My first thought is that you might get a better return on investment with facebook advertising. You can advertise your fan page on a pay-per-click basis. It’s pretty easy to set up. Right under your photo on your fan page you’ll see ‘Edit Page’ and then right under that ‘Promote with an Ad’. Just click on that and follow the instructions. Chances are that if these fans are going to give a good recommendation to other people, then they’d buy the CD themselves. Sell them the CD for $10 instead and then invest that money to gain 50 fans per CD via facebook advertising.

I do like the idea of encouraging fans to spread the word though. You might also consider doing a promotion for people who tweet about you. I’d suggest creating some specific content just for that kind of promotion. Your superfans are the ones who will make the best evangelists and give the most passionate testimonials for your band. They’re also the ones who would want your b-sides/ live tracks/ bonus videos etc.

If you don’t ask your 50-100 best fans to buy your CD then you might be giving up the money that would have paid for a new website, a professional photo shoot or new video. Your true fans want you to succeed and in most cases, would feel good about their $10 going towards a brighter future for your band.

Also, I would hesitate to advertise free CDs unless you ask for something of high value in return and/or you have a great plan to leverage the free CDs into something profitable. I’ve seen artists who think that the way to go is to indiscriminately give everything away for free or very cheap. I think this is usually because a) they have their own ‘issues’ with money and b) because they think that if they spend enough of their own money to give things away for free then they’ll get so many fans that they’ll somehow become successful. Instead they end up broke, burned out and disillusioned. It doesn’t sound like that’s what you’re doing, but it’s a scenario that you want to be aware of.

You really need to believe in the value of what you’re offering. If you have any doubts about the value of your CDs or anything else then you’re going to have a hard time selling those things. If, on the other had, you know in your heart that your latest CD is priceless, that it will be the soundtrack to amazing memories for those who buy it and that you, yourself would walk 10 miles to a record store to pay $15 for it then you’ll do a much better job of conveying that value to your fans. Anything less and you’re doomed from the start.

You want to assign massive value to everything that you offer, whether you give it away or not. If someone gets something from you for free then you want them to feel like they really got hooked up. If you don’t give much value to the things you give away then not many other people will either.

If you’re interested in other ideas about selling CDs then check out some more discussion from that post:

One of my favorite ideas for selling CDs came from Terry McBride of the Nettwerk Music Group. He was managing a band who sold an average of $300 per night in CDs. They would mention from the stage that they had CDs in the back for $15 and on average managed to sell about 20 of them. Terry asked them to change their approach. He came up with the concept of ‘everyone leaves with a CD’.

The band would talk about their CD (build value) and how much it means to them and how much they wanted everyone to leave with a copy. They asked people to pay what they could, but even if they didn’t have any money they asked them to take a CD. They made their pitch twice per show. Before long they were averaging $1,200 in cd sales a night! And the best part was that because so many people had left with a CD they had an enormous increase in attendance for future shows.

Brian Mazzaferri of I Fight Dragons learned about this idea through Derek Sivers. The band was selling a disc for $5. They started with the ‘everyone leaves with a cd’ idea and the results were as follows: The average price that people payed for the cd was $4.98, but the total number of CDs the sold per night doubled!

If you decide to go with this approach then my advice is to practice your pitch. Say things that build value for your CD, connect with fans on a level where you really want them to share the experience of your music, and keep your pitch simple. Don’t say things like “pay what you can, but if you can’t pay then just find Tenise and give her your email address and then Joe will give you a CD.” Make it super simple: “Tara has CDs – right over there – pay what you can, but PLEASE LEAVE WITH A CD.” etc. If you can, then have someone collect email addresses from people in line to get your CD, but don’t mention anything about that during your pitch. Give them one simple call to action at a time.

Click HERE to view the original post “CD Release Tips” on the Disc Makers Blog.

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One thing that will virtually guarantee that people don’t spread the word about you in a meaningful way is being a good artist with good songs and a good show. Good isn’t remarkable. People don’t go to work on Monday and run around telling everyone who will listen about the ‘good’ band they saw on Friday night.

So what does get them talking? Well the obvious answer is greatness. There is no real substitute for being a legitimately great artist and this is where you should focus most of your attention. The music however, isn’t the only aspect of your show that matters and it’s not the only opportunity to be remarkable. If it was then great bands would just stand on a plain stage with boring lighting and play their set.  So if you’re going to have a show, then why not make it an experience?

Grace Jones doesn’t need to change her outfit between every song and Gwen Stefani doesn’t need to make her entrance from a platform that rises her up from beneath the stage. They do those things because there’s more to the live experience than just the notes of the songs.

So what can you do to make your show more remarkable? Marketing guru Seth Godin talks about a brainstorming exercise called Edgecraft. Edgecraft is a process of systematically going through every aspect of what you do, coming up with the things that could make you remarkable and then imagining them to the absolute extreme.  The point is that being in the middle is not remarkable.  If you want to be remarkable then you need to be at the edge.

Here in L.A. there’s a band called Steel Panther who is a great example of this.  They’re about the most over-the-top, rude, crude 80’s hair metal band that you could imagine.  They do a mix of covers and originals with hilarious banter in between songs.  More than once I’ve said to myself “I can’t believe he just said that!”  Of course, more than once, I’ve told people about them.

They didn’t decide that they were going to be an 80’s hair metal band, they decided that they were going to be the extreme 80’s hair metal band.   They play the House of Blues every monday night and fill it every time they play.  For years they have owned Monday nights in Hollywood, with numerous celebrity guests and consecutive sold out shows.

What can you do that will be remarkable?  Why is your show going to stand out in people’s minds?  What can you do that will get YOU more excited about your shows?  There’s a world of possibilities.  Why settle for what everyone else does, only to fade into obscurity?

I’m not telling anyone to sell out and give up being true to themselves.  If it doesn’t feel right then don’t do it, because it’s not going to work.  Being extreme doesn’t have to mean being gimmicky.  The point is that thinking in extremes might help you come up with some ideas that you think would be fun or exciting and that your fans would too.  There are a lot of ways to be remarkable.  You’re just going to have to find the ones that work for you.

Here are some ideas to help kick start the imagination:

• For one show, spend the money you make from the door on pizza for the entire audience, or, if you’re on a budget, bake cookies for everyone.
• If you’re a band with slightly nerdy tendencies you could go to the extreme with it and wear pocket protectors and thick framed glasses and have chalkboards with mathematical equations behind you on stage.
• Donate your earnings from a show to a local homeless shelter or a friend in need.  Help get people involved in the cause.  Make your audience part of something bigger than just a show.
• Maybe you’ve got a drummer who sings well. Why not have him do a drum and vocal solo at the same time? You don’t see that every day.
• Play unusual versions of familiar songs.
• Play a Didgeridoo or a Keytar on one or more of your songs.
• Play at a remarkable venue – play on a rooftop or crash a political convention on a flatbed truck.
• Have a contest that people will talk about.
• Have a small invitation only show for your best fans.  Create a demand that the supply can’t match.
• Have legendary after parties.
• Put together a unique bill – have a magician and a comedian open for you.
• Tell an unbelievable story that people will remember and talk about.
• Dress like Santa Claus and give away unusual and/or funny gifts. On St. Patrick’s Day.

If you come up with something that gets you legitimately excited then you’re probably on the right track. You don’t have to stop with the music. The entire experience of your band can be a work of art. A work of art that people will talk about.

What can you come up with?

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His wisdom that has influenced the lives of millions of people can be just as profound and effective for you as a musician as it can be for a corporate executive.  The things that he taught are not the kinds of things that you’ll read about in a musician’s how-to guide, but understanding them just may do more for your life and career than any such book ever could.  I’ve assembled a list of some of my favorite Jim Rohn quotes, each of which can be applied in one way or another to the life and career of an independent artist.

The soil says, “Don’t bring me your need.  Bring me your seed.”

Unless you change how you are, you will always have what you’ve got.

Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value.

Good people are found, not changed. Recently, I read a headline that said, ‘We don’t teach out people to be nice. We simply hire nice people’. Wow! What a clever shortcut.

Life responds to deserve and not to need.  It doesn’t say, “If you need, you will reap.”  It says, “If you plant, you will reap.”  The guy says, “I really need to reap.”  Then you really need to plant.

You must get good at one of two things:  planting in the spring or begging in the fall.

Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person we become.

At the end of the day you whould play back the tapes of your performance.  The results should either applaud you or prod you.

The greatest form of maturity is at harvest time.  That is when we must learn how to reap without complaint if the amounts are small and how to reap without apology if the amounts are big.

We must be careful not to let our current appetites steal away any chance we might have for a future feast.

We all have two choices:  We can make a living or we can design a life.

Learn how to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that you want.

Beware those who seek to take care of you, lest your caretakers become your jailers.

My father taught me always to do more than you get paid for as an investment in your future.

A good customer well taken care of could be more valuable that $10,000 worth of advertising.

Don’t bring your need to the marketplace, bring your skill.  If you don’t feel well, tell your doctor but not the marketplace.  If you need money, go to your band but not the marketplace.

Asking is the beginning of receiving.  Make sure you don’t go to the ocean with a teaspoon.  At least take a bucket so the kids won’t laugh at you.

If you are not willing to rist the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.

Success is neither magical nor mysterious.  Succcess is the natural consequence of consistently applying basic fundamentals.

Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better.  Don’t wish for less problems; wish for more skills.  Don’t wish for less challenges; wish for more wisdom.

Learn to hide your need and show your skill.

Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day, while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.  It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines and our judgments that leads us to either fortune or failure.

It is our philosophical set of the sail that determines the course of our lives.  To change our current direction, we have to change our philosophy, not our circumstances.

I used to say ‘I sure hope things will change.’  Then I learned tha the only way things are going to change for me is when I change.

If you don’t like where you are, change it!  You’re not a tree.

Humility is a virtue; timidity is an illness.

Don’t join an easy crowd.  You won’t grow.  go where the expectations and the demands to perform are high.

There are two parts to influence.  First, influence is powerful.  And second, it is subtle.  You wouldn’t let someone push you off course, but you might let someone nudge you off course and not even realize it.

You must constantly ask yourself these questions:  Who am I around?  What are they doing to me?  What have they got me reading?  What have they got me saying?  Where do the have me going?  What do they have me thinking?  And, most important, what do they have me becoming?  Then ask yourself the big question:  Is that okay?

Let the views of others educate and inform you, but let your decisions be a product of your own conclusions.

For effective communication, use brevity.  Jesus said, “Follow me”  Now, that’s brief!  He could be brief because of all that he was that he didn’t have to say.

Your family and your love must be cultivated like a garden.  Time effort, and imagination must be summoned constantly to keep it flourishing and growing.

You cannot succeed by yourself.  It’s hard to find a rich hermit.

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Martin Atkins of Tour:Smart and Invisible Records with one of his rules for success

The Fourth Movement – Your Live Show & Tour: Simple Steps to Cut Through the Glut & Reach the Magic 300 Ticket Mark

Before I get into the notes from the panel, I’ll continue the story of Loomis and the Lust from the previous post.  So they gave them a fair shot by playing the video that we were supposed to see.  Then we voted with our cell phones….and the winner was….undecided.  Loomis and the Lust and Nikki Lynette had tied.  This meant that the winner would be decided by a live performance at the end of the seminar.  (to be continued…)

Conductor

• Dave Lory

Players

• Martin Atkins (Tour:Smart, Invisible Records)
• Eliott Lefko (Golden Voice, AEG Live)
• Kevin Lyman (Warped Tour)
• Martin Winsch (Mountain Entertainment)
• John Pleeter (Creative Artists Agency)

“Practice for Catastrophy” – Martin Atkins on practicing for live performance

Notes from the third movement:

• Hook up the stage hands.  A little bit of love for the people who help you goes a long way.
• Don’t just practice in a comfortable, air conditioned rehearsal space with everything dialed in just the way you like it.  Give yourself obstacles and challenges in rehearsal, because that’s how it’s going to go in real life.
• Don’t listen to your friends.
• You can make a living somewhere around the point where you can draw 300 people in multiple markets.

Check out Tour:Smart: And Break the Band by Martin Atkins

• Be the best band in your county before you think about leaving the state.
• Don’t set out to build the great wall of China in a month.  Just start laying bricks.
• Always look at the positives of each show and play each show as if it was your last.
  

  Martin Atkins asks if there are any Rockstars in the house, before showing this slide...(click to enlarge)

• Take an accounting class.
• Know the market you’re playing.  Don’t tour blindly.  Have a plan.  Make Data Driven Decisions.
• You have to be brutally honest with yourself and you have to have a great work ethic.
• Always throw muffins into the crowd.
• You now have to earn your money in the music industry.  Inflated salaries are increasingly rare.

“Always have at least two shirts to sell.  It’s not ‘are you going to buy a shirt’, it’s ‘which one of the shirts are you going to buy?!”- Martin Atkins

• Great tip from Kevin Lyman:  Energy drink companies will often give bands branded trailers to haul their gear in.  It works out for them because of the advertisement they get while you tour with their logo all over your trailer.
• Don’t be afraid to politely ask venues to hook you up with a meal and a few drinks.  They will often oblige.

“We are now being held accountable” – Kevin Lyman on the results of the change that the music business has gone through

Martin Atkins practicing a little known rule of success - always throw muffins into the crowd.

Tom Silverman closed the seminar with a conclusion that answers his original question, ‘why are people still buying music’?  He cites Susan Boyle as an example of why people buy music.  It’s because they’re buying the story.  It’s the same reason why Elvis and the Beatles produce more money now then they did at the height of their careers.  We like to buy into a good story.  What’s yours?

…Speaking of stories, we got to watch a live performance from Nikki Lynette and Loomis and the Lust to determine the winner of the $25,000 prize package.  Nikki is a good performer, but without any live instruments the music just didn’t seem to interact with the room.  It felt like I was listening to a CD.  Loomis came out next and put on a solid show.  Voting was open for 5 minutes and we were able to view the results in real time on a screen above the stage.  Loomis and the Lust won with about 2/3 of the vote.  I think they could have a bright future ahead of them.  If nothing else, they were able to get their damn song stuck in my head all day!  That’s a good sign for them.

This concludes the longest blog post of my short career.  Here are some photos from the event and some more people you can follow on twitter.  Thank you and good night.  zzzzz

Follow on Twitter:

Martin Atkins = @marteeeen

Vans Warped Tour = @vanswarpedtour

IndependentRockstar = @independentrock

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In between movements at the New Music Seminar

(Continued from part 1, part 2)

The Third Movement -The Creative Process and Radical Differentiation

Conductor

• Jason Bentley (KCRW, Music supervisor for the Matrix movies)

Players

• Tom Jackson (Live performance coach, Taylor Swift)
• Rodney Jerkins (Producer, Lady GaGa, J-Lo)
• Justin Tranter (Singer, Semi Precious Weapons)

“I’m never trying to be relevant.  I’m always trying to be revolutionary.” – Rodney Jerkins

Notes from the third movement:

Jason Bently, Rodney Jerkins, Justin Tranter and Tom Jackson

• Rodney Jerkins tells the story of how Jimmy Iovine of Interscope Records had Lady GaGa writing songs for the Pussycat Dolls a few years back.  Rodney came to him and told him “I think this girl’s a star.”  Jimmy wasn’t interested in her as a solo artist and felt that she was more valuable as a songwriter.  He didn’t buy into her as an artist in her own right until she produced a short film on her own with virtually no budget that became an underground hit in Europe.  The moral that I get out of that story is that you may be thinking “If only I could get my music to Jimmy Iovine, or Clive Davis”, when in fact, you really need to get yourself to the point where you won’t be denied.  It’s all about you.  If you build it, they will come.
• Everybody has experiences and emotions that other people can relate to.  Justin Tranter spoke about how Taylor Swift is a beautiful girl who grew up as Nashville royalty, yet she still has insecurities and knows what’s like to feel lonely or awkward.  She taps into that and is able to write songs that will resonate with an arena of people who grew up with very different backgrounds.

“Lack of urgency is killing pop culture” – Justin Tranter

• Justin also spoke about staying true to yourself and remaining honest while the rest of the world tries to get you to do otherwise.  He’s a cross-dresser who plays in a Rock’n'Roll band.  Nobody gave him a chance and everyone told him to conform to something more mainstream.  He stuck to what felt honest to him and now he’s about to tour the world opening for Lady GaGa.
• Tom Jackson stresses the importance of getting your live show together.  Don’t spend all your time and money on your CD and then just wing it with the live show.  Spend some time and effort putting your show together  (OnStageSuccess.com)
• Keep it simple for the sound guy.  Justin Tranter suggests just asking for the one or two things that are most important to you.

“When someone says go left, always go right.” – Rodney Jerkins

• Take risks at rehearsal.  If you won’t try things in rehearsal then you can’t expect to try things that will work at the show.
• A big part of live performance is creating memorable moments.
• 15% of what you communicate to your audience at a show is from the words of your music.  30% is the raw emotion.  55% is the visual.  Does your show ‘look’ like one big blur or are you creating visually distinct and interesting moments?
• The song is the script.  Let the song dictate the performance.

“People go to see stars, not to see music.” – Tom Jackson

Part of this movement included the final voting for a contest called “Artists on the Verge”.  At stake: a $25,000 prize package.  The audience would choose the winner by text message voting.  We watched a video of each artist and made our judgement based on our overall impression.  The first video was a rock band called Loomis and the Lust.  It was a grainy live video with poor audio quality.  The performance looked solid and song sounded decent, but the audio quality made it difficult to judge.

The next video was a proper music video of a girl named Nikki Lynette.  It was very Salt-n-Peppa-esque with a few bars borrowed from Toni Basil’s “Hey Mickey”.

The last video was another proper video of a 3 piece rock band with the drummer as their lead vocalist.  The video was decent quality, but I didn’t care for it.

The panel discussed each video before we were to vote at the end.  While the panel was discussing the last video, the singer for Loomis and the Lust actually walked up to the stage and interrupted

them.  I was thinking to myself that this could be interesting and potentially very awkward.  He appealed to the panel to let the audience see a different video, because they apparently played the wrong one.  He said he didn’t even know where they had gotten that from.  The panel and the crowd agreed that we wanted to give them a fair shot.

Will Loomis waits patiently for the crew to cue up his video

After fumbling around on the side of the stage trying to get the correct video cued up, they told him that they just weren’t going to have enough time.  To his credit, Will, the singer of Loomis and the Lust came out again, told everyone what they told him and the asked up “what do you guys think?”  We all wanted to see it and Justin Tranter even said that he’d stop talking for 3 minutes so we’d have the time.  So after much anticipation, they finally cued up the video and hit play.  Tune in tomorrow to find out what happend next.

(To be continued….)  click HERE for part 4

Also:

Follow on Twitter:

Jason Bentley = @jason_bentley

Tom Jackson = @onstagesuccess

Loomis and the Lust = @loomislust

Independentrockstar = @independentrock

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Tom Silverman addressing the crowd at the NMS

(Continued from previous post)

The Second Movement – Expose Yourself!  Marketing for the Next Music Business; Myspace, Facebook and Twitter are not enough.

Conductor

• Jon Healy (LA Times)

Players

• Corey Denis (Not Shocking)
• Greg Estes (Mozes)
• Alexandra Patsavas (Chop Shop)
• Derek Sivers (CD Baby)
• Christina Calio (Microsoft Zune)

“Turn off your computer and practice!” – Derek Sivers

Notes from the second movement:

• Corey Denis recommends submitting your music to IndieFeed.com.
• Myspace fan counts are irrelevant.  The most accurate gauge of where you’re at is your number of real twitter followers and facebook fans.  Inflated numbers added by bots are irrelevant.
• Alexandra Patsavas suggests enlisting the services of a synch agent to get your music placed in film and television.  (google ’sync agent music licensing’)
• Derek Sivers suggests that you need to have some facts in your back pocket when you pitch yourself to the people who can help take you to the next level.  Facts take the subjectivity out of the
  

  The Second Movement

  equation and give you something to hang your hat on.  People are far more likely to listen when you tell them that you sold 5,000 CDs then when you tell them that kids really like your music.

• Great Estes spoke mostly about his company, Mozes, who specializes in mobile marketing.  Check ‘em out: Mozes.com.
• Sivers gave an example where a few friends are at a Pizza place doing their thing with the music in the background.  They all stop what they’re doing and say “did he just say what I think he just said?!”  That’s the kind of reaction you need to get from people he says.  You need to slice right through the apathetic inertia of the world and stand out.
• Derek also used the Beatles as an example of why it’s not always a good thing to get maximum exposure from the very beginning.  They used to play two sets a night seven nights a week to tough crowds in strip clubs for a long time before they ever appeared on the Ed Sullivan show.  They seemed to come out of nowhere, but they had already written over 100 songs and really honed their craft.

“Get involved,” says Corey Denis.  “If you don’t want to play an active role in what you’re doing then you might be in the wrong business.”

• FYI – you need to have a physical CD sold on Amazon before you can submit your music to Pandora.
• Don’t waste your time and money with fancy packaging for music submissions.  Sivers and Patsavas suggest that fancy packaging is unnecessary and often inversely proportional to substance and quality.  Spend your time and money on your music.
• Be ready when your moment comes.  Corey Denis mentioned Yael Naim, who’s website was under construction when her song blew up due to being used in a popular Mac Air ad.  Don’t let that happen to you!  (as a side note – I build websites, so if you should ever find yourself in that kind of situation then hit me up).

Derek Sivers recommends the book Life Is a Contact Sport: Ten Great Career Strategies That Workby Ken Kragen

• Sivers recalled reading Ken Kragen (Manager- Lionel Richie, Kenny Rogers) tell about how he would always try to maximize exposure for an artist by aligning three newsworthy events to happen at around the same time.  Artists careers generally consist of a series of plateaus and this strategy, if done right,  can create enough momentum to break through to the next level plateau.
• Sivers also had a good example of outside-the-box marketing from one of the artists at CD Baby.  She was a sailor who spent 11 months out of the year sailing the world.  During the other month she would record songs about sailing.  instead of marketing her music where music was marketed, she marketed her music to sailors.  She had her music featured and reviewed in boating magazines.  She was one of the top selling artists on CD Baby because she went after a precise niche and was able to reach them through a way that was totally unsaturated with music.

“Marketing is now about creativity, not budget”  – Derek Sivers

(To be continued….) Click HERE for part 3

Also:

Follow on Twitter:

L.A. Weekly = @laweekly

Derek Sivers = @sivers

Corey Denis = @coreythrace

Chop Shop = @chopshopmusic

Greg Estes = @gregestes5

Independentrockstar = @independentrock

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What’s up Rockstars?

I spent the day yesterday at the New Music Seminar put on by Tom Silverman of Tommyboy Entertainment. The day was divided up into 4 ‘movements’ with panels of guests that included the likes of Derek Sivers (founder of CD Baby), Kevin Lyman (Creator of the Warped Tour), Rodney Jerkins (Producer for Jennifer Lopez, Lady GaGa), Michael Doernberg (founder of Reverbnation), Tom Jackson (Live Music Producer for Taylor Swift), Ian Rogers (CEO Topspin Media) and many more, with Daniel Ek of Spotify as the Keynote.

I’m going to break it down to the takeaways that I got out of it with some quotes and pics.

“We thought we were selling music, but we were really just selling “stuff”.” – Tom Silverman

Tom started off the day with some words and some stats about the state of the music industry.  Continuing on the trends of the last decade, there are more music transactions taking place than ever before, but people are making smaller purchases, and as we all know, downloading songs from file sharing sites and giving them away for free to their friends.  Record companies can no longer maintain the control that they once had over the product they sell.  The industry is going through a predictable cycle in which we’ve moved from order into chaos and through which we will return to order in time.

He believes that that next 10 years can be the golden age of the music business.

Right now music can be had for free by virtually anyone, yet many people still buy, and the question we need to be asking is – “why are people still buying music?”

The First Movement – Welcome to the New Music Business: Everything You Know is Wrong

Tom Silverman, Ian Rogers, Michael Doernberg and Bryan Calhoun

Conductor

• Tom Silverman

Players

• Bryan Calhoun (Sound Exchange)
• Mike Doernberg (Reverb Nation)
• Bruce Houghton (Hypebot)
• Ian Rogers (Topspin)

The first panel was all about how we define and achieve success in the music industry today.

Book recommendation from one of the panelists – What Would Google Do?

• There are greater opportunities for artists who play music that would’ve died in obscurity years ago.  We now have the ability to connect people in smaller niches to the point where music that’s far from mainstream can make a decent living for savvy artists.  Ian Rogers calls this the ‘rising musical middle class’.
• If they love us, what will they buy?  Bare Naked Ladies sold tickets for a cruise with them as the entertainment.  How can you use your creativity to sell something outside the box?
• Bryan Calhoun states that fan relations have to be authentic and consistent.  If you drop off the map completely for any length of time then you’re likely to lose much of your audience.
• True fans are of the utmost importance.  Think of Jimmy Buffet and the Parrothead culture he created.
  

  The Fan Relationship Pyramid - Potential Fans -> Passive Fans -> Active Fans -> Super Fans

• Here was a good one – Divide your fans up into different tiers and give them a reason to climb the pyramid.  Don’t have a one-size-fits-all approach to your fan base.  Reward your best fans.Give them access to content and deals that other people can’t get.  Have a strategy for each level of the pyramid
• Artists need partners, but not necessarily labels.  You now have more choices when it comes to assembling a strategy and a team.

“In the future, quality is hyper-efficient” – Ian Rogers

• Your true fans will market for you.  Give them tools to help them.
• Be diligent about claiming any money that you’re owed.  Are you on this list?
• Look for mangers who listen and are in tune with your unique needs and opportunities.  Looks for mangers who see your band and your marketing as a puzzle that they need to learn how to put together.
• Micheal Doernberg makes the point that you need to engage with your fans on the place that you control – your website.  Everything else, including his own site, Reverbnation, should be seen as lead generation.
• Don’t overlook regional or local sponsorship opportunities.  What businesses could you create a mutually beneficial arrangement with?

Keynote – Daniel Elk

Tom Silverman with Daniel Ek of Spotify

After the first panel Tom Silverman sat down with Daniel Ek to talk about the company he created that’s taking Europe by storm.

Spotify was launched in late 2008 and has exploded in the 7 European countries that have access to it’s service.  The basic premise is this: It’s a music streaming service that allows users to access virtually any song and share those songs with friends.  A free membership includes the option to purchase downloads while a paid membership allows users to download as many songs they want.  The only catch is that if their membership runs out then the song files will be locked due to DRM technology.

• Daniel looked at the reality at hand and saw that a huge percentage of music that consumers own consists of  illegally copied or downloaded music.  He believed he could create a model where those same people would move towards an entirely legal music catalog.  He just needed to set up the conditions in a way that dealt with reality and was appealing to music fans, yet still produced income for the company and the artists.
• Based on his experience and data, he says that the ‘album’ concept is far from dead.  Fans still enjoy music packaged as albums and don’t actually prefer unrelated singles.
• Spotify plans to give artists access to very useful data and provide tools for communication to fans.  This can be valuable especially considering the opportunities to spread music internationally through sharing amongst members.
• Every artist on Spotify is given an artist page and no artists are give preferential treatment aside from performance based showcasing on subscriber’s home pages.
• Artists can gain exposure by being randomly selected to be featured on user’s home pages.

I, for one, am really looking forward to seeing Spotify in the U.S.  Licensing issues are currently being worked out.  There’s no timetable on it’s American release, but when it hits it will undoubtedly have a huge impact.

Click HERE for part 2

Follow on Twitter:

Tom Silverman = @tomsilverman

Ian Rogers =@iancr

Bryan Calhoun = @bryancalhoun

Reberbnation = @reverbnation

Daniel Ek = @eldsjal

and of course:

Independent Rockstar = @independentrock

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Here’s one way that you might turn those email addresses into money while helping to establish and sustain a win-win relationship with your fans.

First off, you’ll need to setup your mailing list through a company that will allow you to setup auto-responder emails. My favorite by far is AWeber.com. I got turned on to them by the big time internet marketers, people who make boat-loads of money with their mailing lists, like Frank Kern, Eben Pagan and John Reese.

For those who don’t know, an autoresponder is an email that’s sent out automatically to subscribers. It can be immediate or it can be timed to send out a week, a month or any other length of time after the initial sign up. Aweber allows for unlimited autoresponder emails. Constant Contact allows a maximum of 5 and Reverb Nation allows only 1.

Anyway, the basic idea is this: You want to set up a subscription service for your fans where you will periodically send them something valuable like a free download, video, pdf or anything else that you could send them in an email. One way you might do it would be to set up your an autoresponder sequence so that your fans will get something of value once a month for an entire year.

There are only two rules; you have to give them something valuable in each email, and you have to provide a link to buy your music, merch, and/or tickets in each email.

This way you can set up the sequence one time and then every single person who signs up for your list will receive 12 emails from you, spread out over the course of a year. If you do it right then they’ll be excited to open 12 emails that offer them a chance to buy from you. The goal is to enhance your relationship with your fans and to make money in a win-win scenario.

Another cool thing about AWeber is that you can send people directly to a specific web page when they first sign up for your list. One thing you might do would be to create a web page with an embedded video of you or your band thanking the subscriber for signing up and telling them about the cool things that they can expect to get from you. Get them excited about it. Make them laugh, play a song for them, use your imagination. The goal is to make yourself stand out. Give them one more reason to remember you.

Don’t be the band that collects email addresses just tries to ‘get’ something from the people on their list. Be the exception and stand out right off the bat. Give people a reason to want to hear from you in the future.

It’s also a good idea to package your subscription service with a cool name and/or concept. You could call it a ‘backstage pass’ or some kind of membership. Give it a good name. Be creative.

If you implement this or something similar then drop me an email through the contact form and let me know. I’ll sign up for your list.

Of course if you have any useful mailing list ideas or any insights on the topic then leave a comment and let us know.

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Have you ever known someone who always seemed to get in trouble and could never seem to get out of their own way? No matter how hard they seemed to try they seemed to be the victim of circumstances conspiring against them? Well...that’s generally what tends to happen as the long term result of poor habits and bad decisions. Stupid things done in combination with other stupid things will produce situations where things that were done some time ago, will come back and bite you. Each story, when you look at it as an isolated incident, may sound like really bad luck. When you look at the bigger picture though, you may have a different perspective.

Let’s say that person got their car impounded because they were driving on a suspended license on their way home from the corner store. They were just going down the street and they didn’t even know their license was suspended. Crappy luck, right?! Well, not if you rewind a little to find out that they got their license suspended because they didn’t pay several tickets, which they shouldn’t have gotten in the first place. They hang out with equally clueless people who give them sympathy and keep them trapped into thinking that the world is against them. Short term thinking, about long term issues.

On the other hand, when you do the right things and associate with the right people, then over time, the opposite will happen. If you consistently add value to the lives of the people around you, then you’ll get value back in return. If you have good habits, a powerful set of beliefs and you work hard then you’ll be “lucky” in the long run. People and circumstances will seem to conspire to bring you good things, seemingly out of nowhere. That’s the thing about luck. It’s more of a long-term thing. It’s not often obvious how we’ve created the circumstances that bring us our good or bad luck. We can’t see the long term cause and effect, so we call it “luck”. It’s largely an illusion.

So the guy who lives in Pocatello, Idaho, is kinda lazy, drinks a little too much and hangs out with other people with their own bad habits, might tell you that making it is all about luck. Ironically the person who thinks it’s all about luck, will almost by definition, live a life of bad “luck”. It doesn’t matter how talented he or she is, nor should it. He is going to have to do certain things that go beyond music if he wants to be happy and successful.

Likewise, the person with the same level of talent who decides to move to Nashville, who believes they control their own circumstances, who is always looking to be around successful people with good habits and who works hard, will have a very different perspective on what it takes to make it. It takes time and you have to trust that the things that you do right may not produce immediate results, but in the long run, they will pay off in ways that you can’t yet conceive of.

What I think some people fail to realize is that other people will come in to help you when you’re already on this path, doing a lot of things right on your own. If you move to a major hub of the music industry like Los Angeles, New York or Nashville, and you kill it every night, then rest assured, you will start to meet influential people.

Don’t sit in your bedroom in Peachtree City, Georgia and tell me that the reason you can’t make it in the music business is because you don’t know people. You do need to know people, but that’s not the reason you can’t make it. The reason you can’t make it in the music business is because you’re afraid of the things that it would really take and because you don’t really believe you can do the things that you’d have to do to get noticed by those people. So my challenge to you, is to shift your focus away from the illusion of luck and “knowing people” and hold the mirror up to yourself. What are your fears that are holding you back? What are your shortcomings that you need to put some hard work into? What are your strengths that you need to develop? What are the difficult decisions that you need to make? How important is it that you make the right decisions?

Do you think Bruce Springsteen was lucky? How about Bob Dylan? Metallica? Stevie Wonder? Madonna? All of these people worked incredibly hard, made difficult decisions and made sacrifices. None of them were born into this world “knowing people.” They did what it took to get noticed and to create their own “luck”.

Besides, anyone who’s made it out of luck will be forgotten anyway. Why aim for that?

Luck? I don’t think so.

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David, what is one habit that you have that has been an important contributor to your success?

First off, I just love playing, writing, recording and especially performing. Because of that, I’m focused and really passionate about playing music at all costs. It has taught me to never give up, regardless of the hurdles I may encounter along the way.

You earned a Bachelor’s degree in business and marketing.  How has that benefited you and the bands that you’ve played in?

I really got the degree to justify my resume! By that, I mean one day in 2002 I put a resume together and realized my entire life as a rock star was really about marketing as much as it was about playing because you are basically selling yourself and your music, which is your product. I think being a career musician is about being your own business owner and then going out to sell your product, which is your music. Sometimes, it’s even your own personality and/or image your selling to your audience.

For me, the degree just says “I know what I’m talking about” whereas without it many people in the corporate domain just don’t take you as seriously and may pass you by for someone who does hold that piece of paper, EVEN if they have less experience. It does give a person confidence, too. I didn’t need it as a player but I enjoyed the schooling process as an adult because I now see the benefit of it much more than I did when I was younger.

Why do you think it’s important to take the business aspect of music seriously?

If you want to simply play for fun then you don’t need to sweat the business stuff. BUT, if you want to make a living playing and create a career for yourself, you need to pay attention to the business, money, marketing, etc. because that is what will sustain you and provide your income and livelihood.

What do you think is the most important principle for musicians to understand in order to grow their audience?

At the end of the day people don’t buy ‘ordinary,’ they buy ‘extra-ordinary’. In order to be great you have to be different and it has to be something people really want, too. In other words, you can be ‘good’ and survive but to really excel you need to be outstanding. That is not something most of us every get to taste in this lifetime but for those who really get ahead in the entertainment business, they have to have something unique for their audience.

What would be your best advice for young musicians in terms of people skills, and why is that important for long term success?

One thing I’ve learned is that being connected is what ALL of life is about. People make things happen, not things, instruments or computers. Too many musicians think their skills and their music is all that matters so they spend all of their time practicing that part of their life but fail to get the bigger picture, which is being able to build relationships both with your own team and even your audience.

Same goes for making connections in the business. Having a rolodex of contacts is what gets us ‘in the game’ and is something all successful people have compiled in their respective industries. We all need other people to help make our wheels turn. It’s a process of ‘give and get’ and the door swings both ways.

What has been the most surprising to you about your career compared to how you imagined it would be as a young musician?

As a kid you think ‘wow, being a rock star would be fun and it sure looks easy’. But, then you realize that if it were so easy EVERYONE would be doing it!
I realized that playing the big shows to 20,000 people were really not much different than playing the small shows we all start out doing for 200 people. There’s just more zeros behind the numbers in terms of income, but also expenses, as well as the number of people required to make it all happen. You still have to rehearse, work hard and be able to get along with people in order to keep something together that will survive the most demanding of situations.

I think the internal stresses of building something to be successful is as much a challenge as actually having the success. Plus, success is a verb, a journey. So, even when you arrive at any given goal, you realize there is still so much more ahead that you can do. The journey never really ends, it just keeps changing. To me, that is the fun of it all.

What is your favorite clever idea that you’ve come across to sell more music or get more people to shows?

Writing hit songs!

What is the biggest or most common mistake you see young musicians/bands make?

When I speak at conventions I often hear local musicians complain that they feel slighted for not getting the big opportunities they see other bands get, but out of the other side of their mouth they try to hold on to the delusion that “hey man, we’re just all about the music anyway”. Well sometimes you can’t have it both ways! What they are really saying is, ‘I’m afraid to let go of my ideas and try it somebody else’s way.” If you’re all about your integrity then be prepared to starve for it and certainly don’t complain about your success, or lack thereof!  To REALLY get in the game it requires being able to be very honest and self-critical of what you’re doing. If it isn’t working for you, be flexible to change, whether that’s musically, with your image, stylistically, re-location, etc.

I remember the first time I saw you perform.  It was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen to this day.  You guys played a great set with every member of the band doing an extended solo and ending the show with two amazing encores… and then just when we all thought the show was over you came out for a third encore.  It felt like you had really milked it for all it was worth.  The level of confidence and the amount of attitude that went into that performance was remarkable.  How would you describe the attitude that you have as a band when things are operating at that level?  What does it take to get there?

Audiences don’t come to see regular people do regular things. They come to be entertained, to see something they don’t or can’t do and most importantly they want something that takes them away to a different place outside of their own lives.  That’s why we go see concerts, movies, sporting events. These things are extraordinary. When you are onstage you are there to deliver something special and memorable to your audience and that is why they pay for it with their hard earned money.

I think that confidence comes when you are committed to what you are doing and everyone is in sync with each other on the stage. That inspires an audience to want more. Most often, it’s THAT attitude the audience wants as much as it is the actual songs, because it is inspiring to them.

Who or what inspires you?

My father was a huge inspiration to me, even though he wasn’t a musician at all! He always reminded me to remain humble and to work hard. He would always remind me “You’re not great until somebody else thinks you are”. In other words, don’t get pompous and think too highly of yourself just because you play an instrument, but rather let other people be the judge of that because they will be the ones who decide if they want to come and see you play.

Was there a defining moment early in your career when you felt like you had “made it”?  If so, how did that feel and what did it take to get there?

That term is irrelevant because to me there is always so much more I want to do.

Could you tell us a little bit about David Ellefson’s ROCK SHOP?

I started it in early 2009 because people were always asking me to write a follow up to my book “Making Music Your Business.A Guide For Young Musicians”. I realize writing a book is time consuming and the ideas that were building up in me were easier to film and put up on YouTube. The ROCK SHOP has been very well received and has been very inspiring for me to do, too.

For more from David Ellefson, check out these links:

http://www.youtube.com/user/davidellefson#p/u/27/EXFDWo-jp30
davidellefson.com
myspace.com/davidellefsonofficial
myspace.com/officialangelsofbabylon

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