Nov 12

COMMENTS












I think it’s great that many artists are offering free digital downloads of their music in exchange for an email address, Tweet, Facebook share, etc.  But remember one thing: If people have never heard your band before, they want to hear what you sound like before they download anything

If you’re offering a free download, that’s great.  But on the same page you have your free download widget, put an audio player too.  Many people just want to hear your song first without having to download it to their computer and add it into their iTunes. iTunes libraries are sacred places for a lot of people, and they don’t add any music that they don’t like. (Side Note: should I even reference any other software besides iTunes?  I feel like 99.9% of people use iTunes nowadays. Am I right, or do you still use Windows Media Player?)

Here’s a great example from a wonderful new band called Honeychild....

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May 11

COMMENTS












What To Sell Your Fans

Author: brendan
POSTED AT 11:05 AM

Direct-to-Fan stores (often built through Topspin, Nimbit, or Bandbox) only work if you have a good strategy behind it.  You need to be intentional about what products you are going to offer in your album bundles.  Just because you list an item as $65 doesn’t mean it’s a good package.

Scott Cohen, co-founder of The Orchard and manager of The Raveonettes, recently wrote up his thoughts on what bands should offer their fans.  He makes three great points that are essential to understand before you start selling to your fans:

1) You have 3 fan groups you need to point your strategy towards: Core, Casual, and New Fans

“All three groups want something different. New fans just want a track or two. Casual fans want a track or the album. And the core fans want as much as we could release. It’s significant to note that no one group is more important than the other—we should be able to succeed with each type of fan and strive to feed their comfort zone of music consumption.”

2) Most of your fans will buy singles, unless you specifically market them something better

“Looking at the total fan base, when given the choice between a $7.99 album and a 99-cent track download, 75% chose the track. This is a combination of casual fans and new fans. However, when given the choice between a $3.99 EP and the track, fewer than half chose the track. By providing different pricing and format options, we were able to increase our sales from the casual fans who want more than a track and less than an album. And there weren’t any marketing costs associated with the releases.”

3) You still need to offer CDs and Vinyl, but get creative with Digital

“According to Nielsen SoundScan, about 80% of 2009 album sales in the United States were physical, so there’s still a need to sell CDs and vinyl. Digital, however, is more complex because consumers have the opportunity to unbundle the album and even to download it for free if they want”

To read Scott’s full article, please click here.

If you’d like to see some current examples of bands that I think are doing this well, email me and I’d be happy to share.

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Nov 16

COMMENTS












Oops! (The Topspin Model)

Author: brendan
POSTED AT 05:11 PM

I’m actually a fan of Topspin Media, but when signing up for their mailing list recently, I found something in the process that was humorous coming from a technology company for “direct-to-fan marketing, management, and distribution.”  Check it out….

Step One: Confirmation Email

Step Two: Click on the Confirm and Download link.  It takes you here:

Step Three: Click Download Now and…. Oops! Hopefully this doesn’t happen after I sign an artist for the service…

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