Music Marketing Online Strategies for Independent Musicians
Find Out Why a Targeted List of Fans
is the Key to Marketing Your Music!
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Where To Put Your Music Marketing Efforts?While traditional media and music companies struggle, social media and the Internet move forward with lightning speed.
I used to work for traditional media companies. I witnessed this massive “plate-tectonic-like-shift” up close and personal. It was not a surprise to me as I had been marketing my music online for more than a decade. So what’s the point…
The point is that the Internet is a really big place, it’s changing rapidly and there is a lot going on so I want to open up the conversation with other musicians and music marketers because I think we can learn a lot from each other. I’ve worked on several national magazines (music and video related). I have been deeply involved in the Internet marketing arena for some time now and I have been marketing my own music online for more than a decade. My hope is to be helpful. I plan on posting some ideas that have created positive results for myself and for the musicians I have worked with. I would love to hear from you and invite you to post a comment or take the survey posted to the right and because I appreciate your time and feedback, I have created a bonus report that provides detailed traffic information on all the big music sites. Knowing what sites are enjoying the majority of online traffic will hopefully help you decide where to put your efforts. I look forward to hearing from you. Elizabeth
After Conducting a Survey Earlier This Year
I made the decision to write this book
www.musicmarketingbook.net
Social Networks Are The New Broadcasters
According to a well-known and respected source of information in the Recording, Music & Music Publishing Industries. www.MediaFuturist.com
Social Media Marketing & Best Practices No longer just a trend, social media has become a major reality for anyone marketing anything. According to the recent eMarketer forecast, about 64% of US Internet users will interact with user-generated content this year, and 26 million US adults will use Twitter at least once a month. Mobile social networks are expected to reach 223 million people around the world. That is a lot of people! This enormous opportunity leads many a music marketer to chase after every technique and tactic that passes by and many others simply give up What is recommended based on solid research (and some common sense if you stop and think about it) is that when using social media as a means to market your product in this case, our music, you should focus on fewer tactics and techniques and instead focus on definite objectives. Here are the basics:
listening establishing trust adding value projecting authenticity
These are more important than the actual tools or tactics and are considered to be on top of the “best practices” list. These objectives are critical to marketing success with social media marketing. Pepsi picks social media over Super Bowl ads source www.sfgate.com Basically to sum it up, this article reported that the soft drink company decided to invest advertising resources into an online social-networking campaign that will take place over a period of months instead of paying millions of dollars for 30 seconds of airtime during the top advertising opportunity of the year – The Super Bowl. I think this move by Pepsi speaks volumes for what some people have known for quite a while. Social media is powerful, effective and inexpensive and that is why I have been actively utilizing social media for quite sometime myself and encouraging all of my music friends to take advantage of it as well. Here is a sample of some of the comments I get back from other musicians.
- “I don’t have enough time to learn all that stuff”
- “I have a myspace page, isn’t that enough?”
- “ I don’t know where to start’
- “Do I have to do all of it?”
I believe that if you ask a better question,you get a better answer Here are some of the questions that I ask myself on a regular basis.
Is my mailing list growing or receding?Do I communicate with my subscribers regularly with information that matters to them?If not – Why?If Yes – do they respond well to what I am sending out?Am I taking advantage of Social Media or am I engaged in time waising activities?Is there an easier more effective way to get this done?Is what I’m doing effective?How do I know, did I measure it?Who can teach me more?What don’t I see?Am I playing to my strengths?Do I have a well-defined target audience?Who is my target audience, has it changed or grown?Who is buying my music?Who is coming to my shows and who else do they like?What other “acts” could I collaborate to grow my audience?Does my music add value to other people’s lives?Does my marketing add value to my subscribers lives?How can I add more value?Do I have a goal?Does my goal seem possible and does it empower me?
I have more but you get the idea – When I ask my self these questions I usually come up with a lot of good ideas that I can act on instead of reasons for not doing the things that will move me forward. I don’t know about you but I want to reach more people, sell more music, get larger audiences, write and record more songs and enjoy a bigger impact as an artist and there has never been a better time to do just that. If you are not using social media at this point you really need to ask your self why. Most likely, you are using social media but maybe you suspect you could be doing a whole lot more with it and you are probably right because this is a fast moving target in quick changing territory.
These two areas can work together like rhythm and blues; however before you start broadcasting your email messages to twitter, facebook and my space, think it through. (More thoughts on list development later so stay tuned.) Here are some questions to ask your self when it comes to your “message to market” and a few suggestions you might want to consider.
1. If you add a “share this” link to your email promotion encouraging folks to broadcast it for you – does that email message match that broader audience? If not, you might want to tailor your messages for each type of broadcast. If the message works for both your email list audience and your social media audience you need to give your email readers a reason to pass the message on. 2. If the content of the email is not “share worthy”, will asking people to “pass it on” make you look lame? It is best to ask fans to “pass it on” only when it matters, that way you don’t “teach” people to disregard your information. If the content is indeed “share worthy”, what is the benefit or the desired outcome you have in mind for the effort? It is best to have and clear objective in mind. A “call to action” as it is referred to in the advertising world. An example might be something like: “ I have included a link for a courtesy download for one of the tracks on my latest recording project. I thought you might want to hear what I have been working on. The project is due to be released next month and I am really excited, I hope you are too. Please pass this link on to anyone you think might appreciate it!” 4. How do you measure that benefit? Learn to read basic email statistics, it is actually very easy with most of the email management providers and it is really interesting to see who opens, where they click and who passes it on. The real test is, how many new subscribers did you get? Of course you need to have a place for your new fans to sign up next to that courtesy link. 5. What “offer” should I develop to add value to the recipient of my marketing message and how do I encourage sharing it? This is a key question, and not everyone is alway gonna be working on a new recording project but if not you are probably working on something. Video, audio, photos – all of this is content that you can share with your list and the story that goes with it. Infact I think the more personal stuff gives authenticity. In the Internet marketing world, bonuses are routinely used to sell other products or encourage an action such as “pass it on” or “sign up for” and marketing music online is no different. Your actuall marketing piece should always add value to your reader’s life. 6. What tools and links will maximize the sharing effect of this “added value” marketing piece?There are so many tools out there that you really have to decide on what you want to do and then go find the tool, there are some amazing video software tools and many other avenues you can take. More on this subject later…. 7. Where is the best place to put the “offer” and “call to action” in an email message?
There are some general rules and because everybody has a different layout there are just a few things to keep in mind:
Make it visible from the get go, attention is a hot commodity.
Make it a “crystal clear – no brainer” easy to take action.
Check back soon for post on this subject. I would love to hear from you, I am especiallly interested in what has worked well for you. Other blogs worth checking out CDBaby Or, more precisely, two separate questions – “Is CDBaby any good?” and “How did you manage to get your band’s music on Spotify/iTunes/etc without a record label?” My first ReverbNation street team mission — Passive Promotion I was selected to participate in a Windows 7 promotion hosted by ReverbNation, called Playlist 7. Microsoft posts 50 songs for free download each week, and the seven most downloaded artists win $507! Easy enough, right? Ira Fuse Recommends…..ReverbNation I love ReverbNation it is hands down one of my favorite sites on the web. Lots of free indie music that some artists allow for download. Digital Music Marketing and Distribution Digital Distribution & Retail – selling music online; Digital Business Models – alternative revenue streams; Marketing Mix’ – new media Vs traditional media; Online Marketing – digital campaign planning The Next Generation of Music Fans | Music Marketing You need to find creative ways to add value to your music. If this demo is willing to pay for music, you need to give them options to do so. This includes physical stuff like CD’s, DVD’s and merch to digital stuff like memberships Today’s digital music marketing Music Ally’s latest offshoot is Sandbox.fm, which focuses on digital music marketing – with a fortnightly report and blog. Every day, we’ll be rounding up the latest stories f Topspin Shares Impressive Music Marketing Study Perhaps more than any existing modern music marketing and sales platform Topspin is based on data. They collected it from the beginning, have done enough diverse campaigns to see the trends and have a team to understand the patterns. Internet Music Marketing Online, Video Internet Marketing Music Marketing Online, Video Internet Marketing. Internet Music Marketing Online, Fort Lauderdale Photographer Miami, Author Trent Partridge ‘Internet Marketing for Music Artist, Models and Entertainers’ Video Internet Marketing Music Marketing: Why Most Music Promotion Doesn’t Work Releasing a new album is one of the most exciting things in the career of an artist, especially an independent one, where you’re doing everything on your own. After all the time, money, and energy you’ve put into learning how. Music Marketing Study Revealed This exclusivity is a major selling point and very attractive for fans. Below you will find a slide show presentation of the music marketing study Topsin presented. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Digital Music Marketing British Urban music is going through a renaissance right now, regularly flooding the upper regions of the pop charts. But like a tsunami, its the second wave that you really need to watch out for. Yahoo Music Gets Former Universal Exec As New Chief But there are just four major labels – Warner, EMI, Sony, and Universal – and so Yahoo seems to have made a rather significant hire by securing a former Universal exec as the head of Yahoo Music. SXSW: State of Music Blogs in 2010 I think music blogs became popular during the decline of print resources like CMJ (New Music Monthly) and NME because they were more timely than a lot of the indie-rock magazines and journals. Instead of waiting until your copy of … How have they changed your music consumption and/or marketing efforts? In 2005 and 2006, I read the blogs religiously. I checked their updates more than I checked the New York Times or the Star Tribune. The new girl. indy concerts I recently graduated from DePauw University and although PR/marketing has it’s exciting moments, I have come to realize that I need to be pursuing a career in something I am passionate about: music.
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9 Responses to “Music Marketing Online Strategies for Independent Musicians”
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The Independent musician is both blessed and cursed by the access the internet provides. The blessing is that anyone can market and promote their material. The curse is that the playing field may be accessible, but it still isn’t level. Anyone with a computer and recording software or an inexpensive multi-track recorder can publish music through major digital distributors like iTunes and Amazon. However, without the means to properly promote the music it is unlikely that the product will sell.
The music buying public is in Heaven right now because regardless of individual appetitive there is guaranteed to be something out there to satisfy it. From a consumer standpoint, competition is good because many distributors allow the artist to set the sale price for downloads so fans can get music really cheap. The problem; however, with anyone being able to publish themselves is that the artists often lack the objectivity and experience to identify if there material is ready to be released to the public or if it needs more refinement. Hence, the internet is flooded with poorly written, poorly performed and poorly recorded music. Moreover, many fans of die hard mainstream music won’t give an Independent “no name” Artist a chance regardless of whether their music is good until they receive national recognition and the media says “the music is good.”
There are basically two approaches you can take: One approach is to listen to what sales and try to copy it; another approach is to come up with something that no one else has done before. If you copy what other successful artists are doing you will have to do it better than them and that’s going to be tough! If you do something that no one else is doing you will have to be able to sell an audience on it and that takes finesse.
Today every young girl thinks she can be a Diva and every young boy with a guitar believes he is just a power chord away from stardom. There are also a ton of people out there with real talent who just can’t get a break either from lack of resources or knowledge.
I believe that the time for becoming famous from posting songs or videos on the internet is over. Anyone who is really serious in standing out from the 100 million other bands on the internet is going to have to be willing to find a sponsor or put their own money where their mouth is. With the almost limitless pool of talent out there the only thing that is going to make an artist realize her dream is having a unique product in conjunction with creative packaging and marketing.
Music is like a meal and and the artist is the chef. We all work with the same ingredients and any of us can make a good meal, but how many of us can create something unique?
Leslie,
The LezBnRocker Chicks
http://www.jango.com/music/The+LezBnRocker+Chicks
As nice as it is to use the computer, some individuals feel additional comfy keeping important info in print. The identical approach can and should be taken though. Create a chart for you to use. Be positive to stay it during a well-known place thus that you are doing not accidentally lose your necessary information. Conjointly, be positive to remember to update every time that you choose to send your book to new publisher or if you receive a response letter.
As a songwriter and author, your blog is addressing many of the issues I’m facing right now. Navigating a constantly changing landscape is a challenge for all of us. Sharing information is crucial.
Thanks for creating this space for us!
Oops- thought I included this-
http://dosanddontsofgrief.blogspot.com
For anyone dealing with a loss or wanting to reach out to someone who is.
Still time to submit your remarks before publication. Thanks!
Yes the music industry is also part of the Freeconomy and the new generation music biz is all about sharing and giving.
In the online marketing world they call this “moving the free line”. If done correctly you can touch a lot of peoples lives in a positive way and still make a nice living. Thanks for your comment, I appreciate it.
Elizabeth
So true.. thanks for your comments and good luck with the book!
Elizabeth
Hi Leslie,
The gatekeepers are gone but now we have a traffic jam! How to stand out in the crowd, that’s what it’s all about. I think the most important thing anyone of us can do is commit to finding our music a home in the hearts of the people it is meant to connect with. The challenges of music marketing are similar to marketing challenges of many other products these days, the cost of marketing has come down to a level where most people can afford it, but few really understand how to make it work for them. The internet is at the heart of the problem (traffic jam) and at the heart of the solution (the ability to reach the world with your music inexpensively). My hope is to be helpful in focusing on and uncovering the solution.
Stay tuned
Elizabeth
Would love to continue conversation re: marketing potential, process and methods, etc.