Selling to 4 levels of fans

This is a great post from the ReverbNation blog that sets out the nreleatively simple idea of making a tier of products available for different types of fans.

The following illustration is an attempt to visualize four types of fans that buy for different reasons. Any given Artist may have fans in any or all of the buckets, depending on where they are at in their career. You’ll notice that I added a ‘value’ arrow that increases as you go up the illustration. This value arrow is based on a combination of the price each type of fan is willing to pay multiplied by the number of potential fans in each group. Your biggest supporters are willing to pay more than some of the other groups, but there will likely be fewer of them, especially as you tour farther from home.

Check the post here.

Pay what you want

Great post from Joy at Grassrootsy.

You read so much stuff about how 'freemium' or 'pay what you want' pricing works for musicians and other creatives, but you don't often see artists (who aren't major label escapees!) prepared to test it and then disseminate their results.

So, it's great to see a post where the artist has done it and passes on their experience.

I am sure you have come across this model recently, artists making their work available for whatever fans want to pay for it.  It has been called by many names (pay what you want, pay what you can, pay what you think it’s worth etc), but they all essentially mean the same thing.  The artist gives the audience the choice as to how much money they spend on the music.

And with this in mind, I come to the main point of this post: using the pay what you want model with merchandise at live shows.  I started doing this over two years ago when I toured around the UK.  I know of a few musicians who do the same now, but have mainly encountered a response of fear when encouraging others to try it.

You can read the whole thing here.

And this is a link to a post that they refer to by Derek Sivers on the same topic.

How to make money from your concert posters

Concert posters are a REAL source of revenue for every band with even the smallest of followings.

Once you have a fanbase that turns out to shows, you can use posters to both promote those shows and as a source of revenue. Fans love a quality poster as a memento of the event.

Phish are the masters of this with each new set of dates accompanied by the pre-sale of an individual poster for each show. Before they even start prmoting the gig (let alone playing it) they have earned several thousand dollars.

You might well not be at that scale, but selling posters from your site and from the merch table is something you should be looking at - high quality art and a distincive approach to branding is obviously a key ingredient (see Phish for ideas!)

But, there are issues with ownership and rights that you need to sort out.

Concert posters have long been the standard when promoting gigs. It’s simple, efficient, and people generally love seeing these unique pieces of art. In today’s DIY market coupled with fading music sales, artists are beginning to rely heavily upon poster design as an additional merchandise revenue stream but few realize concert posters/design pack a hefty legal punch. In short: Who owns the concert poster? The band that’s performing? The designers who designed the poster? Perhaps the venue that booked the artist? If you don’t think these issues are important, think again.

Check out this article for more.

How to increase sales at your shows

This latest quick video advice from Phil at Nimbit has two great tips for selling more CD's at your shows.

Unfortunately, the very clever Square card reader isn't yet available in the UK but every savvy performing artist in the US ought to be using this.

 

DJ Shadow on Merchandising on the road

Last part (4 of 4) on Hypebot that we've followed, as a member of Shadow's team, Michael Fiebach, gives a master class on music marketing and  promotion. See the first part on the MiiM Dailies here.

This last part looks at the merchandising that they've made for this tour and gives a best practice guide. It's gold!

I love the fact that he points out that merch is pointless if you're band is whack - no-one will buy it! - and that a genius yet utterly obvious idea is to have bags! People will buy more and can check it to pick up after the show. So simple but almost never done.

This sums up the basics of the merchandising approach.  Care, attention, and quality are the most important things, and as with ALL of the topics I am discussing, if the music isn't good, and isn't commercially viable, then none of this matters.  So upcoming bands: perfect the music before you dive into this wonderful world of Direct To Fan mania. 

Read the piece here.

 

DJ Shadow - online and real world promotion tips

Brilliant article from Hypebot that gets the in-depth lowdown from DJ Shadow's 'Project, Marketing and Merchandise Manager' on how they work offline and online music promotion.

It ranges from street teams, free badges and old school email sign-ups to a super innovative license back scheme from his label to allow on-artist site digital download sales. Very tricky to get your major label to buy into that!

Essential read.

I am almost at the 5 year mark in working for Shadow, and the web and merchandise business has changed drastically in that time.  Through the years, we have had to remain aware and nimble.  I think we have done a great job at staying on the cutting edge of the web and merchandise space, and Shadow is ALWAYS on the cutting edge of music.  My job is a 10-7 sort of gig most of the year (with the exception of the occasional sleepless night before a launch), but about once a year, I am asked to come along for a tour.  In the past, I have managed the website remotely, run the merchandise, and assisted Shadow and the tour manager with any extra help with organization or logistics.  This time, I am handling the same tasks, but we are taking it to a new level with the marketing push and the website involvement.  Here is what we have lined up:

Get the full tips here.