Tag Archives: product

Marketing

The Now & Then of Marketing Your Music

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Gramaphone and vinyl days
Image Credit: djking

Just a little over ten years ago, the business of promoting your music to an audience was a very different animal indeed.

Certainly, Napster had hit and its impact was being felt to some degree. But the relative position, given the seismic shifts to come, was much closer to the heyday of major record labels, rather than the almost fully digital music world we see before us today.

The Lefsetz Letter is currently on a “Now & Then” kick, comparing various music and media approaches in a pre- and post-digital environment. This holds value  in music marketing terms as well, so here are my thoughts as to how it relates to the Man Your Virtual Merch Table series that we’ve been running.

 

Music Marketing in the Digital Era

Then

You had limited access to the mass marketing resources and distribution needed to reach fans. Signing a deal with an established label rapidly accelerated your visibility, via a few mass broadcast channels to fans.

Now

You have direct access to fans, limited only by the amount of time they spend online and the attention they pay to music. The cost is the time you invest, meaning that you need to choose the places carefully. Signing a deal with a more traditional company is no guarantee of success and needs to be done on your own terms (if it comes up at all, as investment in developing artists has plunged from these sources).

 

Then

Communication was to your audience and the channels limited. A certain distance from fans was to be expected, perhaps even aspired to, in order to maintain that “rock star” mythology.

Now

Communication is to your community and the channels are almost limitless. Distance from fans is impossible for all but the most enigmatic and talented of artists.  Direct relationships, collaborative efforts, and the art of asking are the order of the day.

 

Then

Recorded music was scarce and expensive, relatively speaking. Selling your record was the main focus of both marketing and touring, and listeners invested in the album purchase and built relationships with artists from there.

Now

Recorded music is abundant and inexpensive, often free. Selling a record, even a digital album, is the product of having built a relationship with listeners already, often on the basis of streaming music singles from your site or social networks. You need to think more widely about what routes and products you offer for fans to invest in you, the artist. From crowd funding an album before it iss fully conceived to purchasing a diverse range of merchandise, you develop relationships first, get the sale second.

 

Rules and RegulationsThen

Album cycles were the basis for promotional campaigns, usually on a record > press/hype > release > tour model. Release dates were widely anticipated, reviews and radio coverage important, first week sales and the resulting chart positions vital.

Now

Albums themselves may be passing into obscurity, with the format prevailing more for reasons of familiarity than necessity.

Lead time from recording to release is almost non-existent for independent artists, who can create music at home and release in the time it takes to upload a file. Single songs catch the attention (if you’re lucky) and build interest in subsequent releases, be they albums, EPs, or whatever the artist feels most comfortable with. Traditional release models are thrown out of the window, coverage is fractured and often to a niche audience via many small websites, charts are arbitrary as no one measure covers digital interest to any degree of accuracy.

 

Make Your Own Marketing Schedule

The final point there is a suitable one to leave you chewing on, as there are almost no rules right now.

New marketing standards and filters may well be developed in the years to come but, as it stands, the only limitations are those of your time and creativity. Traditional elements of communication to fans, press coverage, touring, and hype all remain key elements in raising awareness of your music, but the balance and structure of them is entirely up to you.

My recommendation is to experiment. Push the boundaries of what you’ve done before, be it pricing, promotional stunts, release format, or the type of press you approach to cover you. Move from a “why?” to a “why not?” mentality as you generate ideas to market your music, viewing traditional standards with suspicion and probing the potential of more outlandish promotional ideas.

What can you do to market your next release in a completely new way?

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!