Following up on the introductory post to this series, you should be armed with answers to the following questions.
- What is my ultimate goal?
- What do I want to achieve on the way to my ultimate goal?
- Why am I in the music business; what’s my motivation?
- If I’m going to make money off of this venture, what are the ways I see myself doing so?
- How in the hell am I going to measure success?
These answers are important to know before reading the rest of the series, as each post incorporates answers from one or more questions.
Your product forms the foundation for the other 3 P’s (Price, Place and Promotion). In order:
- Product – What are you going to sell?
- Price – How much are you going to sell it for?
- Place – Where are you going to sell it?
- Promotion – How are you going to get the word out?
To make this simple, I’m going to use the example of a band throughout this post series.
My fictional band is based in NY, plays live hip hop and has 4 female members.
Product
Before committing your life, or at least a significant portion of your life, to making a living from making music, every musician should sit down and consider what their product(s) will be.
If you haven’t woken up and smelled the french-pressed coffee yet, the days of making a few mediocre songs, getting picked up by a label, produced six ways from Sunday and making millions are gone. Musicians now have the ability to be their label, be their manager, be their tour promoter, and be their own music marketing machine. But, as they say, with power, comes responsibility.
These questions should help:
- What do I pay money for now, music-wise?
- What do I want to buy, but currently can’t, from my favorite bands?
- How can I add value to my fan’s lives?
- What makes me different?
- How can I make money off of what makes me different?
If you need help brainstorming, check out this list of 29 streams of revenue for musicians.
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/anthonysalvi/ CC:BY-NC-ND 2.0
Examples
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/anthonysalvi/ CC:BY-NC-ND 2.0
Our pretend hip hop band answered these questions, and their answers are listed below:
Q: What do I pay money for now, music-wise?
A: I buy tracks I like online from iTunes or Beatport, but rarely buy a full album. I also buy t-shirts, limited edition records and concert tickets.
Q: What do I want to buy, but currently can’t, from my favorite bands?
A: Since we’re musicians, we’d love to buy a recording session or face-to-face interview with one of my favorite musicians in the band to see how they made it big, and learn how to improve how I play. I’d also love to buy better concert tickets since I’m such a loyal fan. I’d really love to sit in the front row!
Q: How can I add value to my fan’s lives?
A: I can share my talents with my fans through music lessons and recording sessions. Or, I can work with aspiring solo hip hop artists on their lyrics. I can spend time with them backstage at gigs, and I can connect with them online. We’ve all been touched by cancer, so we can also link up with the American Cancer Society to put on a fundraiser concert. We can certainly involve our fans that have also been touched by cancer to volunteer.
Q: What makes me different?
A: We’re an all-female live hip hop band, which makes us very different. You don’t see many all-female bands, or many live hip hop bands. Also, we theme each show – our last one was Kriss Krossed, for example.
Q: Out of the answers above, which ones can I make money from?
A: I can immediately make sure our music is available on iTunes and Beatport (perhaps by using Tunecore), and I can also connect with fans online (using ArtistData to manage everything) and invite them to one of our themed concerts.
Once our popularity grows, we can release limited edition CD’s of our music. We’ll put out three versions – one, just a CD with a basic jacket, and another that is a CD/DVD package featuring lots of extras, uncut versions, takes from recording sessions and backstage videos. The highest level will also come with a signed baseball cap in addition to the CD/DVD package.
We can also start a contest when we get this popular. Half of the proceeds will go to benefit a cancer charity of our choice since it’s a cause close to our hearts. The contest will be like an auction, allowing fans to bid on signed merchandise, as well as the top prize of recording with us to create their own song.
Ok, Now What?
Now it’s your turn. Open up a document on your computer, put up paper on the wall and grab some markers, or get out some old fashioned pen and paper and start writing. It’s important to brainstorm right now. Even if you can’t use an answer immediately, keep them all to see if any become relevant as time progresses.
Once you’re done answering the questions you should have a lot of ideas. Don’t worry about how much you’ll sell these things for, or even if they can be sold. The ideas are what we want at this point.
Are there any other questions you would ask at this point in the game? Leave them in the comments if so!
The next post “How Much Is This Worth?” goes into detail about ” can it be sold” and “if so, for how much?”. Stay tuned…