Digital Distribution is Going To Get One Step Easier for the DIY Artist

Digital distribution is going to get one step easier later this summer for the DIY artist. As you probably know here at Make It In Music we completely advocate 'direct to fan' marketing and love the facilities that Topspin have to offer artists, a comprehensive tool kit that help them to promote their art, connect with their fans, and build a solid business.

Well now we hear that Topspin are teaming up with Tunecore. Tunecore is a digital distribution company that has deals with iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, simfy, iHeartRadio and a whole bunch of other services around the world.

The two companies compliment each other perfectly, meaning you will be able to have your music auto-delivered from Topspin to TuneCore or from TuneCore to Topspin without having to re-upload.

This takes the pain out of numerous uploads in different formats and re-entering metadata and codes for both companies. And the data from your direct to fan sales at Topspin are merged with the data at Tunecore so you can see where you are with sales in a single glance.

Check out what Topspin has to offer the DIY artist here.

For more information on this merger you should go here.

Links

www.topspinmedia.com

www.tunecore.com

 

Remix your favourite songs & sell them, legally

Legitmix Empowers Artists from Legitmix on Vimeo.

Legitmix is a new service, currently in Beta, that allows you to remix or re-edit other people's copyrighted music and sell the remix legally....or at least that's what they claim is the legal position.

I hope they're right, because it's a great idea that sees the orignal artist and the remixer get paid for making something new and might legitimise the world of bootlegs in dance music.

This is what they say:

Legitmix fosters a symbiotic relationship between artists and the copyright holders they sample— and music fans benefit. Artists, producers, and DJs create freely, avoid licensing headaches and profit from the sale of their Legitmix files and the associated source music. Musicians, labels, and publishers get paid when their music is purchased as part of the Legitmix process. Websites receive a commission when they refer sales. Fans get a convenient, legal way to support their favorite artists while building their music collection. Legitmix makes this possible by keeping a percentage from the sale of Legitmix files and source music.

And, I think they're probably right, under US law. The issue might be a bit more murky in other countries where creators have what is known as a 'moral right', but I am asking some UK lawyers to have a look and let me know what they think the position is.

Let's assume for now that Legitmix is right in the advice it has taken and this service survives - what does that mean for you?

Well, primarily for dance music producers, this is a massive opportunity. You will be able to create remixes and re-edits of existing tracks (old classics, current club hits, songs from other genres) and have them available for sale....and, crucially, to promote your name.

We'll let you know what the lawyers say, but hopefully this is an innovation that will shake things up and create new opportunity for budding producers and artists.

Check out their site here.

Even major labels understand the need for the artist website!

There's loads of stuff in this article that you should check out as it's major label digital music marketing people telling you what they do!

But, for me, this was key:

Snowden said he thinks of fans acquired through a Facebook page or Twitter profile as being at the beginning of the process. Ultimately, he wants to bring those people to the artist's website, get them to join a community there, and become a customer who buys CDs or digital downloads.

If even the majors get it, you should to.

Read the whole article here.

If you don't have your own artist website at the hub of what you do, fix it!

You can do it

This is just a quote from @Lefsetz's mail newsletter that he sent out yesterday.

I quote it as he always posts it on his blog a few days after the newsletter goes out and I didn't want to wait!

He's talking about Mark Cuban, the US entrepeneur and how it made him realise how he, Bob Lefsetz, had managed to reach an audience. These short paragraphs really hit home, especially the final one:

Are you willing to put in the hard work to get there?

Hell, I'll be honest, I was stunned Mark Cuban knew who I was, never mind wanted a meeting with me. To shoot the shit no less, with no agenda, because he thought it would be fun... I'm just a guy sitting in front of a computer screen in my underwear, how did this happen?

Hard work and a paradigm shift. When I was printing my newsletter and sending it via snail mail, my audience was limited. But the Internet opened the world to me, and if I can just write something special enough, it's astounding who I can reach.

There are no limits online. Everybody's got an e-mail address. Yes, doors are closed, but you have the key in your pocket, you can open them. And it doesn't happen by knocking. It happens by creating.

It's true.

If you create something great and learn how to spread the word online, the modern world and all this connectivity is THE greatest opportunity musicians have ever had to be heard.

You can do it.

 

How to market music online

Bas Grasmayer is one of the people you run into online when you get involved in any aspect of online music marketing - and he knows his stuff.

He works for a digital distributor that has a focus on the DIY musician and has just finished his heavyweight thesis for his degree course - The Answer is the Ecosystem: Marketing Music Through Non-Linear Communication

I've read a lot of it already, but more importantly, I've bookmarked it and will go back to it again and again.

The part that I have focused on so far is the section where Bas talks about creating an ecosystem for your music to live in:

1. First, a band, group, artist, label, has to differentiate themselves. This means, their music has to be very good, but it also needs an element which defines it and which makes it different from all the other music in the niche or sub-genre.
2. Second, as an artist or label, you need to give fans a message that spreads. Niels Aalbers mentioned that people love telling stories. With the phenomenon of word of mouse, stories spread faster and more easily than ever. This does not mean that you have to tell stories in your songs, but that you have to be a story, as an artist or a label, be remarkable and be worth mentioning. A good example of this is the immensely popular pop artist Lady Gaga, whose songs are (arguably) about nothing, but the identity of Lady Gaga is a great 'story' (one only needs to look at the pictureon this page to understand that).
3. Third, when this story starts spreading, that's when you start building your ecosystem. This has to be done with patience according to Niels Aalbers, specifically noting that business models should be kept out of the door for as long as possible.
4. Fourth, once the ecosystem is in place, one should start listening very closely to this ecosystem to see what it wants. This is a paradigm-shift in marketing communications, because it has traditionally been about finding a consumer for your product, but this is about finding a product (business opportunity) for your consumers

You might think this would be a bit heavy to wade through, but it's not!

You see Bas, as a  futurist, hasn't published his thesis in a mass of text, but as a very, very cool HTML5 site. You can skip about and read bits as they take your fancy.

Without wishing to be too rude about Tony Wadsworth's report Remake, Remodel: The Evolution of the Record Label which is broadly in the same ballpark (OK, I admit its directed to the record industry rather than the DIY fraternity...but they both need to learn the same realities!), Bas's effort makes Music Tank's approach look laughable. Their report, which isheavier on supposition rather than data, costs at least £45 (Bas's is free under Creative Commons) and doesn't address the core issue of what to do about the changes in the way people consume music in the ay that Bas does.

PLEASE take the time to read and bookmark Bas's report. Its ace both due to it's content but also just because of the way he has made it availbale to all.

Here's the link.

Make Ringtones for your fans

There are a lot of ways that you can make a ringtone for your fans (Google it), but the advent of smartphones means that simply supplying your fans with the file in the right format (pretty much anything for Android but M4R for iPhone) and telling them how to upload the tone to their phone usually sees great results.

It's weird, but people (and I am one) just don't delve into what their phones can do unless given a nudge - we are all too busy - but if you help your fans to use your music as a ringtone, many will. Does it help promote your music and your band? - a little, and every little counts.

Of course, there are also very many ways that you can sell your music as ringtones - again Google 'sell music as ringtone' and see, or start with this article from Hypebot.

BUT, until you have a sizeable following, I wouldn't bother selling ringtones - the cost is usually high to set it up and the returns are low unless you become a mass market phenomenon.

Giving them away is the ideal answer.

Make up audio files in the correct formats and simply have a page on your site that offers them for free download (behind an email sign-up is obviously best practice). Also, spend some time explaining how fans can get the file from your site to their phone - maybe a YouTube video and a blog post can do that? The ringtones don't just have to be parts of songs - you could create music especially or record some kind of talking / shouting - whatever you think your fans would like.

This article from Evolver.fm set me off on this train of thought. Their piece talks about making ringtones form any file - even a YouTube video - and has a clear explanation of how the ringtone tool at Brinked.com can be used to make the files.

Most smartphones fall on the side of allowing you to choose any audio as your ringtone, but it’s not the simplest thing in the world to make them and transfer them to your phone — especially on the iPhone.

Brinked.com offers a nice web app for converting any MP3, WAV or OGG music file into a ringtone, but we were more interested to see that it’s also capable of grabbing the audio from YouTube videos and making ringtones out of those, for free.

Check it out here.

 

Marketing Methods for Musicians

This is something that you need to bookmark and read at your leisure.

It's 18 posts on the Dotted Music blog that, combined, give a great overview of how to market your music.

It would be impossible not to learn something from these posts.

Bookmark it and read them here.

A Music Marketing education for free

I recommend a lot of things that Jon Ostrow does at Mic Control - because he works incredibly hard to post really useable advice for aspiring musicians.

His latest post groups together 25 articles breaking down the basics of music marketing.

He says:

'As an emerging musician, marketing your music and yourself can be an overwhelming though. Even an uncomfortable one at times. Some musicians are naturally business-savvy and are lucky enough to truly understand how branding and marketing can help create a sustainable career in music. Unfortunately these 'lucky ones' are few and far between, with most musicians having a far more difficult time the fact that their ability to establish a fan base and create a sustainable career is dependent on the their business and marketing skills on top of their musicianship and performance.

So, I've put together my first course all focused on helping you to better grasp the idea of marketing and how it can help you with career advancement, if executed properly.'

Read the post, bookmark it and use as a reference.

Online music marketing expert - interview and book

Bob Baker has started a new audio interview series talking to artists who are making it as a DIY musician.

First up is David Nevue who has been making a living in that way for over 10 years - and has written a great book on online music marketing.

I'll link to it below again, but I'd urge you to seriously consider buying it. It was the first thing I bought on how to market and promote music online - must have been over 4 years ago. I have had the updated versions free twice since and it just keeps getting better.

$25 for a vast amount of very good and bang up to date information - I guaranteee that if you did buy it and use any of the information in even a half-arsed way, you'd pay for it many, many times over.

Anyway - here's the link to the interview on Bob's site. It's great and I'd suggest downloading it and listening to it in the car or something. It's got some great nuggets of advice.

Here's the link for the book again.

 

5 simple ways to market your music online

Image by aless&ro

Some great stuff in this post from Wayward Musician.

I'm obviously very gung-ho about music marketing, but sometimes it's necessary to keep it simple and realise that not one size fits all.

This post removes a lot of hype and over thinking and just has 5 great elements that you should have down.

There are endless ways to market your music online and it can all sometimes become a bit overwhelming.

Advice is being thrown at you from all directions and all kinds of “experts”.

But, it’s important to realize that many musicians who’ve had success marketing themselves online have done so in completely opposite ways.

Whatever methods you choose, make sure it is something that works for you and your fan-base.

Here are just a few ideas to get you started.

Read the simple tips here.

10 expert insights into great music marketing

Cracking post on Hypebot (you are regularly checking their site out right?) on music marketing.

Titbits taken from a panel interview at a convention.

Not least:

Michael Zapruder of Pandora Radio feels that personalization is key. But ultimately, the single best thing an artist can do is being as excellent as they can be. Does it (the music) clear the bar? Once it does, you're in the game. He goes on to mention that Pandora is merely 2% of the American radio market.

Check the post here.

Your Digital Music Marketing Strategy - professional insight.

Dan Kruchkow knows his shit.

He does digital marketing for a major US management company - Crush Management - see their clients at that link.

In this interview at Musician Coaching he talks about various elements of a music marketing strategy that we can all learn from. We have a great step-by-step plan for download on the main site if you haven't seen that as well - Music Marketing pdf.

What about methods of delivery for that message? Are there a handful that you think are absolutely required at this stage?

DK:

They’re almost standard equipment at this point:  a Facebook profile; a Twitter account; a YouTube profile. And Tumblr’s a huge community that the entire industry has started gravitating towards in the past year or so. The entire hip hop industry is moving over to Tumblr as we speak. I think the official website for the artist, when done right, is really important as well.

Read the whole interview here.

 

Use the latest research to market your music

It's all very well listening to me, and others who do the same thing as me, witter (or twitter) on about how you should promote and market your music.

But, what if we're all wrong?

Well, thankfully the lovely people at Nielsen have gone and worked out the latest facts about how people are consuming music and interacting with artists. So, not only can you listen to our advice, but you can also be safe in the knowledge that hard data is backing up our recommendations.

This has been summarised very well in this piece on Music Think Tank - which is therefore well worth a read. As they point out, once you know that three times as much music is consumed by watching videos on YouTube as by legal downloading, you'd be a muppet not to get amongst it on YouTube - wouldn't you?

If you want the full data, you'll be needing to hand over your email address for the full report on the Midem site.

Online Music Marketing in a nutshell

 

Image credit: adebond on Flickr

 This article covers the basic steps that you need to have covered so well that I think I will be tweeting it ...... a lot!

Dotted Music lay out what you need to have, where you need to put it and how to get people to find it and buy it - which is what marketing is!

It's the best overall picture of online music marketing that I have seen.

If you are a musician or in a band, chances are good that you’d like to make some money from your music. CD’s, digital downloads, t-shirts, bumper stickers… the options are almost endless for a savvy musician.

The question is, how do you get people to find what you’re selling? With millions of bands and musicians worldwide, getting people to find you may seem like hunting for a needle in a haystack. Well, it doesn’t have to be.

On the downside, the odds of your website ranking well for any music related keyword phrase with even remotely decent search volume is pretty much nil. But don’t despair! As a musician looking to make money online, there’s a much better way.

First, before you try to sell anything, you need an online presence. This website or profile will be your digital hub, and everything we cover from this point on will point back to this site. If you already have a website, fantastic. If not, you may not actually need one

Read the whole piece here.

10 low cost rules of music promotion

Bobby Owsinski's book, Music 3.0, is great.

It sets out a real roadmap for musicians seeking to succeed in their own digital music marketing and promotion efforts. I recommend it.

On his blog, he reworks sections of the book and this post caught my eye as it gives a simple yet comprehensive list of things all aspiring musicians should be doing - a couple of which are different to what you might see elsewhere.

In particular, I like the idea of having a separate email list for a small band of 'influencers' and of asking anyone who posts about your music to give you a specific backlink to your site.

Never leave promotion to someone else. You always must be actively involved in at least an oversight level to be sure that not only are you getting promoted, but that it’s something that’s beneficial to your image as an artist. This even includes having a publicist, since she takes the cues from you. Especially don’t depend upon a record label, particularly in these days where so few people do so many jobs. It’s up to you to develop the strategy or it might not get developed at all.

That being said, here are a number of very low-cost M30 ideas that you can do to get your promotion started.

Read the piece here.

5 must read music marketing blogs

James Chatman - you made a mistake!

These are indeed 5 great music marketing blogs and everyone should know them and review them regularly.

James says:

The internet is cluttered with blogs on a plethora of topics. Good blogs are wonderful sources of information and are regularly updated with insightful and enlightening content. Unfortunately though, good blogs are sometimes hard to find. The internet is a breeding ground for information where anyone, no matter how ill-informed or misguided they may be, has the opportunity to express their opinion. For this reason I decided to do some digging around to find the best music marketing blogs. Below are five of my favourites…

Find out what the 5 are here.

BUT - you missed the best one out. Ours.

Not just music marketing - although we have that covered - but everything you need to know to succeed in the music business - songwriting, performance, the business and on and on.

Make It In Music - the best blog for aspiring musicians.

Digital Brand Manifesto - the elements a musician needs

As a DIY musician you need to get all the elements of your 'digital brand' in order.

This article is a handy checklist.

Read it here.

Echo Republic - a music stock market and sales platform

Another new space in the world of online music marketing.

Echo Republic is something new though - it has a dual pronged approach which allows you to add another outlet for your music which will then sell legal downloads at a price set to appeal to young fans, plus fans can buy a share of the revenue that your songs make through the service.

It's different to some other services since you aren't buying a share in the band's long term future - just the songs on sale - and that makes it appeal to me as an additional discovery outlet for artists. It's no risk to you.

Echo Republic, the world’s first joint music stock market and sales company, opened to the public on June 20^th. Part music sharing, part e-commerce, Echo Republic strives to return the power of the music industry to its two most important members: the artists and their fans. “We're not a company. We're a movement.” says founder Patrick McConlogue of the California start-up.

A movement that will quickly attract attention for its legal music downloads at a price point even the most penny-pinching college student can handle: 10 cents a song. What's more, Echo Republic's firm belief that purchased music belongs to the buyer means every download is iPod™ compatible and accessible through the company's cloud based music library, Echo Encore.

Check out Echo Republic here

The 6 phases of music marketing

Once you've got your music recorded and ready to unleash on the world you enter the realm of music marketing.

And you can be overwhelmed.

This article breaks down the steps into six separate phases.

The 6 Phases of Music Marketing

1. Distribution
2. Awareness
3. Discovery
4. Credibility
5. Engagement
6. Sustained Attention

Read the article here.

Get Bloggers to write about you

This article is aimed at brands rather than musicians specifically but most of it applies and it's full of some really great tips. Getting coverage for your act on blogs is a key part of digital music marketing - you need to learn how to do it.

Cultivating relationships with bloggers is vital for any serious brand marketer. They can be a real asset to help you spread word about content, products and services. They are more likely to link to you than mainstream media sites and they often link in the right way. 

I’ll try to shine some light on the tools you can use to unearth the most relevant blogs to your business. You’ll find that there are many bloggers out there that will be receptive to working with you, you just know how to seek them out.

Read the whole article here.