TuneCorner

What Every Musician Should Know About Digital Distribution, Part III

Part III: The Myth of Marketing and Promotion

Aggregators take a percentage of your earnings, forever, with no ceiling—why? Because they can, but it’s hardly good public relations to say so. They control the only path a small label or band can take to reach the big digital retailers like iTunes, so they can set up any terms they want. In Part II, I showed why distributors might have been entitled to a limitless cut in the past, when physical product had to be placed into brick-and-mortar stores, with all the risk and overhead and managing required. But in the digital world, it’s almost indefensible. A new reason has to be claimed for taking a percentage: marketing and promotion.

Musical Freedom = Musical Responsibility

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." ~George Bernard Shaw

As a musician, entrepreneur, and consultant, I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to create a new "path" for musicians to succeed.

Unlike the olden days, success doesn't have to equate with record sales, or even concert attendance.

Why? The emerging music industry is flexible. There aren't any make-or-break "gatekeepers." It's wide open and the costs are pretty much zero. There are no barriers to expression. Make a song for your mom and email it to her. Or take over the British singles charts. Whatever. Make what you want of it.

The key word, however, is "you". Even more than usual, musicians are the ones who will be ultimately responsible for music's progress.

Online Music is the Future of the Music Business, and the Future is Now.

Hey all,

Sorry about the hokey title, but I wanted to get my opinion on digital retail and distribution out straight away. I’ve been a fan of Jeff Price’s for awhile, having admired SpinART, the early work he did with EMusic, and what he has now done with TuneCore. To me, digital distribution is one of the greatest things to come out of the Internet, as it pertains to music.  To read stories about Trent Reznor spending $56.61 to distribute Ghosts I-V to Amazon’s MP3 store through TuneCore really blows my mind.  And the best part is that every independent artist can do the same thing.   

I’ve worked at several indie record labels over the years, and I now teach a 12-week online course for Berklee College of Music's online school called Music Marketing 201. My course covers all the major marketing segments an artist should consider when creating their marketing plan: building and maintaining your community, merchandising, branding, online marketing and video, advertising, publicity, some form of radio (online, non-com, and college primarily), touring, and of course retail and distribution. We thought it might be helpful to provide you with a free lesson excerpt from the course.

How to Make 1,000 True Fans

Last month Wired magazine Editor-at-large, and former Executive Editor, Kevin Kelly wrote an article called “1,000 True Fans.” Kelly claims that for a musician to make a decent living they need 1,000 true fans. He defines a true fan as:

“A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can't wait till you issue your next work.”

That’s a fairly easy goal for an artist with the power of a major label-marketing machine behind them, but what does this mean for the independent artist or band that’s just released their first album? It means that a musician needs to view their fans and their relationship with them very differently than they have in the past. A true fan feels they are supporting something they are personally invested in. They want the band to succeed so they will continue to create music the fan feels a connection with. So, how does an artist create a relationship with listeners that will turn them into these coveted true fans?

Why Every Artist Needs a Blog, by Kyra Reed

Kyra Reed got started in the music biz managing Portland, OR, bands Stars of Track and Field and The Upsidedown. She currently is a New Media and Interactive Consultant working with bands, venues and labels all over the U.S. Kyra's new eBook, Blog101, is written specifically to help artists navigate their careers online. This article is written especially for TuneCore.

Back in the days before Myspace, most bands relied on emails and shows as their only avenue for staying in touch with fans. Today, it's easy to become overwhelmed by the number of technologies artists can use to build relationships with the public: social networks, Twitter, blogs, texting, the list goes on. To fully take advantage of these tools, a band needs a central online location to syndicate its presence across the web; one place fans know they can visit for the latest information, photos, press, tour dates, etc. A website has historically filled that role, but most are already outdated. Traditional sites just don’t allow for social interaction or easy updating of information ("content management").  If you are ready to retire your website or are thinking about launching a new one, a blog can provide a useful (and CHEAP) format for building out your online presence. Here's a few bullet points to help frame your thinking about how to leverage the millions of fans and industry connections out in the blogosphere:

1. A Free Website
A blog is far more than just an online diary. It is built on a CMS (content management system) which allows you to build additional pages, add widgets and plug-ins, manage your content and even sell ad space. The best part is, all of this is easy to do: no webmaster required.

Take a look at how these bands are using their free blogs as their main websites: 
The Upsidedown

Saturna

Sink to See

2. Express Yourself/Evangelize your fans

Chances are, the last album you released is not the only piece of art you have created in the last six months. What about that photo essay you took on tour, or the paintings you did for the album cover? Has anyone outside the band ever heard that killer jam session you recorded in the van on the way to L.A.? Most musicians are constantly creating and have no outlet for sharing it with their fans. A blog allows you to post all of the other art, ideas and creations that don't fit on an album. Offering your fans more of you will create stronger loyalty and interest in the products that you want them to buy.

3. Control your Assets
Unlike a Myspace page, your blog is YOURS. You control the content and the ads. When you draw traffic to an ad-supported site, you are using your fans to make money for other people, and you don't get a dime. I'm not recommending that you abandon your social networking profiles, but work on directing the traffic from your profiles to a site you own, too. Another risk you run is being deleted. Despite the number of hours you spent building your page, you don't own it and can be deleted for any reason, without recourse. I know bands that have suffered this unfortunate fate. Finally, a blog is your domain: say and do what you like, post what you want.

4. Build your Fan Base
Most importantly, the technologies (RSS, linking) and social norms pioneered by bloggers have become the new standards for community (read "fan base") building on the web. New social tools are being developed almost daily that integrate seamlessly into a blog. Would you be caught dead selling only SACD's at your show when most of your audience uses an iPod? Apply the same concept to your fan outreach and you won’t be disappointed.

For more information about how a blog can help you, purchase a copy of Blog 101 and visit these blogs often blog101book.com and kyrareed.com.

Study: Blog Exposure Can Triple Sales For Signed Artists (but hey, what about the unsigned artist?)

Science has caught up with what we've intuitively known for ages: there is a strong tie between blogging and sales. A recent New York University study looked a the impact of blogging on music sales for 108 "signed" artists. Here are some of the findings:

--When legitimate blog posts exceeded a threshold of 40 before an album's release, sales were three times higher than for albums that did not generate this kind of buzz.
--When blog activity reached more than 250 posts, sales were six times higher.
--The number of an artist’s MySpace friends also contributed to higher future sales, but had a weaker correlation as compared to blog chatter.

These statistics apply whether an album was released by a major or independent label. Not surprisingly, the study doesn't provide any info on how "unsigned" artists fared. It doesn't even acknowledge the existence of the ever-growing group of artists who are "unsigned" (many by choice) and sell to their fans (in our opinion, the majority of all releases today come from artists who are "unsigned" not to mention there may be a case to suggest the majority of all music sales in the world also come from "unsigned" artists). TuneCore was founded in part because user-generated content about music (like blog posts, reviews) has a stronger, more immediate impact on sales than traditional marketing efforts. Take a look at the then unsigned artist Eric Hutchinson. Eric was blogged about on the (in)famous Perez Hilton blog (http://perezhilton.com/) and within three weeks he sold over 120,000 songs and jumped to #1 on the Billboard Heatseekers Charts (he was not even on it the week before!). Another great example is Kelly and his (her?) video for his song "Shoes". From just viral on-line blogging and outlets like YouTube Kelly has sold over 400,000 songs in 5 months.

The A&R people at major labels, MTV, Rolling Stone and other "old" music industry standbys are no longer the "taste makers" they once were. Every artist can now generate buzz on blogs, YouTube and social network, and with TuneCore, turn that buzz into sales.

How have blogs affected sales for you? Let us and your fellow TuneCore users know by posting your stories/comments here.

Marketing and Promoting Marketing and Promotion and a heck of a lot more!

It's been a long time since I made a blog posting, I am really sorry about that. It's time

There is a LOT to write about.

First, VIDEO - I am really excited to announce that TuneCore is the first company on the planet to make it possible for ANYONE with a music video to have it for sale in iTunes around the world - as always, we take none of the rights or revenue from any of the sales.

Next, its has been our goal to help TuneCore users succeed. To that end we try to provide as much information as possible to let you know what tools exist in the world to market and promote yourself (MP3 blogs, YouTube, LastFM, iMixes etc). In addition to providing information on what is out there in the world, I am now finally pleased to say TuneCore now provides some direct marketing and promotion opportunities.

To begin, every month 20 - 30 TuneCore customers will have their music played on the in-store radio system in over 215 Guitar Center stores. Each time a song is played, the name of the band, the album and the song will be tagged. Next, each month we are emailing out between 1.5 to 3 million people a TuneCore Music Staff Picks email that list between 12 - 20 songs from 12 - 20 different artists with direct links to buy the songs and albums at iTunes.

We are also surfacing music at TuneCore.com - we now list the Top 20 Best Sellers by month with direct links to buy them at iTunes. In addition, we also list the Top 100 Best Selling Songs by month, also with direct links to buy them at iTunes.

This month, we just launched a promotion where we are giving away seven million copies of a 34 song album for free download on iTunes. We brought in Yamaha, Musicians Friend, Guitar Center, PayPal and Obedia to help get the word out.

Next up - before the end of the year, we expect to launch the first version of public band pages, free to any TuneCore customer.

Over time, the band pages will feature streaming songs, a MyDiscography page with a link to buy songs on iTunes, a music discovery tool, a band photo, tour dates and an option to become an official fan.

As time goes on, we are working to build the technology to provide daily information as to how many times a day your song is being sold and streamed as well as where the streams and sales are occurring (for the iTunes sales, we will be able to provide the information by the actual zip code of each and every individual buyer!)

Finally, I want to congratulate TuneCore customer and "unsigned" (not sure what that means these days) artist Eric Hutchinson on the success of his album "Sounds Like This"

Eric Hutchinson is officially an unsigned artist that used TuneCore.

He went to #1 on the Billboard Heatseekers charts in late Sept and was one of the Top 10 selling artists in iTunes

He is now one of the best selling independent artist of all times on iTunes and has the distinction of selling more music in one month than any other TuneCore customer in history.

I am also really proud to state that the co-founder of a very cool site called BlockSavvy was able to work with TuneCore to have Jay Z's album Reasonable Doubt delivered to iTunes by TuneCore.

It should be live some time this week.

More to come

Stay in touch!

Jeff

20 things to do while you're waiting for your fans to show up

This is a great article about marketing and promoting your music. I thought it had some helpful advice, and it also gives a shout out to TuneCore.

check it out: click here.