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.

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.

A Direct-To-Fan Campaign in detail

On the exceptional We All Make Music blog there is a review of the competition for a grant from Topspin to use in a forthcoming Direct To Fan campaign.

It's a good piece of itself, but it also links to one of the proposals that ended up winning the grant, and that's interesting, because it has all of the ideas of a real world band that you know the experts from Topspin have rated as likely to succeed.

There ought to be some ideas in there that you can use!

Read the WAM piece here.

And go direct to the D2F campaign outline here.

10 marketing lessons from KISS!

You'd be an idiot if you didn't read this and file the lessons in your memory.

Seriously.

10 great music marketing lessons learnt from a band whose success you can't argue with.

Love them or hate them, there is absolutely no denying the influence that KISS has had on the music industry. KISS in the course of their 36 year career have sold over 100 million albums, has over 2,500 product licenses (coffins, condoms and credit cards), Gene reportedly earns $100,000 for a speaking engagement and don’t forget the longest celebrity reality series on TV, Gene Simmons Family Jewels. Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley get it when it comes to business.

Read all 10 lessons here.

My favourites? - 1, 4, 5 and 9. BUT, they're all great.

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.

 

Fit your music marketing in to your everyday life

As an aspiring artist you are looking for every spare minute to up your music marketing game. And you should.

But, it doesn't mean that you have to give up your life - work the promotion and marketing into what you do everyday.

Chances are good that you will be wearing several ‘hats’ as you attempt to establish your new band on the scene. Sure, you make great music and that’s the most important thing. But you are also the only one who is promoting your music—so you act as a marketer, PR rep, advertiser, web guru, and business manager—sometimes all in the same day!  And of course, you probably have a whole existence outside the band, too.  Family, friends, a day job—you know— a life.

You don’t have to bring your whole life to a standstill just to be in a band. Your music is a part of who you are—so take it with you everywhere you go. Here are some ways that you can promote your band while going about your daily business.

Read the whole list here.

Planning is the way to avoid f**k ups!

I was out on Saturday night with a bunch of music business people and one of them was moaning about how the label hadn't got their act's video lined up despite the promotion of the single having started. Possible recipe for disaster!

It caused me to admit that every time that I have fucked up a record release it has, in the end, been because I didn't have everything ready before I started the campaign for the record - be it a single or album. You can read more about releasing a record at our site.

We now use a planner for every record. 13 weeks (before release) for an album or single which has a physical release and 6 weeks for a digital only single. And that's just for the things you NEED - masters, art, videos. You will have been preparing and making marketing plans before that.

I would suggest NOT starting the promotion though unless the key elements are in place within those time frames.

I then saw this article this morning which makes a similar point.

If you are reaching the conclusion that there is no right answer, you are right. At least if you are on a major label with resources to coordinate mass exposure platforms. If you are new and unsigned, what this shows you is you should coordinate everything before releasing a single. Don’t just put it up on your Youtube channel to stream and then figure out retail. Take a minute to go thru the following checklist:

Read the whole article here.