Online Musician Promotion and Music Marketing

I recently read this book and my mind has been running a mile-a-minute since. I have been filled with ideas and inspiration. I wanted to let you know about this awesome resource.

Have you ever wondered how the Hip Hop Nation was formed and what are the guiding philosophies behind the movement? Hip Hop has made a huge impact on the music industry and popular culture overall. The music and culture continues to play a major role in trend setting all over the world.

Russell Simmonsis the man that started “Def Jam Records” in the 1980’s and went on to create “Def  Comedy Jam” and “Def Poetry Jam”. I found it extremely interesting to find out how this music industry mogul operates in his day-to-day life. One thing I learned about Russell Simmons, is that he has found success in so many of his business ventures. In this book he shares the life philosophies that guide him through each and every business venture.

It doesn’t matter if you’re into hip hop, folk, punk or polka music. This book will give you a window into how to succeed and operate in this world. If you have any appreciation for Hip Hop’s contribution to today’s music industry.You will love this book. Its called: Do You!: 12 Laws to Access the Power in You to Achieve Happiness and Success and I totally recommend that you check it out.

Tom Siegel

P.S - Sign up for free reviews of products and services available online for independent musicians @ http://www.onlineartistpromotion.com. Sign up for my FREE reviews RIGHT NOW and get a FREE BONUS REPORT full of great helpful tips for independent musicians.

Most of the comments at the recent Digital Music Forum West in Hollywood, CA painted a nasty-ugly picture of the state of the music industry. There were statistics spewed demonstrating the drastic decline in music purchases via digital downloads, CD sales and the like. This is no surprise to me, the old music industry model is not long for this world. Music appreciators no longer feel that they need to pay for music. People who had been paying for music are now paying less due to the continued decline in the industry coupled with the continued decline in the economy at large.

There was at least one optimistic voice of note at the event. I am generally an optimist and am usually interested in the negative point of view for the sole reason of trying to find the silver lining in the situation. I didn’t have to try hard this time. The comments of James Lamberti gave me just what I was looking for.

James Lambertiis the Vice President of marketing & Artist Services at the company Topspin. Topspin is a music marketing firm that specializes in helping artists promote and sell their products online. Lamberti insisted that all was not lost. Sure musicians aren’t making the kind of money that they used to from digital downloads or CD sales, but there are other ways for musicians to generate revenue. According to Lamberti Topspin Musicians are finding some success by offering bundles of goods and premium-priced packages with high profit margins. Lamberti went on to say that Topspin artists are seeing average revenue of $18 per transaction. This is more than what the average album sells for digitally or even in a physical CD format.

I can’t say for sure at this time that Topspin is a good company. I have not conducted a formal review. Therefore, I am going to need to know more about what Lamberti and Topspin are doing. I will be investigating further if Topspin artists are really finding ways to monetize their brand and what exactly Topspin is doing to assist them.

Tom Siegel

P.S - Sign up for free reviews of products and services available online for independent musicians @ http://www.onlineartistpromotion.com. Sign up for my FREE reviews RIGHT NOW and get a FREE BONUS REPORT full of great helpful tips for independent musicians.

P.P.S. – By signing up for my free reviews you will be automatically notified when I have completed my investigation/review of Topspin.

Recently I had the good fortune of speaking with Kevin Rivers. Kevin is the founder and CEO of WaTunes an online digital media distribution company. At the time, WaTunes was getting ready to launch the next generation of services that they are calling the WaTunes New Experience. I had Kevin walk me through the particulars of the upcoming program. I picked his brain on how the service will work and how it will benefit musicians. He was willing to explain to me, step-by-step, everything about the upcoming WaTunes service and its marketing arm Music Expand. Below is an overview of the company. For a full detailed review click here .

Overview

There are really three parts to the WaTunes experience within two companies. There is WaTunes, which includes both digital distribution and social networking for musicians, music fans, record labels and the like and Music Expand, which handles marketing and promotion. WaTunes describes itself this way:

“WaTunes is a social media distribution service that enables artists, groups, and record labels to sell music, music videos, and audio books through leading online entertainment retailers, including iTunes, ShockHound, and eMusic. Artists and labels can sell unlimited music and earn 100% of their profits – ALL FOR FREE!”

WaTunes was established in 2006. The original concept of WaTunes was as a community forum for music artists to meet together and share their music. This eventually grew into a record label under the name Xeinge (pronounced gee-en-gee). In 2006 Rivers decided to offer distribution to Itunes. Xeinge began to add stores and other distributors to their service, and started to find flaws in the distribution models that they were utilizing. So they decided to handle the distribution themselves. This is when the company WaTunes was created under the parent company Xeinge. In an effort to broaden the services offered by the company Rivers will be adding a social networking concept with a number of innovative features. The hope is that through this addition WaTunes will be able to better cater to musicians and music fans alike. Rivers has also developed services in music marketing and promotion. Music Expand, launched early February of 2009, is a marketing and promotion service that is set up to benefit musicians and musical groups (however, they are reportedly capable of marketing and promoting any business or service through their marketing and promotion specialists). Music Expand offers a wide variety of services that can be chosen individually, and combined to ones specific preference.

Be sure to check out the full review at: http://onlineartistpromotion.com/watunes.

I recently discovered a great resource that I wanted to let you know about. It had been a long day and as a break I began to meander around the Internet for new information . I found something cool that I wanted to let you know about. Actually I found a handful of cool things. I am really excited to be able to share this stuff with you. First I stumbled on a website called musicmarketing.com. This is a very interesting and informative blog written by a guy named David Hooper. From here I discovered Hooper’s weekly radio show Music Business Radio. I immediately opened itunes and subscribed to the podcast and began to listen to some archived shows. There was some really great stuff on there. I suggest you check it out. Also I learned that David Hooper has a couple of books out. I took a look at them and they seem like great resources. The books that I found were 14 Qualities of Successful Musicians, Songwriters, and Music Business Professionals, How I Make $100,000/year in the Music Business (Without a Record Label, Manager, or Booking Agent), and Music Business Goal Planner (52 Weeks to the Record Deal, Publishing Contract, and Income You Want). I’m not an expert on David Hooper but he has been involved in the Nashville music business scene for a long time. I haven’t had a chance to read his books but I am planning on it. It seemed to me that he  had some real insight to offer to independent musicians. I highly recommend you all check out his stuff.

One of the interviews that I heard on Music Business Radio was with a Nashville based artist Geoff Smith. This guy has worked his tail off to carve out a stable career as an independent musician. He hasn’t accomplished his goals by elbow grease alone. Smith as come up with some really innovative projects along the way. I thought I would share o a couple of them in this post. I think sharing these concepts could really benefit a lot of musicians. So here’s one of the ideas smith came up with: Dynamic ALbum Titled Ones and O’s. This is the album that keeps on giving. When you buy the album you not only get your 12 track mp3 download, you also get bonus material sent to you every 2 weeks for a year. To check it out follow the link above and click on the Dynamic Album. The bonus material includes: high quality music videos, live appearances, karaoke versions, videos, access to exclusive USTREAM shows, exclusive tracks, ringtones etc. Here is the other thing that Geoff Smith created that is exceptionally cool: iPhone ringtones. The ringtone feeder is a service that one can sign up for at a cost of $1.98 per month or $19.98 per year. Smith’s website describes the ringtone feeder this way: “RingtoneFeeder is a weekly delivery of original iPhone ringtones via iTunes produced to put a smile on your face and to sound great on the iPhone.” and that pretty much sums it up. In any case he’s got thousands of subscribers signed up to get ringtones from him weekly and they are all paying him on a regular basis. Granted the man writes jingles as well so I would imagine that writing music specifically for ringtones utilized his existing skill set pretty well. However, this concept is brilliant and is the kind of innovation that independent musicians need to create a stable career in music these days. I found myself excited to learn about these concepts that Smith has come up with.

Go and check out the Ringtone Feeder and the Dynamic Album and if you like it then buy it. Support this guy for coming up with something cool.

Tom Siegel

P.S - Sign up for free reviews of products and services available online for independent musicians @ http://www.onlineartistpromotion.com. Sign up for my FREE reviews and get a FREE BONUS REPORT full of great helpful tips for independent musicians.

I was hanging out on a forum for musicians that I like Harmony Central. I found a post from one of the users that was filled with excitement. I could feel the excitement in the first sentence of the post. You know how that is when you answer the phone and the person on the other end of the line says “Hey!”, in such a way that you can tell right away that they are excited. A friend of mine in high school used to always do that. He would call and from the first word out of his mouth I could tell he was all amped about something. What would follow was some crazy idea about our next rehearsal with the band. But you could feel the excitement over the phone in seconds. Every time he would call with that excited energy something interesting would happen at our next rehearsal for sure.

So this was the sense I got when I started to read this post. This guy had developed an idea for a website. He happened to know some PHP and was able to slap the site together quickly. No frills but, man, does it serve a purpose. You’ve got to check out this website. It’s totally free and will be incredibly useful to you. Are you scheduling a tour or thinking of scheduling a tour in the future. If so I think this will be a great resource for you. If you are not sceduling a tour then check it out anyway.

The website is http://www.rateavenue.com

This is a place for musicians to log on and rate venues where they have performed. Think about how many dive clubs or shady club managers that don’t pay, you could avoid by checking this out. You can check out venues that other folks have posted or post a venue where you have performed and rate it. When I cecked it out there were mostly posts on venues that were not good. But I think it would be just as valuable to share with people about venues that were great places to play.

Go check it out!

Tom Siegel

P.S - Sign up for free reviews of products and services available online for independent musicians @ http://www.onlineartistpromotion.com. Sign up for my FREE reviews and get a FREE BONUS REPORT full of great helpful tips for independent musicians.

I keep hearing about musicians who have hooked up with retailers as part of a promotion that the retailer is running. This practice is becoming more and more widely utilized among musicians. Recently Bealls Department Stores hooked up with Fabian Hernandez, a former Bealls model to play in stores while people shop. Retailer / musician relationships are not necessarily new. Big name musicians hook up with big retailers all the time to promote their products. Of course musicians have licensed their music to retailers for a particular ad campaign in the past (this was referred to among  musicians as selling out for a long time). Here’s the thing, now you can’t entirely count on CD sales to propel you into riches or even into a comfortable financial position in life. Your audience wants your music for free! That’s what most people are used to at this point. I am not going to bother with the argument about whether this is right or wrong, but I will say that it can be lucrative to go with the flow.

While it used to be considered selling out to license your music to a retailer for use in an ad campaign it doesn’t seem to be anymore. I was listening to NPR the other morning about a company called Agoraphone who provide a service putting music into radio and television ads. This is becoming such a popular revenue stream for musicians that now many will record an instrumental version of a song that is advertiser ready while they are in the studio recording the rest of their album. This reminds me of one of Chris Anderson’s “FREE” models in his newest book entitled FREE. This is the “dump the cost on the advertiser” model. It is the revised dump the cost on the retailer model to be sure. A good example of the old version was radio. You listen to the music and pay nothing but you have to listen to the ads between songs which the advertisers pay dearly for. This new model goes something like this. Your fans download your music for free and you turn around and utilize the notoriety that you’ve gained from giving your music away to land yourself a gig with a retailer who will pay you well for increased exposure for their product.

I have seen this type of musician / retailer relationship elsewhere also. I live about 10 minutes from LL Bean in Freeport Maine. LL Bean puts on a summer concert series every year where they put on a concert in a lawn area right outside their flagship store. Sometimes they have some big names playing and the entire town of Freeport gets even more flooded with people than it already was. Last year Keb Mo was in the series and this year Blues Traveler and The Wallflowers. This is really nice for the residents of the area because the concert is free. We all enjoy the opportunity to see these concerts (even if it isn’t a big name performer) free of charge. But you should see the LL Bean store after the show (LL Bean is open 24 hours so they are able to serve the mad rush of people who all-of-a-sudden decided they needed to buy a fleece at 11:00 at night). This works out well for everyone involved.

After hearing about so many of these relationships popping up, sometimes involving little known artists, I started thinking… Would it not be possible if you are an Independent Musician with a good local following, to perform in a local retailer’s shop one day and draw a bunch of customers into the store and why wouldn’t the store want to pay you for that increased exposure. You would be able to treat it like another gig and a good opportunity to connect with your fans, your fans would enjoy a free concert and the retailer would have a packed store for a day. Everybody wins.

Overall I would encourage you to get creative and try something that not everyone tries. Putamayo developed a small empire marketing their world music compilations in book stores and boutique shops around the country. I would also think that you would have a more captive audience. Think about this… Most people aren’t expecting to hear live music while they are shopping. You would think that they are more likely to notice what you are playing if they weren’t expecting to hear it in the first place. As opposed to the local pub where they expect to hear music and therefore don’t notice it as readily.

Tom Siegel

P.S. – I have a newsletter especially for musicians to keep you posted on the latest products and services available on the internet. Visit www.onlineartistpromotion.com and recieve a free report full of usefull tricks and tips on maintaining an email subscriber list, how to make a music business plan, sales copy tips for musicians, and more. I look forward to connecting with you in the newsletter, Thank You!

In this day and age there are so many tools and resources available to the Independent Musician to assist in marketing their music and promoting their brand. Social media served as a major milestone in this indie artist marketing  revolution. Thousands of artists and bands have taken advantage of the many benefits of social media and web 2.0 and thousands more have not. It seems that music fans were ecstatic at the opportunity to befriend their favorite artists and have access to all sorts of music on demand. MySpace certainly was an eye opener for the world of music marketing and independent musician promotion.

I think the biggest question now is… what’s next? If your marketing model is solely dependent on or social networking websites I think it is time to really consider some possible alternatives. I personally believe that the social networking bubble is poised to pop. I know I’m not alone in that theory but I’m sure that there are those that disagree. Most people I know who used to spend a lot of time on MySpace visiting bands pages and checking out new music are tending to go to their MySpace page and go directly to their inbox and sign out.  Predicting where it is going next is like throwing a dart into a dark room hoping that there is even a dart board in that room at all.

I don’t have a crystal ball so I am not going to attempt to predict the next hot marketing venue for musicians or music as a whole. But here’s a thought that has been a solid investing concept for quite some time… Diversify. I definitely suggest that musicians put some energy into social networking. There are still huge benefits to be realized through social networking websites, I’m just saying its time to get ready for the idea that the boom is over. In that case look for other baskets to put the rest of your eggs in.

Do you have a blog? That’s also a great way for you to connect with your fans. You’ll have to put a bit of energy into driving traffic to your blog but most of the techniques to attract traffic are also good ways to connect with your fans. The more you are doing to connect with your fans the more success you’ll enjoy. Seems to me that things like Pandora or Spotify are heating up (I know I said no predictions but this is really a question mark more than a prediction). How’s this for a sign of the times… MySpace just bought ilike.com. Major companies are starting to advertise on these Internet radio stations. You can too. Check out my post on August 12 about My Music Success teaming up with XL Radio to provide air play and advertising time for Independent Musicians. TuneCore
has a relationship with Jango Radio where they are able to guarantee airplay if you are working with TuneCore.

There are also several really effective creative things you can do. Think about different marketing and promotion avenues you can go down and don’t be afraid to learn something new. You might get it wrong the first couple times you try it, but if you eventually learn how to take advantage of a new resource you will be happy that you tried. Stay tuned for future posts about new marketing and promotion ideas. I will post on anything new I stumble across as well as anything I think of in the meantime.

Tom Siegel

I completely understand that you are a musician, not a salesperson. You’re into creativity, not marketing. In my experience, artists don’t want to take themselves to school on the business end of their creations. Here’s the thing, and I have said this before, but if you don’t make money with your music then its a hobby not a profession. I don’t want to put that down in any way. Keeping your passion as your hobby is sometimes the way to go. You’re a lot less likely to get squeezed into a box. 

Let’s say you are going to go the professional route… you’re going to have to learn something about marketing. There are many ways these days of marketing your music without knowing the first thing about the traditional marketing techniques utilized in print, radio and television. The use of social networking websites is a good example of powerful marketing techniques that don’t necessarily require a professional marketer to be successful at.

Marketing (in its traditional sense) is an art form within itself. There are several aspects of marketing that a marketing professional should be well trained in. Such as the visual affect of the layout of an ad, or the sound or the color and so on. The of marketing that deals with developing a direct relationship with your customers (fans). In my opinion an artist would benefit greatly from studdying copywriting and adapting the tried and true techniques as well as the newer techniques adapted for the Internet to their music or brand.

In my searches I found Aaron Poehler, a professional freelance copywriter, who has a very useful blog post entitled On Music Copywriting and Copywriting for Musicians (Not Copyrighting). I encourage you to check out this post as well as some of what the copywriting experts have to say. Pick up a book on copywriting. There is not a lot of material out there specific to copywriting for musicians but the concepts are adaptable.

I know this is many times exactly what musicians and artists do not want to do, but if you are going to promote yourself in your music career (and I recommend you do), you will need to take yourself to school to learn the ropes of both the new and the old.

Tom Siegel

mymusicsuccess.com is a music promotion company that offers a variety of promotion packages for independent musicians. The stated goal of the company is… “to inspire independent musicians to take control of their music career and take the steps towards true independent music success.” The company offers a range of promotion services from, what they call, an “Indie one shot publicity blast”, where they apparently offer a one time exposure to a number of main stream sources to customized a la carte promotional assistance.

Yesterday mymusicsuccess.com announced a partnership with XL Radio to provide Internet radio play (guaranteed 4 plays per day) and various other promotional services such as a professionally produced radio ad promoting their track or album and a banner ad in the music player allowing the listener to click through to the artists website or to the download store.

I am glad to see the emerging partnerships that focus on creating more effective assistance and opportunity for the independent musician. I will be watching this relationship and will fill you in on my observations as more services develop.

Tom Siegel

As many of you already know Tunecore recently announced a joining of forces with Universal Music Group. The point of this is partnership is that Independent artists that distribute through Tunecore will now be able to purchase ala carte major label services from UMG, such as access to recording studios and the production and promotion resources available through UMG. The announcement hints at many aspects of this partnership but does not entirely spell it out. There seems to be much that would benefit from clarification. There is some language about the services for the Independent Musician to be offered by UMG through Tunecore will be “affordable” but what that exactly means is anyone’s guess at this point. There will also be an opportunity for an Independent Musician working with Tunecore to get officially picked up by the UMG record label “assuming the label is agreeable”.

At this point most of people’s comments on the new partnership are in. While scanning the comments on various articles and blogs I found a healthy mix of comments. There are many who are excited about the partnership as it appears to be a sign that the record industry is finally coming around to meet some of the demand in the musician community. There are equally as many who have responded to the new arrangement between the two companies  not only with skepticism but anger that Tunecore, the innovative online music distribution company, has teemed up with the so called “enemy”. It makes sense to me that musicians are excited at the prospect of a shift in the music industry that could lead to some real changes down the line as well as skepical of major labels of the past playing any part in those changes.

For me personally, I am glad to see something new happen in the industry (even if it is UMG up to more dirty tricks, at least they are needing to find a new tactic and one that appears to give more power to the musician) but I am even more excited to see the conversation coming from the artists themselves about what they want the music industry to look like. My comments on the announcement are below. I wouldn’t say that I am without skepticism but I will say that I am intrigued and looking forward to seeing what happens next…

“This certainly seems like a valid step in the right direction. However, I (like several others) have a difficult time not being cynical. Below are a few questions that immediately come to mind that the announcement did not clarify .

1. Will UMG be utilizing the same marketing formats as they have been historically? It is my opinion that this ballgame has changed and the major labels have, up to this point, been behind the curve. Independent Musicians, given the right tools, are able to market themselves these days with very effective self-promotion techniques. Will UMG do better? I will be interested to find out some specifics.

2. What is considered “affordable” for the provided services?

3. If this is an A&R stunt for UMG (which, in the end that is what it is. Can’t blame them for that, like I said before it appears to be a decent shift in the right direction), how committed will they be to their marketing efforts for artists that they feel “don’t make the cut” to be taken under their Universal wing?

I certainly am excited to see a significant shift in the industry because I have dedicated my efforts to affecting some type of shift myself and we all know that we need it. This seems to me to be somewhat akin to the hybrid and the auto industry. Certainly a day late and possibly a dollar (or maybe fifty cents) short. I am looking forward to getting details before I drink the cool-aid. My biggest hope is that this is the beggining of several changes in direction. It would be a shame not to see more inovation to immediately follow. I find it dificult to believe that the promotion model of the major lables will be more effective than the self-promotion techniques that are employed by Independent Musicians.

I have to commend Tunecore for being at the center of this shift. It is my opinion that the company offers a fantastic service and now appear to have begun a trend that is geared toward servicing the industry. Thank you tunecore for your efforts”.

Tom Siegel
www.onlineartistpromo.com