Image Credit: Jake Johnson

Except that it turns out we need the middle men.

At the very least – and more accurately – we need some standardized channel, because there exists a mass of music and a bewildering variety of ways to process the payment for it.

In these early years, efficient digital stores have risen up to fill the void. From iTunes and Amazon to Bandcamp and CD Baby, paying music fans have chosen convenience over a deeper commitment to their favored artists. This is understandable, given a voracious appetite for music and the ease-of-access that consumers have come to expect from online transactions.

Nonetheless, this need not eliminate the original promise of D2F, to connect artists directly to their most passionate fans and deepen the relationship between them. This includes selling music and merchandise and is an area where most artists are leaving money on the table.

Know Your Fans, Narrow Your Focus

At any size an artist needs to develop deeper relationships with listeners, but the extent to which a platform is required to do this will vary greatly according to size and stage of career. For those just starting out, the emphasis will be more on discovery and gaining attention, making the breadth of platforms more crucial than the depth.

As a fan base accumulates, however, too many artists stop short and continue to focus on that breadth, without customizing their art, content, and merch to the most passionate fans. This fails to take D2F to its most beneficial conclusion. Those building the closest ties to fans, offering the most of themselves, lay the groundwork for those same people to spend more time with – and more money on – their music.

By narrowing your focus to that small percentage of your fan base that is intrigued by everything you do, opportunities arise to better understand and cater to their needs…

Are they moved by visuals you present?

Do they react particularly well when you post lyrics to your songs?

Perhaps they praised a specific collaboration or project that you worked on?

When you know the answer to what really gets your core fan base bubbling up, you have a starting point for creatively-minded merchandise and physical records that suit the D2F approach.

Separating Merch From Marketing

Although the two are of course inextricably linked, it’s important to remember that D2F music and merchandise is largely to be considered in terms of income. It can be time-consuming to set up anything more than a rudimentary store and will require ongoing maintenance, so both the product and the demand must be there to justify investing in D2F merchandise to any great degree.

Knowing your costs and projecting what you expect to make are crucial factors in deciding just how viable any given D2F product will be.

This doesn’t preclude artists from producing simpler items for fans that can be given away at shows or included as a bonus with other orders, of course. Just remember that these are generally not items with any significant profit margin and, as such, they fall into the category of marketing materials. In the same vein as a show flyer or postcard, their job is to keep you in the minds of listeners for further connection, rather than make money in their own right.

Retaining a focus on cost and sale price helps you to judge what fits into the category of merch that you should sell directly to fans, as opposed to outsourcing the sale to an established digital store front. Limited edition releases and intricate art work related to your music are ideal starting points but this is an area where you can let your creative streak run wild, as the concept of this recent Music Think Tank article explains.

Over To You…

Was the promise of the direct-to-fan model vastly overstated or has it simply been swamped by the generic digital offerings that are presented to music fans today?

What examples have you seen of artists succeeding in offering their fans unique products?

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.

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.

When 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?

From the Bronx-based birth of hip hop, through the leather-clad punk swagger led by the Ramones and the infinite influence of new wave, the five boroughs have proven fertile for many forms of artist.

That said, there is perhaps a problem brewing in these city streets… a saturation point that peaked many years ago and is struggling to maintain the sheer wealth of creative talent resting on its artistic support system.

On what grounds do I base this supposition?

Lumineers Leave Town

Image Credit: Imelda

Billboard’s piece on the subsequent success of The Lumineers after leaving Brooklyn was the clincher, but the general malaise has been with me since moving to NYC in 2009.

Working as a concert promoter at small rock clubs for much of that year was an eye-opening insight into the mountain that most independent musicians must climb to achieve even the mildest attention. From 1am set times on a Tuesday morning, to paying to play on band battles that are a fast track to nowhere, it seemed like the pack is stacked against even the most savvy artist from the outset. And, yet, musicians still flock to the city to compete in this zero sum game.

Further confirmation came from a fellow musically-minded volunteer Alex, at my Musicians On Call program this week, who preferred even the schmoozy Hollywood leanings of Los Angeles to the gritty challenge of New York. His reasoning? At least musicians can afford to live and work in other creative arenas out on the West coast, where as the city I’ve come to call home has sky high rents, overpriced eating, and will force a needy musician into less creative pursuits simply to make ends meet. For all the love I have for the place, it was hard to argue with Alex on these points.

The benefits, of course, are myriad.

Everyone with whom any musician could wish to connect walks these streets, merely a connection or two away and easy to meet once you find that “in”. Venues are everywhere, be it a super star arena or a street corner, an alluring artist will almost always find some kind of crowd. Creativity flows across disciplines and you’ll never be stuck for a space to  seek out other artists for mutual inspiration. Not to mention the ever present history of artists that have come before you, be it the enduring abandon of Bowery punk legends or the classic songwriters who called the Village home. All feed in to a highly concentrated artistic environment that is hard to replicate anywhere else.

And yet, the practical must really trump the poetic.

At least it must, to my mind, for any artist seriously trying to build a fan base and a career from their music.  

Image from Wikipedia

Not a Niche

One final point to consider is that of the niche, an important concept explained thoroughly by fellow music marketer Jon Ostrow  in his article on Conquering Your Music Niche.

Essentially, this is connecting with a small group of like-minded individuals who will form a solid foundation for building out your craft. A significant part of this, in my opinion, is joining forces in the spirit of common artistic community.  New York City (and other cities like it) can be a tough place to establish that groundswell of support. Not to overlook shining lights of hope such as Silent Barn or ABC No Rio, but the prevailing atmosphere is more of competition than camaraderie.

All that said, there is undeniable value in the lessons an artist can learn from the struggle of “the city”. As overused a phrase as it is, if you make it here, you really can make it anywhere. But when many less populous cities and states are crying out for artistic inspiration… for a music scene to call their own… surely there’s a lot to be said for building from your own area?

Your Turn…

What do you think; harsh truth or off-the-mark trash?

I know many of you have lived in NYC as musicians or worked around the industry here, so I’d love for you to share your experiences with everyone. 

And those of you making music in other locations, is it helping or hindering your growth?

The comments section is yours to use with reckless abandon!

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.

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…

Earlier this week we looked at the intersection of placement and people who love music, finding where your people go and meeting them there.

Today we extend that to delve into the different types of listener that you’ll happen upon and how their varied levels of familiarity with your music affect the way you should approach communicating with them.

Different Strokes For Different Folks

Even before we get into how familiar someone is with your music, it’s important to accept that some people will inevitably dislike what you create. Trying to go after every listener is a losing battle, as you’ll waste time on those who will never be convinced and miss opportunities to nudge those who will towards a closer relationship with your music.

Effective marketing in any field defines the ideal customer and different segments in which they can be grouped. Taking the time to understand the types of listener to whom your music is most appealing will set you up to build much more lasting relationships with your fans.

But which types of person should you generally be watching for and how best to communicate with them?

The Spectrum of Music Fans

Below are the broad categories of listener/fan with whom you’ll come into contact. When thinking about them, utilize again the analogy to a live show and the types of people that will pass by your merch table.

Although there will be more to each and every individual, these delineations will help to understand where your efforts are best focused and how your approach should differ in each case.

• The Hostiles – They flat out don’t like you. Be it your genre, lyrics, fashion, or haircut, haters are everywhere. Pleasantly dismiss them and move on.

• The Unconvinced – These folks have heard of you but something  hasn’t clicked for them, meaning there’s a barrier to overcome.

• The Neutral – No opinion on your music as yet, either because they haven’t heard of you or are too new to have made a decision.

• The Motivated Listener – Consumes more music than the average listener and is open to new sounds. May not have heard of you but has more passion than the neutral in finding a favorite new artist.

• The Convinced – Those who are already on board with your sound and actively seek you out to listen.

• The Lifelong Fan – More than just a fan, this person is a passionate advocate for everything you create.

Delving deeper into each of these categories, let’s look at the subtle differences in communication that you can employ to build better relationships with them online.

Hostiles

Again, you have next to no chance of overcoming hostile attitudes towards your work. Online, trolls and hostiles are a common occurrence for anyone with any degree of recognition. Go by the old adage that it’s better to be loved and hated than to be ignored and don’t waste energy on haters that could be better spent on more open-minded listeners.

Unconvinced

If someone has heard of you but has reservations, the key is to understand what they are and how deep they run. Ask open questions about their feelings towards your music to find this out, then zero in on the underlying concern.

Perhaps it’s something as simple as having heard the wrong song, in which case you can point them to something that more suits their style. Find out, from their social profiles or general comments, which artists are their favorites and recommend something from your repertoire that more closely matches their taste. If it becomes obvious that the point of uncertainty is something deeper, such as disliking a particular element that is central to your sound, recognize that they’re unlikely to be converted into a real fan, thank them for listening, and disengage.

Neutral

Every merch table sees a few visitors who haven’t heard of the support band. In that setting, you can only really guide them to check out your set and hope they like it. Online, however, the “blank slate” is more frequent and you have more ways to connect with them via social media touch points.

This “blank slate” listener is, of course, neutral to you until they have something to judge… so serve them up some music! First, though, take some time to build a personal familiarity, preferably based upon similar music or artistic tastes.

We’re more likely to listen to something recommended by someone we like, so build a little trust before serving up your finest slice of songwriting. Even then, make sure that you have the listener’s tastes in mind, first and foremost. Getting to know them and what they like, whether via a Twitter or Facebook conversation or checking their listening habits, will give you more understanding of the best song to recommend. Relate via lyrical subjects, preferred instrumentation, favorite genre, or whatever emotional music connection you can make that increases the likelihood that the individual will move from neutral to convinced (and beyond).

To get good listeners, you need to listen good… err, well – - – - Image Credit: Quinn Anya on Flickr

Motivated Listeners

This is a breed of listener who is more of a fan of music in general than a specific genre or artist. Inevitably they have their favorites, but they also tend to be open minded when it comes to trying out new sounds and are able to talk widely about different styles of music. This person tends to show up early to gigs to catch the support acts and is a step above the neutral for you, as you can connect more deeply around musical tastes and the likelihood that they will share what they enjoy is far greater.

Probing the motivated listener’s depth of knowledge is an excellent way to connect with them, opening a window for your music to enter. Allow them to do most of the talking – or typing, for our ends – and genuinely seek to learn from them as a music fan yourself. Find out which blogs and music sites they read, as these may be useful outlets to meet similarly motivated folks. Often these individuals will be music writers themselves, to some extent, and have the potential to be a great advocate for your art, even at these early stages of familiarity.

Convinced

This group turns up to the show to see you. Even if not specifically there as your dedicated fan, they won’t miss your set and have a firm interest in getting to know you better. Online, this means fans of your Facebook page, people on your mailing list, and anyone that has shown a clear signal of interest beyond just spinning a song or two.

For those you’ve convinced already, the skill lies in building that relationship still further via many individual touch points. There will be less need to ask open questions about who and what they enjoy, with more direct communications about specific songs, shows they’ve been to, what they’d like to see from you in future, and other subjects directly related to what you create. Even so, you should remain interested in their wider music tastes and current listening, so that you have a better understanding of both the individual and the broader groups in which they travel. The latter is, of course, a potential route to new listeners, whether by recommendation from your convinced contingent or jumping into those groups of your own accord.

In every instance you should be looking to forge deeper connections with those folks that you’ve already convinced. As they feel closer to you, they tend to be more invested in your career and move towards becoming…

Lifelong Fans

Every musician needs at least a handful of lifelong fans to have anything approaching a career. Whether following the idea of 1,000 true fans to reach a steady income, or simply because you need a third party to effectively represent your music without obvious bias, these fans are the cornerstone of making money from your art. At a show, they will be the person buying a t-shirt, poster, and your entire back catalog on vinyl.

Lifelong fans are rarely developed overnight. They are the product of nurtured relationships, born of your music but brought to fruition by regular, one-to-one connections. As they will go above and beyond for you and your music, you need to be constantly on the look out for opportunities to do the same for them. Share things close to their heart, check in with them frequently, give them insider access to your next work, think up creative ways to reward them when you’re out on tour, anything that strengthens that bond. As you do this, the effect will ripple out to their network of friends, as they listen and talk about you more often. This then feeds the earlier categories, with listeners just waiting to be converted from neutral to  convinced and motivated fans.

Social media has made it even easier to identify your deepest fans and to feed their appetite for connection to you.

Use the channels that they frequent to engage, excite, and reward them in creative ways and you’ll build the basis to make a living doing what you love. 

Where are your people going? Image Credit: John Lucas

Last week we framed the way we will view the various subjects that the series will cover, in terms of the 4 Ps of the Marketing Mix.

Today, we move into more detail of the first in that mix, placement.

More specifically, we need to look at the places that your people go and how you can persuade them to join you on your artistic journey. 

Pick the Right Places For Your Music

Our prevailing analogy is to a physical merch table at a live show. As anyone who has been to a variety of concerts will attest, the level of visibility of said table can be anywhere from a tiny desk in a dingy corner of a small club, to a perfectly placed parade of merch in an unavoidable thoroughfare of the venue.

We see much the same variety from artists selecting where to place themselves on the web. Some pick all the right places, going where their people go, while others are scarcely to be found and lack even the most basic website or social media presence. Clearly, if your fans and potential listeners can’t find you online, you’re erecting barriers to your own career progression.

Why erect unnecessary barriers to potential fans?

As an artist your music needs to be easy to find and access, in the places that people  want to access it.  

Note that this is not a green light to start a presence on any and every music platform and social network out there. Even with several members of a band manning these digital channels, the workload will be untenable, resulting in your web presence ending up outdated and inconsistent. Instead, you need to find the best digital spaces to direct people to from the main hub of operations, your own artist site.

As a minimum, you should establish the following digital locations for listeners:

• Artist site - updated at least bi-weekly in some way. Include your story, news, photos, links  to other web outposts, and the best quality music you have (at least one or two tracks available for free).

• Music streaming site - Bandcamp, SoundCloud, and ReverbNation all offer easy to use, well known streaming platforms. Make it clear to visitors that they can access more of your work there (or, even better, have the player plugged into your site).

• Two social networks - Twitter and Facebook are obviously the most heavily used, but the main consideration should be whether or not your type of fan is actively using the platform. Social media channels act as outposts to more easily connect and converse with music fans, from which you can guide interested folks back to your music hub of choice.  Update them several times a week and always be listening.

• Digital music store - Which retail channels you choose is (and will be!) a blog post all of its own. Suffice it to say, there needs to be a way for listeners to pay for your music when they know they like it. That could mean anything from iTunes links to a full webstore all of your own, just don’t make it difficult for people to spend money on you!

For some musicians these are obvious points and long established, but I see enough acts overlooking the basics to believe it needs stating. For both them and the more socially savvy artists, though, the entire web presence boils down to one driving factor: go where your people go.

Filter every new platform consideration and website development through the question “will this improve my connection to the types of people who like my music?” If you’re not sure, either do more research to understand the platform’s user base or disregard it and move onto the next one.

Inextricably linked to the question of placement is, then, that of people. What types will you encounter and how can you persuade them to delve deeper into your music?

Persuading the Right People

Once you understand who your people are, you have a far better chance of connecting with them in the right places and knowing how to communicate with them to build a lasting listener relationship.

One-to-one connections are increasingly important as the barriers between fans and artists crumble to essentially nothing, if you choose to embrace the channels that allow it. As this communication with fans is going to be more time-consuming than it has been in the past, you need to be more efficient in finding the right people in whom you can invest that effort.

Again, we can return to the analogy of a live concert and the spectrum of people passing by your merch table, potentially interested in learning more about you and perhaps even buying something. The crowd often ranges from those with a significant interest to some who are outright hostile towards your music, and everything in between.

This spectrum and the appropriate ways to engage the people on it will be the focus of the next post this week, as I’m already pushing the upper word limits of attention spans here. If you have questions on anything related to placement and where your web presence should develop next, ask away in the comments below.

Remember also to sign up for the inner circle of the Man Your Virtual Merch Table series via the email box below. You’ll receive the newsletter – in the works now – that includes exclusive insights and resources available only to subscribers.

This week, I want to set the ball rolling for a series of posts that will drive at the heart of that idea: Manning your virtual merch table.

Image Credit: Nick Sherman

I Have a Virtual Merch Table?!

Yes, yes you do!

And, as with the real thing at a live show, how you approach it makes a big difference as to how you’re perceived by everyone, from new listeners to ardent fans.

Broadly speaking, the ideas that we’ll look at in the upcoming series are applicable across the range of creative arts and will serve anyone seeking to build relationships with those showing an interest in your work. Again, the focus will be on those relationships lasting for years (ideally the duration of your career) rather than just the brief amount of time it takes to make a sale.

“Manning Your Virtual Merch Table” will focus on musicians, though, for clarity (not to mention the ease of extended metaphor). It covers 3 core elements that are crucial to developing a growing base of life long fans:

• The spectrum of people you’re catering to, including key differences in how they’ll react to your approach,
• How variety of price and product are crucial to attracting the attention of those you connect with,
• How (and who) you choose to promote not only what’s on your merch table but also your future with a potential fan.

The Beat Start Here…

Let’s begin by making sure that you get the inside track on this important series…

Enter your e-mail address below to receive an in-depth monthly newsletter that will dissect each element and give you specific action checklists to work on.

(Note that some of this content won’t be available in the blog posts… consider it my special thank you for the privilege of entering you inner e-mail sanctum!)

If you prefer to stick to the articles here on the blog, I’d love to have your input as to the major challenges you face building a fan base as a musician. This is your chance to shape the discussion for the series, as I’ll tweak the content to answer specific questions or concerns.

So please, ask away! What one thing most baffles you about how to market your music to new listeners or seasoned fans?

I’m excited to get this series underway and add some structured learning that you can build upon with every read. Watch for the start next Monday and thank you, as ever, for spending time on the site. I greatly appreciate your time and input.

I’d always been a fan of Frank Turner, but it was a series of social media-centric events in 2009 that turned me into a fan for life.

The English singer-songwriter (“skinny, half-arsed English country singer”, by his own admission) tweeted some enigmatic request for Brooklyn-area followers to get in touch with him, as plans were afoot. Naturally I complied, feeling the urge to hear a familiar song sung  in a familiar accent, after several months away from the Motherland.

It turned out to be a show on a date that I would be out of town, yet the simple one-on-one connection with a musician whom I admired drew me into Frank’s blog and Twitter feed still further. This, in turn, resulted in another e-mail exchange on his way back through the tri-state area, through which I learned of a secret show in a tiny Hoboken pub (think pool table in the middle of the “dance floor”) and was able to attend an intimate gig that lingers long in my memory.

Through just a few personal touches, Frank had gained a life long fan.

A Lifetime Customer.

The Value of a Lifetime Customer

Lifetime Customer Value (LCV) is a somewhat inelegant marketing measurement that is, nonetheless, a huge boon to any artist serious about pursuing a long lasting career in music. If you’re in it for the long haul, you’re going to need a dedicated core of fans in it with you, no?

LCV is calculated based on the average spend over a set period of time, multiplied by the expected duration of the relationship. We can work in factors such as losing fans and the cost of keeping them around, but for simplicity the main areas to focus on here are these:

1. What your average fan spends in a year, and
2. How long you expect a given project to last.

The concepts are more important than the actual measurement, for the moment, as they get you thinking about where you make money on your music (and, more importantly, how you may be able to increase that average spend).

You also gain perspective on the differing contributions that your various musical projects are making to your income…

Which of your projects  have potential to expand into crucial income streams?

Which are more ‘for fun’ and should be prioritized accordingly, at least in terms of marketing time?

Understanding where your effort and time is best spent, along with seeing what the spend will be in return, allows you to contrast the value of a simple album sale or song download with the broader context of a fan that knows you, loves your music, and wants to support you for the long haul.

Turning Listeners Into Lifelong Fans

As there is more and more competition for listener attention, so the distinction between a listener and a fan becomes increasingly important for you and your career in music.

You may begin to attract substantially more listens, be they monetized spins on Spotify or  indicative ‘views’ on YouTube, but without converting a good proportion of these folks to fans, then lifelong fans, making a living from your music will be all the more difficult.

I have a full series of articles planned for February and March that will dissect every inch of moving your listeners along this spectrum, from passive listener to passionate fan for life.

The truth is that it’s a slow burn for 99.9% of musicians.

Very few of you will soar from a tightly knit group of fans to superstar status on the basis of one amusing YouTube video or turning your cat into the next big internet meme (this is a valid strategy, should you wish to explore it… but, please remember, that a cat is for life, not just viral marketing). Relationship building, boosted by new media connections, and incremental nudges are at the core of what I believe is the key to succeeding as an independent in the music industry, now that the old models are falling away.

Starting next Monday, we’ll be looking in more depth at the concepts that relate to building a long term fan base and calculating LCV to understand your income from music. To avoid missing this journey, sign up for the e-mail updates over there in the top right hand corner.

I’m excited to start a discussion around these ideas and eager to hear what you want to read about in more depth. So come on, overload me with posts to write by telling me what you need here in the comments!

Life is too short to just sing the one song,

So we’ll burn like a beacon, and then we’ll be gone.

~Frank Turner – ‘Poetry of the Deed’

What keep on coming, though, are the examples of independent artists getting creative with their music marketing.

From 10,000 hours of practice to getting social across many media, there are plenty of theories on how you should be behaving as a musician seeking to break out. But what are your peers doing, down in the trenches of small clubs and minimal budgets? How are inspired artists communicating what they do and what fuels their passion?

Most importantly, what can you take away from the examples of others and use in your own marketing efforts?

Leading by Example

To continue the spirit of the MMM series, every week I’ll be posting a few brief examples of smart, affordable marketing from musicians at your level. Not artists with major label backing. Not those who have hit it rich with a lucrative licensing arrangement. Just those taking an alternative or interesting tack towards spreading their music and winning new fans. Each example will have a more general marketing takeaway, that you can then apply to your own situation.  

Examples of Creative Music Marketing

Khaled Dajani writes a name on New York City…

Every creator has dreams of making a name for their art in Manhattan, but few twist that into using the city as their canvas. Khaled did just that, tweeting his way around various locations until it spelled L U C I from midtown to the Lower East Side. The significance? ‘Luci’ is the title of the Hoboken singer-songwriter’s next album, with a devilish subject matter, which he promoted with the help of temporary tattoos, promotional literature, and rising photographer Monica Cohendocumenting the entire effort for online posterity. That this was all undertaken the weekend before Halloween afforded the journey even more relevance, tying in with the imagery and sentiment of the occasion.

Takeaways:  Tie in the subjects of your songs to the presentation of your promotion. Utilize memorable merchandise and help talented friends to help you, giving back whatever you can.

Aldo Aréchar ventures into the visual art void…

The music video is older than many of you reading this, but the explosion of streaming video sites and cheap tools of production has made it more accessible to a new generation of artists. As with all content forms on the web this has resulted in a vast swathe of unremarkable video vying for our eyeballs. Utilized creatively, however, the independent music video can be an excellent way to stand out from the crowd… and what more logical way to create strong video visuals than by collaborating with a digital artist?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Mexico City-based composer Aldo Aréchar chose to do just that with this effort for his track ‘That Will Be the Day’, which comes alive through the motion graphics of Matthew De Vito. Setting the soundscapes perfectly to exquisite, vaguely nostalgic digital imagery, this collaboration garnered the attention of the widely-read site The Creator’s Project, catapulting both artists to the eyes and ears of many in one fell swoop. As we covered not so long ago, attention is a scarce resource in this time of content fatigue, and the door is now ajar for these two to start relationships with some new fans on the back of this.

Takeaways: Think beyond your own field of work and create with others. Find artists of all different forms to complement your music and give back to their creations, expanding to each other’s audiences as you do so.

Uniform Motion experience the serendipity of search…

Okay, so this one is a little whacky, but the band in question very much deserves it! By a stroke of good fortune, Anglo-French group Uniform Motion picked up some of the enormous search traffic coming the way of a band you’re more likely to recognize, Of Monsters & Men.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As a result of the happy coincidence that their song features very similar lyrics to the chorus of ‘Little Talks’, it racked up 80,000 spins on YouTube. It not being their own channel or even upload, this didn’t actually score them any income, but the exposure is there nonetheless (as well as an incentive to get your own, high quality versions of songs up on the world’s second largest search portal, perhaps).

Beyond that, though, Uniform Motion have plenty of creativity in their own right, from creating a game that accompanies their song to writing compelling observations on the music industry, some of which are picked up by mainstream outlets. Oh, and some gloriously soothing music that fully deserves your ear time.

Takeaways: Control your YouTube presence as best you can, so that any errant searches represent your music in the best possible light. Keep all your titles, descriptions, and tags in order and relevant for searches. The same can apply to your blogging, which is a great way to both keep fans up to date with your movements and write about more general subjects that inspire you… all of which feeds nicely back into the likelihood of being found by those search engines.

Over To You…

I’ll have more of these for you, of course, but I’d love to hear your own examples of artists who are marketing music effectively on a shoestring budget.

Fire away here in the comments, if you please, or feel free to e-mail me the details, if you’d like to be considered for the next article. 

Some significant data were released last week by the (suddenly very visible) music reporting service, MusicMetric.

Significant, in this case, equates to over 400 million instances of illegally downloaded music around the world during the first six months of 2012.

Disaster.

Crisis.

Death of music. 

And yet…

Of Piracy & Profiteering

What most struck me about this report is that the headline artists, those most downloaded in any given country, aren’t of the old guard. From Drake in the US, Ed Sheeran in the UK, and the largely unknown Billy Van in a number of other countries, all are musicians who have risen to prominence in the last few years.

This is important, because the long-trumpeted argument against illegal downloading has been that it kills artist development. These new artists can’t be successful if you don’t pay for their recorded music.

But Drake is now a household name in North America, selling out arena-headlining tours this year and grossing close to $1 million for many shows. And across the pond, Sheeran recently closed out the Olympics, visible to billions, and will play to close to 25,000 people over five sold out nights in London next month. And all this, impressively, from a ginger ninja.

If piracy is the death of music, someone forgot to e-mail all these folks heading out to support these artists in the real world… or perhaps they were simply fixated on their torrent windows and missed the message?

Fair & Balanced

All flippancy aside, I understand that these are breakout artists and that there are many musicians still struggling for attention, or even a few bucks/quid when they play the latest toilet on their live schedule. But the argument from all the major players in the recorded music industry, that artists will never be able to develop and rise to fame in a culture that doesn’t pay for their recordings, is being torn up, chewed, and spat right back in their gnarled, bitter faces with examples such as these.

Over the last decade, the one chink of sunshine through the otherwise gray and gloomy skies of the music industry has been the relative health of the live sector. Festivals have gone from strength to strength and ticket sales have remained a reliable source of income for everyone playing to crowds in the triple digits and upwards. For a while it was suggested that only legacy acts, those built on the revenues and marketing of the pre-file sharing era, were the main beneficiaries of this phenomenon.

As more and more acts graduate to worldwide fame and exploding ticket sales without those record label development budgets and marketing support, however, the justification for blaming all of the wider industry’s ills on piracy rings ever more hollow. 

Increasingly, we see that the challenge facing actual musicians isn’t how to get listeners to stump up for recorded music, but how to gain wider attention for their songs and leverage that recognition into income from other sources, be it ticket sales, diverse merchandise, or licensing agreements.

The Curious Case of Billy Van

The third example I mentioned on this report should be conspicuous by his absence from my preceding bluster, and with good reason. More so than the others, Billy Van exemplifies this nascent attention economy in music. As a dubstep artist, one small element of a burgeoning EDM scene with massive potential for touring revenue, Van faced a challenge even to get his music noticed so early in his career.

In this scenario, breaking through the sea of competing noise and becoming a familiar sound to a groundswell of listeners, is the most crucial part of forging a career that pays.

Billy Van is one of the few artists in this case who has primarily given away his creations for free, as a means to break out. Making it that much easier for fans to access his music has clearly helped it to be shared widely and built a momentum of its own, leading to this (admittedly unorthodox) point of recognition by more mainstream media channels. Step one complete, he has our attention.

Step two is where the rubber meets the road, however, and is playing out as I type… can he turn that attention into loyal fans who support his craft with their wallets? Given the phenomenal success of individual artists like Skrillex, whose prominence has again come during this supposed barren period for developing new acts, the rewards on offer if he can pull it off are enormous.

Takeaways

So what can you take away from this jarring shift in the sands of the music industry?

1. Free Isn’t Failure – Giving away music may not yet be the right model for everyone, but it certainly doesn’t equate to a failure on your part. On the contrary, it could become the foundation of your career.

2. It’s an Attention Economy – First and foremost, you need to attract ears and show people why they should care about you. There’s way too much music for any one person out there… what makes you stand out?

3. Ways to Pay – Recorded music isn’t the only way to make a buck or two. Once you turn those listeners into fans, offer them plenty of ways to support you. I talked about this more in Diversify Your Product.

Is this report a sign of an emerging new era for the music industry?

Or is it simply another indictment of a culture breeding little respect for recorded music? 

Fire away in the comments below!