MusicThinkTank.com Weekly Recap: Thom Yorke vs. Spotify & More

• Josh Kruk: Thom Yorke vs. Spotify: Rebel Without a Plan

• Chris Rucks: The Top 5 Biggest Mistakes To Make When Clearing Music For Licensing

• Sari Delmar: All or Nothing: How to Ensure Release Campaigns Live Up to Their True Potential

• Simon Tam: 5 Big Tips That Will Save Your Band’s Tour

5 Big Tips That Will Save Your Band’s Tour

There’s a lot of great advice out there about how to book a tour but I haven’t found many things about how to survive on tour. Going out on the road can sometimes be a dangerous affair: long hours on the road with little sleep, many late nights, financial risks, etc. Here are 5 easy tips to remember that can save your band’s tour:

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All or Nothing: How to Ensure Release Campaigns Live Up to Their True Potential

Fence-sitting has no place in marketing and release plans. When planning a release or campaign around a tour, for example, it is integral to define your marketing strategy and make sure you give it your all. In a music marketplace that is saturated with artists (many that have a larger marketing budget than you), it has become even more difficult to stand out. Marketing endeavors or companies who are constantly saying “we’ll just give it a try for now, with a small budget” without the right care, attention to detail, and most importantly attitude behind it, will come across as half assed in the marketplace. Potential fans can tell when you’re not committed and it seeps into every aspect of a project in peculiar ways.

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The Top 5 Biggest Mistakes To Make When Clearing Music For Licensing

The Top 5 Biggest Mistakes To Make When Clearing Music For Licensing

By: Chris Rucks | Music Dealers

There are various aspects to music licensing that can get pretty complex, pretty quickly. Among these is music clearance, essentially the process of locating the owners of a song and obtaining permission from them to license their music in your project. It’s wise to approach the clearance of a song with some important ideas in mind. So, we’ve compiled a list of a few of the most common pitfalls to avoid when clearing music for licensing.

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Thom Yorke vs. Spotify: Rebel Without a Plan

More subscribers, more problems. As Spotify continues to grow, in both users and catalog, so do its detractors. Thom Yorke and producer Nigel Godrich recently took a stand against the streaming music service, citing that it’s “horrible for new artists.” 

We’ve seen this before.  The Black Keys recently refused to put their newest album “El Camino” on Spotify citing its detraction from album sales.  

There’s a common thread here.  Only established bands who have already made their money are the ones taking the stand against streaming music.  New and upcoming bands are more willing to cast a big net to get ears to their music. It’s been proven time and time again that artists make more money off touring than album sales, so why not do everything you can to maximize your exposure to potential new ticket buyers?  

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MusicThinkTank.com Weekly Recap: 7 Ways to Double Your Fan Base & More

     

• Marcus Taylor: 7 Ways to Double the Size of Your Fan Base

• Simon Tam: The Ultimate Guide to Band Merchandise

• Daniel McCarthy: Five Essential Tips for a Successful Kickstarter Campaign

• David Roberts: 5 Marketing Ideas for Your Band for Under $50

5 Marketing Ideas for Your Band for Under $50

I know how tough it is for an indie band to find the funds to put up flyers around town, print promotional CDs, etc. That’s why I’ve come up with 5 marketing ideas that could either be copied, expanded upon, or used to inspire more creative juices to come up with some clever marketing tactics of your own. Not saying these ideas are anywhere near perfect, but if you’ve got the balls to give them a try, let us know how they go! The point is to get creative.

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Five Essential Tips for a Successful Kickstarter Campaign

From no-name garage bands to established rockers like The Dresden Dolls’ Amanda Palmer, crowdfunding on sites like Kickstarter—where artists of all stripes offer fan-friendly incentives to get their followers to essentially executive produce tours, albums, music videos, and so on—is becoming an increasingly effective model for bankrolling endeavors in lieu of ever-decreasing record label support.

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The Ultimate Guide to Band Merchandise

These days, merchandise sales make up a pretty big portion of most touring acts’ income. The staples of CD’s, shirts, and stickers have become even more important as income from performing has gradually dropped. There are many tips out there of what bands should order and how they should sell their products, but there doesn’t seem to be much on how to get the best possible pricing from vendors, how to calculate prices, or how much product should be ordered before a tour.

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7 Ways to Double the Size of Your Fan Base

One thing that fascinates me about how bands develop is the ‘leaps’ where a band grows exponentially over a short period of time. Very few bands grow at an incremental rate their whole career – but what causes these leaps?

In practical terms, how can you double or triple the size of your fan base in a short period of time? 

I urge you to not just read this post and go back to browsing Twitter. No one builds their fan base by clicking on links all day. You build your fan base by taking action – testing and learning what works, and eliminating what doesn’t. Try something new today.

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MusicThinkTank.com Weekly Recap: Give Your Fans Warm Fuzzies

       

• Corie Kellman: Give Your Fans Warm Fuzzies

Give Your Fans Warm Fuzzies

Let me introduce myself: My name is Corie Kellman. I am a music lover, working at Cyber PR® as the Director of New Artist Relations. I review artists project submissions and work to connect them to the Cyber PR® services that are right for them, getting them one step closer to their goals. However; first and foremost, I am a fan and I understand the value we bring to the success of an artist. Musicians would be nothing without their fans. Fans are just as important (if not more) than the artists’ teams.

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MusicThinkTank.com Weekly Recap: 6 Things Musicians Should Know & More

   

• Dillon Roulet: Streaming: What Netflix Can Teach The Music Industry

• Simon Tam: 6 Things Musicians Should Know That They Don’t Teach You in Music School

6 Things Musicians Should Know That They Don’t Teach You in Music School

“The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.” - Tom Bodett

Music schools might be great for really helping you fine-tune your musicianship skills, but there are some lessons that they don’t cover which you’ll need to know for your career. Here are six things that you should know that aren’t covered in curriculum:

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