Ariel Publicity

The last half of 2011 was intense for a lot of us.  The financial news across the world remained bleak, Occupy Wall Street was all over the news as the 99% spoke up to be heard.

The music business continued to take hits with Spotify’s arrival and news of more layoffs at record labels, management companies as we all scratched our heads to blog about positive things and good outcomes

Many of you may have seen this article (or another one) on setting goals as they crop up at this time of year.

It’s a new year and a clear slate is in front of all of us. The turning of the calendar from 2011 to 2012 is an ideal time to set your goals. I see a marked difference between artists who set finite goals and those who do not regardless of what is happening in the world and in the news.

Ask yourself: Is this the year I want to make a difference for my music career?  And if so – what difference and how?

Think of goal setting as if you were driving in a foreign place – You wouldn’t get where you expect to go without a clear set of directions. Goal setting is like drawing a map for yourself.

This article is designed to assist you in creating a personal roadmap for achieving what you would like with your musical career this year, whether you consider music your hobby and you do it part time or you are making a living out of it full-time.

I have included a few links from some of the best musician related posts on how to think about and achieve goals as well.  So, bookmark this long article and refer to it throughout the year!

MAPPING OUT YOUR GOALS

Many studies have proven that long-term perspective is the most accurate single predictor of upward social and economic mobility in America. And it has been proven that people who have goals written down are much more likely to achieve them.

FOCUS AREAS – CREATING ORDER 

STEP 1: Write Down Your Focus Areas

Here is a list of some areas you may want to focus on. Skip the ones that are not for you and write out each focus area goal.

Branding – Your look and feel your image and health or your pitch and overall messaging.

Marketing – What will you do this year for your marketing plans.

Newsletter -  It’s still the #1 way to make money!  What will you do to create and send yours 12 – 24 times this year & how many people can you add to your e-mail list.

Website  – Building a new one or diversifying your online presence?

Social Networking  – How’s your Facebook Fan Page looking? How many tweets do you send each week?

PR – Getting covered on radio, print, or online.

Booking – Touring or local gigs this year or a combination?

New Music – How much will you release?

Money – How much money you would like to earn?

Film & TV Placements – Will you work towards them this year?

Expanding Your Fan Base – How will you do this?

Team – Will you be trying to get a manager or a booking agent?

Time – How will you manage to balance your time this year to make sure you can focus on your musical goals?

Songwriting – Recording an album or EP this year or just releasing singles as they come?

Instrument – Buying a new instrument or taking lessons?

Personal Health – So your performance is better – exercise, eating  etc.

STEP 2: Write Your Goals Down

•  Write each goal as if it is already happening – use the present tense

• Give dates by when you want to achieve each one

• Your goals should involve you and only you (they can’t be contingent on someone else)

•  Make them so they are realistically achievable

• Start with small goals so I can get them checked off the list and get in momentum fast!

• Make sure they make you FEEL MOTIVATED to complete!  Derek Sivers wrote great commentary on this: http://sivers.org/goals

STEP 3: Look At Them Everyday

I highly recommend writing your goals neatly on paper or creating a vision board that illustrates them. Use colored pens or make a collage that brings them to life and hang them in a place where you can see them everyday.

Keeping them within your sights will keep them in your mind

Carla Lynne Hall at Rockstar Life Lessons has a fabulous guide on how to create a vision board on her blog: http://bit.ly/CarlasVisionBoard

TECHNIQUES FOR ACHIEVING GOALS

1. Start With An Easy Goal And Complete It

One of the main reasons people don’t end up achieving their goals / keeping their new years resolutions is they set themselves up for failure by choosing goals that take a lot of discipline and time to achieve. There is nothing wrong with having big goals however, here’s what I recommend to overcome this issue…

Choose a simple goal and get it achieved within the next two weeks. This will start your momentum and get you feeling like you are in full forward motion.

Think of a small, achievable goal that only takes four to five hours to complete.

Choose something like:

• Organize cluttered studio
• Clean off desk
• Delete unwanted files from computer & emails
• Recycle last years unwanted papers
• Write one new song

Next, set a date when you will get it done by and go for it.

Now that you have achieved a goal within the first two weeks of the new year, the rest of your goal setting will seem a lot easier to accomplish, and you will be able to get things off your plate.

2. Make Lists To Stay On Track 

• Make daily lists of what you need to do to get your goals met – the night before! Do the hardest thing first in the morning – don’t procrastinate.

• Do something everyday that moves you towards the goals

• Delegate the little activities that waste your valuable time to other people (you would be amazed what you could do with 4 hours it takes to clean your house).

• Don’t overload yourself – studies show that 6 tasks is the maximum you can achieve in one day!

3.  Get Help

Build a TEAM to help you!! Get an intern or two – log on to http://www.entertainmentcareers.net and read http://www.internlikearockstar.com/ for inspiration and post as an employer seeking interns – you will be amazed at how many bright young people would like to get their feet wet in the business.

If you are not comfortable with the idea of an intern then ask a friend or a family member to help you.  Schedule just 2 hours a week with that person to attack the goals and get them in motion.

4. Structure Time to Achieve Goals

They won’t happen unless you have time to make sure they do!

Make sure you set aside time and stick to it with pigheaded diligence

5. Remember You Can Change The Goals As You Go

Goals should be looked at as beacons and guiding points for you to keep yourself on track along your journey.  I would not recommend changing them every week but the music industry is changing so rapidly it’s hard to know what goals are reachable in this landscape. So if the course of the year your goals change its OK to cross one off or modify as you go.

6. Write Down 5 Successes Each Day

I’m inviting you to write down five little victories a day for this entire year.

I learned this powerful technique years ago from T. Harv Eker.  Once you start getting into this habit, you are training yourself to put the focus on the positive and get your brain to stop being so critical.

So put a notebook in your gig bag or next to your bed and each day write down 5 things. Make one or two of them music or band related.

Here are some examples:

1. Went to gym.

2. Wrote lyrics for a new song.

3. Called three clubs for potential booking.

4. Did the dishes.

5. Posted a blog.

7. MY FINAL PIECE OF ADVICE – GO EASY ON YOU!

This is a process intended to take a whole year and you will have your days where you may get frustrated, and you will start to beat yourself up (sound familiar?)

Self-criticism will interfere directly with achieving your goals and dreams.  So, the next time you are making yourself wrong, take a step back and instead acknowledge the good, and celebrate your achievements.

Another thing that will stop you is not taking time for YOU so schedule time to reflect and take it all in.  Maybe that’s a walk in the woods, maybe that’s cooking yourself a decadent meal, or maybe it’s spending time with people you love and turning down your power for a few days without the pressure of a holiday or an event….

Here’s to your success in 2012!

PS

WANT A GUIDE TO HELP YOU?

I wrote one

My completely new THIRD edition of Music Success in Nine Weeks is available for presale now! (and it’s $5 less than last year!)

This edition is completely revamped and now includes a full chapter on YouTube as well as new sections on Fan funding, and new blogging techniques.

Each book comes with My Cyber PR® Mastermind Forum –  Get goal support for $27.99 (ebook) $29.99 (physical book)

Many fabulous musicians and I will be there help you along with your goals. 1 Membership comes with each purchase. 

Order now:

http://www.musicsuccessinnineweeks.com/

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A few days ago, the unstoppable Bob Baker asked me to write my predictions for marketing your music in 2012. I was included amongst a list of incredible thought leaders and it sparked a conversation here in the Cyber PR Office. So I asked my trustworthy team to share their own predictions for this coming year. Here they are:

Ariel Hyatt – President Ariel Publicity
Founder of Cyber PR®
Twitter: @CyberPR

1. Staying Positive and In Gratitude Will Help Tremendously
Before I make any music marketing trends and predictions for 2012 here’s where to start:
Remember, success in today’s quicksand like music business is HARD and takes WORK, getting into a negative, overwhelmed and angry place will directly effect your success. I’ve seen it now thousands of times in 12 countries. The artists I know who manage to stay positive and who are grateful for the little wins and for the small miracles are happier, more successful and go farther than their counterparts who let it all get the best of them.

2. Music Subscription Sites Will Continue To Takeover
Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody, Deezer MOG & Slacker.
These subscription based streaming sites are great for music consumers & not so great for artists. To stay ahead of the pack smart artist markers are going to have to come up with clever ways to incorporate their music and sharing on these powerful platforms that have music consumers going gaga. Sadly this will mean less revenue from sales of music but could provide great opportunities for discovery based creative marketers

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As you look to the future you may be getting in the mode to set goals for your career.

I am always surprised when musicians I work for at Cyber PR®, are frantically trying 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 and ask for money.

Here are 12 fail-safe ways to increase / engage with your fanbase by pulling from fans that you already know and have who trust and like you for 2012.

1. Get serious about your newsletter. Use Fanbridge, Nimbit, Hostbaby, Bandzoogle or ReverbNation. and send your newsletter one time per month. Track your effectiveness by monitoring your open, forward and bounce rates.

2. Mine through your email 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, talk about it 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 in front of everyone else who will secretly want a gift too.

4. Include a special offer on your website with a free exclusive MP3 or video (or better yet – several). Use the ReverbNation Fanbridge or Pledge music widgets to deliver it.

TIP: Make sure these downloads are not available anywhere else. Not streaming on your, Facebook page or on ReverbNation – widgets. Only on your website. Advertise that these are available on your other social networks.

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. I know what a pain in the arse to focus on this but many of these newly followed people will indeed follow you back and your network will begin to grow.

6. Send out e-mails to your most engaged fans through 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 any other networks you frequent.

8. Start a simple Tumblr blog and share photos, stories and thoughts.

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 (I make them in my office with my iPhone and edit them on my mac)

10. Ask your fans to review your music at CD Baby, iTunes, and Amazon. Ask them to make iMixes and Amazon Listmania! lists, and include your music on them.

11. Wish people a happy birthday (everyday) on Facebook! Send a link to you singing Happy Birthday on YouTube… This will be the most memorable birthday wish that they receive.

12. Practice random acts of kindness online regularly. Introduce people to each other who may benefit from knowing one another. Always start by asking how can I help instead of: What can they give me?

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Welcome back to Musician’s Arsenal! In this edition, I’m very excited to be presenting Onesheet to you. Onesheet is a very easy and effective web presence solution for musician’s struggling to create an attractive website. For those of us who can’t build a nice WordPress site to save our lives, Onesheet is here to save the day (while I don’t want to give the impression that creating a Onesheet excludes you from needing a website, this is a fantastic option that can take care of your web presence needs while you build a website the right way).

Creating a Onesheet is incredibly fast and almost too simple. First, you’ll need to enter your email address and create a password. Next, you have the option of verifying your Onesheet through Facebook or Twitter, or by choosing a desired Onesheet URL. Once you complete one of these two options, you choose the social media platforms you want to populate your Onesheet.

Onesheet can pull information from just about anywhere you have set up a social media profile online. Obviously, it can pull from the big sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, but Onesheet is much more expansive than that, click here to see the full list, it’s impressive, and it’s growing.

What makes this so powerful is that Onesheet is a one-stop destination for fans. On Onesheet, fans can view photos, see show dates and times, sign up for your mailing list, listen to songs, watch videos, read blog posts, see Facebook wall feed, read your tweet stream…and more!

I could go on, but I won’t, you get the idea. Your whole web presence consolidated in to one sleek looking page. The background of the page is a user-uploaded photo. The media player can be moved anywhere on the page and has several customizable options, including the very handy opacity feature. The font of the band name can be changed to be consistent with your branding. The customization isn’t overly robust, but it’s sufficient. Anything more and Onesheet would lose it’s ease of use, so I believe they’ve found the perfect balance.

The best part about Onesheet is, once you set it up, you don’t need to update it. Because it’s being fed by your other social media sites, and updating them keeps Onesheet up to date.

The only thing I wanted to see on Onesheet that isn’t there now is a way to incentivize fans who want to sign up for your mailing list. Here at Ariel Publicity, we advocate trading songs for email addresses, which most email capture widgets allow you to do. At the moment, when Onesheet imports your email capture system, (from Reverbnation, Fanbridge and many more) it does not import the capability to deliver a free MP3. But fear not, founder and creator, Brenden Mulligan is well aware of this and has informed me this is on his radar for a future addition.

There’s even more to be had from Onesheet than what I’ve just outlined here. Instead reading my endless ramblings, you should really just give it a go. It’s completely self-explanatory and you’ll have your very own Onesheet set up in 5 minutes or less. So get it set up and post a link here in the comments so we can all see!

Also let me know: What do you think of Onesheet?
Is really as easy as I make it out to be?
Is Onesheet the type of platform that can really knock out MySpace once and for all?

Jason Loomis is the director of New Media Relations at Ariel Publicity
Follow him on Twitter at @Jloom718

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Being Derek Sivers’ best friend is a blessing.

He’s my friend who:

Helped me create Cyber PR® In fact the design of the Cyber PR® campaigns and software were his idea.

Always cheers me up and talks me through whenever I think that I can’t do something

Is the first call on my birthday

This list can go on for pages but I will stop here and say

Congratulations Derek on your new book!

“Anything You Want – 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur”

And speaking of Entrepreneur, I interviewed him in depth on just this subject… It’s long but it is a wonderful deep dive into all things Derek…

Enjoy!

See the book announcement here: http://sivers.org/ayw

And the book page here: http://sivers.org/a

Ariel Hyatt & Derek Sivers… On Being An Entrepreneur

Derek Sivers. Derek founded CD Baby in 1997, and he invented what today is the distribution paradigm model for all independent musicians. Before CD Baby there was no way for independent musicians to get distribution without a record deal. Derek left CD Baby in 2008 to start a new business to help musicians called MuckWork.  He had reached a point where he felt like CD Baby could function without him and he had this new idea that he could not hold at bay. Derek often speaks to musicians about the state of the music business, and how to sell and market themselves. This is a rare interview because it shows Derek’s business-owner side and it addresses thoughts for people who want to get into the business and not musicians.

Entrepreneurs are by definition problem solvers and Derek had a double-sided good fortune.  As a musician he was frustrated by the fact that he could not get distribution for his own CDs. Because of personal experience, he identified a few major problems and he solved them with CD Baby.

Problem #1: Musicians could not get distributed anywhere unless they were signed. He solved this issue it by providing artists with an online distribution channel that allowed artists to accept credit cards

Problem #2: Distributors were only paying their artists 2-4 times a year and holding up valuable capital that was necessary for artists to use to self-fund their own development. Derek created a system that paid artists once a week no matter how many or how fee CDs they had sold which was revolutionary for artists who were not used to getting paid so regularly and fast.

Problem #3: Musicians are inherently lazy.

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Click here to order your copy of the new book: http://arielpublicity.com/musiciansroadmap/

In this episode of Sound Advice Ariel and Carla talk about how to find new fans on Twitter. They take this one step further and talk about the most effective ways to engage these fans once you’ve found them.

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