Noah Dinkin is the Co-Founder of FanBridge – a fan list management service that is geared towards musicians.  He was kind enough to sit down with me and tell me about his company, how it was founded and offer general advice about email marketing for artists.

Musician Coaching:

Thanks for taking the time Noah, tell me a bit about how and why you started FanBridge.

ND:

FanBridge was Co-Founded by myself and my friend Spencer Richardson a few years ago.  We were looking for a fun project to work on in our spare time outside of day jobs, and after seeing the music industry going through a lot of chaos, we knew that chaos usually creates opportunity, so we started looking at what we could do in music space.  After looking at a bunch of things and talking with various people, we came to focus on the artist-fan relationship.  When you think about it, this relationship is the single most important piece of the music business, and for too long it has been paid lip service and overlooked.  At the time we couldn’t find anyone really focused on enabling a direct relationship between the artist and their fans, so this looked like a good opportunity for us to jump in and really help out.

Version one was very simple email list management for bands.  You could add people, geo-target, and schedule/send your emails…not much else. It was also really ugly.  Even with all of that, bands started signing up, and other bands started seeing those bands using it, and the snowball started rolling downhill.  A year later we added mobile text messaging (since this was when everyone went “you’re an idiot if you don’t have a mobile fan club”), and we have always continued to update the platform based on feedback (most recently adding social network features/integrations among other things).  We are huge believers in always getting feedback and bringing it in to every part of the company, and I think that is one of the reasons that we’ve been so successful without spending the ton of money other people have spent trying to marketing their products.  We just focus on what people need (based on feedback), build it really well, and make it easy to use.  Today both Spencer and I do FanBridge full-time (24/7/365) alongside an awesome rockstar team of people who are just as passionate about what we’re doing as we are.

Musician Coaching:

What are some of the advantages of using an email marketing service Vs. using outlook or one of the social networks to market to your fan base?

ND:

When we originally started, the question we got most often from musicians was “I have 2 million friends on myspace, what do I need an email list for?” While education of musicians has come a long way, we still get asked that question today.  While email is one (important) thing we do, I would consider FanBridge more of a “fan relationship manager,” than just an “email marketing service” so I’m going to compare a fan relationship manager to outlook/social networks/etc.

The advantages of using a platform/service to help manage and communicate with your fans are many.  First and foremost, a service like us is 100% laser focused on this area.  Outlook is a general email client used by anyone and everyone, and serves the mass market, whereas FanBridge is focused on musicians.  Every feature we make is with your exact use case in mind. A great example of this is our feature to target by zip code and radius for shows.  For example, before FanBridge, most people who were savvy would have their list in outlook (or gmail/hotmail/etc) separated into groups, usually by state.  Now that’s okay (not great) for tiny states, but for bigger states like California, Florida, New York, Texas, and so on, it doesn’t really work, because people in Buffalo don’t really care that you are playing Manhattan (even though they are both in the same state).  With our geo-targeting feature, you can just put in the zip code of the venue where you are playing, and say “I only want to message fans within 60 miles of the show” and our system will automatically compute who the message should go to (so people in Buffalo aren’t bothered with a message about your show in Manhattan, but it isn’t relevant to them). In addition, from just a technical standpoint, we do a lot of things behind the scenes to make sure your messages to fans arrive (in the inbox) and looking good.  Outlook doesn’t do that, and it can actually be really bad for sending to large numbers of people. In addition, when emails bounce, we automatically remove them, whereas in Outlook, you would have to do that by hand (and if you didn’t do that, your deliverability will decrease for future messages you send).  These are just a few surface level reasons why using a dedicated platform like FanBridge is much better than a generic service.

Regarding social networks, they are great because there is a lot of activity and users check out all kinds of new things on these sites.  We encourage our clients to use social networks to have a presence in these high traffic places on the web, but to make sure to get fans to signup to a dedicated fan list where the artist gets the fan’s real info (things like email, location, etc).  Sure, you can build a ton of friends/fans/followers on the social networks, but knowing that ‘babygirl234’ is your friend doesn’t tell you much or give you much value in your marketing efforts.

When you have your own list outside of the social networks, you can use that fan list to build a relationship with the fan.  You might actually message the fan both through email and social networks, but they key is to own your own list because it gives you the flexibility to do what you want, as well as do more advanced targeted marketing.  Owning your own list also gives you security in case the social network goes out of business, because you can take your own list anywhere you want, whereas you can’t easily port your myspace friends to twitter followers.

Musician Coaching:

Have you seen your clients change the way or the frequency they communicate with their fans based on the feedback and analytics you provide?

ND:

We definitely have seen people make adjustments based on the feedback and analytics our platform provides.  It is actually very eye opening for a lot of musicians to see how many people are opening or clicking various things in their messages.  We try and give clients feedback wherever we can, and one example of this is we tell people who used to cram a ton of info into a monthly newsletter to break it down into 2 (or more) shorter messages with a focus on one or two calls-to-action in each.  When you tell fans to do 10+ things, they usually do none. But if you tell them to do one or two, you have a very good chance they will do them.  Overall though, there are a lot of bad habits and misconceptions when it comes to communicating with fans, and we are always working to use data to show artists how they can improve to make their messages more effective.

Musician Coaching:

Many of my clients are bewildered about what to write about when keeping in touch with their fanbase other than we have a show coming up.  What have you seen work for your clients in terms of subjects to speak about or things to offer their fanbase to add value (free mp3s / show tickets / contests etc)

ND:

This is a huge issue, and touches on some of what I mentioned in the last question.  People (musicians especially) often feel like they are bothering fans when they send them a message, and therefore they only want to send a message when they have a new album or tour (which usually ends up being about twice a year).  I can’t say this enough, but YOU CAN’T BUILD A RELATIONSHIP WITH SOMEONE IF YOU DON’T TALK TO THEM.  How many best friends do you have that you talk to only twice a year?  Probably none. You need to communicate often with your fans, and twitter is actually a great tool to use daily in conjunction with email (which can be used weekly or bi-weekly).  In terms of what to talk about, we really believe it can be anything…what movies you’ve seen recently, what music you’ve been liking (or not liking), what songs you’ve been working on, and so on in addition to news about your music.  The people on your list are fans, and they want to consume as much information about you as possible, so why not give it to them?

For things to offer, you should always offer a free mp3 to get people to sign up to your list (we have a feature that does this automatically called Fan Incentive), and if people want to help out even more (in terms of street teams, or pre-ordering tickets, or collecting emails for you at shows), give them something that is unique.  Maybe a personalized voicemail message, or a shoutout on your twitter/facebook.  The people who want to help are (or are going to become) your super fans, so you want to do anything you can to keep them loving you so they tell all their friends about you.

Musician Coaching:

What are some of the most inventive marketing ideas or campaigns you have seen by your clients to expand their mailing list?

I’ve seen bands offer some very creative incentives to get fans to sign up to their list at shows.  Everything from a free ride to the next city on the tour (in the van of course) to a chance to win a living room show in the fan’s house.  I would actually say a cool idea is ask your existing fans to come up with ideas for what you can offer fans to join your list..I’m sure they will come up with some good ones!

Musician Coaching:

Any practices you would recommend against using email marketing?

ND:

Here are two (that are hopefully obvious): don’t add people to your list if they don’t want to be added (or don’t know they are being added), and don’t let your list sit for a while without communicating regularly (you will lose a lot of fans this way).

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Thanks to Noah and if this information or this service sounds helpful please visit FanBridge. FanBridge also provides a 5 reasons why you need FanBridge page that is worth checking out.

I get roughly 4-5 show invites per day.  Come see my band play, come see me spin- stick around for our friend’s band.  It’s funny too because realistically I don’t actively socialize with a large group of people, nor do I go out as regularly as I did as a younger man so if I’m getting 4-5 invites per day I can only imagine what it is like for people who are a much better target as a potential audience member.

I must admit I delete a fair amount of FaceBook event invites and E-vites and emails after only skimming them.  It is very rare that I get an email that stands out- I’m over-saturated as I’m sure most people are in this day and age.

I recently got an email that was forwarded to me by a friend of mine and had I not had any plans to be elsewhere that evening I would have showed up and that is very rare for me especially when the event is featuring an artist or DJ I am not familiar with…

He wrote:

Friends etc.,

Matt

Call me crazy – I figured that the event would be a good time because I got the sense that the author who I have never met (save to ask his permission to re-post his invite) would be having a good time. I am not suggesting anyone copy the style of this letter but rather be made aware that personality can still get through to people even in an email. I was also inspired by the fact that sometimes reality is the best pitch there is…
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More soon,

R

Duane Lundy is a touring musician, songwriter and producer based in Lexington, KY.  Duane has worked with producers like Daniel Lanois and Eddie Kramer and members of the band My Morning Jacket.  He currently divides his time producing records and touring with his group Chico Fellini.

(Overhearing me butchering his bio into the recorder he adds)

DL:

I’ve only worked with Jim James from My Morning Jacket. My favorite stuff I’ve done over the years is the score work for Universal from “Cirque du Freak:  The Vampire’s Assistant,” and that was with the musical director Stephen Trask, who I absolutely adore and have learned a ton from. He wrote “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”

Musician Coaching:

Tell me how you got started.

DL:

I was in a band in the late 90’s early 2000’s named Gold Tooth Display, which was a throwback rock band in the classic rock vein. I’m in Lexington, KY, and there aren’t a ton of recording studios around here and the digital stuff was starting to rear its head, and I’d been recording on quarter inch reel to reel with a romantic vision of recording.  At same time I was in that band, we decided I’d be the one to do the recording and some of the production. So that kicked off my interest in recording and I started doing more on my own about ten years ago. Through the popularity of the band, the recording and some industry interest, other people in the area caught wind of it, and I started recording people’s demos and lower-budget albums by unsigned bands in the area. One of those people that was a really close friends of mine was Bill Meadows, and he was kind enough when he became the music supervisor at Crispin Porter, to send me some scoring work and remix work so I was able to do things on a slightly larger scale. I spent quite a bit of time doing scoring and remixing and a little bit of production, but I was uncertain as to whether that was even a career for me at all.

When Nuendo, ProTools and those particulars came along, the affordability of putting together a boutique studio became a viable option. You no longer needed to have a 9G SSL with 200 channels and deal with the ridiculous costs that went along with that. I just started collecting vintage consoles and sidecars and pre-amps and EQ’s and compressors and microphones. In 2004 I did an album with a band from here called the Apparitions; they had some nice success in college radio and AAA. Through that I started getting calls from radio promoters. A guy from a small radio promotion company in Minneapolis had really liked what I’d dong and was coming into a lot of contact with artists that had what he considered compromised material, but were good bands. A lot of his connections had been spending a lot of money going to Nashville and Minneapolis and getting pretty literal, clinical recordings out of it. He heard what I had done and thought, “I’ll send you some work.” That really kicked off me producing acts and doing artist production on a full-time basis.

Musician Coaching:

Does producing represent most of your income?

Producing and mixing are how I make my money for the most part now. On the artist side of things, I still do some score work, production work and engineering work. Recently I did some of the engineering, mixing, scoring and production work on “Cirque du Freak” as I mentioned before.

Musician Coaching: I know you wound up working on some big acts as an engineer. How did that filter into your education process?

DL:

Quite a bit. I had done some assisting here and there with some producers, though more engineers than producers. I got to sit in with Eddie Kramer and a guy named Tony Lash. He’d done some Elliot Smith and Dandy Warhols and Death Cab for Cutie. I don’t know if I picked up any of their habits through that, but I picked up a lot of confidence. It had always seemed a little smoke and mirrors to me. I don’t come out of the commercial side. I didn’t go to the Recording Workshop or start in the major market way where you go to the Hit Factory and are a key boy or runner and work your way to assistant engineer and then engineer or producer. I didn’t do that, so for me I didn’t know at all how it went. I didn’t know the habits or the process at all. I was reading a lot and watching videos. I remember watching a video about the Red Hot Chili Peppers about making “BloodSugarSexMagic” called “Funky Monks.” And it had Rick Rubin and Brendan O’Brien. I just picked up on that stuff a lot. Through watching some of those other guys and talking to people like Daniel Lanois and I got a fair amount of guidance in a very short period of time from him. I just sussed out who I liked and what they did and applied that to the theories I’d already been working on. I’m probably more of a theorist than a clinical engineer. I’m not the guy that’s going to take apart the console and solder this to that. I don’t have that background on the tech side as much as I do the more of a textural and arrangement type of productions. I really became a producer because people started asking me my advice on things.

Musician Coaching:

Sounds like you fulfilled a need in your hometown and your home region.

DL:

Pretty much. I don’t work with a ton of bands from around here anymore because a lot of my work comes from a label or 360 deals, management company or industry people that have been around for a while. I get a lot of my work from people I networked and established a relationship where there’s some element of trust. Then I talk to the artist and we share views and make sure everyone’s on the same page, and then we go.

Musician Coaching:

What are some pitfalls you see artists fall into?

DL:

I think the main pitfall that any artist falls into is that someone is going to have the magic key to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – that there’s going to be one connection or one producer, one management element that gives them the keys to the whole thing and that it’s all going to happen. The artists often don’t tend to agree philosophically with that entity, but because they’ve had some element of success, or they have a story that they use to sell the artist, then the artist mortgages their existence to have a relationship with somebody because of their connections. That never seems to really be. I’m sure there are instances where that’s worked, but with the artists I’ve worked with, my relationship comes because we agree on the music and taste and creative side, and through that the success comes because people are magnetically drawn to the music. The industry now as I see it is probably not any different from what it was 50 years ago. I think you have to write a great song, be really good live, give somebody something substantial to listen to, be it CD or whichever way you decide to package your media in a way that’s compelling or interesting and will hold up to many listens and will have a critical ear on it. And get in the van and go play. Those simple blue collar-type approaches to the business of what you’re doing as an artist inevitably will pay off.

Is it easy? No, it’s really, really, really difficult. But if you’ve aligned yourself with people that are of like mind and will work with and for you aggressively, and everybody’s in a situation where what they’re trying to do – however righteous or pretentious it may sound – if you do those things I think people will be drawn to it. As an example, if I were to take a piece of work that we’d worked on, and were to pitch it to someone like yourself when you were Atlantic, and we did it just because we thought that’s what you would like and that’s the way it was done, as opposed to the artist and the producer and people involved having a total belief in it, I think people like you sniff that out and say, “These people are just skirt chasers” or “star chasers” and “they don’t really believe in what they’re doing.” I think it has to be very real. There’s that one percent of the market that deals with highbrow pop, highly commercialized music that sort of sways everybody’s thinking as to how it’s really done. I approach it a bit like a mom and pop business or a boutique situation. By doing such, you’re sort of in control of your destiny a little bit more. A major pitfall with artists is that they end up apologizing so much for what they’ve done in the past. “I’m not really into this anymore. We did this with this guy because he said this.” People spend a lot of money doing things that they don’t believe in, and I think that’s the major pitfall for most artists.

Musician Coaching:

More specifically, when somebody shows up on your doorstep, what are some of the things they should or shouldn’t have done to prepare? What are the pitfalls of actually recording?

DL:

A lot of times I think they don’t have enough material. What tends to happen is that they get to the point of being married to ten or twelve songs and think, “Okay, we’re ready to make an album.” And they don’t have enough material. I think if you’re trying to make an album, they should have a good 15-20 songs to choose from so there’s some wiggle room as to what is going to be on the album. I cannot stand if a band is overly demoed. There’s not a lot for me to do as a producer if they’ve demoed the hell out of stuff and have already made their opinions about what they want to do before they come in. I think a band needs to be as prolific as they possibly can.

Musician Coaching:

As an artist, what kind of conversation do you need to have with somebody who is producing your EP, demo, etc. so you don’t run into problems?

DL:

I think it’s a taste issue. What is the artist listening to? What are they listening to? What is their background? What do they really, really like about music – not only their own music but music in general? Does the producer share that same vision and same background? You see people chasing other people’s credentials around. You see this all the time in Nashville and L.A. especially. You might have a guy who’s a Zeppelin fan, and I wouldn’t put WolfMother with John Shanks, a producer who’s done predominantly female artists and pop rock. I think that marriage tends to not work. Producers have a process and taste and a particular way they envision music. That’s not going to change a great deal from artist to artist. When you get on board with a producer, you need to have a shared history even if you’ve never met. You need to have similar listening tastes, similar textural elements. I’m not going to be the guy you bring in to do a commercial country album, because I like things dirtier and with texture and subtext, things that make you go back and listen for a 20^th time. I think commercial pop for the most part or modern country is a more literal type of music. It doesn’t have that subtext. Let’s say my band Chico Fellini was looking for an outside producer – someone besides me. There are people I’m going to be immediately drawn to because not only of their discography but their philosophy and what they’re into and the textures they’re into and their style.

Musician Coaching:

There’s nothing that’s going to replace having a detailed conversation.

DL:

Absolutely. You have to have quite a few conversations.

Musician Coaching:

How do you navigate the issue of artist control and the creative process?

DL:

I’m extremely honest on the front end. If I can get people in person to the studio, it’s ideal. I work on a particular vibe. That vibe is an element of comfort. I don’t do a ton of work in commercial studios because I feel like it’s a bit clinical. I get somebody in my environment or get them on the phone for a long conversation and be really frank with them and say, “Here are the things that I bring to the table” and give them very to-the-point ideas on their music and see how they react to that. Nine times out of ten, they know what I’m getting into and I know what I’m getting into, and if there’s a friction or a rub, or just a general “not seeing the process eye-to-eye” it’s best to not do it. I’m a really frank, honest person on the front end and tell them, “This is what I think we should do.” That being said, I’m very artist friendly. I think the most important heroes of the moment are the people I’m working with. Those are the people I need to have a respect for, and they need to have a respect for me. And if we have that, I tend to find there to be very little friction, and the process is pretty steady-as-she-goes.

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Click for more info about Duane and his studio business or his group Chico Fellini

Lou Plaia is the Co-Founder and Vice President of Industry Relations for ReverbNation. I know Lou from my days at Lava / Atlantic where Lou was the head of Marketing prior to starting ReverbNation.

Musician Coaching:
Why and how did you start ReverbNation?

LP:

We pretty much started ReverbNation based on all the stuff we were seeing that was going on out in the music space about three and a half years ago. MySpace was growing like crazy and not allowing artists to take full control of a lot of things; artists were not able to extract a lot of things or see who their fans were. So we wanted to create a non-fan destination site, a marketing software platform to give artists marketing tools to get their music out there, syndicate their content everywhere and try to funnel in fans to the fan management system we also provide. We have 485,000 artists and are growing at about 20,000 per month. We also have 15,000-20,000 managers, labels and “other industry professionals” – anything from publicists to third-party marketing companies.

Musician Coaching:
What are the most popular widgets that you have right now?

LP:
One of the most popular is Tune Widget. It’s basically like a “Website in a box.” It puts everything on your ReverbNation profile in one nice widget so people can see information about you, your shows, your store, they can join your mailing list and share it with their friends. It’s got your music, your videos, your press, pretty much everything on a profile all in a widget form. And you can post that anywhere on the social networking sites. It’s just html that you can post anywhere. Our Show Widget is probably our second most popular, and that’s another widget you can put anywhere. We try to be the home base of everything for an artist. So artists can upload all their shows into their ReverbNation profile or enter them one-by-one and take the widget and copy and paste the code anywhere on their own Websites. Anytime a show is added to their ReverbNation profile or edited it automatically gets added everywhere else that widget lives. So it saves you a lot of time and effort. You put your shows up once on our site and it posts everywhere else. We also have feeds from Live Nation, Jam Base and Eventful. So if your shows are already posted on any of those sites they automatically come up into Reverb and vice versa. So if you’re on ReverbNation, those sites automatically post out to those other venues as well.

Musician Coaching:
What is the community like on ReverbNation? How has it developed, and are there success stories?

LP:
It’s mostly used for tools. We have 480,000 artists, but I think maybe people log in every couple days or once per week. A lot of times there’s really no need, once you’ve posted your widgets, to constantly go to your Reverb Page unless you want to update songs or videos or send e-mails. We have one of the largest e-mail management systems. It is called Fanreach. We have 110,000 artists using it right now.

Musician Coaching:
Tell me about the newer tools that you have released…

LP:
A lot of artists don’t have their own websites, and we kind of believe you shouldn’t just have a MySpace page, but a lot of artists use MySpace as their official page. So we said, “Let’s see if they want to create their own website.” And we give them a tool called Sitebuilder to do that. We partnered with a company called Bandzoogle, and when artists sign up to their ReverbNation page for free, the first thing we say is, “Do you want your own website” and “Do you want your own domain name?” There is a service charge for that, because it’s one of the premium services. It’s $18 per month. We give you a Web site, templates and host it for you. We launched Sitebuilder a couple months ago. We also have the number one artist application on Facebook called MyBand. We have a million active users as of last week.

Musician Coaching:
You also do digital distribution for artists. How does that work?

LP:
It’s $35 per year per release – and a release can be an album or one song, and most people put up an album, but if you’re also putting up one song it’s also $35. We take no commission, and basically your music is up on iTunes, Amazon, Napster, Rhapsody an E-Music.

Musician Coaching:
What’s the turnaround time on that?

LP:
It’s really up to the retailer, but it’s currently six to eight weeks.

Musician Coaching:
I heard some rumblings about artist insurance. What’s that about?

LP:
That’s something new. We haven’t even announced it publicly yet. We did a study and found out that 50% of the artists in the U.S. don’t have any type of health insurance. So we partnered with E-Health insurance. You go to the ReverbNation site and you can get a free quote on family coverage, individual, small business, short term, student coverage, all sorts of things. You just plug in your zip code and you get a free quote. It’s live right now.

Musician Coaching:
Where do you see this site heading?

LP:
We just launched direct-to-fan commerce –selling directly to your fans. It’s in beta right now to a couple thousand artists.

Musician Coaching:
Cutting out the middle man is better for the artist in terms of splits. What’s the challenge in doing that? Do you think that will be the future or that people will still have to have some sort of shopping experience?

LP:
I don’t think it’s the end all, and I think people will still go to iTunes and Amazon because they’re credit card’s there, they’re comfortable there. But in some cases people want to buy directly from the artist. Doing it this way, our direct-to-fan commerce engine is integrated into all the marketing tools and artist gets. So if they’re sending out an e-mail to their fans about anything, they will have their own store with images of their t-shirts, their CD, etc. There’s a widget for that too. The main function of it is as an on-demand system. So it’s really good for the smaller artist, because if they don’t have money to invest in a thousand or two thousand CD’s or a couple hundred t-shirts, they upload their image for their t-shirt and CD or digital goods. Basically, if somebody buys something, we make it for them immediately and ship it out for the artist. There’s no investment for the artist at all. You can basically start selling t-shirts at no cost at all. It’s a little different from a lot of people. If you want to buy bulk, you can do that, and we’ll just warehouse it and fulfill it for you. We’re doing pretty much everything right now.

Musician Coaching:
Do you have any success stories?

LP:
We’re such an analytical bunch of geeks. There is a band called the Clintons from Montana. Recently, they took the data they got from their ReverbNation stats component and took it to a brand – Jim Beam – and said to them, “Listen, we want sponsorship for a tour.” And Jim Beam probably said, “Yeah, so does everybody.” And the band said, “Yes, but look what we have.” And they showed them all the fans they have, where they’re located, their age, their sex, and it was totally aligned with what Jim Beam was looking for. These are real fans on a mailing list. These aren’t friends and things like that. These are real fans you can engage with. That’s all the brand wanted – to engage with fans. They did it all on their own with their own press release. They had our data and called us and thanked us.

Musician Coaching:
Do you have any general advice for artists?

LP:
Have your own website. I know a lot of bands don’t, and a lot of bands can’t afford it. But if you’re using a social network as your own website you have no control over it. They can tell you what store to use, what you can be doing. And they’re not giving you all the data you need to understand your fans. None of them allow you to really e-mail your fans. And I think e-mail is still really important. Everything leads to an e-mail. People still go to their inboxes, even with Twitter and everything else. Use the technology that companies like us offer and use it to understand your fans, because it makes it easier to market to your fans if you understand them.

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If you aren’t already familiar with the site, check out Reverbnation.