Posts Tagged ‘music marketing strategies’

Chris MacDonald is the founder of the very popular Podcast and music discovery platform – Indie Feed.  As one of the early adopters of Podcasting I wanted to talk to him about whether or not participating in services like IndieFeed were helping out aspiring artists and if so – how?

Music Consultant:

Chris, first of all thanks for your time. How did Indie Feed come about?

CM:

In 2004, when we first heard about podcasting, we had no idea what it was. I first thought it was having an antenna on top of a portable media device, and somehow that sent out signals that other people could pick up. What I learned obviously was that it’s a subscribed media service. It was downloading content into computers and into mobile media players at that point. There was no such thing as an iPhone or a lot of these smartphones. What we realized was that there would be a lot of individuals that would be keen on creating their own personal music shows. We decided it was a good idea to see what people were doing with their current consumption, which was listening to individual tracks or collections of single tracks. We reverse engineered a show that was essentially a track with a little story at the end. This idea really caught on because one of the strengths of downloadable media is that you can consume it in short form in between other things. Imagine where once you were walking down the street grabbing a coffee and then going back to your office; now you could actually consume content on an on-demand fashion. It was media where you wanted it and when you wanted it. We started a series of subscribe-able shows, each with a specific genre, and it started to get popular. It seemed the short format worked with a lot of folks. We watched a lot of these longer format shows, and people doing series of 20-30-minute, to one-hour shows. We were differentiated from the beginning. Before we knew it, we were starting to get featured on places where podcasts get consumed, and pretty soon Apple got into the game, and we bubbled up and came into consciousness. Since then we’ve branched out into other forms of consumption, such as licensed in store radio.  We had the content delivered or progressively downloaded and streamed, and people can get it on our website, and any partner sites that we’ve done deals with have our content situated.

Music Consultant:

Why do you think Indie Feed got popular? I realize there weren’t a lot of players when you got involved, but what did you do to market yourselves as tastemakers?

CM:

We certainly didn’t start out thinking we were tastemakers. We were just a group of people excited about this new medium and being able to share what we thought was worth sharing. It was a means to an end. We started to realize the narrative made sense at the end of the show. This was not a personality-driven service or the Chris MacDonald show, so we tried to get out of the away and let the music speak for itself. If someone was interested, they’d stick around long enough to listen to the narrative and perhaps learn more. We learned that about 65% of our surveyed respondents said they made purchases directly related to our referrals. And 84% said they went back to the websites as recommended. So it was a pretty powerful response.

Music Consultant:

What kind of reach and listenership do you currently have?

CM:

We average 2.6 million listens per month.

Music Consultant:

How many unique sets of ears does that fall upon?

CM:

It’s difficult to measure, because the way the collection analytics work is on the IP basis. It also has to do with on what range you’re collecting. Our analytics system is collecting on a 24-hour basis. What we don’t do is parse through every 24-hour cycle and figure out which IP address goes to what. Not only is that difficult from a mathematical standpoint, but it also is difficult because IP is a good indicator of location and unique, but AOL users and university users all use the same IP address. It’s a guessing game. But what we can do is verify. We have Nielsen verifying unique listens, so they’re actually tracking on a third-party basis to ensure those are the appropriate people. Also, each feature has throughout its life cycle, depending on the genre, a range of listens. Those numbers are aggregate numbers per network, but you can slice and dice it down to each show. What we do is provide guarantees to our artists in our label relationships a certain amounts of listens per feature per genre.

Music Consultant:

Have you seen anybody harness your podcast or podcasting in general to make a dent in their marketing efforts?

CM:

We have certainly seen the needle move. For example, we did a couple tests with some artists that released their promotional track of one track to the rest of the world and then they used a control with ours. Then they started to see increased sales on the promotional track and there is no other reason to base the increased sales of that track other than back to our system. So, we’ve seen measurable sales. If the question was, “Have you seen artists actually leverage what we do for them?” Absolutely. For every single artist we send an artist fan pack. It’s the announcement of the feature and all the social components that you can utilize to share with your fans that the show occurs. We also have a press widget, and because it has the quotations it has turned into a bit of a taste-making tool. We add a quote as well and then we circulate it with our Twitter list of over of over 10,000 and our Facebook list of over 3,000. We place the quotation inside every feature these days.

Music Consultant:

I should back up – many folks might not be too familiar with how Indie Feed works.  Can you take us through that?

CM:

You can get the indie feed features in a number of different ways. The largest way it’s currently getting featured is if you go into the podcast section of the iTunes directory and go to music or just put in the iTunes field “indie feed,” you’ll find several of the shows we have available for subscription. What that means is you can click the “subscribe” button and from that point forward automatically get the new features in the podcast section of your desktop, and you can listen to them. You can obviously attach your iPod and take those on the fly. We also Twitter out the features, so you listen to them as they come in. But all the features are pretty much the same. You can also find it on our Facebook page.

Music Consultant:

What is the song selection process like?

CM;

What we do is have a submission process and a rights clearance process. Everything we play on Indie Feed has the rights cleared. We vet submissions and review every single submission that comes into the website. We work with third-party promoters and promotional companies that are doing digital work for their client base. We also work with distribution houses that are pre-clearing the content. We have a team of what we consider to be specialists who vet the content and really on the basis of their experience filter out the content they feel is inappropriate. To the extent that we don’t have the rights cleared on the content, we will seek that clearance. And to the extent that we do, we have the artists or the third party send out an online clearance. We’ve gotten to the point where it takes a short amount of time to get the rights cleared.

Music Consultant:

If you were an artist in this day and age, what would you be doing with podcasting to get heard? What’s the pitch? Is it cold calling, is it third party? What does it look like? It has to mirror the antiquated system of talking to the program director at radio at some point; there has to be a filtering process…

CM:

When artists ask me that I ask “What do you want to accomplish?”  If all they are looking to do is attempting to get airplay there are certain ways to do that but I think it’s more interesting if you’re a person that wants to control the outcome and can create content that might be useful. Whether it’s deliverable by subscribed media, or deliverable on YouTube, or deliverable on a news or email message, it’s irrelevant. It’s that you’re creating something that’s new, useful and of use to your recipient. This really opens up a much larger discussion about band relationships and keeping your best fans in contact with you and you with them. That’s one direction.

The other direction is if you’re in a position where all you want is airplay, there are some tips and tricks to make sure that happen. First of all, even the largest new media outlets still are going to likely be small shops. There are people behind those e-mails. The whole notion of sending a blanket press release is pretty much dead. They are very presumptuous and think very little of the result. In addition, mass e-mails that start with, “Hey you” or “What’s up?” make it clear that the artist really doesn’t have an interest in developing a relationship with the party for distribution. They just want to get some airplay. What I recommend first is that the artist does a little bit of research and take a listen to the variety of shows that are out there and make a determination as to whether they think their content will fit on the channel. Once they refine that list, I would consider to research and try to figure out who the principles of the small organizations are and then try to establish a reach relationship. Go out and find their names and ask them what their submission process is instead of just sending their format. What often happens is that their formats get burned. There might be opportunities that may not be evident. There might be opportunities for bartered services and opportunities for an artist to get some sort of list. The closer the relationship the artist can have with these new channels of distribution, the more likely they will have a lasting relationship that will work for them rather than against them. I’ll say what doesn’t work:  random e-mails. Even if you’re a promoter and have 20, 30 or 40 acts, the press releases that don’t have access to the content are just a waste of time. And we get a lot of really big companies like big record labels that send out information about their indie bands, and they don’t give any information except what they want you to know in three or four paragraphs of content and maybe a picture. It’s completely useless for folks like us.

Music Consultant:

Talk to me more about that. I guess you are looking for more than just the music. You’re looking for someone’s commentary about the music and their process? Is that really a regular part of it?

CM:

There are two things. One – the model that’s currently out there, and you can’t really blame promoters for this, is that they’re looking for blog play. In other words, their view of what is going to create lift is if they can get “bloggers” blog about an artist, and there are a lot of bloggers out there. But that’s not really what we’re doing and not necessarily what other people that post analog radio content are interested in. We’re not interested in hearing the story or a recast of that. What we’re interested in is having access to the content and being able to figure out how to integrate it into our programming. And then because it’s necessary to get the rights because this is downloaded content that invokes mechanical compulsory fee licensing we have to get the clearance for that as well. I think the problem is that a lot of the outbound messaging isn’t designed to receive us. The upside is great. To get attention drawn to one show or one feature by a new artist can help an audience understand them and that is a truly valuable thing. Even if it requires a little bit of adjusting from the artist’s standpoint it’s well worth the time. I would say that would be good advice for any subscribe-able content, whether that’s Internet content where you’re doing an interview, or any content where you’re integrating.

Music Consultant:

Can you give me an example of something you received that you felt should be replicated by other artists?

CM:

The easiest way is when someone submits the content in the way that meets the submission requirements. If an artist that has the wherewithal to host their content so they can just sent a link and send that link in the context of the submission guidelines that really helps. Outside of that I’m sure they could create some unique, creative methodology to try to get someone’s attention, and we have had direct calls where we do respond.

Also, Make sure you have a narrative you wish to share. Your story is as important as your content, because your story is your content in addition to the music. Be prepared to provide that. It’s a creative process. You can portray aspects about your act and the direction your act is heading in a way that’s very compelling. In other words, if you have a scenario where you’ve met some level of adversity and you’ve overcome it, you can tell a story about that. It’s a compelling piece of information. Or perhaps all your band members are from one place or from very different places. Or you have a unique perception – your band is distributed where you have one person in one place and another in the other, and you attached all the content together in a special or unique way – something that differentiates you. In the context of being able to tell a story, studies have shown that grounding a band experience into context is going to increase memory retention in a world where there is so much music out there and the metadata of the music is not necessarily with the content by which you are experiencing it. So because you don’t know the name of the band or where it is from, if you can tie something to what you’re doing, you stand a much better chance of remaining at the top of the mind with a listener to the point where they would click to purchase the content or go to see the show.

For More information about Chris and his company checkout IndieFeed

Dane Venable is the head of marketing for Atlantic records.  In addition to overseeing several product managers Dane still handles his own roster of acts that he does marketing for personally including James Blunt, Death Cab for Cutie, Jason Mraz, Rob Thomas and Matchbox 20 and a new artist named Robert Francis. I worked with Dane when I was at Elektra and he was kind enough to give me his time and insight on what music marketing looks like today.

Musician Coaching:

Tell me in your words what you see marketing a band at that job entailing for you. Marketing is a broad term, so how do you see your job or your role in marketing a band?  What does that look like for you?

DV:

Providing a consistent direction for the artist with the ultimate ability of cutting through the clutter.

Musician Coaching:

Let’s talk about the clutter.  When you’re first sizing up a project obviously there’s going to be a lot of creativity involved, but is there a strategy to make a band stand out among all the thousands and thousands of bands out there?  Have most of the bands that come to you already identified a niche to market to, or is that something that you try to identify/try to connect them to?

DV:

It always differs with the artist.  Some artists come in with a very strong vision of who they are, where they want to go, because some bands have already been out there building touring bases.  And by that I don’t mean, “Oh yeah, we played the past six months once every two weeks in Pittsburgh.”  The Zac Brown band is a perfect example.  He’s been out there ten years throughout the Southeast building a club base.

Musician Coaching:

So funny, yet another time I thought that was an overnight success that turned out to be years and years of hard work

DV:

He’s been doing 150 shows a year for ten years; that guy knows exactly who he is, he knows exactly where he wants his career to go.  Sometimes you get a group that is just out of art school and has been practicing in basements and just kind of putting together their music.  They may have general ideas, but they need it fully fleshed out, and that’s where we try to help them, because the days are long gone of trying to hang an image on an artist and then make it work.  Even though a lot changes year to year with the amount of clutter and noise that’s out there, one thing that’s gotten even stronger is a band’s sense of credibility and what that means in the world.

I think the smell test with audiences is stronger than ever.  If you take a look at some of the most trafficked and active websites, they are websites that really do have artist involvement if not complete artist control.  Kids go to those sites and know that it is the artist’s voice.  It’s not somebody in management, it’s not some uber fan that’s just putting stuff up.  That credibility I think really matters for a lot of bands.  Look, if you’re an artist that writes big pop smashes or big hip hop smashes and you want to go directly to radio, that’s one route you can take it certainly; that’s always been there.  But a lot of the bands we deal with are not looking to go directly there, not that they don’t believe in their songs in the same way, but they want to build their audience, they want to have a sense of discovery before they get to just be known for a song.  And so in that way, credibility really matters, the way you approach things matter.

And by the way, when I say credibility, it matters on the other side too.  I just got done having this conversation the other day.  We want artists to be active with their fans.  It’s crucial today. However, it has to be sincere and feel natural.  To have an artist on Twitter where it’s not a natural fit and they’re doing it because they think they need to is a horrible idea because it’s not going to come across as sincere or compelling.  What we try to do is say, “Let’s choose a medium you are comfortable with.”  With some artists it’s writing words, with some artists it’s using video cameras, with other artists they love Twitter, it’s made for them – little short blasts of stream of consciousness.  But what we try to encourage is just interaction with the fans in some way that feels completely natural and we completely respect and work with artists that also want to keep some sense of mystery.  Maybe there’s an artist that doesn’t feel natural talking about what they’re doing every minute of the day.

Musician Coaching:

How do you compensate for someone who isn’t communicating in these ways because clearly when that is working for somebody it’s a very powerful tool.

DV:

Twitter works amazing for Jazon Mraz.  He’s got 350,000 followers but that doesn’t mean Twitter is going to work for a different artist.  Why would it?  It’s hard to look at a Chad Kroeger Nickelback song and say that doesn’t work, because they are all big hits.  But you wouldn’t say, so why wouldn’t my artist just follow that formula?

Musician Coaching:

Well of course, but what are things you do when a band wants to retain its anonymity in some kind of way?  How do you end up compensating most often?  Do you just look for other ways of connecting through different mediums?

DV: Well, that kind of depends.  I like to think in a lot of ways artists whether as diverse as Bjork, Sigur Ros, Tool, even Radiohead, all like to keep their anonymity in some way, shape or form.  But all of them have some creative ways of connecting to their fans.  With Bjork, it’s usually in art.  She does five or six videos per project, or every design she puts out is something that really speaks to who she is as an artist.  With Trent Reznor it’s really about just his timing and the inventive way he connects with his fans.

Musician Coaching:

You were talking earlier about bands that were fresh out of art school vs. those that had built a following over ten years.  Have you noticed over the last several years that it’s become more one than the other or is the split pretty much the same?  The stuff that’s getting signed and winding up on your plate, is that stuff that tends to be more established or less established, or is it the same old 50/50?

DV: Really I wish I could say it’s changed appreciably, but really I think it ultimately comes down to someone’s belief in a song or in a group of songs.  As much as in the marketing template or the “Marketing 101” book, I would love to have bands who have had experience touring or have been out there for a while building a fan base or through one or 2 indie releases – that’s the dream come true – so you don’t have to completely start from scratch.  But a lot of times an A&R person just hears the song, hears a demo, sees a show and that overtakes everything. It overtakes every other factor.  And that happens time and time again, and that’s not a bad thing, because if our company got to a place where we said, “OK, we’re doing 360’s, therefore touring is a huge factor for us so we only want bands that have begun to build a touring base,” that’s kind of dangerous because then it probably means the nature of the songs or the nature of the music is down in the mix, even just a little bit. The music and the song always have to be first.

Musician Coaching:

It’s good to hear you say that, because it can appear sometimes on the outside like it’s something different.  Let’s talk about if you’re starting out with somebody brand new.  What are some of the low- or no-cost marketing techniques that you consider a must for every band that wants to get noticed?

DV: Building and maintaining your own Web site. And trying to actually market yourselves and build it to a point where, when anyone goes on it, whether it’s somebody from a label, an attorney, another musician, it actually feels like it’s active.  It actually feels like you’ve done some work and you’re not just sitting in your bedroom creating these great demos but you don’t have really any motivation to take your music outside your own bedroom.

Musician Coaching:

Along those lines, do you guys spend a lot of time on SEO or is that just not really in the per view for what you guys do?

DV:

We have someone over at Warner Music Group who actually specializes in Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing and online advertising.  He can flip your head back and forth with the amount of research he’s done on it and how you can target advertising to a project.  Almost all of our online advertising now is done this way.  We rarely just do banners for static placement at this site or that site.  The advances in technology and actually trying to be able to reach exactly where you want to reach are like a dream come true.

Musician Coaching:

How are those keywords then determined?  It must be kind of hard when you have a middle of the road rock band.  Do you keyword tag other bands?

DV: It depends.  I’ll give you an example.  We have Death Cab for Cutie in the “Twilight:  New Moon film.”  There’s a person upstairs that comes up with 50-100 word associations that we register and when those hit, “Boom.”  You have to just envision yourself and what you do and how you search Google. If you put it in your mindset, it’s not that hard.  It’s not like a science.  How is anyone going to search:  “Death Cab Twilight;” “Death Cab New Moon”?  Whatever.  There are a thousand different ways.  Are you going to get them all?  No.  But the odds of actually reaching your target as opposed to just reaching all these eyeballs that have zero interest in what you do are light years ahead. It’s completely changed.  Print ads are rare, few and far between with the exception of Alternative Press.

Musician Coaching:

Are most of your marketing efforts on or offline at this point?

DV: It depends what you mean, but they all have to start online.  Online is where everything starts, it is Ground Zero.  Atlantic was the first major label to garner over 50% of our annual revenue from digital sources.  That’s a huge accomplishment.  If you think that the physical market still takes up 75% of people’s purchases, and 50% of our revenue in the last year came from digital sources – meaning ring tones and digital sales – it’s a really big accomplishment.  What that says is that everything we do has to start with some digital structure.  That’s where everyone is.  That’s where everyone’s living and breathing. So that takes up a lot of our time, especially for developing artists.  Certainly then you go to traditional methods depending on your timing.  If it’s an established artist, you go a lot quicker.  And by traditional I mean, you go to radio and traditional press and there’s touring and tour marketing and hand-to-hand combat out there.

Musician Coaching:

Speaking of traditional, there really aren’t many record stores anymore…  Has anything really replaced a band playing in local record stores before a tour date?  Where are you guys going when you have a band on the road?

DV: Web chat is the new in-store.  You get to see your artists, you get to see them talk, and if we’re doing it right there’s a pre-order or an order right there, and somebody orders their music.  Secondly, though if you’re still talking about things that are done more traditionally is that any developing artist that we have, they are out there at the merch booths immediately after their shows signing, meeting, kissing babies, taking e-mail addresses.

Musician Coaching:

Tell me more about Web chat.  Do you guys have your own proprietary software for that or are you using something?

DV: There are various methods we can use.  One of the ones we’re doing right now on a consistent basis is this guy Jason Castro, and he was in the fourth season of American Idol – he’s the guy with the dreads – and we’re making a debut album with him right now. His first single just came out.  Because of his notoriety that stayed around his fan base is exceedingly strong and has remained so.  Throughout the process of this album we have bi-weekly Web chats with him.  It’s almost like “Date Night.”  He goes on camera for an hour and answers live-time questions from his fans.  It works, it keeps people connected and it keeps people coming back.  The last chat we had we were shut out of three rooms.  Three rooms were completely full and we don’t know how many people were waiting.  Each one of our rooms would hold a maximum of 1,000 people.  I have no idea how many people were trying to get on there, but 3,000 were there.

Musician Coaching:

Anything else you can think of as advice for things that make your job easier when somebody shows up at your door?

DV: An artist that actually wants to work and realizes that they are part of their career.

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Please check out the new artist that Dane is working with Robert Francis.

I had the opportunity to sit down with a gifted Music marketing executive named Marc Schapiro recently to discuss how new bands should be focusing their marketing efforts. Marc has had a very colorful career working at labels like Mute, Roadrunner, Ferret and Artemis and recently left to start his own marketing company called Branch Marketing collective. During his career he has worked with artists ranging from Prodigy to Steve Earl To Nickelback. Marc is a highly sought after freelance marketing executive / product manager in the world of hard rock and was kind enough to take the time to discuss his craft with me recently.

Music Coaching:
Marc, first of all thanks for taking the time to answer some questions. It is rare most musicians get access to a marketing executive with the degree of experience that you have. Music marketing can cover a wide range of tasks, can you explain what you consider to be your role when working with a band?

Marc:
I have a couple roles when it comes to marketing depending on how I’m working with the band. One of my main concentrations is with “partnership” and “sponsorship” marketing. So basically it is figuring out the band’s demographic and then finding partners for promotions around the record, tour, etc. Once we find the right strategic partners, my role gets a bit more creative in coming up with the actual promotions themselves. Starting with things as basic as logo placements or contests, all the way to the more “experiential” things that involve interaction with the band. Experiential marketing is definitely one of the most important things you can do since that is how a lot of “word of mouth” is spread and it gives fans a more personal connection with the band.

Music Coaching:
What are some must have marketing techniques that every band must have that don’t cost very much?

Marc:
The obvious answer here is the Internet. I’m beating a dead horse, but if a band doesn’t have an updated MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube page, then they might as well not even try to tour or release a record.

Music Coaching:
How do you determine who is the right audience for a band or artist?

Marc:
If I knew the exact answer to this, I’d be a millionaire! What bands don’t realize is that they have so much data at their fingertips. They just need to know how to use it. You can look at your merch sales when opening for certain bands or headlining. You have SoundScan. You have websites like ReverbNation that give you data on your fan base. And if you are running your own site, you need to install Google Analytics (free) which gives you so much information on where people are finding out about you, as well as where they are from.

Besides all the analytical things about the band itself, when finding the right partner, you need to make sure their audience links up. Just because your band is selling a lot at Hot Topic doesn’t mean you should partner up with a hair gel company. The is a term “psychographics” which is like demographics, but its more about the person’s lifestyle. Where do they shop, what do they drink, how often do they go out. I know this all sounds very calculated and more like a college class in statistics, but really it’s just talking about all these things and the next thing you know, you’ll know you fans better than ever.

Music Coaching:
How important is it in your mind that a band have their own website in addition to profiles on the key social networks and why?

Marc:
You definitely still need to have some site outside of the social networking worlds. You never know how young or old your fans might be. They might not be on MySpace or Facebook. They might have firewalls at work where they can’t get this information. When you do your own website, you should make sure your news is on an RSS Feed so people can get updates right into their email inbox if they have problems getting on certain sites while at work or school.

Music Coaching:
I know you work a great deal with branded tours and music and brand partnerships – is this something that you recommend for artists that are just starting out and if so, how?

Marc:
Everyone saw the article that companies are going to spend over 1 BILLION dollars on music venues and festivals this year. So of course everyone wants a piece of it. If you are a new band, don’t expect to get a sponsorship until you have toured and have a record out. There are obviously cases where you might get lucky because you have a friend at a company that will help you out but you need to form your OWN BRAND as a band first. Down the line you can partner with others and form mutually beneficial relationships.

Music Coaching:
As a guy in hard rock you work with bands who spend a great deal of time on the road- is there any advice you would have from a marketing perspective on what a developing artists with limited means could do to market their touring efforts?

Marc:
Yeah, in the hard rock world, we all know that touring is the most important thing you can do. Chances are you aren’t getting on TV or the radio, so the best way to connect with your fans is by putting your stuff in storage and hopping in the van. What if you can’t afford to do this? Well, play local shows. Video tape them. Put them online for the world to see. Also these days, everyone wants limited edition and exclusive items. Look on EBay after ComicCon and you’ll see things going for crazy prices. So, do the same. Make limited edition 7″s and t-shirts. Things people can’t download.

After your show, sit with your fans and sell these items to them directly. Don’t go drinking in your dressing room. I know some bands might want to keep their aura “mysterious” and be the next Tool. But you have a .005% chance of being the next Tool, so go out and meet EVERY fan you can.

Music Coaching:
Talent aside – how do you go about separating your artists from the pack both on social networks and online in general?

Marc:
Be creative. You are going to have fans that are in college and do computer programming. Reach out to them and brainstorm, because they will come to you with some of the most creative ideas since they are outside the industry. Having your fans be part of the creation of your marketing will make them feel even more connected and you’ll have them for a lifetime. And not to sound like a jilted industry guy, but put out f**king good quality music. If you are a new band, don’t put your demo on your MySpace, don’t put up a crap video. There are SO many bands out there that you really only have one chance at a first impression these days. If this means delaying the launch of your site, delay it. Music is the most important part of, well, being a band.

Music Coaching:
In your experience, how important is it to a band’s success that they keep a mailing list and actively communicate with their fans?

Marc:
Everything I’ve said above is about a band focusing on being interactive with their fans. Obviously you don’t need to email them every day with what you had for breakfast, but if you send them announcements first via email (before they read it on the web), then they are going to feel even more special and will probably spread the news even faster.

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If you are looking for music marketing help, I highly recommend you check out Marc Schapiro and his Company Branch Marketing Collective