Tag Archives: music marketing

Marketing

Individual Importance: Add Personality to Your Music Promotion

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As we move into the last of our 4 Ps in the marketing mix that we’re applying to music marketing, it will also be the most familiar to artists: Promotion.  Fear not, though, as there’s much more depth here than you may be touching upon with how you currently promote your art.

Beyond merely posting to Facebook and putting up a poster or fifty for your next gig, at the heart of promotion lies evoking an emotional response in fans and listeners. The way that you promote says a lot about how much you value those taking the time to invest themselves in your music, which in turn makes a huge difference as to how long listeners will stick around. The longer they stick around, the greater the chance that a listener turns into a fan, perhaps one for life.

Man covering ears
Image Credit: Avantard

Traditional broadcast (“tell and sell”) approaches to promoting music now fall on deaf ears. At best, it reminds a few convinced fans of your existence and is ignored by casual and potential listeners. At worst, it puts the casuals off for good and alienates fans seeking more from you, the musician.
What truly sets artists apart in the digital era is those using these new channels to forge deeper, direct relationships with listeners. A record label can’t do that for you. Nor can a manager or an agency, even though they can advise you on smart ways to go about achieving it.

No, it now falls to those making the music to be available, in touch, and engaging with what fans feel about your music. As such, there has never been a better time to focus heavily on your own promotion.

 

The Personal Touch

Giving your mobile phone number (even a temporary one) out to listeners online would be a disaster, right? Endless calls, open to abuse, no control over how and when you reach people… you’d have to be crazy.

Kishi Bashi Call RequestsWhen indie-pop favorite Kishi Bashi did this last month, fans couldn’t believe it either. An opportunity to simply pick up the phone and give an internationally acclaimed artist a buzz to shoot the breeze?

It was indeed true, as you can see to the right here, and it made a world of difference to the small section of his 20,000 Facebook fans who caught the request. Moreover, it made those of us who missed it eager to like the post and check back, to see what other connections the affable songwriter might make in the weeks to come.

This is a prime example of manning your virtual merch table. Being present, available, and taking the initiative to connect with fans on a one-to-one basis. 

At a live show, fans get an extra kick when they can buy merchandise from the artist herself and have a personal conversation. Finding those personal touch points online is just as, if not more important.

 

First Impressions Last

Everything you put out there on social networks and your own site(s) is a potential first impression to a new listener.

Harking back to product and price, you need to have the right hooks to pique people’s interest that first time around. What helps immeasurably is having both systems and people that man your virtual merch table in the most welcoming, unique way possible. Promotion is really about striving to connect a great product (you!) with the value it will offer to the buyer. In this case that’s the listener, and the value is the intangible emotional connection that they’ll make with your music.

To make that connection more understandable and rapid for the listener, communicate your personality, interests, outlook and opinions via online platforms. Have a deep web presence with all manner of media, from music to personal interview videos, a broad range of your musical style to the songs on offer, and regularly updated content on both your artist blog and your chosen social networks.

Think of every touch point with your fans – a follow on Twitter, a like on Facebook, a comment on your blog or e-mail subscription – as an opportunity to make a first impression. Even if a listener already knows you as a musician, find a way to make the interaction personal and make an impression as an individual for that first time.

When every encounter is seen as a make-or-break opportunity to win over a fan, you’ll begin to nurture those relationships that will develop into life long fans.

Over to you…

I’ll have specific examples (in the newsletter, so sign up below) of approaches that you can take to seek out deeper fan relationships  but I’d value your input here.

When have you gone that extra mile to win over a fan? What did you do?

 


Marketing

How Do Price & Product Affect Your Music Sales?

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As the most literal point of the physical to virtual merch table analogy, price and product are simple enough to explain in a similar manner. As this post last year on the importance of product diversity explained, a range of merchandise covering a variety of price points is what you’re aiming for.

Packed Market Stand
Image Credit: Neil Bird

What we’ll focus on here is fullytranslating that aim to your online world.

How can you create a range of products that is attractive to those who visit your site?

How should you price them and where will they be most effective in moving listeners along to an a larger purchase?

These are the questions to be answered today, so we’ll dig in…

 

What To Produce (And Where To Put It)

Products inevitably stem from price, as you need to decide what you can afford to make and how to spread that merchandise across several price points.

The key is to understand your listeners and what appeals to them, both in terms of visuals and audio.

For musicians, of course, audio is going to be a huge portion of what you offer to fans. But content components such as video, images, rolling galleries, headlines and typography can all be incorporated to attract website visitors in the direction of your audio section and your online store. If you have a significant visual element to your music, consistently connect art work to  individual songs and use it to focus attention on the home page of your site. If people gravitate towards your personality, record a short video greeting with yourself as the thumbnail summary image, prompting them to click and giving you an opportunity to thank them for visiting and direct them to a suggested next step.

In summary, identify the most compelling non-music aspect of your identity as an artist. Use a piece of content that reflects this to guide people towards a next step involving your virtual merch table, be it streaming a song or subscribing to your mailing list.

Some coming to your virtual merch table will be there to sample and be won over, meaning that a freebie should always be on offer. At the other end of the spectrum, you’ll be glad to hear, your lifelong fans need to be catered for with deluxe versions of products, offering them a reason to spend more money with you.

Hitting the right mix price points for the various products you offer thus becomes an important consideration.

 

Free Isn't Failure

How Much Should I Charge For Music & Merchandise?

As you’re catering to a spectrum of listeners with varying levels of interest, you need to provide a suitable price entry point for each  of them. Let’s look at some price ranges and what products might be right for them:

Note: The inner circle e-mail will provide a full range of product ideas at each price point. Sign up via this link now to catch the first one in early March >> bit.ly/ManYourMerch

Price Point: Free!

Why? It’s a point of entry to ease new listeners in. It’s hard enough to get people to listen in this digital music environment, without putting a pay-to-play barrier in their way.

Products: Prominent free download (with no sign up hurdle) on every page. Embedded streaming music player. Access to alternative versions of songs and/or exclusive videos (sign up required, password protected part of site).

– – – – –

Price Point: 99 cents & under

Why? It’s the standard price point for a digital download and provides the right range for an individual piece of digital content. This range also affords you the option of setting a suggested price, but making it pay what you want for anyone feeling generous. Don’t go wild in this area, just offer enough to give first time buyers a chance to dip their feet in.

Products: Single track. Pay what you want piece of digital content. Nick nacks for visitors to add to their larger order, such as buttons, stickers, or other items you’re not giving away.

– – – – –

Price Point: $1 – $4.99

Why? This is where the rubber meets the road and the order amounts, when taken in multiples, can become a solid income. This range covers all forms of digital content collections and perhaps even combinations of the items in the range below, to offer your visitor a more substantial yet perfectly affordable purchase.

Products: EPs. Video content. Small posters. Access to early content or bonus areas of site, perhaps on a monthly subscription basis.

– – – – –

Price Point: $5 – $9.99

Why? Here we move into album territory, as well as more substantial pieces of content and discounted older merchandise. This gives convinced listeners a chance to really dig in and contribute without breaking the bank. It’s also a handy discount range for additional “checkout extras”, like a $5 special on an earlier album.

Products: Extended EPs and albums. Singles club subscriptions (delivered over a set period of time). Sale merchandise from past campaigns, such as t-shirts, posters etc.

– – – – –

Price Point: $10 – $29.99

Why? Here we start to attract the more passionate listeners, lifelong fans, and completists who want to grab your discography (and more!) in one fell swoop. More physical merch will be in this range, especially clothing like new t-shirt designs, hoodies, and specialist accessories. It will also be very dependent on what you’ve produced and combinations of product that you choose to offer together at one price point.

Products: Albums with significant extras, perhaps an EP or pre-order limited version. Physical records on vinyl or deluxe editions. Clothing, hats, accessories.

– – – – –

Price Point: $30 – $49.99

Why? An extension of the previous range, largely to cover any “complete fan” packages you might want to offer, such as album/clothing/digital download bundles. Most of your items for relatively standard purchase should fit in this bracket, with anything above being somewhat specialist (and requiring another  article entirely!) Buyers at this point will be your most passionate fans, or affluent newbies who have been thoroughly convinced by your freebies/lower price items.

Products: Deluxe or limited edition vinyl albums. Complete package bundles of your discography and/or physical merchandise (possibly limited edition).

– – – – –

Above $50, we move into “super-deluxe” territory. If you have fans that will regularly pay for this level of product, well done!

Items here are highly artist-specific and will need to be tailored to what you know that niche group of your fan base will want. If you’ve read this full series so far, you’ll understand the importance of having regular individual check ins with your biggest fans. This becomes all the more important when deciding on high-end items to offer, as you’ll be much better placed to craft something especially for them.

Does your music and merchandise cover the right price points? 

What approaches have been most successful for you? Which need to be improved?

Share your best and worst in the comments so that we can all learn something more…

Best of the Blog, Marketing

Manning Your Virtual Merch Table: Translating the 4 Ps to Music Marketing

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Marketing Mix Sign Post
We can put all of these together and get your music to its correct destination.

Undertake any marketing-related course and you’ll come across the infamous 4 Ps of the marketing mix. It is to business degrees as drummers are to rock bands, ever-present yet disconcertingly easy to lose track of.

These four elements – product, price, place and promotion – are as crucial to music marketing as they are to any other product or service. 

Though the words are easy to understand, the difficulty for artists often lies in translating the underlying concepts to your own creations. You may get one or two right but overlook the remainder. Even factoring all of these elements into your interactions with fans, if they’re not pulling in the same direction then your efforts are diluted at best, pulling each other apart at worst.

This is why I want you to visualize the marketing mix in more familiar terms, by framing them as manning your virtual merch table.

 

Translating the 4 Ps to Your Music Marketing Mix

Picture a merch table at a live music event.

Broadly-speaking, the following three elements are are in play:

  • Concert attendees flooding in and out of the venue. More often than not they will have to pass by the merch table as they do so, providing a place for fans to gather. So this is a place where people gather… ideally your people. Your fans.
  • The merch table itself is the physical attraction, providing a reason to linger and items to consider. There are other distractions around, but the table content is a constant representing both the product and price elements of the marketing mix. Both can be directly translated to what is available for purchase and how much it costs.
  • Finally, there are those manning the merch table. This could be anyone from a disinterested venue employee to a hardcore fan of yours or, even better, you yourself. In this way, those who man the merch table represent the promotion aspect (or lack thereof). Without this element, no one is pushing your products and no sales will result (although some light thievery is may replace them).

There are several fundamentals of marketing that sticks in the memory, and specifically if any of these elements above are missing or not paid sufficient attention, either the fan experience suffers or sales do. In many cases, both will take a hit.

Fail to position the table in the correct place and you could miss a large portion of your potential audience. Offer insufficient product diversity or excessive pricing and you can miss or alienate those whom you do manage to attract. And without a passionate advocate to engage those with an interest, potential fans could easily wander off, never to be heard from again.

Your online marketing is like a virtual merch table, affected by many of the same dynamics and negatively impacting your relationships with fans if a particular area is neglected.

But how to set up and man a successful virtual merch table?

 

Music Fans Concert Celebration
Image Credit: Denise (Flickr)

The Month Ahead…

Each Monday in February I will be elaborating on each one of the three elements mentioned above, offering a deeper explanation of how it translates to your online music marketing and practical steps that you can take to develop that area of your web presence.

The goal is to provide a clear analogy and a variety of takeaways from each article in the series, some quick wins that you can apply immediately, others exercises that you can roll out over several months. As such, there will be companion content, further reading, and insider extras available via the e-mail newsletter, which you can sign up for here.

I intend to commit plenty of time to the conversation and follow up that I hope this series will generate, so comment below,  join me on Facebook or say hi on Twitter with anything you have to . You can also track the #ManYourMerch hashtag on Twitter for daily tips & updates on the subjects we cover here.

So there you have it… all that remains is to get involved!

Marketing, Opinion

The Fine Line Between Listeners Spamming Or Spinning Your Music

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No Soliciting Sign
Music?

I had another piece of writing in mind for this evening, until I made the pleasurable mistake of opening up the latest Lefsetz Letter before writing. Rather than staying my course, I thought I’d change tack, fulfill one of my three words for 2013, and ‘react’.

You might not like what Bob Lefsetz has to say, but you’ll defend to the death his right to say it when the passion bleeds through in his every missive. To wit…

SPAM: No one is going to listen to your music because you sent them an e-mail, tweet or Facebook link. Hope this effort makes you feel good, because it’s worthless.

Spinning Music vs. Spamming Music

Not all spam is created equal.

In fact, any honest marketer – not an oxymoron, for any smart arses reading – knows the pain of seeing just one ‘Marked as spam’ check in in their campaign report numbers. A painstakingly developed opt-in e-mail list, combined with a true desire to update people on something in which they’ve previously shown an interest, is still one of the most important tools in your music marketing kit, no matter what sweeping statements you read to the contrary.

Beyond that, there are certainly many ways of communicating on Facebook and Twitter that will grate on many people’s last nerve. But to extend that to all tweets and Facebook links being spam is to point to Mitt Romney and call him Mr President… not of this reality.

A personally crafted message to a listener espousing tastes similar to your style of music is far more a caring act than a callous one. Describing your lovingly crafted, finely honed new track to your Facebook community and asking them to share, if it moves them to do so, is opening a doorway and gently ushering new listeners into your home, not jamming a foot in the door of their home and feverishly waving a set of headphones about their face.

The spectrum runs from unwelcome to warmly welcomed, infuriating to ingratiating. People know spam, meaning they also know what it isn’t and will not summarily dismiss everything unexpected as such. That is, apart from those frustrating few in the aforementioned marketing reports… is it so hard to use the ‘unsubscribe’ option, really?

I digress.

 

Know Your Audience Know You

The key here is familiarity. Your prospective listener needs to know you, or at least understand that you are attempting to personally know them, in order to elevate your approach from spam to a spin of your song. 

How do you achieve this?

Only practice opt-in e-mail marketing, preferably segmented for relevance to specific sets of your audience.

Set up listening stations to spot fans of similar styles, explore their web presence to see what they’re listening to or subjects that they’re interested in, then recommend the most suitable song you have for them with a brief explanation.

Become a part of online communities that fit with your music and subject matter,

Write your own self-hosted content, attracting readers and comments to your website where you can build a closer relationship with them.

Or one hundred other steps that involve a personal connection and an open the door for willing new listeners to check out your music. Recent examples for me include Twitter conversations with Brooklyn’s Sojourn Society and Nashville’s Red Measure, both unsolicited but neither of which felt like an intrusion, due to the nature of the approach.

Honest. Personal. Spam factor zero.

Spamalot?

My feeling is that the original point is more nuanced than the spam conclusion asserts, but it raises the valid question that all artists should ask ahead of that next e-mail update or Twitter DM: Are you spamming or connecting?

How can you change the way you approach potential fans this year to make the desire to listen to your music more of a personal thank you than an obligation?