your myspace profile page giving you “google juice” or search authority from myspace, and having such links from other authoritive sites such as top blog sites (wordpress, blogger) increases that authority.

My experience with wordpress though sometimes frustrating to use because they don’t make it easy for you to just throw in videos, ad platforms etc. like the Google owned Blogger, is that wordpress has created a lot of authority and random traffic for me, and that is why I recommend it. I get more traffic to my blog than to my site these days.

While you can publish your pieces on a myspace blog, the features are a lot more limited. Most popular blogging platforms offer built in navigation that also improves search authority by immediately linking all the content in the blog. The myspace blog is really just a satellite attached to your profile

And it will be a very cold day in hell before myspace writes any checks for an artists share of the advertising revenue they create from the artists content on myspace.

HOWEVER – it is not yet determined how much traffic myspace blogs bring in from within myspace through searches etc.

BUT in terms of building relationship and engaing your audience ALONE, you should be getting into the habit of addressing your fanbase regularly.

You’re not one of those artist who just users a friend adder and a plays increaser to look good are you? Or are you actually interested in building relationships with your fanbase?

To me the most important reason to just do a simple cut and paste to your myspace blog AND your myspace bulletin, is that you’re still using myspace to create the opportunity to have someone on your friends list come closer to being a true fan by moving the interaction forward.

You don’t just become another band on somebodies friends list, another 2-dimensional somebody just using the internet to get their 15 minutes.

OKAY LETS FINISH UP!!!

MUSICIANS BLOGGING CHECKLIST

Tags – don’t forget your tags! Both internal search and google loves them so using keyword “tags” on blogging platforms such as wordpress and blogger is fundamental to getting that initial traffic going.

Links – Link back to your site, your myspace, any other blog that talks about you, anything thats interesting or relevant to your readers! - the link button in the writing panel makes it easy, but I also suggest creating a signature which you cut and paste into every blog like I have below - which could be your “link family” linking back to your site, your cd baby, your youtube, myspace etc.

Search and Comment on other blogs – comment on other relevant blogs – make sure you contribute something to the discussion, just DON’T forget to fill in your website

Post Titles - use title that engage users and searchers. if I called this post "about blogging and stuff" do you think that will target my desired audience or pull in curious traffic?

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 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.

NZ MUSIC MONTH SPECIAL FOR NZers - 3 MONTHS BARE BASICS DIGITAL SERVICES NZ$400

kurbpromo@gmail.com

music promotion and spam: A reformed Black Hat

Http://www.nickycakes.com

Nicky Cakes aka partner ZU9whatever is an internet marketer and blogs on internet marketing under the bi-line "confessions of a reformed* black hat"

I know most of you just want to write your songs and earn a living. I wanna earn a living too promoting the songs you write, what those songs and what you represent, and creating value out of that that results in income. but one of the most inefficient parts of the work I do is explaining my work and the sorts of skills I have that make me in such demand right now to the people who pay me - people who just wanna make songs and make a buck from it.

My work involves learning about how internet marketing is carried out and looking at where that intersects with marketing music online in an appropriate way. Which is pretty unique because I'm doing pretty well with it.

I say "appropriate" because to me whether something is right or wrong or black hat or white hat spam or not is not the issue in marketing and promotion. I feel that if internet marketing messages and techniques are not useful to those who recieve them, because they are untargeted, unoriginal, and disruptive, then they are spam and damaging to your brand whether you used software, bots, scripts or automated techniques or not.

To me it's not spam that's wrong or the methodology of communication but all communication that isn't thought out with the interests of those recieving the message in mind.

Thats why the richest internet marketers are not software developers or code gurus. Unique ideas and innovation still drive music marketing and promotion as it always has.

THIS FROM Nicky Cakes:

Nickycakes gets asked this question quite often. “What is a Reformed Blackhat?” Most people assume that it has something to do with spam or making cloaked pages to fool the search engines. Wrong, WRONG. First, take a look at what “blackhat” really means.

For years, the terms “Black Hat” and “White Hat” have been used to describe hackers, people who break into computer systems, etc. A Black Hat hacker is someone who breaks into systems with malicious intent. Personal gain, causing a general ruckus, or making a name for themselves are a few of the motivating factors. White Hat hackers, on the other hand, is someone who breaks into systems to help. These people are generally the ones who notify the vendors of problems in their systems, help write patches, etc.

Anyway, along came SEO. Like hacking, there were 2 sides of the SEO coin. There were webmasters who got their search engine rankings naturally by writing “good content” or developing relationships with other webmasters for backlinks, etc. Then there were people on the cutting edge who came up with creative ways to rank higher in search engines with less work. Sometimes these practices are thought of as “spammy” but generally none are illegal unless computer systems are being broken into, or can-spam laws are being violated.

So the terms “White Hat SEO” and “Black Hat SEO” were born. Neither have much real meaning, but both are thrown around quite liberally. It’s kind of silly, really. The self proclaimed “White Hat SEO” will try to build inbound links to his website by manually visiting related blogs and making comments on them with his website’s url in the comment. Someone more clever than him will write a program to automatically post comments on all related blogs with the push of one button, and the “White Hat” screams “BLACKHAT!”.

That’s really what Blackhat SEO boils down to. It’s just a term thrown around a lot by idiots who are continually 1-up’d by people more clever than they are. It’s pretty much meaningless.

Ok so that’s the end of that tangent. What does Nickycakes mean by “Reformed Blackhat?” Well, many years ago the Cakes could have been labeled as the type of blackhat first mentioned in this post. Since then many things have changed and now he’s devoting that energy to something more productive: making money on teh intraweb. Hence Reformed Blackhat.

Keep it real.





Kurb is a media promotions company providing a regular blog on digital music promotion, marketing digital content and artists 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 printing 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. nzhttp://www. myspace. com/kurbpromohttp://www. youtube. com/user/kurbpromo -http://kurbpromotion. wordpress. comhttp://kurbpromotion. blogspot. comhttp://www. squidoo. com/kurb

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Element - New Zealand Hip HopKanarek - psychedelic ambient beatnik popNow You Die - Melbourne Metal Punk! Golpe Con Classe - Latin Hip Hop SpainKoshowko - Polish Electropop in MelbourneRoger Greenaway - New Zeland singer/songwriterAzumuth - New Zealand epic modern rockbased in Melbourne, AustraliaDJ TKD - Te Puke's finest - New Zealand DJ and turntablistAl Walser - Pop/ R&B Prince - Liechtenstien / HollywoodRomantech - Liquid Drum'n Bass Auckland New ZealandGanga - Downbeat CHill out Lounge Dub - Denmark

Oh hi, since myspace is dead, can I hang out on your website for awhile?

Hi everyone!

This is Matt from Kurb promotions.

We are media services company that specializes in global online promotion for artists.

Y’know. Myspace. Youtube. Itunes. Blogs and RSS. Search engine optimisation. Websites. Aggregators. Ad supported revenue. All the computer stuff.

We also have some exceptionally cheap physical media services such as CD’s, DVD’s and posters with a free delivery policy so you can do it all over email.

I’ve been killing it on myspace and blogging up a storm for the last 18 months and I wanted to share some articles I’ve written.

There’s a lot of people blogging about Radiohead and Madonna and changes to the music industry but not that many people blogging about the reality of nuts and bolts internet promotion, breaking an act online and what is refered to as “monetizing” online content. I.E. making money of it.

The word “monetize” is basically used to infer to the character of most new web concepts which have become successful and THEN turned that success into income – they’re two distinct operations and this is something modern artists have to be aware of.

It’s all about new media and web 2.0. That means a new version of the internet that is driven by interaction and choice unlike the old version which was more like radio or TV. You sat there and you listened or watched whatever they chose to provide.

This is all of course what I do for a job. I help artists do the internet, I make CD’s, I make posters and I put them up.

I will probably only be posting the odd article that seems to make more sense than usual when and where I get the chance, otherwise, check out my blog at:

http://kurbpromotion.wordpress.com

You’ll find heaps of industry tidbits and analysis – sometimes borrowed from other blogs – but also lots of practically applicable tips and kind of low key knowledge basically based around how the internet will make money for digital content creators.





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