Ariel Publicity

Welcome to the final segment of a 3 part series that was inspired by a mastermind program I participated in with Ali Brown who is my mentor in the world of online marketing.

Here’s the recap of what we’ve gone over thus far…

There are three ways to increase your income:

Part 1. Increase your number of clients (fans).

Part 2. Increase the frequency of purchase, how often your fans buy from you. (and you’d better have more than just music to sell).

Part 3. Increase the amount of money that you charge…

Increasing the amount of money you charge poses a problem if all you have to sell is music because music is now widely available for free, and people have proven that they are not willing to pay a premium for music.

However, fans will pay plenty of money for experiences, like a great concert or a chance to be a contribution to an artist, a special memento, or wonderful merchandise that really resonates with your fans.

An Example…

Jeff Krantz created a BIG payday in one fell swoop.

Jeff Krantz & The $10,000 Song
http://jeffkrantzmusic.com

Recently I was hanging out with past Cyber PR client who had a fabulous tale to tell. Jeff launched his singer-songwriter career in Second Life where he has managed to build a wonderful fan base.

Through networking online, he met a man who fell in love with his songwriting and became a fan. This man called up my artist and told him that he was having a big anniversary coming up and he wanted a special song written just for his wife. He asked if he would be up for writing and recording a custom song for her.

Realizing that this was a huge opportunity told his fan that he would present him with some options he began to THINK BIG. So he created 3 packages that this man could choose from with three separate prices (depending on how much he wanted to spend / how involved it would be silver, gold and platinum)

Here’s what Jeff wrote about how it worked:

As part of the Gold package that the client chose, I agreed to write 3 different songs (first verse and chorus) for the client to chose from. Once the client selected the song, I spent 1 week writing 2 full lyrical options for the client to chose from. Once they had decided on the song, Jeff went into his studio and recorded the song, bringing in musicians to fill out the arrangement. He then sent it to a top studio to be mixed and mastered and 2 weeks later he sent the client the finished song (with the masters). “It took about 60 hours in total but it was so much fun and I made almost 10 grand for the effort!”

The point is because he leveraged just ONE relationship with just one fan he managed to make over $10,000 on ONE song.

Had he not been working on increasing his fanbase by networking online, he never would have had this opportunity present itself to him.

Fan Funding

A newer option that has become a widely available option for indepdent musicians to take advantage of is fan funding. Fan funding sites (often called ‘Crowdfunding’) have become an incredible resource for musicians to employ this very strategy.

Here are a few options available:

Be it your album creation process, setting up a tour, creating merchandise, or any other important aspect of being an independent musician, creating a fan funding campaign not only helps you to raise the funds, but it will allow you to give your fans the opportunity to take part in a unique experience.

Your fans will be paying more because they will be buying into more than just a pre-sale for a project, they are paying for the opportunity to join your journey to get there.

How Have You Added Value?

I would love to hear how you have managed to add value and get more profit. Please share!

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The first piece in this series focused on increasing the amount of fans and how this is a necessary step towards success.

Part 2 of the basic three principles is increasing the frequency of purchases.
The cornerstone of this is simple: You can not only sell music.

In order to get the frequency of purchases up you must provide something that actually gets your fans to buy more frequently.

If you are only selling one album or one set of MP3s, it’s pretty near impossible to get this step accomplished because your core fans will only have one thing to buy (therefore making frequency non-existent)

Thousands of record stores have closed in the US in the past decade. This points out to one very clear conclusion: People are buying fewer CDs (of course we already knew this) but think about it – are you only selling music?

I sadly see this all too often. Artists only think about putting out one CD, but to survive and thrive in this industry where music — like it or not — is now widely distributed for free all over the Internet, fans are no longer buying music like they once did.

So, you must create additional products and offerings to sell. At the same time you must be building a two-way conversation with engaged fans.

Remember not to put the cart before the horse here, But if you don’t have a fan base to sell these things to, there’s no reason to build a series of products.

Survey Your Fans

Expert Internet marketers never release products without testing the demand first. Maybe you think you know what your fans want but they might surprise you.

Understanding who they are and what they like/ want becomes critical.

Internet Marketers always ask their core fan group what it is they would like and then they create the products based on their answers.

I have said this may times – that music is a feeling and it’s not like a typical Internet marketing product and its hard to get fans to tell you how they feel about new music that you may be writing but its EASY to get them to tell you what they like.

If you don’t ask them they wont tell you…

Online Surveys

Using Your Mailing List

Set up a survey online and use your email newsletter list or Facebook page to get fans to tell you what they may buy from you in the future. Survey Monkey will allow you to create a free survey that you send out to your fans to ask them specifically what they might like to buy from you and how much they might be willing to pay.

Using Twitter

If you do not have a large enough mailing list to get a response, you can survey your fans using this great Twitter app – http://twtpoll.com/

Using Facebook

Or you can survey right on your Facebook page using the Survey Monekey for Facebook app or http://www.facebook.com/simple.surveys

Then make it and they will!

Merchandise That Works for Artists

Here are some great merch ideas to get you inspired.

Family Force 5 created a limited edition T-shirt of the month club. They offered their fans a new T-shirt every single month and it generated thousands of extra dollars for themselves and their fans loved the limited edition shirts.

http://www.myspace.com/familyforce5

John Taglieri, who I talk about often has a marvelous new series of EPs and books called Lives. This new project will consist of four 6-song EP’s, books & graphic novels, as well as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and blogger accounts for the two main characters.

http://thelivesproject.com/

Will Deynes made a Valentine’s Day song, and he would custom record the name of people’s beloveds right into the song. He sold dozens of them to his fan base at Valentine’s Day.

http://www.myspace.com/wildeynes

I met Shelter with Thieves, from Halifax, NS and they gave me an awesome USB drive full of music and special bonuses like artwork and videos, and its wonderful because fans can use the USB drive for school projects or at work.

http://www.shelterwiththieves.com/

Jen Chapin, being environmentally conscious and clear that her fans are too like purchased a few cases of SIGG Water bottles and had them customized. She sent an e-mail to her entire list that she had wonderful, non-leaching, water bottles for sale and she ended up selling many of them

http://www.jenchapin.com/

Carla Lynne Hall is organizing a Bowling Tweetup at The Harlem Lanes near her home just to hang out with friends and fans and bond. She is not selling merch yet but you can be sure that when it comes time for her to sell that extra time she took to make friends with her fans will pay off. Studies show that people purchase from those they like and trust and Carla is building trust.

http://rockstarlifelessons.com/

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As many of you know Cyber PR® is a hybrid of Internet Marketing, Social Media and PR. I am an avid Internet Marketing student and I gather the nuggets I learn from my studies for musicians.

For many years, I’ve attended internet marketing retreats and seminars; a favorite of mine was a two-day intensive course run by the incredible marketer, Ali Brown.

The course was a whirlwind, and the core principles I learned were both basic and critically important.

There are three ways to increase your income:

1. Increase your number of clients (fans).

2. Increase the frequency of purchase, how often your fans buy from you. (and you’d better have more than just music to sell).

3. Increase the amount of money that you charge.

Okay, none of these three things is brain surgery, but from a musician’s perspective, it brings up some interesting points.   In my last article about Internet marketing, I point out that music sold online cannot be treated like a diet product. So, marketing music from a straight-up traditional Internet marketing approach is, in my opinion, not entirely possible. The reason why I think this is: Products that sell very well online tend to solve people’s problems.  (Like Losing weight or making more money). I am captivated by how musicians can use some of these basic principles, to increase their own bottom line in the digital space. I’m going to break each one of the three principles down from a musician’s perspective, and my next three posts here will focus on each one.

This blog post will focus on #1.

So How Do You Increase your number of clients (fans)?

I am always shocked when musicians I work for at Cyber PR®, are desperate to reach more and more potential fans without really focusing on the fans that they already have. These fans don’t need to be found, because they are already your fans.

Studies have proven that it is much harder to make a new client and get them to purchase something than it is to get a client that already knows you and trusts you to purchase from you over and over.

I always suggest that, in measuring fans, the best place to look is at your social networks and at your mailing list.

Your newsletter list is the only place where you can directly engage with your fans on your own terms.

Not Facebook’s terms, and not Twitter’s terms.

10 Fail-Safe Ways to Increase/ Engage With Your Fan base

Here are 10 fail-safe ways to increase / engage with your fanbase by pulling from fans that you already know and have who trust and like you!

1. Get serious about your newsletter.  

Use Fanbridge.com or ReverbNation.com and send your newsletter one time per month.  Track your effectiveness by monitoring your open rates.

2. Mine your inbox and outbox for names and addresses to add.  

Ask all of your friends if it’s OK to add them to your list, otherwise you might be considered a spammer.

3. Bring a clipboard to each and every live appearance.  

Invite people onto your mailing list with a raffle or giveaway from stage, and collect e-mail addresses.  During your performance, hold the CD up on stage and than give it away, you’ve just inserted a full commercial into your set without feeling “salesy” and you’ve excited one of your fans by giving them a gift.

4. Include a special offer on your home page with a free exclusive MP3 or video.

Use the Reverbnation Fan Collector or Free Download widgets to deliver it.

TIP: Make sure this download is not available anywhere.  Not streaming on your Facebook page.  Only on your website.

And of course it can also be available for purchase on your CD, but make sure that no one can get it anywhere else online. This will motivate people to sign up to your mailing list!

5. Follow 25 new people a week on Twitter.

6. Send out e-mails to your most engaged fans on Facebook and ask if you can have their e-mail addresses for your newsletter.  This is a bit arduous but the results will pay off.

7. Do the same with Twitter.

8. Start a blog and start sharing photos and stories and thoughts.

Note: you can also use Instagram to take pictures from your iPhone or Android phone, which can then be shared through Facebook and Twitter.

9. Start a podcast or a vodcast and interview other artists with big followings.  Ask them to share your podcast with their fans and followers.  It doesn’t have to be a big production.  It can be a small, informal video at YouTube.  Click here to see mine.   http://www.youtube.com/arielpublicity

10. Ask your fans to review your music at CD Baby, iTunes, and Amazon.  

How Do You Build Your Fan Base?

My next blog post will attack principle number two, increasing the frequency of purchase. In the meantime, I would love to hear how you build your fan base in the form of a comment below

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Are you still not sending out newsletters to your fans? Studies prove you should be… Boston based research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey has completed a study that all musicians should know about.

Here are the important highlights:

Three-quarters of web users are likely to share content with friends and family, and nearly half do so at least once a week. But while much social networking content is built around such shared items, most people still prefer to use email to pass along items of interest.

The study goes on to say:

Overall, 86% of survey respondents said they used email to share content, while just 49% said they used Facebook. Broken down by age, the preference for email is more pronounced, as users get older. And only the youngest group polled, those ages 18 to 24, reverses the trend, with 76% sharing via Facebook, compared with 70% via email.

So, if your audience is older than 24 you better be thinking about your newsletter strategy now!

In conclusion the study says:

“Rather than focusing on sharing content they thought the recipients would find helpful or relevant (58%), most respondents cared more about what they thought was interesting or amusing (72%).

Here’s the entire study if you want to read it (with lots of pretty graphs too): http://bit.ly/b4dfcI

So, ask yourself:

Are you including content in your newsletters that is interesting and amusing.

If you are just talking about your next show and or your next release then you may be missing the mark.

Long story short, in the online world, email is still king when it comes to generating revenue. You make relationships with fans on your social networks, and turn them into customers with your newsletter.

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I met Kat Parsons through a mutual friend and she hired us to write a full marketing plan for her. After working closely with her, I thought she would be the perfect addition to the 1000 True Fans series! By putting a strong focus on building her mailing list and genuine engagement through social media, Kat has been able to take the big leap into becoming a full-time musician. Her understanding of building long-lasting relationships with her fans has helped her to build a sustainable career in the music industry, and it is one worth discussing, so enjoy!

Ariel Hyatt: How do you make the 1,000 True Fans theory work for you?

Kat Parsons: I’m big into authenticity and connection and think that is key to engaging and developing a community around music… I think community is also one of the keys to happiness.

AH: Can you give us a breakdown percentage wise of the following:

KP:

House Concerts / Private Shows 70%
Live shows? 10%
CD sales? / Download sales? 10%
Film & TV 10%

AH: How many die hard fans would you say you have – fans that will buy everything and anything from you?

KP: I would probably base this on my Kickstarter campaign – there were 181 people who pledged through Kickstarter and another 30 who pledged privately directly to me. My mailing list is far greater than that and many of the people on there will buy my new upcoming recordings. I just moved servers but before I moved servers, my mailing list was 10,000.

AH: How do you go about attracting and connecting with “true fans?”

KP: I love FB…I love interacting with people on FB, but most of my connection comes through live shows. I do A LOT of house concerts in crazy places I never imagined visiting! Through those shows I meet new fans who invite me to their homes whose friends then invite me to their homes and….

AH: What is your favorite social media site and why? What advice would you give to an artist just starting on that site?

KP: Facebook. Sometimes I am verbose and I like the space…I don’t think in tweets! I also like how I can go to one place to see everyone’s responses and comment on everyone’s reply in one place.

AH: Which analytics platforms (if any) do you use? How do those metrics help you manage your music career?

KP: I am about to start using googleanalytics and getclicky.com….I am working on a new internet marketing strategy that will rely on new traffic…so I will be experimenting with ways of bringing people into the community and intend to used the analytics to tell me which ways work best.

AH: Can you describe how you accumulated so many email addresses and persuaded your fans to fund your album, “No Will Power?”

KP: I’ve played a lot of concerts and I really enjoy connecting with people. For better or worse, I am very warm and accessible at my shows (no matter how hard I try, I cannot be mysterious!!!). I used to walk around with my mailing list and meet everyone.

AH:  How do you get invited to play at house concerts?

KP: Most of my house concerts are invitations through guests of a house concert. I think what is unique about the way I do it, is that I really don’t think anything is outside the realm of possibility. If someone says, we’d love to have you come play in Singapore, I say “Ok” and we set about finding a way to make that happen, which often times meaning booking several shows in the same area to cover overhead and my fee.

AH:  How do you pursue house concert opportunities?

KP: When someone expresses interest, I follow up with them regularly and we never give up until we’ve got a date on the books!

AH:  How do you build on the relationships made from the house concerts, both the relationship with the host and the patrons?

KP: I make sure to express my gratitude to my hosts and the guests….it is such an honor to be invited into someone’s home and for them to want to share my music with their friends…I try to always be aware of that and make the concert tons of fun!

AH: What items do you sell the most of at house concerts?

KP: Cds. That is all the merch I currently have.

AH: If you had $1,000 to spend on marketing and promotion, how would you spend that money?

KP: Internet Marketing – getting traffic and then bonding with my audience and making special pffers for being a part of this!

AH: What was your initial vision for connecting to fans and how did Social Media change that?

KP: It’s always been in person, but as time goes on, I am getting so much enjoyment out of connecting through Facebook, in particular. Sometimes it can be really overwhelming….it feels like you are supposed to have a profile that you update every day on 15 social media sites. I have found that for me, it is more important to focus on one and make the relationship rewarding then spread myself thin on everything. I like that FB allows a deeper relationship and bonding with fans that they can opt into,.

—

Kat Parson’s new album ‘Talk To Me’ is now available! Go to KatParsonsMusic.com for a free download!

Follow Kat on Twitter at @KatParsonsSings

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Click the image to download

With social media growing at such a rapid pace, I decided it was a good idea to revisit my social media food pyramid and update it for 2012.

So…

Here’s Your Social Media Food Pyramid

It happens to me all of the time when I teach artists social media.The face goes blank, the frustration begins to settle in and then the artist says it:

“I just don’t have anything interesting to say.”

REALLY?

I’m shocked by this every time.  You are an artist; you do things we mere mortals are totally enamored by: you PLAY MUSIC, you write songs, you perform them in public!

So PUHLEEASE, do not tell me you have nothing interesting to say. I ain’t buying it.

All you are missing is a System for Social Media Success.

Luckily, unlike sheer god-given musical talent, social media is a learnable skill.

The inspiration for this hit me while I was teaching my system to a client in my kitchen…

THE FOOD PYRAMID!

Now, I’ve been told they don’t actually teach this in school anymore… but for those of you old enough to remember, do you remember that chart they brought out when we were in 2nd grade to show us how to eat well-rounded meals? I have re-tooled it for you so you can now participate on Social Media healthily! And you won’t even have to think about it – just follow along…

You wouldn’t eat only bagels all of the time.  They are a treat once in awhile, but they are not healthy to eat every day – and a diet of only bagels would be boring!

Most artists are only serving their audiences bagels all of the time. Plain bagels. Over an over again.

Uninteresting.

We want a burger, or a giant green healthy salad, we want some candy.

We want the protein but you keep serving bagels, bagels, bagels!

These are five things that when used in concert with one another can help you ratchet up your social media effectively and manage it easily.

Use these as a guide to mix and match them to suit your comfort level (just like your diet, eat what feels right for you)

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