What if:
- people had access to downloads to commercial music
- people can listen to commerical music online for free
- people had access to downloads for illegal copied commercial music
- what if people didn't like indi tracks
- what if people didn't want to download music daily
- what if people didn't want to pay for singles
- what if people had access to many thousands of music tracks?
There are many what ifs around. But we know that they are not what ifs, we know they are here and more than likely they are going to stay.
Unfortunately commercial music will be copied, we have access to CD burning/ ripping software that is bundled with our computers and people know all to well about illegal downloads/ file sharing sites.
I don't even think people care too much if you are an indi act really.
But when faced with all the what ifs (or what nows), what actually do you do?
It is very possible to change peoples perception and to change their views on things. Walmart sells some cool stuff, but I have found one or two near enough the same object in the DollarStore for...one dollar. But people still buy from Walmart, the same goods because there is some value behind it.
If you can make your music "valued" to the customer you will get more buyers. If you bundle stuff with your music (like a coupon, or even free tracks/ videos) then you will get that repeat business. 1 single is never going to be worth $3- handle it, unless it is a great group's song, something is bundled with it, you have 5 different artist remixes of it as well, or they are subscribed to a club for "special members".
Don't think about all the negatives of the music world, change is going to happpen whether you like it or not, instead think about how you can adapt and change with it.
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Make Your Site Sticky?
I have a list of sites that I visit daily. They are on a list that hardly changes. Hotmail, Blogger, My Website...and that is about it....it takes about 2 hours to do properly.
I also listen to music that I have downloaded some months ago.
When I go onto the Internet I don't want to buy something.
When I go onto the Internet I don't want to click on a flashy Ad
When I go on the Internet I have to delete 87 messages (counted today, it will be higher than that everyday after) telling me how I could earn $10k/ month.
Now out of all those things, many more I have left out, how do you make people go back to your site and how do you get them to actually download a music track?
If anyone says Podcasting or Blogging, you are right and wrong. I subscribed to a very influencial blog and after 6 weeks of 3 weekly texts I just couldnt be bothered. I found what I was looking for and it is such a chore keeping up to date with something that is hardley making a massive income.
This also becomes MySpace and Facebook, eventually that will become a chore, overcrowded and filled with marketing types.
Why should I bother searching for tracks that could be crap? Why should I use up my bandwidth to download a track on a weekly basis and delete my old music?
Unfortunately we live in a can't be bothered society and one that hasn't got time to actually do something.
Most of the sites on the Internet don't actually make any money- 3% do. CraigsList is massive but it only makes $4 million a year. Loads of cash to us but to a site that is invested in and has traffic coming out of its ears it is pretty poor. Most artists don't get contracts and the ones that do have to sell music, if not they are dropped.
These are the things you must think of. The only reason sites are profitable is that there is trust between the person buying and the person selling. I buy from Amazon even though many sites out there cost much less because I trust Amazon. Cold call selling- spam doesn't work. Emailing a bought list will not work well because of the lack of trust.
A marketer offered an email list $10 if they answered the ad...no one did. It was real as well.
So you need to gain trust with your prospects. This invariably means giving stuff away for free. If that is of good quality and is up to their expectations then you have passed a good stage. If you can get them to sign upto your newsletter then all the better- but don't use it as an advertisement medium and constantly sell. If it is not relevent or even slightly boring then you will have lost people.
You see, with newsletters once you have signed up and got their bonuses (what you subscribed in the first place for) what is the point of continuing? One of them I haven't had any tips yet- apart from two lines that repeated what they gave in the free subscription offer. However they are pretty good at packing the email with ads and affiliate links- stating they "highly recommend" the product.
I have subscribed to many marketing newsletters- 7 at the last count. I don't open them all. One offered one product another oftered another product. I went round picking them up and found what I was looking for. Also after 5 emails, they all became the same.
So this got me thinking. Your music newsletter must be relevent to you and promise stuff for the future. Obvious I know, but like the marketers have done- don't give away ebooks that release most of your ideas first time around. Don't go overboard. Offer a few MP3s that are not anywhere else but then list what can come up - tickets, discounts, albums, remixes, co-ops, internet meetings, etc.
This way you keep the people subscribed- they become special.
I also listen to music that I have downloaded some months ago.
When I go onto the Internet I don't want to buy something.
When I go onto the Internet I don't want to click on a flashy Ad
When I go on the Internet I have to delete 87 messages (counted today, it will be higher than that everyday after) telling me how I could earn $10k/ month.
Now out of all those things, many more I have left out, how do you make people go back to your site and how do you get them to actually download a music track?
If anyone says Podcasting or Blogging, you are right and wrong. I subscribed to a very influencial blog and after 6 weeks of 3 weekly texts I just couldnt be bothered. I found what I was looking for and it is such a chore keeping up to date with something that is hardley making a massive income.
This also becomes MySpace and Facebook, eventually that will become a chore, overcrowded and filled with marketing types.
Why should I bother searching for tracks that could be crap? Why should I use up my bandwidth to download a track on a weekly basis and delete my old music?
Unfortunately we live in a can't be bothered society and one that hasn't got time to actually do something.
Most of the sites on the Internet don't actually make any money- 3% do. CraigsList is massive but it only makes $4 million a year. Loads of cash to us but to a site that is invested in and has traffic coming out of its ears it is pretty poor. Most artists don't get contracts and the ones that do have to sell music, if not they are dropped.
These are the things you must think of. The only reason sites are profitable is that there is trust between the person buying and the person selling. I buy from Amazon even though many sites out there cost much less because I trust Amazon. Cold call selling- spam doesn't work. Emailing a bought list will not work well because of the lack of trust.
A marketer offered an email list $10 if they answered the ad...no one did. It was real as well.
So you need to gain trust with your prospects. This invariably means giving stuff away for free. If that is of good quality and is up to their expectations then you have passed a good stage. If you can get them to sign upto your newsletter then all the better- but don't use it as an advertisement medium and constantly sell. If it is not relevent or even slightly boring then you will have lost people.
You see, with newsletters once you have signed up and got their bonuses (what you subscribed in the first place for) what is the point of continuing? One of them I haven't had any tips yet- apart from two lines that repeated what they gave in the free subscription offer. However they are pretty good at packing the email with ads and affiliate links- stating they "highly recommend" the product.
I have subscribed to many marketing newsletters- 7 at the last count. I don't open them all. One offered one product another oftered another product. I went round picking them up and found what I was looking for. Also after 5 emails, they all became the same.
So this got me thinking. Your music newsletter must be relevent to you and promise stuff for the future. Obvious I know, but like the marketers have done- don't give away ebooks that release most of your ideas first time around. Don't go overboard. Offer a few MP3s that are not anywhere else but then list what can come up - tickets, discounts, albums, remixes, co-ops, internet meetings, etc.
This way you keep the people subscribed- they become special.
Friday, 25 April 2008
How many ways to market your music
I have been away for sometime and apologies for that, but I had some time to think about marketing your music. People say do blogs, do websites, do MySpace, do Facebook....do everything.
Now I don't know about you but I am sick and tired of every new website idea (Facebook is an idea that is based on MySpace, just a different version) coming out and people jumping on the band wagon and then wreaking it for the rest of us by over competition.
MySpace is a great way to market your tunes, but there are so many bands there and so many commercial bands that it is getting harder to do anything now. People are jumping on each others pages and leaving comments and joining as friends just to get you to do the same to them.
The blogs are just as bad. First you have to come up with something regular and either controversial, stupid, lies, or whatever. Then you have to jump around on other peoples sites and leave a message and a back link.
Now you have to build your own website, furnish it with info, make tunes for it, host it, and put up a newsletter on it...
Now I know for a fact that I don't have that much time. I can not do everything at once because I am human.
If I interacted with my fake friends on Facebook, left messages to all my competitors on MySpace, wrote about my dinner in a blog and posted a newsletter that is trying to get people to buy or read...when am I going to get the chance to do all of that?
If you post a blog message it needs to be regular and interesting otherwise it is useless. With millions of blogs out there you will only look at a couple regularly. The others you will only find for that one thing you searched on Google for. You need to promote it like a website, you need to "decorate" it like a website. So why not build a website?
So get a website, host your own blog and newsletter on that site, so you keep all of the traffic to your site.
Community sites are very much in the now. But ultimately the site that you host with owns all your traffic. If you go into Alexa.com (website stat and info site) and type in your site www.facebook.com/mysite it won't really come up as Facebook owns you. More traffic to them the better they become...they all follow this simple idea. So the best way is to reverse the flow of traffic, make them work for you.
Get a MySpace or Facebook page and then dedicate a certain amount of time per week for updates and promotion, but keep to your time limit, keep to your main website.
Far too long have marketing types stated that have only these sites and you will be minted, maybe so then, but when it comes to sustainability, growth and development then having your own site is the only way to go.
Now I don't know about you but I am sick and tired of every new website idea (Facebook is an idea that is based on MySpace, just a different version) coming out and people jumping on the band wagon and then wreaking it for the rest of us by over competition.
MySpace is a great way to market your tunes, but there are so many bands there and so many commercial bands that it is getting harder to do anything now. People are jumping on each others pages and leaving comments and joining as friends just to get you to do the same to them.
The blogs are just as bad. First you have to come up with something regular and either controversial, stupid, lies, or whatever. Then you have to jump around on other peoples sites and leave a message and a back link.
Now you have to build your own website, furnish it with info, make tunes for it, host it, and put up a newsletter on it...
Now I know for a fact that I don't have that much time. I can not do everything at once because I am human.
If I interacted with my fake friends on Facebook, left messages to all my competitors on MySpace, wrote about my dinner in a blog and posted a newsletter that is trying to get people to buy or read...when am I going to get the chance to do all of that?
If you post a blog message it needs to be regular and interesting otherwise it is useless. With millions of blogs out there you will only look at a couple regularly. The others you will only find for that one thing you searched on Google for. You need to promote it like a website, you need to "decorate" it like a website. So why not build a website?
So get a website, host your own blog and newsletter on that site, so you keep all of the traffic to your site.
Community sites are very much in the now. But ultimately the site that you host with owns all your traffic. If you go into Alexa.com (website stat and info site) and type in your site www.facebook.com/mysite it won't really come up as Facebook owns you. More traffic to them the better they become...they all follow this simple idea. So the best way is to reverse the flow of traffic, make them work for you.
Get a MySpace or Facebook page and then dedicate a certain amount of time per week for updates and promotion, but keep to your time limit, keep to your main website.
Far too long have marketing types stated that have only these sites and you will be minted, maybe so then, but when it comes to sustainability, growth and development then having your own site is the only way to go.
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