Beck, Publicity and the Continuing Quest For a New Music Paradigm

Music opinions on the internet. You're always wrong.Firestorms flare up that much quicker online…

No sooner had Beck, iconic artist and poster boy for my “slacker generation”, announced plans to release his next album as sheet music only, than had the idea been inflated, exclaimed, and shot down. Indeed, before many of us had taken the time to digest and explore the idea, the curiously polarizing force of the Internet jury had processed its conceptual merits and delivered a typically inconclusive verdict.

But the clarity was delivered, as it so often is, by de facto industry watchdog Bob Lefsetz in his daily missive. Four words was all it took:

“It’s a publicity stunt.”

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August 16, 2012 by 1 Comment
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Music Marketing Matters: 6 Secrets To Gathering Fan Data

Last week’s near essay took you through the significant process of setting up your fan database. With that being the crucial foundation of your renewed focus on getting the most from your data, I thought I’d take it easier this week.

As a useful redux to that piece, today we’ll run through some brief places that you can use to seek out previously uncovered fans (and the accompanying data that they bring… do you think I’m obsessed yet?)

Where the Wild Fans Are

Dig out your new music fansChances are you gather most of your new fan data from e-mail addresses, either taken at live shows or those that you’ve managed to tempt into sign up online. In most cases, you’re missing out an important portion of building out, and connecting with, your fan base.

Granted, they’re not necessarily all that wild, but they are out there in the wilds of Internet listening, often taking in your music but not connected to your artist-to-fan channels. Sometimes this will be by choice, other times a result of simply not having linked up to them… yet.

The former we will leave in peace. But the latter?

These are the folks that we want to target, with laser-like precision, and bring  into the comforting fold of your warm and fuzzy artist updates.

But how to find them?

 

6 Steps to Gathering New Fan Data

As I said, we’ll get straight to the point today. Following are six steps that you can take to search out and identify disconnected listeners, with the objective of recording their data and requesting their permission to e-mail them from time to time.

(Note that some of these pointers will also be useful in filling any blanks in your fan data, as we discussed in How To Win Data & Influence People.)

1. Target Twitter

With its public data flow and two way communication, Twitter is an ideal place to scout out new fans and listeners you haven’t yet found. The search function gives you a simple place to search for your name or artists with whom you’ve recently played. Beyond that, look at the possibilities of mentions of local towns AND a related musical genre. Obviously if the individual is not listening to your music specifically, you have more work to do in building the relationship and connecting the dots to your tunes. Pursue that as far as you wish but, as a minimum, use a Twitter manager such as Hootsuite and set up a search tab on your own name and your artist moniker, if different. Alternatively, obtain the RSS feed for the search and have it delivered to your inbox daily (tweet me @AboveTheStatic or leave a comment, if you need to know how to do so).

2. Go Facebook Foraging

Despite being a closed network, you can gain access to a lot of potential fan data from information that people choose to share and that glimpsed from connections to your existing network of friends and fans. Open groups related to your genre, Spotify playlists that friends listen to and are shared through Facebook’s ticker, fan pages of artists with whom you’ve recently played, and pages of blogs who have featured your music or that similar to it, are all spaces that you should explore, from time to time, to note down any names of those name checking you or subjects related to you. Once you have a name – and this is something you can simply do one person at a time, as you have a few spare minutes – drill down to their page for any further information. If none is available, any common friends you have may provide an introduction. Failing that, you can Google them to see if there are any other web platforms available that offer an easier opportunity to connect than the generally more private realm of Facebook.

3. Look Over Last.FM

Although it has been around for years, Last.FM is often overlooked by artists as a forum to connect with fans. Despite the limited number of users, it has the benefits of almost a decade’s worth of fan listening habits stored up in its wealthy data banks. Obviously start with your own fan page and anyone mentioning your music, following the same process of drilling down to their individual user page to note down more information, but spread out that search to the similar artists, areas, and common musical interests, if you have the chance, in case people are looking for recommendations or an opportunity exists to strike up conversation with a fan around matching musical tastes.

4. Bottom Of Blogs

Way down below the articles of your favorite music blogs, a comments section holds the real buried treasure in the form of individual music fans offering their opinions. If you’re on Brooklyn Vegan, this will, admittedly, be largely comprised of moronic h8r hipsters and related in jokes. Elsewhere, however, you can unearth fans of both your own and similar styles of music. Start with blogs that you know have previously covered you (double check on Google’s blog search, Hype Machine, and elbo.ws, if you haven’t done so in a while) to track back and check the comments sections. Answer any questions and, again, click through to see if you can obtain more information on those commenting. You can also think laterally on this one, branching out to blogs and websites that cover subjects close to those that your songs address and building relationships with like-minded folks in those environments.

5. Ask Fellow Artists

Put simply, ask similar artists – preferably those with whom you’ve played or previously connected – to connect you with fans of theirs who they think will enjoy your music. Reciprocate for them with your own audience, as and when the opportunity arises. You can, of course, review the active fans of other artists on the platforms that we’ve already mentioned, but that recommendation from a trusted source will go a long way to adding authority and interest to your approach.

6. E-mail Individuals

Take every individual that you’ve gathered via the preceding steps and send them a personalized e-mail introduction. If you haven’t been able to gather an e-mail, it’s preferable to make a subtle ask for it via another platform, if the relationship has been established. If not, hold off and look for further opportunities to connect until it reaches that level. Make your intro more about them and their musical tastes than your own work. Keep it short, friendly but to the point, and add a note that they won’t hear anything more from you on the e-mail front, unless you hear from them and obtain permission.

 

That’s it!

Obviously some of this is more speculative than simply finding someone listening to your music and will take longer to develop, but don’t view that as a barrier. As Stan Stewart pointed out in a recent commentary, you have limited time available as an independent musician and you’d rather be creating for much of it. I understand this and would just advise you to carve out up to an hour for these data building activities every week or so.

Allocate just a little regular attention to setting your fan data foundation, then consistent data gathering and relationship building, and you’ll soon find that you have a lot of information to work with. Be it for your next tour plans, music release, or even polling fans for more information, this data will be invaluable to you when the time comes for your next big music move.

Over To You…

 What stage are you up to with your data collection? How could it be improved?

Where could you gather more information about those who are listening to your music but aren’t on your radar?

 

 

August 6, 2012 by 2 Comments
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Music Marketing Matters: How to Win Data & Influence People

In broaching the subject of data gathering and marketing for musicians last week, I quickly realized that this was going to be bigger than one post would allow. Unless one is talented enough to compose enormous articles that remain fresh and coherent throughout – as can Judy Gombita, for example – one should make like a dubstepper and Break. It. Down.
 

As luck would have it, this is also the approach that you should take with your data gathering.

Break down the walls of your fan data

Image Credit: Ross

Bite Size Data

Unless you’ve been diligently collecting and organizing your fan data for years, which I imagine is akin to the 1%, it’s likely you have one large block of unsorted data, knocking around with several other scraps. Taken as a whole, these form your overall audience database.

And take them as a whole is exactly what we’ll do first, before going on to break it all down again. This time, however, we’ll be doing so in a more productive manner.

 

Building Your Audience Database

Follow these steps to build your initial database. If you already have this in good order, please move on to the next section, ‘Music Marketing Segmentation’.

 
1. Gather every piece of fan data that you’ve collected on one place, in an easy to read format.

 

2. Start a spreadsheet in Excel (or a free equivalent, like Open Office‘s Calc or Google Docs) and type out each relevant category across the top row of this sheet. For every recurring piece of data you have, e.g. First name, last name, E-mail, location etc, you should have a category for it on your sheet. Discard any infrequently occurring data like nicknames or feedback. If it’s pertinent, we can record it later in a general ‘Notes’ column.

 

3. Transfer all the data, once you have all the column headings you need, over to your new spreadsheet. Yes, this is the particularly tedious part… don’t worry, I can wait….

 

4. Done? Congratulations! Have a cup of tea to celebrate and come back in half an hour.

 

5. Now begins the fun… data gathering and filling in the blanks. Add any ‘would like to have’ pieces of information to your column headings. Examples might be income, job title or industry, type of relationship (friend, family, or some more complex measure of acquaintance that we can work on). Don’t stress too much on these, as we can add more later, but DO think about the type of information that you’d like to know about your fans. What would help you connect to them more effectively?

 

6. Once you’re happy with the skeleton of your database, it’s time to add as much flesh to the bones as possible. Thankfully we live in an age of seemingly constant sharing, so stalking… researching your fans to fill in any data blanks is more viable than ever before. Start with a basic Google search of names, focusing on social networks to begin with as they have more standardized information layouts. If you’re still drawing some blanks, delve into blogs they frequent, pseudonyms that they use for online handles, or combination searches involving other data that you already have.
 

Once you’ve exhausted as many avenues as you can think of to complete your data set, accept any omissions and save the sheet in a couple of safe places, one hard drive and one accessible remotely, if possible.

Et voila, your information foundation is set! 

Remember to use the header categories that you’ve laid out here for all future data that you collect from people. This keeps everything complete and aligned with what you have identified as important things to learn about your fan base.

 

Music Marketing Segmentation

 

Types of segmentation

A preferable form of segmentation

As I mentioned earlier, we only built this up so that you can break it back down again. This time we’ll do it in an orderly fashion, however, by segmenting the market for your music.

Having gathered all this data about your existing fans, you can use it to make your communications to each of them more targeted. This benefits you because you can offer more clear and relevant news and offers to each segment of fans. It benefits the fans as well, as you aren’t just blasting out general announcements to your entire list, hoping that some of of will stick.

 

Segment Suggestions

You can slice and dice your database into segments in many ways, subject to your targets and the data that you managed to gather.

Here I’ll offer up five segmentation suggestions to get you started. If you start to play around with these, you should find that you begin to understand your data set and develop your own segments.

 

1. LOCATION: Where people live is one of the easiest and readily available pieces of data that you’ll have to hand. It is also one of the most potentially valuable, allowing you to identify clusters of fans for tour plans, geographical trends, and areas for potential street teams or fan meet ups (if coupled with number three on this list). Location is a solid place to start to feel out your data and get comfortable manipulating it into groups. If you need to add broader categories such as East coast, Midwest etc, feel free to create another column and segment in this way as well. 

 

2. AGE: How old your audience is can help you to infer many follow on points, such as their spending power, media preference, musical tastes, and much more. Although some of this will be an educated guess, it also gives you a platform from which to ask these questions the next time you engage them. You can also combine with other data, such as location, to identify audience diversity in various regions. This can help with anything from merchandise choices to venue decisions e.g. if much of your audience in Detroit is under 18, you’ll know you need to find a venue without drinking age restrictions. 

 

3. FAN STATUS: You can add an extra nuance to your data by assigning your own ranking of fan level. This can be based on any number of factors, including number of gigs attended, purchases made, length of relationship, feedback received, or some combination thereof. Digging this deep will allow you to tailor communications to the appropriate sections of your fan base. For example, to crowd fund a limited edition vinyl release you will probably only approach ‘super-fans’, where as sending brand new fans only a special offer for your older material will avoid a pointless communication to long term fans who already have those releases. 

4. PREFERRED GENRE: Understanding the types of music that individual fans enjoy gives you the chance to hyper-target new material, right down to releasing an individual song especially for that group. It can also help to refine set lists when combined with location and age related data, target recommendations of similar artists when you try to help out other artists, and perhaps even influence the way you write your next material. I know, I know, you write what’s in your heart. But it can’t hurt to have an insight into what your fans like as well, can it?

 

5. INFLUENCE LEVEL: This may require further research, or you may simply have a good feel for those of your fans who are influential over the tastes of others, but either way, knowing who to approach to spread your music is a valuable piece of data to have available. Though there are sites like Kred that can help you to ferret out influencers in a certain field online, your most likely route to segmenting in this way is to assign a simple rank for each person, based on recommendation behavior you see online (or lack thereof… perhaps you use a null value, in cases where you simply cannot tell). Does the person regularly share music, post YouTube videos that get likes on Facebook, or write about their tastes online? All are indicators that they should be added to a segmented group that you can go to when your hot new tune needs that extra push.

Over To You!

Have you already worked on something similar to this? How did you segment your data and what results did you see?

For those of you just starting out, does this seem like a valuable exercise? What questions are lingering for you?

July 30, 2012 by 9 Comments
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Music Marketing Matters: Diversifying Your ‘Product’

Free Air GuitarLast week I got a bee in my bonnet – yes, my part time job is subbing for Little Bo Peep… what of it? – about the lack of creativity in marketing music.

Rather than just whinge and whine, though, I thought I should probably make an effort to turn things around.

“Be the change that you want to see in the world” and all that motivational malarkey…

 

Music Marketing Matters

And it matters especially on Mondays, which is when I’ll be publishing my contributions to moving music marketing forward.

I have two simple goals for this series:

1. Provide ideas to market your music that offer something new and are practical for you to act upon,

2. Highlight examples of artists who are pushing the envelope in marketing their creations.

Today I can hopefully deliver on both of these, with a look at Amanda Palmer’s recent ~$1.2 million Kickstarter haul and what you can adopt from her methods.

 

Diversify Your Product

Whether or not you agree that music is a product, if you are striving to be any kind of career musician then you need to accept that it is vital to market your art according to similar principles that govern product and service marketing.

Standalone products are only sufficient if they have vast mass market appeal, which is something that rarely applies to music  (how many artists have made the big time with just one release, on one format?) So it falls upon you to offer your fans a wider variety. Not only variety in ways to experience your music, but also the live experience, the fan experience, and even varying the type of art that you make available.

Music Product Diversity - Even more than a record store

Image Source: Mela Sogono

Circling back to the curious case of Amanda Palmer, this million grossing Kickstarter campaign was a tour-de-force of artistic diversity. Here are some concrete actions that you can  pull from her success:

  • Format diversity - Know your audience. In many cases they will vary from pure digital downloaders to geeky speccy nerdy collectors (these are the folks that you especially need!). You need to offer a cheap and easy format for the former, a beautifully crafted limited edition vinyl for the latter, and anything in between that caters to what you know to be attractive to those purchasing your wares. Put out informal polls on social media, talk to your fans, ask in an e-mail newsletter… whatever it takes to find out what diversity people want and how you can give it to them.
  • Build in real world connections - It’s all too easy to be pulled into the digital world and build relationships exclusively with fans online. Palmer offered tangible real world connections to fans in cities across the world, baked into the decision to purchase her new music. Play to the themes of your music and match as many physical events to it as you can afford to deliver. Sound expensive? Cut your cloth accordingly and tailor events to where your fans can gather. Also note, people will often pay more for a real event… and they will feel more invested in your music for having done so. This is especially true if you make a visible effort to make the event special for them personally (song dedications, personalised gifts, private meet and greets…what else would you include?)
  • You are more than music - Heresy, I know, but you have a lot more to offer. What’s more, your fans know it and are more likely to part with their cash if you serve it up for them. Don’t panic, music is still at the core of what you do. But offer art work, lyrics/poetry, personal inspirations in the form of unique merchandise, video content, the work of others that you admire or with whom you have collaborated, and you start to stand out  from the crowd. You also have something to offer at higher price points, providing those who want to spend more a reason to do so. Look at Palmer’s art books as just one compelling example. For bonus points here, make some of the alternative products you offer limited edition. Those who snag them will feel an extra sense of accomplishment as your fan; those who do not will be on increased alert for the next time.
  • Make it community-based - What characterizes Palmer’s online successes (and they are very much in the plural) in particular is the sense of belonging that she evokes in fans. They remain fanatical (in the positive sense), yet there exists a kinship, a degree of equality, in their relationship with her. True, she has built this up over many years, but it can and should be applied right down to the level of brand new artists building fan bases in small towns.This is also a concept that can be applied to your product diversity. How can you make your live appearances more of a communal affair, rather than limit them to artist broadcasting? Playing more intimate gigs like house parties or word-of-mouth outdoor gatherings brings you closer to your audience. Bringing in fans to help you organize such events, with special access for them and a few friends, makes your music more communal. In the short term, these tiny events placed alongside larger, more standard shows, breed a healthy symbiosis between attendance of the two. Longer term, you’re making memories for fans on a one-to-one level, and their emotional investment is far more likely to yield a financial one.
  • Expand into other audiences – Less related to product offering, but nonetheless a useful action point to take from this example, is the idea of branching out into the audiences of other artists and creators. Collaboration is often a smart way to do this, as it breeds unique creations that are of interest to both sets of fans. Reciprocal offerings are another, with a contribution from one artist to your next project and you providing something for them in a similar fashion. Palmer offered books, art work, scripts, photography, and all manner of extras from fellow creators, ensuring cross over into many new networks.

Admittedly, Amanda Palmer has an established base of fans and  can already reach many more people than most independent musicians. But it was the diverse offerings and alignment of them with fan passions that helped her to move from a good Kickstarter campaign to a phenomenal one. $1 million is out of reach, but a healthy return on your investment in music is not.

Take away: Understand your fans’ desires, create a wide range of ways to cater to them at multiple price points, then deliver with passion and flexibility across as many networks as possible.

 

Over to you…

What did I miss? Are there better ways to diversify what you offer to your fans? 

Does the notion of having to go beyond the provision of music offend you as an artist? 

Let’s go at it in the comments section here. We’ll learn from one another and possibly have a good old scrap in the process! 

July 2, 2012 by 9 Comments
Filed Under: Case Studies, Marketing, Success Stories Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Marketing Music: Past, Present, and Future

 

Think about music differently

Image Source: FrikiPix.com

This business of music… it troubles me. 

Not for the age old tension between artistic endeavor and monetary gain (which has troubled me for decades) but for the current lack of invention in delivering music to the masses.

At a time when digital channels open up routes to an audience for almost every conceivable genre, we see ever more artists falling back on the tried and trusted promotional routines of the boom years, flogging them to within an inch of their life for increasingly diminishing returns.

If something is irreparably broken, there comes a time to break down and replace it, rather than patching up another hole and convincing oneself that it will hold out for another passage of use. In some cases, the same applies to an entire business model.

 

“Every act of creation is, first of all, an act of destruction.”

~ Pablo Picasso

 

Creators Lacking Creativity

For an industry that thrives on the creative spark and connecting with its audience, there is a distinct lack of creativity when it comes to actually marketing music to people. From tired album release cycles to sweeping dismissals of digital business models, the record industry of the 21st century clings doggedly to the practices of decades ago.

Musicians must now apply the same freedom of thought that powers their art to the marketing of their music. 

There are almost no limits now to what you can attempt, in terms of releasing your music and encouraging people to buy into your work with cold, hard cash. Financial constraints may always apply but everything else is up for grabs. Free platforms, publicity, and free access to people have opened up the doors of opportunity, with the biggest decision being which ones to select and where to spend the majority of your most valuable resource, time.

 

The Past

In the past, a record label held sway over almost every aspect of marketing your music. With distribution of physical product and limited media channels being the main concerns of disseminating music efficiently to fans around the world, getting signed to a label was at the core of every artist’s career plan.

No longer. Most labels are now  the very epitome of the problem at the heart of the music industry; that same unwillingness to accept that the ‘golden age’ of $15+ albums and radio play payola is dead and gone. Not to discount the labels that do seek out innovative new models, which I warmly applaud, but any look at the latest reformed act from those halcyon days, being dragged out for one last milking in the cash cow shed, will bear out the continued focus of mid/major record companies on music marketing past.

That’s the past. And partially the present, which is a frustratingly sullen plod towards the inevitability of a digital music market place, hamstrung at almost every turn by those seeking to turn back the clock. A transition phase that is agonizingly – tantalizingly? – fluctuating between business models old and new. 

 

The Future

What interests me most is where we can take the release, marketing, and enjoyment of music in the years to come. Let those clinging to the past wallow in declining sales of physical and increasingly ineffective marketing campaigns. As they sink, let us focus our efforts on innovating.

Innovation means improvement. It means introducing better ways of working, through creative thought and testing out ideas. Some will fail, some will be of moderate success. Here and there, though, an idea will be a runaway success and forge a new path for other musicians to follow, like the massive exposure for Daria Musk with her Google+ concerts or Amanda Palmer’s Kickstarter millions.

Yes yes, I know, talk is cheap. Everything I have written thus far is purely conceptual and lacks any practical, actionable advice. Which is why I will now be dedicating every Monday to ‘Music Marketing Matters’ , a series of posts in which I’ll focus on one idea that you can apply to marketing your music, in a way that will help you stand out from the crowd.

I can’t promise success.

I can’t promise a step by step guide to implementing every part of the thoughts that we’ll unpack.

I can promise ideas that will stimulate discussion and help us to move music marketing forward, together.

So jump on the e-mail subscription option to the top left of the page here and we’ll get the ideas rolling from next week. Let me know in the comments if you have an idea you’d like me to spend some time exploring.

June 29, 2012 by 3 Comments
Filed Under: Marketing, Opinion Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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