photo by derekb

In today’s music economy, you need to have a product line in order to create a sustainable business. This includes everything from your music to video, merch to swag to items seen as valuable.

One of the things I love about Audiolife is the ability to create an unlimited product stream, especially with merchandise like t-shirts and hoodies. One of the core principles we teach within the Label 2.0 training is to offer upsells to your fans at different points along the buying cycle. What we mean is that after someone buys your album, EP, whatever, you send them some follow up emails, engaging them into your brand and your culture. You can ask questions, have them follow or friend you on social networks and then offer complimentary products to the one they already purchased.

If you can get your fans to engage in your brand they will start to feel a part of your culture. When this happens you can now start sending them offers to add to your revenue stream. One of the best and most logical upsells is the t-shirt.

One of the biggest road blocks I hear from artists (and one that I see in merch booths) is the lack of t-shirt options, and terrible design, usually no more than a centered logo on a black tee.

When you have created culture with your fans, you need to embrace that and create a world that matches that culture and brand. Musicians do this through their music and their design. If you are design challenged (like me), here are some ideas to get creatives for your merch to start to add unlimited items into your Audiolife store.

Threadless – Here is a quick video I shot that shows you a way to find some great artists with some of the best designs in the world made specifically for t-shirts.

Using Threadless To Source Band Merch Ideas

oDesk, eLance, Scriptlance, Guru, etc – With these sites you can post projects and have freelancers bid on your work. You can look at their portfolio and choose someone that matches your style and ideas. Many of the artists come from overseas, so be sure to interview them diligently and be sure they have experience with band merch designs. Typically you can expect to spend less than $50 for about 10 unique designs.

Craigslist – For those that want to keep the work close to home, look no further than the online swap shop. Post jobs and give business to locals.

Colleges, art programs and trade schools – If you are fortunate enough to live close to some art students, take full advantage. Many need internship or portfolio credit to graduate and they are perfect for this type of work. Think of the perks you can offer from free CD’s to concert tickets and more. Many times they are happy with a shout-out on your blog and a link to their portfolio.

The goal with all of this is to start creating a product catalog. If you are only selling a $10 CD, that is all the revenue you can generate per fan. The more items you add to your catalog, the higher your per fan amount rises.

The next step is to integrate this into your email autoresponders and sales process.

What do you think? Have you looked at getting multiple designs done? What is really holding you back? How can Audiolife help you out? Let’s talk in the comments!

This post was written by Greg Rollett from Orlando, FL. Greg writes about music marketing daily and also has a music business and promotion training site, Label 2.0. Follow him on Twitter if you dare!

Category: Marketing | No Comments »

Tags: design inpsiration, designing CDs, designing merch, music design, selling your music

In today’s music environment many indie and small bands think they have a long term business by selling their CDs to fans online, in stores and at shows. This has been the traditional model of music marketing and sales strategies created by major labels over the past century and it did work pretty well. This system created household artists like Elvis and Michael Jackson. It is even proven for the new school of large pop acts such as Britney Spears and Nickelback.

With the creation of file sharing and the unlimited possibilities of discovering new music, it is very difficult to make a large amount of money by selling a $10 disc. The ideal situation would have musicians creating a catalog filled with backend products, upsells and cross sells, getting their fans prepped to take full advantage of their credit card limits.

For most upstart bands this is not the case. They do not have a back catalog and have a hard time funding the recording of a few solid tracks to burn on a disc. They are also in a hard spot to manufacture thousands of CD’s and hundreds of T-shirts, hats and other merchandise items.

With this objection from most musicians, there is another option to creating new streams of income and joining the new music economy without breaking the bank and the hassle of putting in countless hours to create new products. The answer lies in affiliate marketing.

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Category: Business, Marketing | No Comments »

Tags: affiliate marketing, new music economy, online musicmarketing

photo by arellis49

In marketing and sales for companies and brands, you need something to set yourself apart from the competition. In the music business, this is no different.

When you are a local band playing a show on a Friday night at a dive bar, and you have 10 dive bars in town all hosting rock shows, you need something that is going to make the kids come out to your show vs. the others. In the marketing world we call this your USP, or Unique Selling Position.

In your promotion, what is the benefit to the fan? How does buying your album or seeing your show make the fan feel? What is different from the millions of bands on Myspace all making the same banners, fliers, event listings and wall posts? What sets your Facebook invite apart from the countless others they receive.

Now is the time to begin brainstorming. Get out all your ideas, everything. No holds barred. Get out the whiteboard, chalkboard, notebook paper, some beers, wine or sodas and start kicking around smart ideas as to why your band, music or show is worth your audience’s time and money.

Here is some food for thought:

• Guest appearances – leverage off someone else’s popularity and fan base
• Drink specials – As unfortunate as it is, everyone loves cheap beer
• The line-up – Start creating a group of band’s that are equally as hardworking and create a synergy together
• Free product – are you giving away a free MP3, CD, shirt, etc – everyone loves free crap (hat tip – look for stickers and buttons, low cost items that are a keep sake to fans and promote your band long after the show)
• Limited editions – if you are selling a special product, say live show or DVD, why not limit it to increase demand and create nostalgia.
• Meet and greet – Even if you’re the new band in town, someone will want to meet you, snag a photo and have a beer with you at the venue. Besides, what do you really do between load in and show time?
• Personal items – with sites like Audiolife, you have the option to personalize one off items and ship them directly to fans. What can you do to create value t your fans by personalizing merch?

This is by no means a complete list, just some ways to brainstorm. Now let’s turn the tide to you. What are you doing to separate yourself from the rest of the noise your fans are facing? Let us know in the comments.

This post was written by Greg Rollett, author of Gen-Y Rock stars, a site dedicated to online music marketing. Greg is also a teacher in Label 2.0, a new interactive based marketing training school for musicians.

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Tags: online music marketing

Last week Apple held its Rock n Roll event and unveiled some nice new features and toys, including the iPod Nano with video. One thing that got overlooked is an awesome music marketing feature for indie bands. Apple iTunes, in their 9.0 upgrade allows people to share what they are looking at in iTunes via Twitter and Facebook.

I think this is great for musicians and I wanted to quickly walk you through this new addition.

Take advantage of this feature and also relay the message to your fans to let them do your marketing for you.

Hope you enjoyed the video.

-Greg Rollett

Category: Marketing, Music 2.0 | 1 Comment »

Tags: iTunes 9.0, music marketing

Amanda Palmer playing impromptu show with die hard fans (by GooseHonk)

In a post by Kevin English on the Eleet Music Blog, a discussion on post album fans arose the topic about more people listening to more music, yet less albums are being bought. This has been relevant with the fact that iTunes is now the number one music retailer (ahead of Wal Mart, Best Buy, Target and FYE), whose business model is based around singles and individuality.

This poses some problems for both major labels and artists that focus all or most of their attention around the release of an album. The notion of releasing a single body of work every year or 2 is becoming irrelevant with the way consumers are gobbling up music. The demand for new tracks is there, just in new ways.

In order to make an impact and get attention from music fans, you need to develop relationship marketing channels to hit these fans at multiple points on multiple occasions. This can include sporadic EP or single releases with big online pushes multiple times per year. It can mean customized merchandise for certain live shows that are sold at the event and shipped on demand (think Audiolife). It can also mean producing membership sites that allow a smaller number of fans paying premiums for exclusives, access to back catalogs, intimate videos and deals that regular fans do not have access to. These super fans create residual income and give you a channel to talk to them, learn and grow as a group and in turn develop relationships that will help spread your music and your network organically.

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Category: Marketing, Music | 2 Comments »

Tags: Amanda Palmer, getting music fans, music marketing

(full version of photo by Owen Kelly)

I came across this awesome graphic from Owen Kelly that talks about the Long Tail of music fans. Essentially it draws back into the Pareto Principle that 80% of your income will come from 20% of your clients, or in this case, fans. I am a strong believer in this principle as I saw it happen in my own band, when we had super fans that bought the t-shirts as soon as we pulled them out of the box, the ones that pre-ordered the CD, the ones that bought advance tickets, and so on.

We also see the same results with nearly every band that we work with – the super fans, or “true fans” as based on the Long Tail graphic. So the question now becomes, how do we access these fans without making other fans jealous or giving out information to the wrong people?

There are many ways to do this, but it boils down to segmentation. You need to get your true fans on a separate list and then send them separate messages. Below are two ways to segment your super fans and give them the content they desire while generating income for your band on special items and exclusives.

2nd Mailing List

This has proven to be the most effective and does take a little bit of maintenance work, plus you need an email provider that can walk you through the steps. Essentially, as you send email offers to your email list, for your CD’s, your merch or tickets, you can track who opens those emails and then also see who buys. When you receive their receipt of purchase you can move those buyers into a 2nd list of super fans. Now when you want to run special promos, VIP tickets or exclusive (more expensive) merch, you have a list with the potential to be more responsive and generate you more income, as the price points can be higher to this list. We use Aweber for email communications and their customer support will walk you through the list management so everything runs on autopilot so your fans are not getting too many emails or communication pieces. Many other email providers can offer this support as well.

Private Groups

Create a private Facebook or Ning page that is invite only to people after they buy something from you. You can setup their receipt email to have a link to your “secret invite club” where you let them know of special offers, exclusive downloads and products and give them incentives to check that page every once in a while. The beauty of both Facebook Pages and Ning communities is the ability to bulk message the people in the group, letting them know you posted something just for them.

The goal with this concept is to send targeted messages to to targeted people. The more targeted the message the better the conversion will be. Sending someone an email for a show in Dallas when you live in Miami, does not lend itslef to too many more emails being opened by that person. Identifying your super fans can be easy in some cases (look at digital and product sales – aka customer records) or tough (if you only sell stuff at live shows and do not ask for fan info). In either case you need to start tracking the person who bought, what they bought and see how frequently they buy.

This post was written by Greg Rollett from Gen-Y Rock Stars and Label 2.0, an interactive marketing school for musicians. You can grab a seat in class here. Greg can also be found on Twitter, @g_ro.

Category: Marketing | No Comments »

Tags: building a fan base, mailing lists, segmenting fans, selling merch, social networking for musicians

Marketing has taken on a whole ‘nother meaning in this technology and “always on” age. Marketing is not just neatly packaged ads and campaigns that you push out to the public. Marketing is now a communication channel between you and the public – whether your fans, potential fans, passers by, people looking in Twitter Search, Google searches, YouTube videos, comments and any other interaction point that there is.

The goal here is to create value at all of these interaction points.

photo by Enrico Fuente

Last Thursday, I went to an Atmosphere show in Orlando, FL – a long way from his hometown in Minneapolis, MN. Upon first glance it would appear that 1,000 kids paid $15 to see a white rapper from the burbs. Taking a closer look you will see the real value of what was happening here.

Pre-Pre-Show

As with all Atmosphere tours, he has released a new EP for concert go-ers to get excited about. This time he made it a free 7-song download available at their in-house record shop, 5th Element Online. To help their overall marketing efforts, they made you sign-up for a free account to be notified of new releases and tour info in exchange for the EP.

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Category: Marketing, Music 2.0, Reviews | 1 Comment »

Tags: adding value to purchases, Atmosphere, connecting with fans, live performances, music marketing

photo by Daniel Spillere Andrade

We all know that social media is a great promotion tool, but how you use the tool is more important that the tool itself. During the days of Myspace, marketing specialists and musicians alike could easily spend a few hours clicking from one page to another, finding a new person, music act or scenester, say hello and throw over a friend request. For some labels and nearly every indie artist, this was considered marketing.

I consider this a time waster.

In the above scenario you are out looking for people, interrupting their time they spend with their online friends and throwing a dart at a uncontrollable bull’s-eye. I call this a win in Myspace’s favor as you are essentially making them more revenue by serving more page views so more of their advertisers can be shown. In the end you may have a few more people in your friend count, but no more album sales or people at your show on the weekend.

How can you work social networks in your favor?

You need to setup a promotional system to have great conversations with people and on subjects that you can relate to and add to, or interrupt them in a natural way where you and your music fit their mood and attitude. Sounds easy right? Let’s look at a few examples.

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Category: Social Networking | 1 Comment »

Tags: Social Media Marketing, social network advertising, social networking for musicians

There are two paths you can generally take with your marketing. You can jump on the road that everyone else is using or you can reinvent the wheel and push the limits of your efforts. I like to go somewhere in the middle, using tried and true models to get fans excited about music, events and products and then looking for doors that no one has yet opened, seeing what happens and then looking at ways to enhance these new methods.

One of these “new road” tactics has been in outreach programs for musicians looking to connect with bloggers. In this new social media era, creating real relationships with people, fans and industry folks is proving to have more of a long lasting effect than the friend blasting days of Myspace glory. The words that come out of bloggers and trust worthy Twitter sources can do leaps and bounds for your virtual promotion and has proven to help sell records.

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Category: Marketing, Social Networking | 1 Comment »

Tags: connecting with bloggers, music marketing, music promotion blogs, selling records

Greg Rollett is the author of Gen-Y Rock Stars, a site that hosts interactive education for DIY musicians. Greg spends his days and nights working on new media and Internet Marketing for Endagon Innovations and Rollett Marketing. He has worked with companies such as Miller Lite, Coca-Cola, Disney, Warner Bros and countless others on large operations and has also consulted for many indie bands around the world.

For more information on Greg, check out his personal blog at http://gregrollett.blogspot.com.

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