This week I want to encourage you to read this excerpt from a post by Bob Lefsetz, one of the most kick-ass writers about changes in the music industry:
Are you taking a risk?
Mainstream music is so long in the tooth, it’s a wonder it hasn’t gone to the government for a handout. Wait, IT HAS! The content industries are lobbying all over the world for three strike rules, other ways to constrict the public. Once upon a time didn’t music LEAD the public?
That’s why I’m so excited by the electronic scene. They’re making it up as they go. And all the old players are looking through twentieth century lenses, employing metrics that don’t apply.
If you have a hot product, people want it.
But it’s got to be different, it’s got to challenge conventional wisdom, it’s got to appeal to people’s hearts more than their pocket books.
Otherwise how to explain Apple’s huge success in China? It’s not like the iPhone is cheap over there. We’ve been hearing about that market forever, but only Apple and a few car companies have cracked it. Apple’s success was due to excellence. Think about it, what musical act do we want to export to China, which one will wow them? None of the usual suspects, that’s for sure.
And nobody wants to go over there, to try and set a fire. Nobody wants to learn about the new ways, nobody wants to explore, they just want to do it the same old way to dwindling returns.
Music is a second-class citizen because it stopped innovating. It’s no different from GM. Similar to Kodak. If you keep on doing the same thing you end up in the dustbin, the public ignores you and moves on.
Music is first and foremost about innovation. Taking risks, creating something new that strikes people’s hearts. And now it’s easier than ever, with all the tools at the fingertips of the proletariat.
Free music is an important marketing tool, but, as with all marketing tools, you should be aware of what you want to reach with it. An interesting post on Music Think Tank about using free music concludes with the following take-aways:
Be specific about your goals.
Give yourself a timeline to measure your success.
Always make sure you are getting something in return.
Communicate a story to your fans to inspire an emotional connection.
Create memorable branding that will attract the attention of new fans.
Be strategic about harnessing the power of your superfan.
Your artist website is still one of the most important elements of your online presence as an artist. I encountered this wonderful checklist about what you really should have on your home page:
A great header photo
A streamable song and/or video
A short bio
A call-to-action (to sign-up to your mailing list, download your latest song, shop at your online store, etc.)
Latest news: a few of your latest news items or blog posts
Links to your social media profiles
I am not sure about the bio (on my band’s website the bio is on a separate menu tab), but it is probably a good idea if you are still working on establishing your name. In that case, it is good to have a one sentence tagline about your band, including genre specifications and musical influences.
This is probably the most interesting video about music marketing from the last year. Therefore, I would advise to watch the 14 minutes video of a talk between Ariel Hyatt and Seth Godin, two people who always deliver splendid material and food for thought.
If you have even less time, I will summarize the most important ideas:
In earlier days marketers tried to reach ‘normal’ people, because they were the biggest mass. The internet lets weird people find other weird people, which makes it good to be a ‘weird’ artist. There are people out there with an open heart who can not wait to hear from you.
You should be more afraid of being obscure or ignored than you should be of disappointing a few people. You don’t need to spend any time with the haters.
You can not be a musician until you acknowledge one of the things you are trying is to touch people… Marketing is finding out the best way to touch people and to touch them in a way that resonates well enough that they tell their friends. You should look at the new marketing as a chance to be you.
A musician in 1970, 80 or 90 was looking for a job and that job was to fill a slot in the store. Now it is an artist’s job to lead a group and connect them.
If you want to be great you have to be prepared to fail.
Last week Facebook announced the roll-out of ‘Timeline’ for pages. You were already able to use the new Timeline format for personal profiles, but now you can prepare your artist page on Facebook for the new design, which will take effect on March 30th. Ariel published a great post of the most important new features and possibilities. I’ll give you a short summary below, but I invite you to read the whole article.
You can now implement a screen wide cover photo, a very unique branding opportunity in Facebook terms
Facebook now allows you to “pin” certain posts to the top of your Timeline. It allows bands to keep promotional posts at the top of their page instead of endlessly posting the same promotion over and over again.
You can “highlight” certain posts to make them stretch across the entire width of the Timeline. As fans scroll through your Timeline these highlighted posts will jump out and will be sure to catch attention.
In the new admin panel you can easily see new notifications, new likes and a basic insight graph.
You can send invites to your Facebok page from an email contacts list
We can’t stress enough how important it is for artists to send good email newsletters. This week I encountered two interesting posts about effective email marketing.
Another important aspect is thinking about the timing of sending your newsletter out. There is a post on Music Think Tank which sums up a couple of ’scientific facts’ about email timing.
Apparently, it is best to send your emails during the weekend or in the early morning. But there are a lot of other factors to deal with. Read the whole article here.
Zoë Keating is one of the poster childs of the so-called new DIY artist middle class. She only plays the cello (with a lots of effects and loops, though), makes some some sort of hybrid form of classical and experimental pop music. She has no manager and no label, but she manages to make a living from her art. She only started working with an agent after she gave birth to a child last year and she didn’t longer have time to make all the arrangements herself. Her sister helps her with sending out the CDs.
Last week she gave a Q&A talk during the Midem Conference in Cannes. It is an inspring video to watch, even if it will take you almost an hour. Watch and learn:
We have been working on some new features on the Musedash dashboard. The changes should make your life easier when you want to write replies to more people at the same time and if you want to retweet or rephrase status updates. Watch the video below to get an overview of the new features.
I hope you will enjoy the new features. Feedback is always welcome.
Dok Gent is a ‘working place for recreation and creative maneuvers’ and one of their many initiatives is DOKtank, a platform for inspiring ideas and subjects, presentations, talks, brainstorms and networking… while having a drink.
This issue of DOKtank is meant as a kick-off meeting to build a platform or meeting point for creative people from the music and the technology industry. We want to bring artists, music managers, software developers and hackers together to think about the future of music and internet, to be informed, teased and inspired. It would be our aspiration to build the right environment to host a Music Hack Day next year. Thomas Bonte from Musescore will testify how the Music Hack Days changed his life and how it became the best place for inspiration and networking in the music & tech business.
