I’ve been following Hypebot’s 3-part series (so far) about DJ Shadow’s marketing plan for his current tour, Shadowsphere.  If you haven’t read it, it’s a great series.

Overall, the thing that sticks with me throughout the series is the attention to detail that Shadow’s Marketing Manager (Michael – and make that “Project, Marketing and Merchandise Manager“) has used to build out their strategy and tactics for managing the tour.  Instead of trying to find one solution for all aspects of the tour promotion, Michael’s using many different tools, each designed to do one thing very well.

For event-based marketing, Michael’s lined up the following arsenal:

• Facebook (yeah, more on this in a bit)
• iPhone app (with geo-targeted push notifications!)
• Square at merchandise tables
• Street team
• Buttons (yeah really, buttons!)
• Merchandise (with multiple price points)

Now, for the more long-term aspect of marketing DJ Shadow for this tour (and after), Michael and Shadow are all over the place – in a good way!

• djshadow.com
• DJ Shadow iPhone app (including a merchandise section within the app)
• SMS text campaign for a free download
• Email marketing (with signup at the merchandise table)
• Facebook
• Twitter
• MySpace
• iLike
• Reverbnation

Seriously, they’re everywhere! Wait, did you miss that? That’s the point!

Let me explain.  A lot of people (businesses included, not just musicians!) take the approach of only marketing themselves where they feel comfortable doing so.  This means that if they’ve not used Reverbnation or iLike before, they’re not going to look at it in terms of what marketing potential it holds.  Starting from where you feel comfortable is the opposite approach that you should be taking, as it’s really not about you. It’s about your customers/fans and where they are and where they want to connect with you.

Now, getting back to Facebook! I’d like to highlight this gem:

Bottom line: Facebook works because they figured out the ultimate formula for data portability.  The fact that I can post a geo-targeted update on Facebook, and that update will post to users within a specific geographic location, who can then share it with their entire network, is marketing gold.  When I update Shadow fans about a show, I only want to update the fans in the region of where that show is.  The beauty is, those people can then go and share it with ALL of their friends, wherever they may be, who in turn may click the link, and be redirected to the Shadow Facebook, or better yet, DJShadow.com.  This takes away the problem of mass-marketing a show for a specific region, but gives it the ability to go viral on a wider level than just the region targeted.  This also creates the ability for 1 show to begin an online buzz for the entire tour.

I’ve posted about my annoyance with people that do what Michael is referring to above – the lack of geo-targeting with event invites. I LOVE the fact that they’re taking this into account and putting the power in their fans hands to promote the event for them, without over-saturating them to the point of annoyance with invitations to events they can’t attend.

For the email marketing, the merch table with multiple price points and the street team – my lesson is this.  Don’t abandon the basics.

If you have a well-kept email list, use it! People are going to want to by souvenirs from the concert, so give them options! If you have people who want to marketing for you on the streets, use them to get the word out the “old fashioned” way. Don’t throw away everything you’ve done in the past for something that seems the shiny new object – you’ll just end up seeing scattered and cause your fans to be in a perpetual state of confusion over where they can find you.

Kudos to DJ Shadow and Michael for putting together a solid marketing plan for the tour!

I’ve been a big fan of Behringer products for years.  They produce quite the extensive line of DJ, sound and other music-related products, and I’ve always had great experiences.  That being said, they were pretty much out of sight, out of mind for years. I stopped DJin’g and just didn’t have a need to keep up with what they were doing.  I’ve been paying attention to them again lately though, mainly due to their Twitter stream.

I took a look around their social presence and really like what I saw.  So much so that I decided to write an entire blog post about it – not bad, eh?

I’ll start with the website:

The clean style really showcases both the products they want to feature (rotating in the center), as well as a larger portion of their product line and their social outposts, all without being crowded or poorly-designed.

Great, but their Twitter stream is really what caught my eye.  Let’s take a look!

I LOVE the fact that they’re on top of responses.  A lot of people/companies who are just jumping into social media seem to forget the “social” aspect and just use their accounts to push our news about their company.  Behringer does post updates about their products, but they also feature weird musical instruments, ask questions and have conversations with people that respond to them. It’s a really great combination of interesting information and interaction, and I regularly go check the account just to see what I’ve missed from them. Really.

I hopped over to Facebook next and really, the only negative thing I have to say here is that I wish they had a better avatar. It is consistent with their other profiles (like Twitter above), but just a bit too long for the space.  Still – if I’m just pointing out the avatar and not the actual content, I consider that a huge win.  Make no mistake, the content is really good! Take a look for yourself.

Behringer does cross-post content from Twitter to Facebook (or vice versa, more likely), and I like that they do this.  They don’t try and shove people back and forth between the platforms, yet they make sure that if you’re on Twitter, you’ll see the much the same information as you’d see on Facebook.  They also reply to comments on Facebook which is unique! You’d be surprised how many companies post something then just leave it.  Questions go unanswered, kudos go unthanked and opportunities to, you know, be social, go unrecognized.

As if that wasn’t enough, they’re also on YouTube and Flickr – both give you a good “behind the scenes” view of what’s up at Behringer, including shows they’re at and videos they’re making (even just for fun).  The videos are fun to watch and the photos are a combination of company photos and fan submissions – I really enjoyed looking through both sites and seeing some of the faces and personalities.

So – some takeaways:

• Interaction is good. Don’t be afraid to use @ replies, DM’s or comments to respond to questions, thank people for their support or offer help.  Sometimes all people want is to be heard.
• Consistency is good. Use the tools you’ve selected to their full potential! Cross-post content and encourage people to connect with you where they feel most comfortable doing so – not where you want them to do so.  You don’t have to copy everything (and in fact, you probably shouldn’t), but posting key pieces of content on multiple sites isn’t always a bad thing!
• Design matters. It may seem completely obvious, but web design matters! I was encouraged to poke around Behringer’s site simply because it was easy to use.  Don’t be afraid to change things up or invest some serious time and resources to make your website more effective.  Websites are still important!

What other companies do you like in the social space? Share your favorites in the comments!

This blog has taken a bit of a turn lately.  In the beginning, I wrote quite a few posts about my pet peeves, glaring annoyances and how-to’s for this tool over that tool.  Easy stuff that, quite frankly, my friends were sick and tired of hearing about.  However, like most things, my mind has wandered down a different path as time has gone by.

These days I think more about the big picture – what everything looks like put together.  I think more about that one over-arching goal, and how all the little stuff fits into supporting that goal and making it actually happen.

Working on a dream is tough. There are roadblocks and setbacks, and there are triumphs and changes. It’s often hard to remember what that big picture looks like when you’re caught up in the daily grind, but often even harder to start breaking down your goal into things you can accomplish today, then tomorrow, then next month, then next year.

So, how do you get started? I’ll use something very non-music related as my example – my own move to NYC a few years ago.

Write It Down

It may sound simple, but write down your dream.  Nothing elaborate, just a statement. My dream literally was “Move to NYC” – that’s where it all began.

I’m a big list fan, so I started there.  Then I started asking questions:

• How will I move my things?
• Where will I live?
• What will I do for work?
• How much money will it cost me to live there?

If that’s not enough to freak you out, then I commend you. I think I sat there staring at my list of questions for a good few hours going “Well… shoot – I don’t know!”

But I moved on, and you must move past the “Oh shoot!” stage if you’re ever going to really start making your dream happen. So get freaked out, think that your dream may be impossible, get scared, get intimidated, go and cry at the sheer massiveness of what you want to do… and then get to doing it.

Start Small

My dream and my questions all required work.  But, before beginning anything I wanted to make sure I was focusing on the right stuff without leaving anything else.

I started small.  In my case, this meant looking up rental rates of moving vans and doing a Google search to see if there were any options (there were) to get my belongings up to NYC for less than an arm and a leg. There were, and I think I found them all during my search.

Big dreams often start small. You want to play at Madison Square Garden? Great, see if you can sell out the back garden of your neighborhood bar first.

Make a list of everything you’ll have to do to get to your big goal. Then, ist out all of those intermediary steps like getting an agent, getting signed to a record label or selling your first Platinum record. Those all become your intermediate goals, your mile markers, if you will.

Break down your big goal into as many smaller goals as you need to or can.  Then, concentrate on one small goal at a time.  What do you need to do to sell out the backyard of your neighborhood bar? How many people need to be there? What does your set list need to look like? What if you don’t sell it out the first time – can you do it the 2nd time around?

Celebrate

This may sound cliche, but don’t forget to stop and smell the roses.  Did you sell out your neighborhood bar? Stop and congratulate yourself before moving on to your next challenge.

It’s always good to evaluate things on a regular basis – see what’s changed, see what you have coming up.  Make celebrating your smaller victories a part of that regular evaluation and truly mean them! Setbacks will happen and roadblocks will appear, so make sure to take time to really celebrate how far you’ve come and appreciate everything that went into your accomplishment.

How do you make sure you’re on track with your goals? Share your tips in the comments!

*Photo credit: angietorres

This may come as a shock, but “making it” in the music business isn’t just about having a lot of talent.

Some would even ay that talent has completely gone out of the window, if they were to judge the talent of the industry as a whole by the stuff that takes over the radio airwaves.

So, if it’s not dependent upon your incredible talent, what does determine your success?

Part of it is luck – the whole “being in the right place at the right time” thing. But that’s a small part – something akin to the little midget slice of pizza when you’re looking at the pie – it sticks out, but it doesn’t really contribute to the whole in a significant way.

What about basic business skills? Simple things like how to write an email without sounding like someone in primary school, showing up to gigs on time, following up or following through when you give your word, respecting people’s time. How far will those get you? Pretty darn far!

There’s no wonder that some of the most successful musicians have strong business minds (Lady GaGa, The Roots). They realize that business skills, even something as simple as basic professionalism, matter. They matter to the engineer that masters your upcoming release. They matter to the web designer who works their magic with your website. They matter to the event organizers who book you to ply their event, and they matter to the agency you’re pitching to represent you.

Basic professionalism can make you or break you, especially when you’re just starting out.

Never ever underestimate how valuable someone’s time is to them, as its the surest thing you can do to wreck your relationship by ignoring it. From late-notice requests, mis-spelled pitches, no call no show cancellation notices, to failing to return an email or give someone a ring back to confirm a project – remember to mind your manners.

Treat the people you work with like you want them to treat you – with respect, and as someone that’s trying to make a living off of what they do. It’s the golden rule that many people seem to forget.

Have any experience to share? I’d love to hear your stories – for better or worse. Leave them in the comments!

* Photo provided by Purple Phoenix

Before getting into this post, I’d like to repeat my disclaimer, as MySpace happens to be a client of the company I work for – and I want to be clear that the post below expresses opinions that are mine and mine alone (or… mine, all mine!).

This blog expresses my personal opinions and not the opinions of anyone else… unless they’re being interviewed or I’m summarizing something they said – then it does.  I welcome comments and discussions, though do reserve the right to remove offensive or inflammatory comments if necessary.

My blog may come across as slightly sarcastic at times. That’s because I’m slightly sarcastic at times. Again, this is me, not my employer, my family, my friends or my favorite cactus talking.

Now that the disclaimer bit is over, let me explain my thoughts about MySpace and the wider online music world.

Think back to the early 2000′s. As far as social networking goes, it was just a baby. You had Friendster and MySpace, but not much else. As a musician, it made sense to put your efforts into MySpace, as it was quickly gaining popularity and had a very large audience. It was a great place to put press photos, music, information about your band members/your band, tour information, etc.

It had the magic duo – the functionality and the audience.

Jump forward to 2010 and the situation has changed dramatically. I still have a MySpace account and still go there to look at new music and check out what the bands I like are up to, but I’d be lying if I said that I used MySpace as frequently as I used Facebook or Twitter, for example.  Some of that is due to my job, as a good part of what I do requires me to pay attention to Twitter and Facebook on a daily basis, but it’s also due to personal preferences; my friends have mainly migrated away from MySpace, so it’s usefuless has gone from a “catch up with everyone”, to a “see new music/catch up with bands”.

Now, MySpace has been taking some great steps recently to fix some of the things that their users were talking about – such as a redesigned look and feel. That’s fabulous, and as a user I really appreciate the change (hey there, MySpace – thanks!).

What does this mean for bands?

It means that your audience is no longer in one central place.  If you audience isn’t in one central place, what sense does it make for you to only exist in that “no longer central” place?

Think of it this way.

Let’s say you lived in a small town and you only had one grocery store. Suddenly there was a population boom and 3 more stores opened. If you were selling a product at that one grocery store, wouldn’t you want to get your product into the other new stores? Your former customers could start wanting to go to one of the new stores for any number of reasons, but you still want to get your product in front of them. True? Absolutely.

Diversify

No, this isn’t a post saying that MySpace is useless (it’s still quite useful), and I’m also not telling you delete your band page off of MySpace (keep it!).

This is a post telling you to look beyond the single grocery store.

• Look at places like soundcloud to post your tracks/give your fans the ability to download mixes.
• Look at Facebook to maintain a basic presence for people that use that social network as their first port of call (they do have 500 million users).
• Look at Twitter to chat with your fans and expose your music to potential new fans.
• Look at flavors.me to aggregate all of these outposts onto one central page.

All of these places provide an easy way for you to be found on a Google search, and even if you prefer going to MySpace, it doesn’t really matter if your fans/potential fans don’t.

The best part? They’re all free (like MySpace), and don’t require any knowledge of HTML to set up.

Note: flavors.me does charge $20/year if you want to make your URL bandname.com instead of flavors.me/bandname. You can set it up and keep the original URL for free though.

So – bands/musicians/producers/DJ’s – I’m curious! What do you think? Have you tried any of the above? Did they work for you? Why or why not?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about why so many artists seem to be suddenly splitting from their record labels. There was a wave of self-released records a few years ago, including NIN and Radiohead, but recently the “I can do this myself!” camp has expanded with the addition of OK Go and Amanda Palmer, among others.

The basic premise of a label is this: you sign an act you think will end up making you money, invest some time and resources into them in exchange for some ownership (profits, rights) of the product, and start on your journey to making the big bucks. You need the talent to make your connections worthwhile, and the talent needs you, your money, and your connections to help them make it big.

I know, it’s a touch more complicated than that in reality. But, when you get right down to the meat of it, it’s about the label making a wise choice on the artist selection side, dedicating the resources (time, money, guidance) into making that investment a success, and enjoying the rewards when it happens.

Tell me again exactly how that process differs from being a venture capitalist?

It doesn’t!

EXCEPT when you consider the fact that the labels somehow forgot about patience (among other things), and started screwing up from the very beginning.

Sign an act that can’t sing their way out of a paper bag? Great, auto tune the records to hell and use every available bit of technology at your disposal to get them to sound nothing short of magnificent.

Not writing songs that reach as many people as you’d like? Hire a songwriter and make sure their music fits the masses.

There ARE labels out there that take the time to really evaluate the acts they sign, and sign them BECAUSE of their talent and their potential. These, lately, have been the indie labels, which are doing quite well if you look at their growth over the past few years.

It seems to be the majors that have this problem – this immediate need to recoup their investment and milk the artist for all they’re worth. Yes, the music business IS about making a profit. It’s a business and for any business to be sustainable, you have to have some cash coming into the door. However, they’re not looking at things from a long term view as well as a short term view, it seems.

All of that technology to make an artist sound amazing when they’re truly not comes at a cost, and that cost = overhead. Keep increasing the # you’re putting into someone and profits for you diminish, lessening both what you make AND what the artist makes. Tough cycle.

Venture capitalists will put money into a business they think could be viable in exchange for partial ownership of the returns. They’ll sit on the board, they’ll guide, they’ll oversee, and they’ll use their connections to help improve the business. They’ll be present and their input will be heard, but what they wont do is demand their investment back from the first few customers their new business signs. They’ll wait it out, see their investment slowly grow (if they chose wisely), and be in it for the medium to long haul.

Just like labels, VC’s come in different flavors. Some request more of one thing, or less of another. For the artist, it’s about picking wisely (just like the startup!). For the label, it’s about putting terms out there that provide ways for both your profits AND your artist (and THEIR profits) to grow over time.

If artists evolve over time, and fan bases grow and change right along with those artists, hey don’t labels take the same approach? Why don’t they act more like guides, instead of dictators? Why don’t they make smarter choices about who to sign from the very beginning?

It seems that labels put profits above all else in both the short AND the long term, preventing (often times, it seems) the chance of long term growth. Plus, some of the signing decisions? They’re just downright silly! Why are you going to sign someone who can’t sing to a label?!

Riddle me that.

I often encounter people who want short solutions and easy answers to tough questions.

Sometimes the answer is easy, though putting it into practice is hard.

Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes nothing is easy.

We humans don’t excel at patience.  We’ve changed. We went from farming our own land and waiting for things to grow to sitting in a cube, ordering take-out and speeding down highways in search of our next adventure.

Our lives are fast-paced, exciting and hectic.  Many of us just don’t know how to slow down.

Sometimes, there are no easy answers.  There is no easy solution.

Sometimes, all there is to do is work, wait, work some more, and wait some more.

We marketers run campaigns in hopes of increasing monthly sales, expecting leads and closed deals to pour in as soon as we stuff people’s mailboxes with our messages. We jump and we expect the same in return when we come calling.

We suck at waiting

We’re not good at giving without expecting something in return. It’s hard and it’s not a talent we’re born with. However, our need for a semi-immediate gratification has caused issues across industries and time.

We don’t want to put in years of practice anymore. If we pick up a guitar, we want to be Jimi Hendrix tomorrow. If we’re not? We tend to give up.  If we send an email out about a gig, we want people to buy tickets right then, even if we’re unknown.  We expect things to happen just because we start trying to make them happen. We want them now.

This problem is sometimes seen as generation – namely with Millennials.

But the problem is really far more widespread than that.

Record execs want to see the band they just picked up start cranking out the hits as soon as the put them in the studio. Marketers want to see 10,000 Twitter followers and sales pouring in within weeks of setting up an account.

Over and over we see the need for instant gratification manifest itself. In our personal lives, in our professional lives, in our buying behavior and in our tolerance for imperfection.

Patience is a worthy skill

I’ll admit that I’m not the world’s most patient person. Anyone that knows me personally can attest to that fact within 2 seconds flat. However, it’s a skill I’m working on cultivating.

I’m learning to forgive myself when a new recipe doesn’t turn out exactly as intended the first time.  I’m learning that some books take longer to read than just a few hours. I’m learning that some bands sound better on a second, third, or even fourth listen. I’m learning that writing a blog post sometimes takes weeks – not just minutes or hours.

Now – I’m not saying that patience is an excuse for removing yourself from a position of ownership in your life.  Patience requires work. It requires hustlin’, day in and day out – sometimes for years.

Patience requires risk. It requires a view of the long-term, and a strategic view of where things are going.

So record exec, push that new band to have a hit – but don’t drop them like a bad date if they stumble along the way. Marketers, send those emails, but work on what goes into them and don’t pester people.

Instant gratification is safe. If you don’t see a return right now, no biggie. The money you spent now was less than the money you could have spent over the long-term, and you always have time to make more.  If you don’t waste time practicing a skill, you have time to develop other skills which require less work and may provide that immediate return.

Some things just require work. They require work and they require patience.  Sometimes it’s 10,000 hours – and sometimes it’s a lifetime.

Embrace patience

Patience goes hand in hand with diversity in business. Plan for long-term growth, but make some savvy short-term moves to keep you on the right path while things develop.

Patience is essential in cultivating relationships.  Saying hello is the first step to a “how ya doin’?”, and that greeting could grow into a fruitful relationship or your biggest fan.

By all means, hustle. Work your ass off. But don’t give up. Work through the rough periods, celebrate the successes, and hang in through the failures. Have patience.

Help bring patience back to you life, and let’s all help bring patience back to the world. There’s something to be said for seeing the fruits of your labor develop over time – whether it’s a plant, a piece of music, or a relationship.

I know, the life of a hustler is hard.

Let me help. Here are 6 great social tools to help your hustle along and create some buzz about your music.

Note: if your noise doesn’t qualify as wonderfully crafted, start here.

1. Twitter – No, it’s not just about what you had for lunch.  The pros? Setup costs are low (it’s free) and setup time is minimal (5 minutes, tops).  The cons? A bit of reading before you jump on would probably be a good thing, and tweeting takes time. Getting in the habit of sharing little details here and there also takes a bit to get used to. Just be sure not to be “that guy” on there, please.
2. Facebook – Yes, really! You can set up a page with pretty minimal time and effort and it’s completely OK to fill your Wall with your stuff, even multiple times per week! Go look at Alicia Keys’ page if you want an example of a successful Fan Page. Warning: Facebook likes to change things and delete things without warning, so don’t depend on this tool alone to get the word out.
3. Contxts – It’s a pretty simple concept. You meet someone, you tell them to text a number with a certain message, and in response they get a text back with your contact details. It’s free for everyone involved and pretty easy to configure to your liking.  Twentysomething in the Music Biz covers a few promotional ideas here (it’s well worth the short read). I use it as my “Oops, I ran out of business cards!” backup.
4. SoundCloud – Again with the free. Setup takes about 5 minutes and you can upload all sorts of things to the system. Start with a track or two, perhaps end up with an album or a mix. It’s up to you but it’s a great (and social) way for people to wander by and discover your music.  It’s also easy to embed into places like blogs (see my post here if you want an example) and profiles.
5. Blogger – For those lacking the funds to start a self-hosted website, Blogger provides a nice alternative.  You can write about what you’re up to, put a bit up about yourself, and link to your music all from one central area.  Bonus? You can set up your other sites to direct back to your blogger.com blog, providing a central “hub” for your efforts and a flexible place where you can update your fans and foes alike about what’s going on in the world of your musical creations.
6. YouTube – Set up a channel, record yourself practicing or performing, and share.  I have my own channel to share things like trips I take or concerts I go to, and I’m always surprised to see how many people view my videos.  You can link to your YouTube videos from any number of your social sites, and it’s a great place to share your music as a lot of people use YouTube as a discovery engine, a la “plug in a random search term and see what comes up”. You can also embed your videos in your blogger.com site, share them on Facebook or Tweet about them.

What tools did I miss? The comments are yours for the sharing!

I recently went on a road trip through Virginia for a work event. I had the pleasure of driving a car for the first time in 4 months through DC traffic, looking at cows and lush green fields, and seeing deer grazing on the side of the road.  I also listened to the radio for the first time in 4 months. That was not a pleasure.

I have fond memories of the radio from when I was a kid.  I listened to everything from the “Great Hits of the 60′s, 70′,s and 80′s!” stations to the pop, hip-hop or rock stations.  Radio was how I found out about new bands, and if I didn’t like a song, I could switch to another station and find another song playing that I did like.

Those memories went down the tube when I was driving in Virginia. I must have listened to at least 10 different stations before I found one that didn’t make me want to scream at the radio for sending such horrid music over the airwaves. The station I landed on? NPR.

Here’s what I don’t get.  The theory goes that if your songs are played on the radio, that you’ve made it.  The radio will, through the sheer power of numbers, expand your fan base and open up new opportunities. The radio seems like “the sign”, or the tipping point, if you will, of making or breaking new bands.

That model may have worked when avenues to find out about new talents were limited to seeing them live, hearing about them through a friend, browsing a record shop, or listening to the radio.

That model doesn’t work when a small thing called THE INTERNETS is figured in.

Why not?

Simple! Distribution.

I can open up any web browser and load Pandora, plug in the name of my favorite artist and be off discovering new bands in 5 seconds flat.

I can go to last.fm and search through my friends profiles, wander over to SoundCloud and not only find the latest from the likes of Imogen Heap, but also the latest from bands and producers I’ve never heard of, in places I have to Google to see if they exist.

Without leaving my desk in my (relatively speaking) tiny apartment in New York, NY, I can get lost down the rabbit of hole of discovering new music, all within a much shorter time frame than it would take me to browse through my local record shop or ask a few friends about new bands they’re digging.

So – what’s radio’s competitive advantage? It used to be that they were the ones sent the “latest and greatest”, and it used to be that they had the power to make or break new bands.

Not anymore.

Now thousands of anonymous people are voting your tracks up and down, sharing your YouTube video with friends, browsing MySpace (ok, so probably not MySpace anymore.. but follow along), and going to your Facebook Fan Page (silly Facebook!).

There are more ways to find your music online in 5 minutes today than there was in 5 days 10 years ago.

So radio, your advantage is gone.

THE INTERNETS went and changed the game. Go cry to your friends in the publishing business if you need company over your beers. They’re facing the same thing and are just as clueless as you are in many respects.

Now, I kindly request that you now step your game up accordingly, and make me want to listen to you again by curating content that can’t be described as “utter crap”. In layman’s terms, lay off playing the same song every 5 minutes and give new music a chance.

Thoughts? Comments? Am I wrong? What am I missing? Dígame in the comments, por favor.

The benefit and the downfall of not having a traditional 9-5 is the fact that you can work at any time, and generally in any place.

This is great at 3pm when you have to scoot off to run a few errands, but can become troublesome when you really know you should be spending your Sunday afternoon being productive, instead of laying around in the park.

Even despite the evidence to the contrary, this myth about being “one in a million” seems to persist through many areas of life.  A great High School football player may see his name in lights in a huge college, then NFL, stadium. A teenager teaching himself guitar may fancy himself as the next Jimi Hendrix.

Dare to dream people, but don’t forget to hustle along the way.

Hustling means practicing not only to be good, but to be phenomenal.  As a hint, Malcom Gladwell seems to have done research suggesting that this greatness starts hitting its stride around 10,000 practice hours. And that’s perfect practice, not just half-baked “I think I’ll play a few notes and call it practice”, practice.  There’s a difference, and every musician knows that this difference exists.

Wake up early and set a schedule.  Learn when you’re most efficient, when you’re the most creative, and when you’re just “there” and pretty much useless. Build around that, and stick to it. Work your butt off like your career and livelihood depends on it, as you know what? It does.

The lack of defined working hours is either a good thing or a bad thing. It really is up to each individual to figure out what works for them, then react accordingly.  Do you have your best brainstorms at 2am, consistently? Great. Harness that and make sure you plan to be up and brainstorming at 2am.

Do you work a full-time job? Plan around that, and be prepared to sacrifice.  It wouldn’t be called the life of a struggling musician if the musician wasn’t, well, struggling.

Hustling often means staying up extra hours, giving up free time and using vacation days to work on your craft.

A hustler’s life ain’t easy…

I often notice a difference in people I come across. It’s become a bit easier to define lately as those who get “the hustle”, and those that don’t.

Those that do often have multiple projects going on at once. Those that do always have their hands in something and their minds working on a problem they’re not quite sure how they’re going to solve, but they know they’ll get there. Those that do are often the ones drinking a few cups of coffee to get them through until midnight, and those people you see that always seem to have something to do, people to see, or places to go.  The hustle really is the manifestation of their belief in many ways – the belief that if they work hard enough, if they hustle enough, that their dreams WILL come true.

Those that don’t have it… it just seems half-baked. They have this great idea but aren’t really ever able to execute. They practice for hours but never really improve. They’re always on the cusp of doing something that could be great, but never really manage to start doing it.

Can you taste it?

It all goes back to how bad you want it, I think.  Do you wake up thinking about it? Do you dream about it when you go to sleep at night? Does it invade otherwise unrelated conversations with friends? Does it excite you?

Are you a hustler, or are you just along for the ride?

Over the past few months I’ve noticed some debates happening about musicians and branding.  It seems that while some musicians “get” the fact that they (and their music) are a brand, others don’t.

I come down very clearly on one side, emphatically believing that every musician should think of themselves as a brand.

Why?

Think about what you’re selling. You’re selling a product you made, featuring… you. You’re selling yourself and you’re marketing yourself. You ARE a brand whether you like it or not, and you HAVE a brand whether you know it or not.

I get that it’s personal, and I get that it’s hard to step away from the music you create and see your brand for what it is.

But, it’s necessary. And here are some tips:

• Remember Your Roots Remember what you set out to create. What feelings did you want to inspire? What impressions did you want to leave your audience with? When you first started, how did you want your music to be remembered?
• Listen To Your Fans Go do a Google or Twitter search for yourself. Go back and read reviews of your albums, your shows, or your demos. What words are used to describe your music?
• Look Forward Music evolves just as people evolve.  If you’ve been creating music for a long time there’s a good chance that your sound has evolved from where it began.  Where are you now? What’s changed? Where do you see yourself going?

Through this exercise you should begin to get a good idea of what you set out to create, what you actually created, and what you want to create next.  Take a look at the results. Are they what you expected? Are there parts that you really like? What about the parts that you don’t like?

For the parts you like – set out to develop those.

Perhaps your fans really did you music, but they also really dig how you interact with them at a live show.  Find ways to incorporate more of that fan interaction across all of your activities. How can you make them more involved in the recording process? What about arranging meetups before you perform to actually sit and say hi to your fans? Are you connecting them with each other when you notice that they have something in common? How about sharing the love and helping to introduce them to other musicians you think they may like?

For the parts you don’t like – figure out how you can change them.

Do fans only seem to dig your uptempo songs, but not really be as into your ballads? If so, why? Asking them never hurt, but also, how can you work to evolve your craft? How can you get better and make your ballads just as good as your uptempo songs?

For everything you do – figure out where it fits into your brand.

Is it a natural extension? What about a complete departure? Can it help to evolve your craft? Can you make money off of it? How will your fans react? Think about these questions as you take on new projects, and don’t be afraid to explore.  Music is personal and the relationship between band members, as well as fans and artists go far beyond typical co-worker or brand/consumer relationships.  Remember that you’re a person, making things that connect with other people (and hopefully making a living off it!).  Don’t be afraid to evolve.

What about you? What side are you on in this debate? Are you a brand, or are you just a musician?

aka: the conclusion.

To be honest, I’ve been thinking about this post for awhile.  If you haven’t read the series, you can find them linked below:

Part 1 – Introduction

Part 2 – Product

Interlude – Back to Reality

Part 3 -Price

Part 4 -Place

Part 5 – Promotion

We’ve arrived at Part 6 – The Conclusion.

Throughout the series, I posed a number of questions to (hopefully) start some thought around how you can, or want to, market yourself.

The best advice I can offer as a marketer is to actually go out there and execute – go and DO this stuff you want to do! BUT, and this is a huge but, do it with a purpose, and measure it.

The “hot topic” for most of 2009 at any social media conference was “How do I measure this?”. I can’t say that there is a “one size fits all” standard to measuring your success, but there are some things you can do to start to get a grasp on the effect “this stuff” has.

I’ve provided my own list below, and included a few more links of people far more knowledgeable than myself to give you a head start.

Basic Ways To Measure Social Media Impact for Musicians

• Website visits
• Number of Twitter followers
• Number of Facebook fans
• @ replies on Twitter
• DM’s on Twitter
• Downloads of music/CD’s
• Blog comments
• Tickets sold to a show
• Email newsletter sign-ups
• Email newsletter forwards
• YouTube views
• Asset trends (download trends, YouTube video trends, website trends)
• Likes
• Comments on Facebook Fan page
• ReTweets (RT’s)
• Blogger coverage
• Interviews
• Contest submissions/entries

This is is not exhaustive by any means, and David Berkowitz recently compiled a much lengthier list for MediaPost – you can find it here. Another list is here.

In addition, if you’re wondering what’s up with Social Media ROI, check out Olivier Blanchard’s stellar presentation below.

Did I miss anything off the list? Still have questions to ask? Bone to pick? Leave it in the comments!

This is the fifth post in this series, covering promotion. Previous posts have covered developing your overall goals, figuring out what your product(s) could be, determining how to price those product(s), and deciding where to place yourself and the product(s) you’re selling.

Promotion is often the most prominent of the 4P’s, as much of the “What should we sell?” and “How much should we sell it for?” takes place behind the scenes. However, the basis of promoting your products in the places you’ve chosen are founded in the decisions you made earlier in this series, so they’re no less important to you.

Here’s where our first ideas really come in handy, “the big picture”.

1. What is my ultimate goal?
2. What do I want to achieve on the way to my ultimate goal?
3. Why am I in the music business; what’s my motivation?
4. If I’m going to make money off of this venture, what are the ways I see myself doing so?
5. How in the hell am I going to measure success?

Big Idea(s) –> Strategy –> Tactics –> Execution

Your product, price, and place(s) must all tie in with the answers to theses questions.  The promotion questions really start to guide your execution. It all fits together.

How Should I Promote Myself?

In place, we covered these three questions:

1. Where does your audience exist?
2. Where does your audience go for information?
3. How does your audience prefer to connect with each other (and with you)?

Your answers are a great start for your promotions strategy.  You know what you want to sell, whether it’s  your music, your schwag, your services, your shows, or even your brand (guest appearances, anyone?).  You know where your audience exists, which gives you a clear path for how to reach them.  Promotion follows logically from there.

1. What is my ultimate goal?
2. What do I want to achieve on the way to my ultimate goal?
3. Why am I in the music business; what’s my motivation?
4. If I’m going to make money off of this venture, what are the ways I see myself doing so?
5. How in the hell am I going to measure success?

These are all questions that your promotion strategy can help you answer, though I’m sad to say that there’s no “magic formula” I can give you to help you determine the “right” answers to these questions.  Some of it is gut instinct, some of it is personal preference, and a lot of it is making sure that your promotions are intimately tied with the product you’re selling, the price you’re selling it at and the place that sells it.

Promotion… What?

Consider this…

If you run a promotional campaign for your new record, where will this campaign run? Will you print posters to put in your local record shop, or buy banner ads online? If you buy banner ads, what sites will you buy them on? Should you have a Facebook Fan Page to help promote the album? Should you create a Facebook Event to allow your fans to register for, and share your even with their friends? How does Twitter fit into everything? What about your blog? Should you even have a blog?

OK, breathe…

Start with these questions:

1. In the places where I’m selling my products, how do people communicate?
2. Are there opportunities to get in front of my fans virtually? If so, where and how?
3. What has “worked” for people similar to me in the past? Even better, what “hasn’t worked”?

Now, here’s where more than a few common mistakes are made.  For example, as a counterpart to Pistachio’s “Musician’s Guide to Rocking Twitter“, I created “A Guide to Completely Failing at Twitter (As A Musician)“.  We’ll get to more later, but as you move through your answers, you may want to power up Google or Twitter Search and type in a few of the keywords in your answers.

As for our hip hop band, their answers are below.

Q: In the places where I’m selling my products, how do people communicate?

A: My local record store is a really tight-knit community.  In-store performances and discounts to shows work well.  My fans are also on message boards talking to each other, on Twitter and on our website.

Q: Are there opportunities to get in front of my fans virtually? If so, where and how?

A: Yes, on Twitter, our website and major hip hop message boards.  We notice that most people go to Facebook more than MySpace now, but our fans aren’t really into either.

Q: What has “worked” for people similar to me in the past? Even better, what “hasn’t worked”?

A: MF Doom and Burial have built quite the name for themselves being slightly mysterious, and both Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have made quite a bit of money offering their music up for what their fans feel like paying.  More recently, Imogen Heap created great buzz before her album launch by involving her fans in the process of making the album.

Here are a few resources, giving you some ideas of how to plan and execute your promotions.

• Integrated Marketing Communications Plan (it sounds complicated, but click anyway as it’s good info to know)
• Guerilla Music Marketing Suggestions
• Creating a Music Marketing Plan (bit old, but there’s good info in here)
• 1,000 True Fans (saved the best for last!)

So far we’ve covered defining your goals, determining your product(s) and researching how you should price your product(s).

This post is all about place.

Some places may be obvious, and some not so obvious. It’s up to you to determine where the best place for your products may be, whether that be existing for free online, or in a store on a shelf.

When you determined what you could sell, you answered the following questions:

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?

Then, you took those answers and dug a bit deeper by asking these questions:

What do these products or services cost me to produce?

What are the typical market rates for similar products or services?

Now, your challenge is to take those answers and again, do something more with them.

How?

Since you did a bit of research when figuring out how much items typically cost, go back and figure out where you went to look for that information.

I’ll again use the example of our live hip hop band.

They first went to MySpace to look at the profiles of bands in their local area, as well as similar types of bands across the nation. From there, they went to iTunes and to see how much they were selling their songs for, and they also visited their websites to see what they put up on their sites content-wise, and how (and what) they were selling on their sites.

They ended up with a lot of information.

It seems like most of their counterparts don’t sell merchandise on their websites, but they do use their sites to direct people to their new songs (and places they can buy them), as well as their shows and other in-person appearances.

That was an interesting find, as place is both about where to place your products, as well as where to place yourself.

This brings me to the questions for this post:

1. Where does your audience exist?
2. Where does your audience go for information?
3. How does your audience prefer to connect with each other (and with you)?

For our hip hop band, they found that:

Q: Where does your audience exist?

A: Our audience exists on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and on our website.  We get quite a few hits to our site, especially to our “upcoming gigs” section, and our new songs that we post on MySpace have a lot of people listening to them when they’re new, and then we start seeing Tweets and Facebook Status Updates about them.

Q: Where does your audience go for information?

A: Our audience seems to go to our MySpace page and our website for information about us, though we know that at lot of our fans also post on popular hip hop message boards and also use Twitter to keep up with news and information.

Q: How does your audience prefer to connect with each other (and with you)?

A: Our fans are a fan of MySpace, message boards and Twitter, in that order.  We also get quite a few emails and notice a lot of our fans arranging pre-show meetups whenever we go on tour.

Photo provided under a Creative Commons License by slworking2

Where Do I Go?

First, you have to understand where your audience exists.

You can have a great product and a reasonable price point with a lot of people willing to buy, but if you’re not going and selling to them where they’re looking, you’ll never make a sale.

From the answers above our hip hop band should certainly keep up their presence on MySpace and Twitter. It doesn’t seem that Facebook is a huge place for them to be at the moment, but perhaps if they developed their Fan Page they may see more activity.  Their website seems to be quite popular, especially the section about their upcoming shows.

Also, if they don’t participate in the hip hop message boards already, they probably should, since they said that their fans go there for information.

Now, so far all of this is online.

I’m assuming that if they make a CD, they’re going to contact their local record shops (or have the company doing their P&D do it for them) to talk about selling their CD in stores. If they don’t, they should.

As I said above, place is both about where you place your products, as well as where you place yourself.

Make sure to go where your audience exists and pay attention to trends, it’s hard, but see if you can try to go where they’ll also be going tomorrow, not just today (or yesterday).

The first two posts in this series outlined how to define your overall goals as well as determining what your product will be.

This post covers how to price your product.

To review:

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?

History

Price has changed drastically over the last 10 years for the music industry.  Records used to sell millions of copies at $15 (or more) a pop, and 360° record deals were far less popular.

Musicians didn’t have as much power before as they do today.  The dream of being signed to a big label and making millions was most often the quickest (and hardest) way to riches.  Artists “doing their own thing” were few and far between, and for the most part, musicians were at the mercy of “big business” to make their fortunes (if that was their goal).

The world has changed.

Today, musicians have more power than ever.  Companies now exist to let artists do much of the work they used to hire people to do themselves… if they choose that path.  On top of the resources available, our lives as consumers have fragmented. Our attention spans have shortened and we expect the companies we do business with, including our favorite artists, to slice and dice their content and make it available where we want it, when we want it.

How Does This Affect My Prices?

Photo provided under a Creative Commons license by marie-ll

I’m going to go ahead and say that every business struggles with how to price their products.

A number of factors going into determining your price, and these factors can fluctuate, sometimes making pricing feel like trying to kill a pesky mosquito -  chasing the annoying thing around the room, numerous close calls and escapes, and a rush of satisfaction when you finally nail it.

On top of outside influences from the market, there are many different pricing strategies to choose from, each with their own pros and cons.

What Is My Price?

I’ll stop sounding like a textbook, and instead give you two good questions to ask yourself when trying to decide “how much will I sell my products for?”:

1. What do these products or services cost me to produce?
2. What are the typical market rates for similar products or services?

A good place to start determining your price(s) is to take your answers from the “What is My Product” post and separate your answers into categories.  I’ve taken the answers from our live hip hop band and done exactly that below:

Q: What do I pay money for now, music-wise?

A: Music, t-shirts/schwag, concert to tickets, limited/deluxe edition CD’s.

Q: What do I want to buy, but currently can’t, from my favorite bands?

A: Recording session, face-to-face interviews, concert tickets

Q: How can I add value to my fan’s lives?

A: Music lessons, recording sessions, meet-and-greets, online connections, charity events

Q: What makes me different?

A: Female band, themed shows

Q: Out of the answers above, which ones can I make money from?

A: My music, concert tickets, t-shirts/schwag, Limited Edition/Deluxe CD’s, auction off signed merch.

As you can see, a few patterns emerge.  Our hip hop band sees their major revenue streams coming from:

• Selling their music
• Putting out Limited Edition/Deluxe CD’s
• Performing concerts
• Selling merch
• Selling their time and teaching lessons
• Selling their time and helping artists record

Now it’s time to apply those two questions above:

1. What do these products or services cost me to produce?
2. What are the typical market rates for similar products or services?

We asked these questions for merch as an example.

Q: What do these products or services cost me to produce?

A: For merch, we want to sell t-shirts, baseball caps and stickers.  We’ll hire a designer to design each item, then send the designs off to the printing shop for creation. They’ll then be shipped to the final destination, which will vary per show.

We’ll have to pay the following costs: design costs, print costs, shipping costs and possibly storage costs.

Q: What are the typical market rates for similar products or services?

A: T-shirts typically retail for anywhere between $15-30.  Baseball caps sell for $30-40.  The stickers will come in different sizes, and be sold for anywhere between $5-7.50.

Now comes the math. You need to figure out what your total costs will be, and compare them to what the current prices are for similar items.

Before coming to your final number, or thinking this is all hopeless because your costs are larger than what people tend to buy the products for, consider a few points:

Quantity is a factor – Make sure to talk to the company doing your production work about price breaks for ordering higher quantities. Sometimes this is applicable (like with the stickers), and sometimes it’s not. Make sure to ask in any case, especially if this is new to you.

Demand is a factor – If there is a lot of demand for your items, either because everyone wants to have one and they’re willing to buy one, or everyone wants to have one and the item is scarce, you may be able to charge above the market price for that item – leaving more money in your pocket than normal.  Keep an accurate log of how much your items are selling and how quickly and you’ll be able to more easily spot these trends.

Notes

I’m by no means a pricing expert, and within the music industry (well, the record industry actually), pricing is especially hard as the cost of the item and the amount people are willing to pay (these days, sometimes $0) may be drastically different.

It never hurts to ask around. What are similar artists doing? How are they pricing their products? Do you see things they’re doing right or wrong (in your opinion)?? Learn from the people around you and don’t be afraid to ask questions!

Here are some resources, some academic, and some just information that may be good to know when you’re reading this series:

• New Hope for Monthly Music Subscriptions
• The Global Decline of P2P
• USB Uzi’s – The “New Hot Thing”??
• Artist-Specific Social Networks

Have something to say? A story to share about how you figured out how to price your work or time? Leave them in the comments!

Next up… “Place – It’s More Than MySpace”