The Music Industry

Thinks Out Loud

• Brian Thompson: 10 Reasons You Shouldn’t Wish For Overnight Success
• Chris Hacker: Marketing Plan Tactics For Independent Musicians – Part 3 of 3: Content Is King
• Dave Cool: The Four P’s of Playing Live Shows: Post-Show
• Ariel Hyatt: Musician’s Arsenal: Killer Apps, Tools & Sites - ReverbNation Mobile Apps
• Derek Miller: Brainstorming Doesn’t Work

…Keith Sawyer, a psychologist at Washington University, has summarized the science: “Decades of research have consistently shown that brainstorming groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas.”

According to Nemeth, dissent stimulates new ideas because it encourages us to engage more fully with the work of others and to reassess our viewpoints. “There’s this Pollyannaish notion that the most important thing to do when working together is stay positive and get along, to not hurt anyone’s feelings,” she says. “Well, that’s just wrong. Maybe debate is going to be less pleasant, but it will always be more productive. True creativity requires some trade-offs.”

When the Q was low—less than 1.7 on Uzzi’s five-point scale—the musicals were likely to fail. Because the artists didn’t know one another, they struggled to work together and exchange ideas. “This wasn’t so surprising,” Uzzi says. “It takes time to develop a successful collaboration.” But, when the Q was too high (above 3.2), the work also suffered. The artists all thought in similar ways, which crushed innovation.

…The best Broadway shows were produced by networks with an intermediate level of social intimacy. The ideal level of Q—which Uzzi and his colleague Jarrett Spiro called the “bliss point”—emerged as being between 2.4 and 2.6. A show produced by a team whose Q was within this range was three times more likely to be a commercial success than a musical produced by a team with a score below 1.4 or above 3.2.

• Could this be why so many “legendary” acts tend to flame out after producing their masterpiece instead of producing two masterpieces many years apart?
• Is this at fault for the sophomore slump?
• Is there an optimal creative lifetime for a band?  I suspect yes.

Keeping in line with our recent mobile theme, I wanted to present another mobile option to you this week. Last week we talked about Mobile Roadie’s free mobile ready website option. Mobile Roadie is also quite adept at making mobile apps. While they are a leader in app creation platforms for musicians to consider, their price points can be prohibitive for many independent artists. But have no fear, ReverbNation has been creating free/inexpensive solutions for independent musician’s since their inception. Here again they have come up with an affordable solution for mobile app creation. ReverbNation can get you up and running with a customized app in 6 quick steps.

1. You choose the color scheme your app will be built with. You only have 5 options here, so there’s not a ton of choice, but there’s enough. The color scheme presents itself across the entire app.

2. In the next step you choose several photos that will rotate through on the home screen. The idea is to keep this home screen variable and exciting instead of just static.

3. Here you upload a photo that becomes the app icon. This is an important step as this is the photo fans will see when downloading the app from the app store and when opening the app on their phone.

4. You’ll also need to upload a photo to act as a loading screen (lots of photo uploads, eh?). This is a nice touch to make sure you have branded loading screen so your fans don’t just look at a blank screen as the app loads.

5. This can be the longest step of the process. In this step you will load up the rest of the content that will populate the app. You have the ability to load up your music (which can be made available for stream, download or both, and can include buy links), photos, bio, blog and social links.

6. The final step is also the most boring. Now you just need to enter some final information about yourself and the band and voila, you now have an app ready for the Android and Apple app stores. Like I said at the beginning of this article, ReverbNation has managed to bring this idea to the market at a very reasonable price. For $299/year you can make your app available on both the Android and Apple app store, or just the Android app store for only $99/year. Compared to their competitors, this is an extremely competitive price point.

Have you built an app with ReverbNation? What do you think of their app creator? How important has mobile been for you in communicating with your fans?

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Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

Dave Cool is the Director of Artist Relations for musician website and marketing platform Bandzoogle. Twitter: @Bandzoogle | @dave_cool

The “Four P’s” is a term used to describe the traditional Marketing Mix: Product, Price, Placement, and Promotion. I’m borrowing from that expression to talk about the Four P’s of Playing Live Shows: Preparation, Promotion, Performance, and Post-Show. This series of blog posts will cover the things that you can be doing as a live performer to maximize each show. In the final part of this series, we’ll go over what to do after your show is finished:

The Four P’s of Playing Live Shows: Post-Show

It would be tempting to start this blog post talking about the things you can do starting the day after your show, but the truth is that the real work begins the minute you step off stage. Once your show is over, it is arguably the most important time to solidify relationships with your fans, with the bands you’ve played with, and with the venue. Here are 5 things to do right after your show that will help you do just that:

1. Go to the merch table and greet fans

Right after you finish performing, whatever you do, don’t go hide backstage. The days of elusive rock stars is over, and the new music industry is all about connecting directly with your fans. Yes, you can do that on social media, but nothing beats meeting your fans in person, where you can really strengthen those connections.

So even though you might be tired, and you have to work early the next day, instead of having a drink backstage and then heading home, go straight to the merch table to hang out, and stay there until every fan has left.

2. Thank the staff

Before leaving your show, be sure to personally thank the soundman, bartenders, wait staff, and booker (if they’re at the show). Shake their hands and thank them for the opportunity to perform at their venue. This goes a long way in developing a strong relationship with the venue.

3. Thank other bands that performed

One commenter named Greg over at Music Think Tank suggested this, and I completely agree. Don’t forget to thank the other bands that performed that night. Creating a strong sense of community with other bands is never a bad thing, and acknowledging their performance goes a long way to developing and strengthening those relationships.

4. Load-up and leave on time

Don’t overstay your welcome at the venue. If they close at a certain time, make sure you’re out the door at that time. After a long night, it can be demoralizing for staff to stay later, especially if people aren’t buying drinks or food anymore, but simply hanging out and chatting. Which leads to the next point…

5. After party

You can take the direct-to-fan relationship even further and organize an after party. Invite fans to go out for drinks or a bite to eat after your show and get to know them even better.

Post-Show Marketing

It might sound strange to continue marketing after your show, but to complete the full promotional cycle for a live show, there are a few things you can do in the days following to get the most impact for your show:

Thank fans on Twitter & Facebook

The night of or day after your show, post a short thank you note on Facebook & Twitter. Photos tend to get more likes, shares, and re-tweets, so include a nice photo of your band performing along with the note.

Send a thank you note to everyone who signed up to your mailing list

As noted artist manager Emily White has said, an email list is “an artist’s retirement plan”. A mailing list is still the best way to stay in touch with your fans, so treat those email addresses like gold. In the days following your show, send a personal thank you note to everyone who signs up to your list.

Post a photo gallery on your website

Create a photo gallery on your website of the best photos from your show, which will help drive people to your website, and also give people a taste of how fun your live show is.

Write a blog post about the show

In other posts, we’ve stressed how important blogging is in strengthening the connection with your fans and driving people to your website so writing a review/wrap-up of your live shows is an easy to create a blog post that will accomplish both of those things. Fans who were at the show will get to know what your perspective of the show was, and if you include some photos of the fans who were there, even better.

Record a video for your fans

Even if you’re on the road touring, taking a few minutes to record a quick video thank you for your fans from the tour van/hotel room/train station is a great gesture that fans will appreciate. You get to show off your personality, maybe tell an interesting story from the show/tour, and express your gratitude to your fans.

Post-Show Evaluation

OK, you’re almost done. As we mentioned in the blog post about “Performance”, you should try to record your show on video. It’s really important for you to be able to evaluate your performance so you can make improvements that will make your live show better. Here are some things to look out for:

Performance (technical)

Did you make any mistakes from a technical standpoint? i.e. Did you screw up any songs? Do some songs need more practice? Were the transitions between songs smooth? Did any equipment malfunction?

Stage Presence

How was your stage presence? How did the band look on stage? Nervous? Bored? Comfortable? Confident? Did you show passion during your performance?

Set List

How did the set list go over with the crowd? Did the songs do well in that order? Could a different song order or different songs improve the flow of the show?

Fan Interaction

How was your interaction with the audience? Did you thank them? Ask them questions? Did you make sure to mention your mailing list and merch from the stage?

And you’re done… sort of

Now all you have to do is repeat all “4 P’s” for your next show! I know this all sounded like a lot of work, maybe even too much work, but to get the most out of your live shows, you really have to go the extra mile.

The wonderful thing about the new music industry is that every artist out there can record, distribute and promote their music for next to nothing. However, this has created an environment where you’re now competing with thousands (and thousands) of other artists, which in turn has brought on new challenges for artists, most importantly standing out from the crowd and fan retention.

Great music will always need to be the base of your promotional strategy, and a great live performance is close behind. But those two things alone aren’t enough anymore, and you need to work just as hard, or harder, than every other artist out there if you want to forge a sustainable career in the music industry.

Thank You

Thanks for reading, I really hope you enjoyed the “Four P’s of Playing Live” Blog Series. After spending several years booking venues in Montreal, I wanted to share some of the best practices I had seen over the course of programming 500+ events. I hope there was some information in these blog posts that will bring your live show to the next level, help you get more gigs, and help you make a stronger connection to your fans.

Cheers,

Dave Cool
Director of Artist Relations
Bandzoogle

The Four P’s of Playing Live

1. Preparation

2. Promotion

3. Performance

4. Post-Show

Special thanks to Elida Arrizza for the image concept for the blog series.

Dave Cool is the Director of Artist Relations for musician website and marketing platform Bandzoogle. Twitter: @Bandzoogle | @dave_cool

Here’s the final post in my 3 part series discussing some basic marketing plan elements for independent musicians. So far we’ve gotten Everything In Order (Website is up-and-running, Newsletter plan is in place and Touring and Merchandise steps have been taken) and we’ve also had a successful Album Launch.

What now?

To build off of all this progress that has been made, you will now have to keep supplying content to strengthen your relationship and stay relevant with your current fans while at the same time this content will also help increase your fanbase. Additional merchandise is one idea: you can make vinyl for the last album or announce new T-shirt designs. You can also create more videos for songs off the last album or videos of you performing covers…..yes the latter of which is copyright infringement. Here’s a tip: Set up a second YouTube channel for all your cover videos to protect your official artist YouTube channel from being shut down (but this hardly ever happens).

Below I’ve gone into detail for three important content streams: Music, Social Media, and Live Shows.

MUSIC

Gone are the days of releasing an album once every couple of years and leaving it at that. Today’s artists need to be constantly feeding their fanbase new music. Here are some great ways this can be accomplished:

Alternate versions of your album tracks: Have a DJ remix one of your songs. And I’m not saying this has to be a famous DJ, just someone who knows the technology and is creative. If you’re interested in holding a remix contest, you should contact the folks over at Indaba Music. They put together some great remix campaigns for artists. For louder more rockin’ acts, take a page from Nirvana and release an album of stripped down acoustic versions of your studio tracks. Last idea here is to release a live album, preferably from the CD release show, but any show will work as long as the audio is of top quality.

Covers: We all know the benefits of covering songs by popular artists and how they can help independent artists gain a wider audience. Instead of simply covering a song from some famous band though, put out a collection of cover songs and come up with a unique theme that ties all the songs together, such as artist tribute albums. Here’s an idea, cover all the songs that you have loved and that have influenced you over the years, from being a kid until the present day.

*Please note, anyone can legally cover a song (if just audio, not video). The only clearance you need is to obtain and pay for a mechanical license for the song(s). Harry Fox Agency is the foremost mechanical licensing agency in the US. Or work with Limelight who will get the license for you at a cost of $15 per song on top of the mechanical license fee.

Singles/EPs: Great tools for new music releases in between album cycles to keep you fresh in people’s minds. I prefer releasing EPs over singles if possible. It’s more of a press story when you release a few songs verses just one and more for the fans too.

LIVE SHOWS

Continue to tour, hitting the same markets that you played while supporting the new album to build on the momentum that has been made. There’s financial limitations though on how often you can tour and you more than likely won’t be able to tour to every market where you have some fans. Live streaming is a great solution to these limitations. Using a company like Ustream or Livestream, broadcast a weekly or monthly show from your home or rehearsal space. Make a Facebook invite with all the details and send to your fans, post on twitter, and let everyone on your mailing list know.

Now you’ll want to keep the shows fresh and different to aid in increasing viewership from week to week; here are some ways to do that. How about playing a game at the end of the performance or midway through using the chat feature? It would be a fun way to interact with the viewers each week/month. Trivia would be a very easy game to pull off, where people could win merch or any other prizes that you can get your hands on. Play new cover songs each week; better yet, ask people what covers you should play for the next week. Post the question to Facebook and the song suggestion that get the most likes will be the one(s) you cover. Also, have guest performers join you: a great way to add a new element to the live stream while cross promoting to each others’ fans at the same time.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Real simple here: keep doing it. Just because you may not have a big ticket item like a new album, that doesn’t mean you should stop communicating with your fans on a regular basis. Newsletters should still be going out once a month, with blog posts being posted several times a month and twitter/facebook you should be updating daily. In addition to all the content I’ve gone over in this blog post thus far that you can share, post about things happening in your personal life, such as a vacation you just went on or a great movie you recently saw. Repost interesting articles you’ve just read or a post song from a band you recently discovered that you love. News, Politics, Celebrity gossip, parenting, fashion, art, and sports all make good topics for people to engage and connect around.

Now that you have continued to connect with fans, you’ll have a stronger and larger audience when you’re ready to release the next album. When you do start gearing up for the next album, serialize your posts, so people can follow along and feel like they are in the studio with you and in on the album making process. Include all your followers on the process as much as you can, such as asking their opinion on album title ideas.

I hope that you have found these blog posts helpful, and for more information on our Cyber PR® Marketing Plans For Musicians, please visit here.

-Chris Hacker

Visit Brian online: 

Thorny Bleeder - Music Marketing, Branding & Motivation

The DIY Daily  - Newsletter and Podcast

The Music Industry

Thinks Out Loud

• Ariel Hyatt: Marketing Plan Tactics For Independent Musicians - Part 2 of 3: Album Launch
• Tom Dennehy: How Vinyl and iPods Ganged Up to Kill the Audio CD
• Mark Knight: Can You Recover From Free Music?
• Simon Tam: How to Get Gigs on Sonicbids

Here’s some practical advice for those of you who would like to use Sonicbids to get gigs and what my thoughts are on it (both as an artist as well as a promoter):

1. Make Your EPK Stand Out: There’s nothing worse than submitting an incomplete EPK. This includes tour dates. Contrary to what you might think, the EPK is the first thing that the promoter sees, not the submission questions that you’re sometimes required to complete. If you plan on using Sonicbids often (let’s face it, it’s one of the few ways to submit to SXSW, CMJ, or some other opportunities), then splurge a little and pay for the premium account, at least for the months that you’re using it often. Get your elevator pitch down. Grab their attention immediately. Listing the band members in your bio (unless you have a celebrity in the lineup) is a waste of time, same with spending an entire paragraph talking about what you sound like. Instead, focus on what sets you apart from every other artist, how you will make them money, and a deep understanding of your target audience.  Use bullet points when possible: if it easier to read and you make every sentence count, promoters are more likely to read it thoroughly. If you are not as active, simply downgrade your account later.
2. When Submitting to Gigs, Use the Sort Function: If you want more time and attention spent on your EPK, then get in line first. When you log into your profile, click on “Find Gigs” and then sort the listings by “Date Added.” Check this often. Artists that get in the door first show initiative and have a better chance of getting in (as opposed to those who submit last, after most of the decisions have already been made). Make it a weekly habit to check your status/messages from promoters and follow up. If you want to try being the last one in, you can always sort for submissions based on their deadline.
3. Link Your Account to All Other Social Media Sites: As soon as a promoter opens your EPK in a submission window, your social media stats are featured. In fact, they are shown more prominently than your bio or anything else. Right of the bat, a promoter will see how many fans you have on Myspace, what your Jango score is, and how many fans you have. Leave no stone unturned: even as irreverent  Myspace is, a higher number of fans on your profile still looks more impressive than an empty space. To add sites, click on “Edit My EPK” and enter the field in “Other Sites.” Drag the most prominent and active sites to the top. While you’re there. customized your URL. It looks much better to be sonicbids.com/BANDNAME than a collection of numbers/letters.
4. See What Others Are Doing: Check out the EPK’s of artists getting the most gigs each week (Track Buzz) so you can see what they’re doing right. Getting gigs helps you get more gigs (believe it or not, the little icons you get for “Booking your first 25, 50, or 100 gigs does stand out and is highlighted to the promoter).
5. Keep Up With Your Stats: If you have a premium account, you get access to your profile stats (Manage EPK>My Stats) so you can see how many views/plays you’re receiving, what parts of your profile are being looked at, etc. However, one of the greatest features is the oft-ignored “Plugins” section on the right hand side. The social media stats/buzz that you see here are the ones that are shared with promoters. If the Twitter Buzz results are pulling up results that are not relevant, make adjustments to the search query so that your music is being talked about (and not something else with a similar name).
6. Keep the Gig Calendar Full: I know, it’s a pain. Shows to enter on your own site, Reverb Nation, Myspace, Facebook Events, etc. It can get overwhelming with the amount of data entry. However, Murphy’s Law suggests that wherever you forget to include your tour dates, that will probably be the area that the promoter looks at. Promoters don’t have the time to following up with each of your sites to see how busy your band is. You might have an extensive tour booked all over the world on your website, but if someone looks at your EPK’s empty gig list, you’re going to look pretty pathetic. If it’s easier, delegate calendar updates in the band to different members – just make sure that the same basic information (show time, entry fee, etc.) is the same across the board.

Whether you like it or not, Sonicbids is a tool that is being used by many, many promoters, especially larger music festivals. If you are going to use the site, then do it properly so that you can maximize the results. If not, then focus on your own sites that you do well (most of the basic principles remain the same).

Simon Tam is owner of Last Stop Booking and author of How to Get Sponsorships and Endorsements. Simon’s writing on music and marketing can be found at www.laststopbooking.com

I’ve lost count of the number of articles I’ve read that insist bands and artists should give their music away for free.  Personally I believe, unless you have the benefit of on-going PR support or are reaching mass audiences through radio airplay, giving away your core product might just be a mistake you’ll never recover from. Here’s why…

Giving away your music might be a prudent strategy for artists like Prince that have successfully established, genuine, alternative income streams (EG tours) to sustain a living. However, for the average DIY, or unsigned musician who barely covers costs when they play live, is it really a smart strategy to remove your most obvious and immediate income stream?

The biggest challenge for any new artist, is to get people to listen to their music. Faced with this challenge it appears to make sense to remove as many barriers as possible that prevent such behaviour from occurring.

However, as a DIY musician it’s fair to assume you don’t have a budget for professional PR support, or a radio plugger to get your music out to mass music audiences.  So, if you do decide to give away your music for free, how many people are you actually going to be able to tell about it, and more importantly how many will actually listen? The reality… probably half a dozen devoted fans on Facebook. In fact probably the same half dozen fans who would have bought your music.

So by giving away your music for free, what have you achieved? Have you told more people about your music? Doubtful.  All you’ve really done is say to people who were actually prepared to support a struggling artist, “Don’t worry, from now on you don’t have to”. Now they expect free, will they ever pay again?

You only have to look back to the free newspaper wars in London to see this principle in action. Once commuters were able to pick up a Metro or London Paper for free, the number of people willing to pay for The Evening Standard plummeted, finally forcing them to give the paper away to survive.

The key difference with this example is while they lost money on paper sales, they were successful in reaching a larger audience of new readers (because the distribution channel was already in place) so they could charge advertisers more. Unfortunately, for DIY musicians if you take away the purchase price, and you don’t have the PR or distribution in place you: a) Don’t get a bigger audience and B) You definitely don’t have the benefit of advertising revenue as a back-up.

There is no denying that people love to share content on Twitter and Facebook, but what is it that really gets shared around? Let’s face it, it’s more likely to be the signed, radio famous artist than the new unsigned musician.  The reality is only a very small percentage of people will ever actively seek out new music, the majority simply wait for it to find them on radio.

So how do you do free? The answer is selectively. For a DIY musician, free music makes more sense as a way to retain and reward loyal fans than it does as a way to attract new ones.  Rather than giving away your core product – singles or whole albums, give them something money really can’t buy. This could be remixes, alternate versions or live tracks – always ensuring the quality remains high. (Giving away badly recorded demos is likely to do more harm than good).

If you follow this approach, giving away new, previously unreleased content you actually add value to ‘free.’ Now your ‘free’ becomes sought after, a genuine fan collectors’ item, and more importantly it doesn’t devalue your brand or your core product which you can continue to sell.

In his book Trade-Off, journalist Kevin Maney wrote that a truly successful product provides either the richest user experience (fidelity) or the greatest convenience. Less successful products fall into what he labeled the fidelity belly, “the no-man’s-land of consumer experience,” characterized by commercial apathy, insufficient fidelity, and insufficient convenience.

Apple succeeds in the consumer computer market by providing the richest pre-sales experience in its retail stores. Dell and HP succeed by providing an ultra-convenient pre-sales experience online. Who is in the belly? Everyone else.

Sinking into the fidelity belly is essentially the fast track to obsolescence. Staying out of the belly is never assured, because customer expectations for fidelity and convenience constantly evolve.

While it may seem that the audio CD thrived for more than 20 years because of high fidelity, what it really offered over its fraternal twin on vinyl was convenience — better robustness, more portability, multi-disc changers, in-vehicle players, random/repeat play, and remote control.

In the last decade the iPod arrived to match all the conveniences of the CD, adding small (and ever smaller) player size, ubiquitous portability, invisible storage, and greater (and ever greater) capacity. Nothing can match the convenience of dematerialized digital audio, now available in a variety of formats at both lower and higher resolution than CD quality (choice is convenient, too).

On several online forums catering to vinyl aficianados, I posed the question, “What is it about playing an LP that appeals to you?” After all, the fundamentals of record playback haven’t significantly changed in 100 years. It isn’t necessarily sound quality (except among self-described audiophiles). Almost unanimously, the response came back that the real appeal of vinyl stems from interaction with an LP as a satisfying physical object — large format album art, liner notes, even having to flip sides. Respondents were quite eloquent about it.

When was the last time you ever heard anyone wax rhapsodic about interacting with a CD? Has anyone ever considered a CD collectible for its nostalgia value or status as an art object? The audience for vinyl will keep it out of the belly by uniquely defining fidelity for themselves, establishing a multi-sense standard no other physical medium is likely to meet.

Thus, the CD has been forced back along the convenience axis by dematerialized digital audio, forced down along the fidelity axis by vinyl, and ultimately swallowed up in the fidelity belly. It is now or will be soon become obsolete. (What to do with obsolete CDs? Here is one idea.) At least one study concluded that less than 10% of listeners will be buying physical media in 2-4 years; that population will likely consist almost entirely of vinyl buyers, not CD buyers.

Way out in fidelity/convenience space is Maney’s “fidelity mirage,” a product that can deliver both super-high convenience and super-high fidelity. It is virtually impossible to do this in the commercial marketplace. Companies that attempt to reach the mirage usually fail and sink back into the belly.

But, consider a high-resolution digital transfer of an LP, taken on the owner’s own equipment, calibrated to his exact specifications, and restored in software to the best possible sound quality. The dematerialized result delivers super-high convenience, the original physical object retains its super-high fidelity. Is the fidelity mirage real?