Internet Music Marketing

Has it been that long since the last post?

2009-02-26T17:12:00.003Z

It has been so long that I didn't remember my password. After a few minutes I realized that I was already logged in...the brain cell had a day off.

If you want some cool updating then the best place to go to is my Knights of the Music Marketing Round Table.

All up-to-date info- what you really need to know. If it isn't in there, well it isn't that good then.

I refuse to cover everything, because we just haven't got the time. You want something that works...and you want that thing to work now.

Become a Knight of the Music Marketing Round Table and see how you can be better than most musicians out there...today.

What If...

2008-04-30T23:25:00.003+01:00

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.

Make Your Site Sticky?

2008-04-29T02:10:00.002+01:00

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.

How many ways to market your music

2008-04-25T02:58:00.002+01:00

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.

Get Into iTunes.

2008-02-29T16:01:00.002Z

Hi

I have been asked quite a few time on how to get into iTunes, Walmart and many more.

Well here is the place. Sign up, load up your tunes and away you go: iTunes portal

Free has become accepted

2008-02-28T15:59:00.001Z

It is about time. Being free is now recognised as a good way to go. Check out the Wired article:

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free?currentPage=all

The Top 10 Music Marketing Problems AND Solutions

2008-02-25T19:19:00.002Z

I have now managed to sit down and write the fundamental music marketing do's and don'ts.

This is free stuff but very important. I have condensed what you get in many ebooks into the top 10 things that are bad for the music maker and their solutions.

You can check it out here: Top 10 Music Marketing Problems And Solutions .

Enjoy.

A Big Rant At The Brit Awards

2008-02-21T15:25:00.006Z

I saw the Brits the other night and what a load of rubbish it really was. I mean what was it all about?

With a huge amount of electro artists and a even bigger amount of listeners in clubs etc why is there no category for best dancey type music?

Who on earth was some of the artists? Was it me or were they playing the same old type of tunes that the Artics have done?

It has been done so leave it alone!

Respect to Kayne however...I will have no word said against him.

Rihanna was bold to go with a mix of umbrella and it worked well No award.

As a side note, The Klaxons are not Nurave (Drums and guitars with some keyboards in there...wow. How revolutionary). They are just a poor version of Linkin Park. Sorry but they are. Why the UK can't produce a decent Linkin Park clone is beyond me, but there we go.

Then you had an artist that was A Britaward student...and they won best ground breaking artist? Why? Because she was a student of the makers of the award? No, that would be skeptical but......

And how depressing is her music?

Every time I go onto that show (I am a sucker for punishment) I get the feeling that they are flogging a dead horse. Foo Fighters are cool, there is no doubt but Best International Group and Album? Is that all they could find?

Mika...why? He is slightly different, happy and jolly but so what. Songs should be if you are singing about the happiest time of your life. And no one should win an award if they go that high.

I am getting quite tired of the same old commercial music that comes out and gets rehashed. If it is not commercial, they don't want to know. If it is not in the charts they don't care. If it is not a CD then don't look at us.

But my biggest rant is this:

Why on earth do they have Paul McCartney on when he has over £500 million (half of which he hasn't donated to Live8, take note Bono who is also similarly loaded) is up on stage playing the most annoying tune "Hey Jude"? It is only annoying because he plays it all the flipping time. Did he say thanks to Lennon?

If it was me I would have the Brits, there is a place for them, but I would give awards to truly justifying artists. How on earth can someone from the Britschool have an award when there are huge Internet artists that have been far more successful by themselves without any help?

Why have Paul McCartney when they could easily devote 30 mins to unsigned artists? The Internet vote on the artists that they would like to see live?

Why do we promote artists who are making stacks of cash, where is the incentive for the unsigned to do well and to be noticed when they don't even get recognised?

If a BoyBand go up against a group who did their own tunes and lyrics then the boyband will win because of the boybands fan base and the commercial aspect of the awards...justice will not be done.

Why does the Brits focus so much on pop? Why not have 4 award shows for BritRock, BritElectro, BritDownload and BritPop?

The smaller award shows don't get the TV audience, so their artists don't get the maximum exposure that they deserve.

It is not all the Brits the Grammys have the same problem. I applaud though the Country Music Awards, separate awards that attracts big audiences and TV and has the same Kudos when you actually win an award.

I just think it is about deserving and proper voting. I know who I wanted to win but because I don't buy some teengirl mag or listen to an ageing format = radio then my vote will never be cast.

Is it my fault? No.

The people who determine who votes don't see me as a buyer, don't see me as a proper voter. If they can't get the vote forms out to me then it is their fault. They just believe it is the same old audience of 5 years ago and use the same advertising format.

It is a tall order but that is the problem with the Brits, its too open to a too wide audience. You can't capture everyone who is needed to vote.

They say "we advertised on Kerrrang Rock Music Channel"...yeah well Kerrang plays Eminem, how is that Rock? The Rock magazines on the other hand would be glad of the exposure and would tell the award people who actually was any good!

Chop the Brits up into 4 separate awards, hit the right voters and give the artists who deserve an award one...only then will the music industry figure out that they are not dying.

There are crap artists on the Brit awards because all the best ones are getting downloaded :) those are the ones that have done it themselves, have a really cool sound that hasn't been interfered with, and I have the biggest repect for them and I would give everyone of them an award.

Music Marketing Interview

2008-02-17T19:03:00.007Z

Hi

I have been working on a hour interview that I had with Kavit Haria who is director of the Music Mastermind Music Marketing Course.

Having been on the BBC in the UK and in various Newspapers I thought Kavit would be an ideal source for knowledge picking.

And so he is. I quizzed Kavit on a number of topics including: hints and tips on blogging, social network sites (which are the best), gigging and alot more.

I collected all the scraps of paper and wrote down everything that Kavit said.

I have created (The Best Kept) Secrets Of A Music Marketer.

You can download the pdf, completely free, from here: Marketing Interview.

How Slow Can You Go?

2008-02-14T19:10:00.003Z

I wanted to join an affiliate program that would work like a dream with a mini project that I have lined up.

So what do you do?

Contact the affiliate people, check out their great "pitch page" on their affiliate system (links, graphics etc) fill out a little form and they "will get back to you".

1 1/2 weeks later I still have no reply.

This is not good. Is that the way they treat their affiliate people, customers, sales...and money?

I hope not. I hope that they have lost my email, or that the dog sat on the mouse button and coinsidently clicked on the delete button.

But why I am making excuses?

There are loads of affiliate programs of this type around, and my little warning lights have told me to move away from this company.

They may have a great affiliate percent, they may have great conversion rates...but I don't want my site to suffer indirectly by them.

Sale lost just by being slow...not even an automation email to say they are processing my request.

Sale lost just by not answering their email on time.

Sale lost because even if they got back to me, I wouldn't go with them...I would have found someone else.

If you go slow, your customers will go faster to someone else. When everyone does exactly the same, the smallest bits of "customer service" can generate far better sales (immediate and future) than costly advertising.

Timberland

2008-02-13T15:57:00.003Z

The artists Timberland is going to release his next album as a download ringtone.

He says "this has never been done before"

Is he right in doing that or not?

I think it is a good idea (as long as the download is cheap enough) in the fact that they are trying something different. But I tend to worry.

I worry about the idea of a ringtone. Are people going to keep it as a ringtone, or are they going to transfer the tracks to their computer and burn it onto a CD? Is that going to increase piracy?

Also ringtones are spreadable and easily made, that is why they are so cool.

People enjoy the idea of converting their CDs to ringtones, it doesn't seem that bad a deal- it's free and it is not piracy. However to have a full album ringtone only could be iffy- could people Bluetooth it to their friends? So the initial sales could be high but later sales could be reduced.

If they can't Bluetooth it then that reduces a great marketing technique.

Also, if the tones are over $5 for the full album...then that would be wrong.

Will people buy the CD as well? I doubt it. Unless that is an industry ploy.

Ringtones are a huge growth area, but I would feel dissapointed that I only had the ringtone of the full album.

What the companies could do is give a voucher for 60% off the normal CD to encourage buying of those after the tones have been sold (at $2-3 for the album).

Watch this space.

When It Comes To Adwords I Thought I Saw It All

2008-02-13T14:35:00.002Z

I did an article on piano lessons, and I put some Adwords around it, you can check it out here: Piano Article.

Now what I saw on the left hand side was something that actually made me stop and look. Then look again.

Serendipity Music School have an Ad there. Problem being they also have a phone number on their Ad.

What on earth is all that about?

All it says is "piano lessons for adults and children phone ...."

Now are they thinking that I am going to stop, run hysterically to the phone and call them up, because of that Ad?

No.

Are they going to get crank callers?

Probably :)

I think they are trying to be too clever. They have thought, "actually if we put our phone number on the Ad then people will click it rather than jumping to our site"

I went to their site and found one or two faults.

1 I am about 100 miles away from them, and I am not going to go to their school just to learn the piano...obviously geography selector in Adwords wasn't used.

2 Their webname is too long. Also I guessed it was .com, but it is in the UK, so couldn't they use .co.uk?

3 As soon as you get to their site, guess what is the very first page you see? A telephone number!

4 For a school, there is no pictures of anyone...anywhere on the site.

5 On the "About Us" link, there is an address? So the address made the site? No one is updating it...it is all controlled by an address? Do you have to write to them to know the background of the company?

6 "Aural/ Ear Training" is one of the course descriptions...nothing else. Is that where your ear jumps around and through hoops?

The site has been made by someone who knows too much.

If I designed a site I make it from a beginner point of view, with free Youtube videos to explain the point.

If I don't know a topic that well, I learn it and write down my learning curve. What is the point of Aural/ Ear Training? What does it mean, why do I need to use or learn about that?

And there are no pictures, there is no picture of the person taking the lessons, there is no bio, qualifications, no pictures of their piano room...

There is no reason why I should go with them. The benefits of using their school rather than another one is just not expressed on their site...or even on the Adwords Ad.

Just no detail...

I am not picking on Serendipity, there are a few sites that are like this. So if you are building your music site up, make sure you know who you are dealing with, know your audience, and ultimately...what are you trying to achieve with your site?

Blogs, MySpace And A 600% Increase In Music Sales. The Ultimate Secret.

2008-02-11T15:27:00.001Z

There is a little study that was released from the NYU’s Business School. They decided to check out the music marketing arena specifically about Blogs and do they actually increase sales. This occurred from Jan 07 to Feb 07. It is important to note that it was done over one month!

They tracked 108 albums sales. They compared people who did nothing and promoted their albums normally (this would be the base line) with people who promoted using blogs and MySpace.

The results were quite shocking.

They found that people who had MySpace friends and did promotion between them increased sales. However the amount of friends that you do have does matter however, they found one other little thing.

MySpace was good, but blogging was much better.

If the album they were talking about was released by a major label, sales increased by 5 times.

If there were about 40 posts, then sales jumped by 3 times. However, if there were over 250 posts, then sales jumped up 6 times.

Now this is hugely significant especially about the power of "word of mouth".

Online chatter that is free seems to create a better sales pitch or a better advertisement than the traditional blatant advertisement method.

Something to think about. We have to think about the type of blogs that were used, but I would suggest that they must have been very relevant (i.e. to specific genre) and the post must have been in a promotional area or the writer must already have been known to the blog.

One just has to look at the whole issue and see that it is astoundingly easy for a "non label" musician to do exactly the same as their labelled counterparts. I would assume though that time is the main problem. However, fo the indi musician who should already be blogging and MySpace friend making then this shouldn't be much of a problem.

I know that you are screaming out about blogs and have I got any tips for you. Well I have :)

Here are just a few tips to increase subscribers and have a cool blog:

1: Make sure that your blog is updated and relevant. Seems obvious, but people seem to use a blog just for advertisement. Forget that notion. It needs to be updated a least twice a week. Not too many times as people just won't have time to read all your text.

2: Link your blog to your website and tell people about it in your newsletter (you do have a newsletter right?). Also use ping services (go into Google and type in Blog ping) after each post. Make sure that people can bookmark your blog as well. There are many services on the net that allow you to place code on your blog to subscribe via RSS and to bookmark.

3: Too many words are just plain boring. Add graphics and video. This just makes your blog seem...more professional and also subconsciously increases your knowledge.

4: Promote your blog like you would your site. Post into blog directories, make and post articles and include a link back to your blog. Relevantly comment on other peoples blogs, including a link back to your site.

5: Make your blog keyword friendly. Your main keyword/ tags should be in the headline and like an hourglass throughout your text (more at the top, little in the middle, more at the bottom). Oh, and make sure that you have a hyperlink with your keyword.

Remember though that a blog is a build up mechanism. One post won't bring you legions of fans but regular posts over time will get people alerted to your presence. You need to turn a stranger into a listener and then into a friend.

Just remember that people are giving you their time, so reward them with good content. This is so as well on MySpace, make sure that your friends are given what they signed up to: information about you and your group not just constant advertisements.

I have found and reviewed a great information source on how to create download surges and moniterising your blog. It can be found here: Blogging, Traffic and Money.

CD thought?

2008-02-10T14:40:00.000Z

I have always wondered about this one. If I take out a CD, took away its plastic packaging, took away the paper and actually took away the CD what do I have?

If someone said just music, great you would be right.

If you look at things logically. You would decrease the amount of time spent to reproduce the thing, and decrease the hours and wages that take to create one.

So the biggest wonder of my time at the present is this:

Why do we charge $12 for an album download?

Is it a wonder then why people pirate stuff?

I think the decent folk out there will buy something for what they thought the album is worth. The most famous example is Radiohead who said their audience could buy their new album at any price they wish.

It averaged out at $5.

Unfortunately they released the album in the shops as well, fleece your audience...nice style Radiohead...[growl]

But instead of thinking, wow, this is great, we have figured out what people are willing to pay, so lets do something about this. Downloading sites are still offering downloads at over $10.

I went over to CDBaby, nice basic site...most downloads $12.

If you want to buy a CD...$12.

However, I believe that the CD is going to die..

CDBaby also realise that, and have now released HostBaby for musicians.

But musicians haven't realised the fact yet.

And neither have record companies. If they did then all of their music would be up for download at $5 a shot (CD presses, artists, shipping- all gone and prices reduced). It wouldn't put an end to piracy fully, but it would heavily dent it.

It would also dent the record shops, and put people out of work in CD presses.

However change is needed. And it is the record companies fault that we haven't done anything about this mess yet. Unfortunately they will panic and try downloads in the future, but by then it will be too late. Musicians would have found out about downloading and the record companies will downsize. Would they be needed in the future? I doubt it, maybe to organise large concerts and tours...but why else would you need one?

Bleak picture, but true...we live in a "now" society that utilises downloads.

Kill the CD, and offer downloads.

Banner Ads In All Forms Are...

2008-02-09T13:22:00.000Z

I just went onto my music hosting site and they are offering promotions. All fair and well but they don't offer one tiny little bit of information which would make it worthwhile for you:

The CLR.

This is the clickthrough rate.

This makes it all the worhwhile, and is what most marketing people don't do.

The CLR is all part of testing, and that is what most people hate because it proves once and for all if something works or not.

If I said to you that banner ads do not work, full stop, and offered you proof of that, well you wouldn't spend anything on that adertisement area would you. You would invest in something that works.

Oh, and banner ads don't work.

Some point in time you probably will advertise. To sell your music probably. But how do you know what works and what doesn't?

Testing.

Testing makes a good marketer and good sales. Someone who doesn't test doesn't make sales.

If you test a headline for people to buy your music you can change that headline every week to find out which headline is the most profitable.

I know banner ads don't work because other marketing people have made those tests and anyone who does banner ads will lose money.

However increasing your community presence will increase sales. Increasing your subscribers, increasing your listers through online forums and "community sites" will increase any sales and downloads.

It has been tested. So don't wate your money.

5 Steps Top Do It Yourself In Music

2008-02-03T12:13:00.000Z

This is my, "Cut it out and stick it on a wall guide to make your own splash in music".

I think the title needs shortening.

However here are the three ways that you can do it by yourself in music. You will buy many books, subscribe to many places, but ultimately this is the way that you can succeed...and hey! I'm telling you for free.

1. Make sure that your music is good. This is quite hard as alot of your friends will say "yeah great"...that is not the people you want reviewing your music. You want them to tell the truth. It may be harsh truth, but without it you will never know how to improve your music, churn out the constant stuff and wonder why people are not downloading your stuff. So go onto garageband.com upload your tracks and see what people think. They actually review your tunes so that would be your first port of call.

Please note, if you have a super dooper website costing alot of cash, then it will not make your songs any better.

2. Make sure that you have your own site and domain. This only costs a few dollars a year now. I have my domains ordered for my birthday present. What is the idea of the website? To present and showcase your music, not your art or how well you can get downloaders annoyed by uploading a flash intro.

Your website should have on the first screen a java MP3 player which will allow people to hear your songs. I would suggest in the middle to middle top of the screen. The player should have a link to your downloads as well.

The site should have on the side in links : contact us, download our music, about us, pictures, testimonials, our gig videos, gig dates, newsletter, blog,

Everything should be a click away

3. Promote yourself. This is not as hard as you think. Promoting is by giging, telling your friends and family about your group. Putting your music on all these free sites. The problem is with those sites they work on a link to them basis. To get higher in the charts you need more people linking to your tunes...too many links everywhere. Make sure that your free music profile includes a link to your site. Also join in with chats and put a link to your music (on your site).

4. Repeat number 3. Ultimately you need people to get to your site, and you need to turn a stranger into a subscriber. Do that with free tunes, ebook, pictures...anything that is related to your music. Keep on doing step three. It is all about keeping in contact, keeping uptodate and treating your visitors like people who will help you. Oh, and do more gigs.

5. Open an account at Clickbank, then sell your albums using credit cards, and Paypal (Clickbank handle this so don't worry about it). This is vastly new for musicians, but you can sell upto 99 things. If you have an downloadable album, this would be perfect.

Adding extra stuff to your download product will increase the reason for somebody to buy your album. Add an ebook, pictures, two albums even.

And that is it. Once you have your own website it is quite simple to increase downloads and to get a frenzy for your music.

Google Ads And Your Loss #2

2008-01-28T10:54:00.000Z

I have had a little rant about Google Ads before. Apologies for bringing it up again, but I feel that it needs some chatting.

My view?

I think that if you are a content site you have spent a while building it up. Now, you put on your site Google Ads. Now people who don't like your content or even want something else, they click on an Ads and you get 10c or so per click.

My problem is that you might not see that person again, and the links that you have on your site will be worthless. The company has made $20 from your click, probably.

What do we do?

1. Your Google Ads are really needed for a site that is throw away. One that is designed to just use Google Ads only. Not a content site.

2. If you do have a content site, make pages that are disposable themselves, that are leveraged from your content. If you have a guitar site selling your own "how to guitar" dont have Adsense on those pages. Because there are loads of competitors (doesnt matter how many times you ban their webnames) with Ads for 20c a click. You get 20c, they get a sale and a recurring one at that. However, make up the "best guitar tracks" page and put the best chart tracks on there with Google Ads. MP3 clicks are high and you will get high traffic from this page as well.

3. If you have Google Ads, could you make the thing that they sell? The Ads are related to your site...how about affiliate links or your own products rather than Google Ads?

I have Ads on this site, at the side, not in text. I also don't mind if people click away from this site. If that is what they want to do, I don't mind. This site is a great hobby to get various points across.

Google Ads are just super great for a company selling direct and targetted products. But I think Google Ads has been misdirected to the normal website master.

They have been sold as a moniterizing method, but I think they have been sold to us by the actual companies wanting Google Ads to sell.

I think that marketing types have told us that Google Ads is great, so I have done a small bit of research, and see what you think:

Out of all the top Internet marketing people do they have Adwords on their sites?

Jim Daniels: No
Mark Hendricks: No
David Vallieres: No
Marlon Sanders: No
Rosalind Gardner: No
Derrick Gehl: No

Ok, how about the big companies. If you need traffic, surely they will be raking money in from their massive/ millions of visitors:

Amazon.com: No (the ads that are there are related to Amazon)
IMDb.com: No
Adobe: No (awesome intro though)
Microsoft: No
Walmart: No

So not one of these site have got Adsence on. Not one.

They promote their own products and they keep their traffic internal- not sharing it with anyone else.

Why Two Versions Of Your Tunes Could Bring You Down...Or Up

2008-01-27T13:41:00.000Z

I like the group Royksopp, especially the track Remind Me. I heard it thumping out of the TV on an advert...great tune.

I heard another one of theirs as well, So Easy. Again a great tune.

From these two tracks I bought the album. I searched high and low on the CD and found out that Remind Me, the version I heard was a remix (Someone Else's Radio Remix if you need to know).

I was slightly annoyed. The original is slow and so different. However many times I tried to listen to the original it just wasn't the same.

This track has got remixed a few times, people are going to hear it on popular media items like the TV, so why not include those remixes on the CD?

Its a goodwill gesture, if you get anyone to remix anything of yours, if its good, put it on your CD/ downloads. Your audience will love it, and the remixing artist will love it because they are getting extra exposure.

This was done a few times. One with Lenny Kravitz and "fly away", and the other with Babylon Zoo and "spaceman". Both using mixes of the track for TV jeans ads. Babylon Zoo was the worst. The main TV track was a storming stomping dance hit. Like a really good hit. The single that came out has 30 seconds of the TV track and the rest was a singing track. What they did was combine the instrumental on the CD single with the singing track. Both different tracks.

So please, any mixes that are used, use them all.

Shhhhhh...The Ultimate Marketing Secret

2008-01-26T09:48:00.000Z

I have bought most marketing secret books, ebooks, webvideos, free ebooks etc. I think I have a marketing hobby. I collect loads of the stuff.

Each one describes the best marketing secret ever....like in the whole wide world.

You have heard the hype and frankly I am getting tired of it. This is really note worthy:

There are loads of ways to make money on the Internet, that is a big fact. The other fact is that there isn't one best way and there isn't one way that is easier than the other, they all take time and effort on your side..

Really?

Ok lets see what is needed for most "money making opportunities":

An Ebook: Time and effort to research then write it.
A Freelancer to write book/project: Money and research.
Clickbank: $40 startup fee- then sell what you want.
etc etc

Those are just a few of the main ones that get banded around. You have probably seen them as well. However there is one ultimate secret, which is so super simple but so hushed up that marketing people sell you this in big ebooks. Do you know what it is?

To Test

Yep, that is it. But don't click away...I shall explain the importance.

Do you know when marketing types say that they have spend hundreds of dollars, so many years working on something, what they are ultimately doing is testing...and testing everything.

The best marketing types test. They test a sales copy title, keep it for a week, if it works great, if not, they change it. They regularly test.

If something doesn't work you change it until it does..

Everything that is designed, made, written, built has been tested. Every bit of word, every picture, every comment has been tested...

Marketing sites and high trafficed sites are so because they have been tested to look like that. That is what works well. Have you noticed that most websites have a white or off-white background? That is a tested feature. Audiences react well to that rather than any other colour.

Testing makes or breaks you. It is that simple.

Just for example. I know that if you put your music links/ playlist close to the top of the screen, people are going to see it because the top of the html page if is the first place they notice. If they don't like the content they will see your tracks. If they are looking for music they see your tracks.

Seems obvious but it needed to be tested to see if it worked or not.

15 seconds is what you have when someone lands on your pages. If you message is not stated in that time then you loose downloaders.

How do we know this?

It has been tested.

Test everything, track everything. If you have downloads, monitor which is doing better than something else.

I have released about 3 free ebooks. I know which one works and which one is struggling. What I thought would do well, isn't. So I won't put too much effort into that line, but the one that is romping away, I will build up more info in that area.

I only knew that because of testing, and tracking. If I didn't, too much money and more importantly time would be wasted.

When Is More Bad?

2008-01-24T13:02:00.000Z

Music sites on the Internet have one thing in common....they all do more.

They have more JAVA apps, loads of Flash and colours aplenty.

However, more is not often best. Those sites that I visited, I came away downhearted...why?

Because I couldn't find the MP3s to listen to or download. I make the MP3 Directory, an ebook with free MP3 sites...over 1 million free legal MP3s on offer. But I couldn't find some- even though I knew they were there. This is such a shame. There are two reasons behind this:

1. Artists believe they should max out their site to bring people back. No, people want what they want. If you can not deliver that then close down your site and re do.

2. Some people sign upto MP3 hosting sites. These are great in theory and sometimes practise but you still can not change the way it looks. Soundclick have slightly altered the way that they show you how to download a track. I have noticed falling downloading number because of this flashy change (an arrow pointing down...thats it), so now I have to tell people how to download a track and where to find it from. This wastes customer time and they will click away.

Usually downloading is spontaneous,a "there and then" mentality (hence why you need your details in the MP3).

So what do you do?

Go with number one with number two going on in the background.

So make sure that you have a site that is easy to see, easy to navigate and simply offers the listener what they want quickly. Even state "clicking here will open a new window". Make sure that it is full proof.

To back this up, one small company went from small to global quite quickly, bashing down huge competition with ease and in the face of industry opinion became a global leader.

The company?

Google. The most simplest interface and website on the net became a Yahoo! beater.

What makes you stick out?

2008-01-23T10:51:00.000Z

I was wonderin' the other day, what can musicians sell/ promote that you can basically get for free?

This is a slight problem as so far there is nothing really :)

The people that are selling something, having great downloads are people that do this, my fave:

Julian Beever is a street artist who uses a pavement and chalk to draw in 3D. The pictures are so good people walk around them. He has made these pictures so fantastically cool that he has been commissioned to make more, he has a site but people have only really found it by searching for hime or his art- he is kicking up a buzz.

If you look him up on Google then you will find him on BBC, SKY, YouTube...everywhere important.

When you do something that is either extraordinary, or when you do something that people enjoy then you create a buzz and people want more.

This is especially so in the music industry. You have to do something different to get noticed, or do what people like you do do.

Now if Guns and Roses did pop music, it would be very surreal, but they probably would lose out on their audience, would lose credibility and thus loose future sales on records. So in their case doing something different/ radical would be bad.

Radicalisation of music is the stay of one hit wonders. They are those because for the time it was good, but you can not continue to create and keep with momentum.

Guns and Roses fantastic album Appetitie for Destruction was rock but it also was slightly different to what was going on at the time. This was good. If they kept on churning out that type of music then they would have lasted, slightly tweaking their music to fit in with modern styles.

The guru to this is Madonna, same type of songs, but changed slightly to represent the modern times. You could say that she has strayed from her original pop roots and churns out the style of the day, but ultimatley it is not that radical. Beat and hooks...same old Madonna.

So if you are going to make it, think different, don't churn out constant crap especially if you haven't got an audience.

If you have an audience keep with that music.

But to see what works and doesn't, try this: When you give away free music you can put slight tweaks in to the different pieces that you offer. The higer downloaded ones are the ones that they enjoy and you can move your music in that direction. If you have a community then you can ask them, two way conversations to your audience is vital.

There are many artists around, and many street artists who draw. Julian Beever just tweaked an idea and was good at it.

Classical Downfall...Part 2

2008-01-21T10:14:00.000Z

A quick post.

To back up my theory of the reinvention of classical music is the best way to go, take a trip over to CDBaby. In the most popular bought/downloaded albums you will find a pop/classical mix...

Classical Downfall

2008-01-21T09:59:00.001Z

I loved this post from my site. It actually came from the brilliant reworked music from War of the World by Jeff Wayne which can be heard here:

I just read that classical music is starting to go down, and Sony has shut down its classical department.

Are they completely barking?

Going off the War of the Worlds you will find the reviews in Youtube great. Over 170 ratings (for one clip), all clips 4 stars and this "Nothing short of electrifying!! Wow!", "sooper!!! bravo!!! great!!!i love it :)"

People want to hear something cool, not stuffy (the perceived image of classical)- also highlighted with Vanessa Mae and her version of Tocatta. Also they want a show, something they can relate the music to.

If classical is dying then unfortunately it is their own fault. Jeff Wayne and Vanessa Mae has proved that just by reworking music you can capture an audience with ease.

Just try. See what William Orbit did with Barbers Adagio For Strings:

A Signed UnSigned Artist

2008-01-21T09:00:00.000Z

Congratulations must go to Koopa (a 3 piece "rock" group from the UK) who were the first unsigned band to get into the UK charts and then to get signed!

How cool is that!

They got signed to Pied Piper for 5 years and a 4 album deal...worth £128.000.

Erm...what were they thinking?!

Let me get this straight.

1. They have got to number 31 by selling a download track only - no CDs at all, so their fan base must be quite large.

2. To get into the charts, hmmm let me see, at the lowest estimate maybe about 5,000 fans who bought, say at £2...a very low estimate. So that is £10,000 for one song?

3. For four albums they have got signed into a 5 year deal....read again...5 year deal (so no selling on the side you naughty things) with four albums...say again, a low estimate but 7 tracks per CD...35 tracks for the 5 albums.

4. So for £128,000 they make 35 tracks. Now if they carried on what they were doing at our lowest estimates, what would they make?

£350,000...

5. Now that is low compared to the increase in fans all this exposure brings. Also they would be building up a fan base anyway.

Guess what...all that money would have been theirs and theirs alone.

They were already doing gigs etc and how on earth is a UK based record company going to beat the Internet...by going onto the Internet and selling their tracks?

Ohh thats right, that has already been done by the band!!!

Unfortunately this is the mentality that is being shown by alot of music groups.

The record company method is wrong! Why give someone else money when you are in a much better position (artistically as well) when you are by yourselves?

I don't believe we are going to hear the end of this. With more high profile news snippets about unsigned acts going down a signed route.

It is like the media don't have a clue, with the warped mentality that this is the route that bands should be taking.

Have we learnt anything at all?

How To Increase Sales Very Easily.

2008-01-19T10:42:00.000Z

I know that I have advocated ebooks as a good income earner. Why not? People are searching online for something...

They want something, they don't need anything..

So they search around for something that they need, like information (primarily why the Internet was born in the first place).

So cut a very long story short, you have your ebook (high searched for topics and how to make one easily can be found in the Music BluePrints).

But is electronically (downloading) the best way to actually deliver it?

Alot of people say yes, and about 90% of all sales is through this method, but let me ask you about the 10%? How about if you could sell them something that is more expensive?

That is the idea behind alot of master marketers. Just say they sell an ebook electronically for $10, they will always sell a printed version to grasp the 10% who don't trust/unsure/dont know how to download their ebook. And do you know what? You can charge more because it is printed, its perceived value is higher. So that $10 ebook can easily be $18 print book (with links at the back to the bonuses).

How about the binding and shipping?

There is a company that will handle everything for you. All you need to do is to send off your ebook to them, and then when someone buys your printed ebook they make a printed book out of your ebook in a format that you desire. CafePress is the company. It is well respected and does a cracking job (Internet Marketing Center use CafePress).

Always have a shot of you with the book, and always say how they would use the book (read it at work, on the train...make customers think that while they are relaxing they can still learn)

Also, and this is quite a biggy here..

You have to think about your audience. Now alot of the cooking sites are great and they sell ebooks. Which is nice, but can you see the problem here?

When has someone got a computer in the kitchen to actually read the recipe?

Sure they may print off the document, but now you are helping them do you out of some cash!

Remember you need to sell the reasoning behind a printed book - has all the bonuses within it (alot of books don't have bonuses) and can be used while you are actually doing what is says to do!

Also with a printed book you can ISBN it ($70 for 10 ISBN codes (10 possible print books)- this would be bought through sales of the ebook) making it even more worthy.

Now you can place it on Amazon and Froogle...drastically increasing your sales more.

Affiliate Manager Logic Remastered

2008-01-19T10:23:00.000Z

I saw a great music tutorial website the other day in a magazine. It had everything that I would of liked in a music tutorial and I would have been proud to represent it.

Now the eagle eyed people out there will notice the word would.

Now this company is Internet based and offers the tutorials through the post. Which I think is a good idea (how would you read an ebook on the computer about a computer software that you want to use?). More of that in the next post.

Now here is where the failure starts to kick in.

1. You have to email them if you want to become an affiliate (no % commission, no reasons why to join...the list goes on).

2. The biggy here for me. I emailed them, and then I asked to join. The answer?

You probably won't believe me on this and while I am writing this I still didn't get it. But here goes:

They only offer affiliate status to people who have a bricks and mortar store!!

So I am thinking "how on earth have these people survived?" also I asked myself what if Amazon applied to them? Would the same stupid logic apply?

So anyone who makes decisions like this, please do one thing:

1. Check out the web site to make sure that the person is a good bet, but please don't disallow anyone who is on the internet only not to sell your stuff.

They were nearly there. But some person in their marketing department has said...we can't trust those websites, it is someone at home in their bedroom selling....sellling I ask you...what will be next? We want to be prestigious, we want only shops to have our products because no one will want to search for anything else.

So what did I do?

I found a competitor who is online, has a similar class of product (my reputation is at stake so I don't want any old product), and they are willing to help websites promote their products.

In one months time I sold $145 of their products and I am proud to recommend the site.

Jumping Overboard or Swimming?

2008-01-17T19:04:00.000Z

We all know that RSS, Podcasting, email, Squidoo, YouTube and every other marketing device under the sun is successful.

What I have noticed is that when there is a squeak of a new markting idea it gets jumped on quickly.

I have also noticed that some people will not do anything but keep with the old status quo.

The problem that the second set of people face is one of being left behind, "not realising it" and then coming in with expensive urgent emergency ideas.

Any sort of emergency of this kind seems to be one of the sites making. If they didnt know that a problem was coming they are out of touch and not uptodate.

That is what is facing musicians and music companies. The idea of downloading MP3s and copying music (tape to tape, CD to CD, radio to tape etc) has been around for ages. But it only seems to be in recent years that the industry is starting to think of how to get out of the situation.

If you have a CD writer then you have CD burner software...so they actually give you the tool, for free, to do the job. Windows Media Player actually has a burn button well highlighted...so they have known for some time.

This is the panic setting in, and someones idea, some person who is getting paid alot of money who said in the past "forget about MP3s and all this Internet stuff".

So what we must do as musicians is to subscribe to a music marketing site/ blog :) and keep up to date. Failure to do so will lead up into stagnation and ultimately failure.

Take this as one of my well known examples: I surf around musician sites alot to see what people are up to, and I found one that stated "wanna hear my tunes? Send me a SAE and I will send you a tape of my work"

Seems like there is alot of work to do ahead :)

EMI And How It Will Effect Us

2008-01-15T19:17:00.000Z

EMI has been taken over by a private equity company Terra Firma and they are going to release 2000 people. Now the problem is this:

1. Artists and talent management have jumped ship
2. The firm also deals with refuse and garbage
3. Streamlining/ job letting is only good to streamline a company and to get rid of dead wood/ jobs that are not needed. Skilled workers are a must.

Are they actually capable of taking over from EMI? Do they realise the importance that music companies are losing money anyway, so buying the a big boy is not going to be any different. Sure they have a good name, but that hasn't helped much yet has it?

Now if Terra Firma prove me wrong and become a good company, we will find our music industry ready to follow a new company prepared to do what ever it takes to make money and to succeed. Our downloading and music purchasing habits will change.

They will offer downloads, cut price stuff, the ususal...but then the others will follow (everyone is losing money = embrace a new idea = follow it!).

If EMI get it wrong and go down the route of offering downloads but at CD prices and don't value the publics/ audience feelings and wants (companies give out what they think customers need, customers always want...big difference) then record companies will be in a bigger mess.

If they get it right and be totally radical, go against the grain, do something different, be a leader in a desperate industry.........

Sounds too good doesn't it :)

Keywords...how safe?

2008-01-14T14:29:00.001Z

Just a quicky here.

I was thinkin'. You know all the software and sites out there that say they have "Googles search results" etc...how reliable is that?

I mean. Google is a multibillion dollar company who is always trying to find out ways to make money (its hard and expensive to be a search engine) than its competitors. So if its competitors knew Googles results would that be the end of Google? Also would Google give out prize search results that freely?

I am unsure and I doubt it, unless it was results for a certain period in time (a month or this time last year).

The best results about Google are from Google itself. It has the knowledge, it has all the cards...so why would it share that keyword info (very valuable info) with someone else?

Just a thought.

Newsletter Bonuses...Any Good....Or Any Need?

2008-01-14T09:43:00.000Z

I apologise, but I have got one on me with this newsletter thing.

Do we think that newsletter signups with newsletter openings increase with offering bonuses?

I know for a fact that signups increase, it is an obvious. But I have just sent out my subscribers a great newsletter I have to admit. I am probably shooting myself in the foot with it, but I thought, New Year, why not.

So I looked in my inbox and do you know what I got?

Tons of spam!

I hate it I really do.

To get the bonuses they added someone elses email address, also 30% bounced...no email address recognised.

Now I think that the problem is 2 things:

1. Offering bonuses that people want. They just subscribe for the bonuses
2. Offering unrelated bonuses that are in the general field of the newsletter but are not vastly targetted to it.

I know this because I do it. I love what some marketing types offer as bonuses, so I signup and don't touch to huge torrent of affiliate emails that comes my way. To this day I have 238 emails not opened. Why should I, they have given me all the info I need or want! If I want anymore I shall check out their blog.

So when people signup for the newsletter, I offer no bonuses. But I offer bonuses (and I have to say very good ones at that) within the newsletters themselves...to give an incentive.

It increases the subscription rate by word of mouth, increases the opening of the actual newsletters and the main one...it is being used by people who want the information, a targetted audience.

Sure I may have a reduced signup rate all together (word of moth is slightly slower than internet signup) but they are quality signups.

If something is not working, figure out why, just don't let it run on endlessly.

The Super Secret That Will Make You For Life In Music

2008-01-14T08:56:00.000Z

I posted a very short version on my site: www.make-your-own-dance-and-techno-songs.com about this topic because I have found that there are loads of marketing books, loads of marketing sites, and...ermm....blogs to do with making money with music.

There is really only one secret to making anything with music.

Get an audience and keep them interested.

Dave from www.schoolofpodcasting.com who left a message in my "are newsletters any good" post states that podcasting is a great way to contact the audience.

I am in 100% agreement in what Dave says, it is a great way to contact your audience. It makes it more personnal. Add voice or even music and get it spread around and make it viral.

It is keeping an audience happy, keeping that audience coming back to you that actually makes or breaks someone. Also making sure that your audience actually knows what RSS and Podcasting is (also what a newsletter is...time and time again I have had to explain the reason behind my newsletter). They have been around for some time now but only to people who are actively searching those fields for new things will know about them and their potential.

I am going to throw RSS and together and say that Blogging is not an easy way to make money...at all. You have to constantly keep things uptodate. You are in competition with people out there that do this as a job/ have more time than you. Also you have to post at least weekly. Coming up with something new or noteworthy.

Many fail, and out of the thousands that get made daily (probably hoping of easy money) a fraction actually keep going.

So when you build your RSS, your Newsletter, make your Podcasts...make sure that you do them regularly with good information. This will keep you in your audiences mind, not just letting them know when a tune comes out every 6 months.

If you build your subscribers up to a good level, say 10,000 which is not hard to do (5-10/day signups is very possible) then go for a few more and keep on building your lists and subscribers (some will drop out, unsubscribe, give you a bad email address etc) give them the information that they want, what they signed up for.

Oversell them information, give them free ebooks, give them tip sheets, give them prizes, give them discounts that they can print off for Gigs that you do.

And that is the key, taking up your own time to do something that your listeners want you to do.

Doing a Gig after work, making tracks in your spare time...regularly is the only reason musicians have succeeded and most haven't.

Anyway, you have your audience of 10,000 then never offer them one track to buy for $2...you may get one buyer but you will lose the credability that you worked so hard for.

Over sell your stuff, bang in there an album for $1...yes an album 10-12 tracks of good music.

Then alot will buy, especially if you have been giving them good music for free. Be consistent and over deliver.

Remember what we wrote in the last posts. $12 albums are dying. Radiohead proved that people will only pay $6 tops for a commercial group.

Remember this one tiny very significant little fact that web site owners have known for years:

In the digital age people can go to another artist in one click.

We are not in the CD age, that was 1990s when connections were so slow (how on earth did we cope with dialup?)

Anyone offering CDs is going to have a huge shock if they are not preparing to go digital.

This is what the record companies can not grasp yet. Also, people want a little bit more nowadays. And why shouldn't they. They have seen the added extras in DVDs, so why can't they download them instead? Car companies have given out huge discounts and specials just to lure in the customers to fight off the competition, and it is about time the music industry did the same.

Then as long as you are building your list and listeners, over delivering on information and stuff that they can have you will be able to make thousands every time you make an album (you also have CafePress merchandice that you can throw in).

Remember this is something you like doing so it shouldn't be hard!

The hard thing to remember is that it is not an easy ride, you can't make thousands with one track, you can not put up a website and make "thousands of dollars in 2 days" without some effort going into it first.

Have a reality check.

If it sounds too good...more than likely it is...(apart from The Open Office...which is really good).

Are Musicans & Record Companies Scared?

2008-01-13T15:39:00.000Z

Now I think that most musicians and record companies are ultimately scared of doing someting against the grain.

The music industry is falling to its knees...fact. Which ever way we look at it, it is.

There is a huge decline of albums sold. Most commercially successful artists will be kicked off if they don't reel in above top 3 chart positions for their albums.

Albums are getting downloaded for free online (they are you know, and there is little to do about it)

Artists that try a price system (from 0 to anything dollars) are getting ripped off.

Ahh no!! Its the record labels fault, I shall start my own...failure time!

So what do musicians want to do?

Ermmm...they do exactly the same thing. They want to make an album. They want to start their own record label. They want to make it big in the commercial market!

Why?

Why when faced with the facts that going "commercial" leads to doom do people still want to do it? It sounds strange but why do exactly the same when the same isn't working.

We have to think out of the box if we want to survive! And start to ask ourselves questions that we might like asking....like.. Why do people download tunes?

Everyone then says "people want something for nothing"....

Right that is a start, but then you have companies putting so many passwords on files people hack them. They don't work. Napster has its own encryption system, so people then look for the free file online...encryption defeated.

Ok then, how about these...and think seriously about them, and why we shouldn't do it?

Offer downloads for 10c?

Offer every mp3 for free at the same time offering merchandice as a backend product and do more gigs?

Offer longer versions + videos

Offer free downloads but a members area through CD sales (codes specific to a CD are inside).

They don't seem to bad do they. If you offer something for free or at a ridiculous low price then you are offering an incentive to come back.

I believe that if the music industry doesn't change then it is going to face hard times. People don't want to buy CDs any more, they want something through online, while they are sitting at their computers.

Other problems and grates:

To find one track that I like I had to buy a greatest hits album for $20...for one song. That song is not offered anywhere apart from free file sharing sites. Put your back catalogue online for free!!!!

I bought an album the other day from an act I like. The problem with it is that the tracks that were advertised (2 tracks out of 12) were the only good ones...and I mean the only good ones. Now I bought the album in good faith. I was stung. Some albums are good some are bad. I can't give the album back, I can't do anything with it apart from lose my money.

But lets be real here.

And lets face it, it is much easier to go onto a free file sharing site, download a track, listen to it and chill...all within the space of 2 minutes.

How on earth is the record company going to compete with that! Especially when they are faced with grieviences like mine (and those are the tame ones).

We must start to think, and start to think really fast on how to compete with this, because my friends...it is here to stay whether we like it or not.

Affiliate Product Problems

2008-01-12T13:49:00.000Z

I have bought countless products from the internet that are digital and you know what?

I am going to stop soon.

Why?

I bought an article submitting tool. Now I thought with these tools you put in your article and then hey presto, you get hundreds of links back! With over 1000 sites to submit to how easy is that?

No

This is how it works:

1. write an article
2. upload it to the software
3. make your signature
4. subscribe to all the article sites
5. subscribe to all the email sites
6. submit your article to all the sites by mouse.

Now I have to admit I didn't realise about point number 4. Did you read how many sites there are to submit to?!

So far I have got upto 130 sites. they are all the same style signing up so why can't the software do it manually?

Also when I have signed up, why can't the software then send the article through to all the sites simultaneuously without me doing it?!

I have now stopped for the time being subscribing to sites.

However, what has caused this rant is the affiliate helpers. And I think it is wrecking the industry.

I think that all affiliate signuppers should have their site checked regularly. Why?

Well to get a commission all sites have to do is say this overused phrase "I highly recommend this"

If you see that, run!

It means that they haven't seen the product, they haven't bothered to check it out and they haven't bothered to check for bugs/ problems/ 1200 sites that need manual sign ups.

By having an advert on your site i believe you are recommending a product that you like, seen or own.

That is why reviews do so well with affiliate products, people trust them more than just "I highly recommend this" .

State what is good about the product, what is bad about it. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING is the best or bug proof. Let the customer decide to buy when given the full fact, and do you know what?

They will buy more from you if they know your recommendation was good enough...and truthful.

With faceless and even mysterious Internet sites reguritating the same old crap about the same old product...or worse still the companys web page...it makes the consumer concerned.

That is why Yahoo Answers, Trust ESite, Brand Names do so well. We have nothing to trust anymore, so we need something to trust.

If you like a product and it has got an affiliate link for it. Buy it, review it then rate it. If it is any good you will make your money back and more-

A great profit for being truthful!

So what has happened here is two things:

Am I going to go back to the company to buy more stuff? No...I have been burnt.

Am I going to buy through the site that recommended the product? No...they lie.

Both people lost out because of a non-truthful review. The worst hit is the company. They might have had a fine product if i knew what I was getting into, but I fell for their sales page...not once did it talk about the process...they lied/ shielded me from the truth as well.

Are Newsletters Any Good?

2008-01-12T13:23:00.000Z

I have a newsletter that goes out each month that tells people about cheap/ free music making. Great, however I have noticed something wrong with newsletters.

If you run a newsletter you may not see that many newsletter openings. I know that mine seems to jump around alot. Instead of thinking it is the seasons, timing or something else....do you know what it is?

Content.

Now I try to put out newsletters that have some information inside that will help, I even give out free synths etc, but ultimately is it what people want? I think so, but it must not be.

I have even been receiving Dr Ralf Wilsons free email, at the start it was really good, also I had free bonuses. But eventually and in the past 3 months, I haven't opened a single one.

I subscribed to a great affiliate package as well. They send emails now and then, at the start I read them, but now I don't.

Why?

I had to think about this for a while, and do you know what I have realised?

I just wanted the free stuff that they offered. I had a browse around and then, they are emailing me with information that I don't really want to know about.

For instance I subscribed to an newsletter dedicated to soft synths (software musical instruments), and I only subscribed because you had to to enter their "free downloads domain". Have I opened a single email from them after a couple of sends...no.

I have what I want, a drum machine, but that is all I wanted. I checked to see if there was any drum machine software bits from the emails, but there wasn't.

If i want more software synths, I actually Google them.

This is worrying, and I don't believe I am alone.

I am starting to think newsletters are actually dead or at least fading away. They are too general, and the worst of it they are still too distant to the readership.

Not once have I been asked to comment, not once have I been asked if the newsletter is ok. I have been left on the scrap heap and now being sent stuff that I don't really want to know about.

I have even stopped reading my subscribed magazine because they are sooo general and assume too much.

I believe this is why community sites are working well and will probably be the future of the web.

For the musician if they don't interact they are going to fail miserably. MySpace set the standard. You comment and leave feedback. Don't like the song...say! Then hopefully in the future the songs will be slightly different if the musician has any sense. People asked a question, they got an answer. this goes well with YouTube as well.

That is why there could never be a YouTube website that wasn't designed with the public in mind. You could be spending ages waiting for "friends bloopers" to appear.

Newsletters are too distant, they are not taking into consideration of the changing view of the subscribers. If you gave away a free ebook on marketing why on earth do they want a newsletter sent to them all about marketing? Wasn't the ebook any good?

If you are keeping uptodate then your site should have all the uptodate information on it or in a blog?

Some marketing types will tell you that the newsletter is the best form of keeping in contact with the public. It is, or it was. I believe that stance is changing. In one marketing newsletter, they stated that alot of their readers have 10 newsletters subscriptions or more!

I have about that...why?

Because I wanted the free things. What else could they offer me apart from countless ads for their products?

Is Adsense Any Good?

2008-01-12T13:01:00.000Z

Someone emailed me the other day and said:

"Dominic, How much Adsense revenue do you make...is it loads?"

This is my reply:

"Adsense and money are the two most hyped things on the Internet. Many ebooks will tell you many things, but Adsense will only make you a significant amount of money if you do 3 things:

1- have more than 5 websites/ blogs,

2- talk about the right keywords. Real Estate, Insurance, Diet, Casinos and finance are the best, outright. $2/ click for insurance is pretty good going.

3- Traffic- without traffic you get no money. If you have 10 people/ day you will make nothing on Adsense, if you have 4,000 then you will get a couple of dollars, say $4. If you have 10 sites- $40/day. "

Now Adsense in itself is quite good however there are some major problems that we can't do anything about:

1. Once someone clicks through the link, they are probably lost for good. If only you could get an affiliate link for that ad, but Google doesn't say which specific ads are better than others.

2. Unless you have the three main Google Needs you are not going to make that much money. this is especially so if you have a music site. Music and Google Ads are notoriously low paid especially when you compare it to marketing or ebooks. The only good ads are those to do with MP3s...nothing more.

3. You have to test and retest ads. This is great if you are getting a $20 comission through an affiliate link, but for 80c?

So when I made the 20 BluePrints ebook that is what I wanted to dispell. I don't believe Adsense is going to bring in the vast amounts of cash that people want. Sure you will get enough money through the year to pay for hosting (as long as you have the traffic to do so) but that is it.

I would like my visitors to be enjoyed by the experience of my site. Once they click away without saving your site off- are they going to come back?

Is Adsense actually any good once we look at it from that perspective?

If our site is not constantly updated and evolving visitors won't come back. So the one customer who clicks our adsense link will they come back? No, because they have found the information that they want, through a 50c ad.

Do you know what annoys me more? The company is probably going to make $20 on that 50c link. I have used Adsense from a business perspective and it is great. Steal customers from a competative site and make your money.

The people who advercate Adsense are the people who set up sites to actually optimise Adsense money, Google and the companies out there that actually make the Ads, why would they want to shoot down the cash cow?

For the site that actually wants to increase knowledge among the web, those that make their site a cool hobby...you are getting suckered into a win - loose game.

The answer?

1. Get your own products up and going and then advertise them.
2. See which adsense blovks are working and set up a separate site that houses information on those terms.

Keep potential customers at your site, and keep the ads away.

Happy New Year

2008-01-06T15:17:00.000Z

Happy New Year...again, to celebrate, download (for free, and no email needed) my "20 Money Making Music Blue Prints".

If you want to increase your subscribers or increase the stakes in a promotion, you can give it away for free as well.

Download the Blueprints here

How Michael Jackson and Britney Spears Can Help Us Promote Our Music

2007-12-16T12:07:00.000Z

Now I don't know about you but if there were two people I would love to have a deep and meaningful chat with saying "why did you throw it all away?" it would be Mike and Britney.

They had everything and they just lost it. But they are trying to claw their way back...will it work?

No.

For the main reason in that they are not targetting the audience that brought them there in the first place.

Take That in the UK have done really well in that they saw their primary audience increase in age as they have done. So instead of making teeny pop music, they instead evolved their music to fit their new, matured audience. While in the same vein keeping their music listenable and even..."cool".

But Britney went adult too quick. Even at the start of her new song "gimme more" she says "its britney bitch". Which, not taking any moral high ground, is wrong and then the video alienates her audience totally.

Britney wasn't gone for too long and her core audience is still there. The young teens looked upto her as an idol- so where do they go to now...Spice Girls...oh my.

If Britney pulled out some great pop songs rather then the adult market she seems to be aiming at, she would have had a better reception and her audience would have loved it. This is seen by the amount of times I have to endure Britney tunes on the music channels. She was good at them.

Now Michael Jackson, apart from his poor news reports how can he come back? Release new songs? He tried that and I have to say they were boring. Just dance videos with music in the background.

You may say "but that is what we want!" Well no, you can't see music videos on the radio or when you are playing them in your car or on a CD. So they were lost. Back in the day, his songs were so catchy that they could easily be played with or without the dancing. In fact the dancing made you watch the videos. You toe tapped and just watched in awe as he performed those moves.

So how can Mike pull it back? He could change his music style and become grown up. But I think Michael is really talented so why not open a Dance School! How many people would go to that, it would be booked out into next year- 5 years even...the money potential of this would be amazing. Because this is what his targetted audience knew of him and remember him for.

So what can we do? We must target our music towards our targetted audience. If we make dance tunes, don't promote rock. You could fuse the two...or better still do what professional musicians do: Make two identities one for rock and one for dance.

By listening to our audience, targeting them and ultimately NOT alienating them then they will pass your music onto their friends etc and you can be pigeon holed and marketed better.

This is the first thing that master marketing types do. They make a profle of their targetted audience and gather research about them. It can even save you loads of cash by targetting specific advertising areas where your audience hangs out.

Adsense Mega Money

2007-12-15T14:19:00.000Z

I had an email today that made me think what how do people see the Internet with regard to money making.

I think they see it predominatly as a cash machine. put a website onto the Internet and just watch that money rush in...hotels and fast cars a plenty.

However, a scary statistic is that only 5% of all businesses make any "business money".

The email came to me and stated- "how much money can you make from adsense to give me great profit?"

Now I tend to blame alot of marketing sites for this. How many times have you seen "make $1000/ day"..."tell your boss where to go today!". The Internet is full of them.

Now you see these especially for Adsense, in that Google is a money machine and will give you plenty of cash. The truth of the story is not that easy to swallow.

What we have to ask ourselves is this: How much time and effort has gone into something like this?

To make serious money with Adsense you need the following:

1- A site or blog. Now this is where your ads will be. If you look on the right hand side of this blog you will see Adsense ads. Great.

2- A topic. Now with this idea you need to be making updates to your site or blog regulary (more than once a week for a blog), this then makes your site or blog popular. Your topic needs to be focused and something you can constantly and consistantly write about weekly. On topic sites and blogs generate on topic Adsense ads that will target your visitors.

3- Your topic is expensive. Now there are some topics out there that are more money hungry than others. Finance, marketing, trading, real estate, diet, casino, mortgage, insurance are just some of the best topics that have a good cash-per-click. Casino can get you $2/ click. But can you talk about anyone of these? But remember they have some tough competition.

4- Traffic. The more traffic you get the more likely someone will click on a link. If you have 5 people a day to your site, then it is unlikely they will click. More traffic = more clicks = more money.

5- More sites. Now for one site to attract loads of visitors, to keep the content going etc you are going to do some major work. So the money comes when you increase the number of sites covering many different topics. That is where the money comes from. If you are getting $1 per day from one site through clicks, then if you add 10 sites you will get $10/ day.

6- Profit? Now if you make $10/ day for doing nothing, you will say yay! However, you need to calculate in your time, your hosting (free if it is blogger), and your marketing. Some people who claim $10,000/ month actually spend $250/ day on Adwords...

So you see, for all that work you might not be making that much of a profit, and it is this that the marketing types forget to tell you.

How did they make their own businesses? Through time and effort. They are on the ball, 24/7- have you noticed all the articles and ebook that they churn out? A successful business is one that you work at. Unfortunately the Internet is not a profit machine. Sure it can get you infront of a wider targetted audience alot cheaper than other methods, but you still need to work at it and treat it like a business.

Free income from Adsense? Yes, but to get major profits you need to work at it and be prepared to put to one side some major time.

Pay Per Play- PPP. The New Revenue Maker For The Musician.

2007-12-12T20:51:00.000Z

Recently I was given an email telling me about this "revolutionary service" called pay Per Play- PPP.

Now, anything that is called revolutionary I am wary.

The basic idea of Pay Per Play that I have interpreted it to be is this: In essence it is basically a TV/ radio ad on your website that lasts for 5 seconds. For the privilage of this you get to keep 100% of the revenue.

So you become the broadcaster, and companies pay you a percentage of the advertising cost to host this snippet on your site.

It has been going for some time and the stats from the Pay Per Play site are quite impressive. You play the advert and you get to keep the money. Great I hear you say.

Now I am the only one who is skeptical of this advertising method. Type into Google PPP or Pay Per Play and find countless number of articles promoting this service. But my problem is historical. And here is the main reason:

TV and radio ads are ok, they aren't too bad. They are however competing against Adsense. Adsense is great because it is hyper targetted to a specific webpage and client and the advertiser will only pay if someone clicks on their link. If the ad doesn't match up it is removed or lowered in positioning.

With PPP the only winner is the website. Targetted as it is, PPP is not targetted in the fact that the advertiser doesn't know if the ad worked, i.e. someone bought the product.

Can you see where I am going here? In the very short term, you can earn alot of cash from this. Because it is new. I have signed up because I know that in the future this is going to happen:

Advertisers pay out (the ones with more money throw cash at any new marketing method before thinking. It happens every time with no exception) and they can not assess if the ad is working or not. They throw out x amount of thousands of dollars and their sale increase minimally. They get frustrated. So in the long run, they will go back to Adsense and older, more trusted marketing ideas.

It was the same when pay-per-click banner ads were present. With that idea, the website got money just by someone clicking on the link, regardless of whether they bought or not. Now it is very hard to find this sort of advertising as it doesn't work.

The website is very cool, check out the Pay Per Play- PPP website, and sign up quickly, get some quick cash when the links arrive in a week or two, before the advertisers know what happened :)

A quick, free and easy music marketing idea

2007-12-10T17:58:00.000Z

Competitions are a great music promotion idea. Most people are competitive, and if the prize is any good competitions will draw in traffic to your site.

Music promotion should be fun and simple to do but have the ultimate desire to get people willingly do download your music, recognise you, or for you to sell something. A competiton does just that.

You could even offer the competition to subscribers of your mailing list only, it acts as an incentive for people to subscribe- especially if you state this as one of the benefits of joining your email list (and you are targeting willing visitors and rewarding them for their email address).

The prizes are the main thing. You need to combat that "why should I" attitude. Offer something that you yourself would like. Offer their music for download on your site. Have First, Second and Third placements, with first being downloadable for 3 months, second being downloadable for 1 month, and third being downloadable for 2-3 weeks. A great advertising advantage for your subscribers. Free advertisement and recognition from an already established site is a great incentive.

Some people even offer a PayPal donation box. The winner wins the donations so it is in their interest to contribute a little bit of cash.

Other sites team up with a company who offer prises. The best way to do this is to actually ask an ebook author to offer their ebook as a prize, or team up with a membership site and ask for a free month subscription. If they think about it you are promoting their products, giving extra exposure.

This sort of music promotion are great because they can be run every few months. If you find some really good songs, ask for collaboration between yourself and the artist responsible, and offer the song for download. It acts as another incentive for people to take part in the competition. It will also make the other artist advertise the collaborated song- more free advertisement for you.

With a competition you offer comments and a scoring criteria, and a tally of points gained and lost. People always want to do better, so you must tell them how to. Remember to put up the rules of a competition on your web site, and stick to them. You could even offer a judge placement for the highest ranking artist, or veteran.

Affiliate Basics, Why aren't I getting commissions?

2007-12-07T20:42:00.000Z

You have an affiliate product, and now you put the links on your site. But you are not getting any signups, cash or anything like what the company said...why?!

Here are some pointers of why you are not getting the cash that you deserve.

1. Increased traffic brings increased signups. If you have 10 visitors a day it is unlikely that you will have any signups. The more traffic you get the better the rate of signups.

2. Just because you have an affiliate link on your site doesn't necessarily mean that people will actually click to buy. Not all people on the Internet are actually looking to buy anything. Remember that the Internet was built to ferry free information from one place to another. People look for free info not things where they have to buy.

3. If you webpage has on it all free information, why should they buy anything? Catch 22 isn't it. Provide free info and they might not buy anything. So you pre sell them something- increase their hunger for the product using content and information. Make a webpage about a review of a bit of software, of a bit of equipment, of something that has to be bought. Provide proof that you used it (YouTube vids, scans etc). This then targets people who are looking to buy and are looking for a review. For people to buy something, you need first to target those people who want to buy. They are about.

4. The affiliate product is totally unrelated to the website/ webpage. I have talked about this constantly but it still is a big reason why people don't get the click. Even with a music site you should never put on "marketing literature" unless you have a related article page about music promotion. At least you will have people already in the frame of mind that go onto this area who are willing to learn and are interested in the material.

5. Most sites state that an email to your subscribers is the best way to make cash. It is, but again you need to be clever. Most people subscribe to 3 or more newsletters. Most companies give out promotional emails to send to your subscribers with your affiliate link embedded. Problem...how about if those people had the same email? People can smell a sale a mile away. If you make it out like you have actually seen/ read/ played with the product then your subscribers will believe you. Some marketing types actually include page numbers, sentences etc to prove that they have read the product (if an ebook).

6. The price of the affiliate product. It is well known that very few people actually buy high price products, so putting a $150 affiliate product on your site is less likely to attract people to buy. It takes much more marketing to even tempt people to buy "high ticket" items, and usually involves phone calls and emails. You will get much more people to buy a product if it is low price ($5-40) than high.

7. The type of product. A product that will help someone will be sold better than a product that doesn't do that much. Info products like ebooks are high sellers because they are targetted for people who want to know something, therefore the webpages used to promote these are also targetted to increase knowledge.

8. The type of advert. As we have already stated a text link is much better then any other affiliate promotion. Banners and flashy lights tell people that an advert is present but it all depends on the advert itself- if it converts lookers to buyers. I have installed a banner ad from Google onto my site on a page that is specific to that ad. Out of thousands of views, I have got 1 sign up. With a text link on the same page, I have got countless sign ups.

Affiliate Basics- Don't get conned before you start.

2007-12-06T19:41:00.000Z

Affiliate this, affiliate that, masters of the affiliate universe!!.

Don't you just hate it when someone says that you can be super rich just by putting one of their links onto your site?

I do, and I realise that they are trying to make a good bit of cash through affiliate links, but give us the truth!

So, affiliate basics: What is an affiliate programe?

Well, you sign up to a company, for free, and they give you links or banners to their site or to their products. The links that they give you have your code embedded within them. So, if someone clicks through on one of those links and buys then you get the credit and a percentage of that sale. You don't pay for anything (no shipping, returns, customer complaints etc).

It is a scheme that pays for results, and it is one of the best things that ever happened to the Internet. It has been occuring off-line for ages, but Amazon brought it out into the open and they haven't looked back.

However, because this is now seen as the must thing to do, there are bandwagons of companies offering major incentives just to get a better army of sales people. However, there are also many people who try to recruit affiliates with very poor incentives knowing that people will just see and sign up.

That is what I want to clear up today...not all affiliate programes are any good..

But if you do go down this route, and do it well, there is plenty of money to be made. Always remember though that there are other people who sign up to the programes as well...so you are usually in competition with those people.

So what do you need to check before you sign up?

0. Signup?
The golden rule to all affiliate programes is this: If you have to pay to sign up, leave it well alone. Affiliate programes are meant to be free to signup, you are doing them a favour. When someone asks for a certain amount to join their affiliate system, they are being greedy and too selective.

1. Is the product any good, and is it relevent to your site ?
This is one that always gets to me. I see affiliate signs everywhere for casinos or for dating sites. But on music sites? Unrelevent sites won't convert any people into buyers so don't do it. Check to see if the product is any good by actually buying it and trying it out. If you wouldn't buy it then don't get your visitors to, because they will just ask for a refund. A review of a product that looks like it has been actually tested is much better than the companies sales blurp...100% guranteed.

2. Is the company any good?
You are representing the company, if the company sucks and blows at the same time, then you will too, even if your side of the sales process is really good. Check them out, what are their customer sales like?

3. Is their sales page any good?
When people come onto your site and then click on the link to the sales page/ product page that is you click through rate (total amount of people clicking through the affiliate link, over, the total amount of people going to your initial page. You could have the best converting site in the world that people just love. But if the page where you are sending them to is pure kindergarden, then you will have no chance in making a sale. You need to find out conversion rates (the amount of people who went to that page who actually bought something 5-10% is very good- 5 people out of 100 bought). If their site is really good, then they should be shouting the rates from the rooftops, if not, enquire.

4. How many other affiliates have they recruited?
Now this is important because it determines how much competition you have. Too much competition and you will be spending more to promote the products. Some good affiliates will actually have a cut off line and won't accept a certain number of affiliates.

5. What is your percentage?
A very important one this. You are actually doing the hard work, so you need to get paid. Now are you going to risk a lower commission rate for a good product? For hard goods (computers, lamps, discs, hardback books etc) you are looking for a commission rate for about 3-20%. 3% is too low, 20% is high, so look at it carefully. For soft goods (like computer programmes, ebooks etc) you can have commissions from 10% all the way to 75%, the average being 40%. Soft goods are more marketable because they are instant products- you download after you buy, but they have more competition.

6. How do you get paid?
Paypal and Cheque are the two commonest ways to get paid. Never receive direct cash. A cheque can be cancelled and traced so it is better for you. Also when do you get paid? After a certain amount has been first achieved? Twice a month, once a month? Also how do you check your account, via password etc? Make sure as well that you know if you have to pay (a couple of dollars) to receive a cheque, like with Clickbank.

7. What is the cookie?
When a person clicks through your link, usually a cookie (a little text file that has your details on it) is placed on their computer so that it tracks the sale back to you. Now what will happen if the customer went away, thought about it and then went back onto the site without clicking on your link. Do you get the commission?

This is something that alot of people forget about and they lose commissions big time. make sure that the tracking cookie is set for a minimum of a month. If they have to buy straight away then you will lose money because usually people like to browse and come back at a later date after checking out similar products. Some of the best affiliate programmes have yearly cookies, some have programmes to track the computer rather than loading a cookie onto it (most security software wipe out cookies), others offer a lifetime cookie.

The problem with lifetime cookies is that if you have made all the right moves and spent time with the customer and they bought through you, and you know that they did, if they already visited a site previous to you that had a lifetime cookie, they get the commission.

8. What do they offer you to promote their stuff?
It may be well and good trying to sell something, but it would be nice to be given a helping hand wouldn't it? Some good affiliate sites offer email text, ebooks, articles, free software and a whole host of other affiliate information to help you make money for them. This is a good relationship because they want to help you, and usually the stuff that they provide has worked because they try it out.

9. What tier is it?
Now this is not usually necessary but it is more rewards for you. You are first tier, you signed on to become an affiliate. Now you can recruit other affiliates using links embedded with your code to make money for you. They are therefore called, second tier affiliates. Usually the commission you make on their stuff is smaller (5-10%), but it is extra money for doing nothing! It is not a pyramid because people have to buy the product first.

So there we have it, 10 points you need to check out before you even start signing up to any affiliate programe.

Next we shall chat about some of the ways that you can promote affiliate products. But this is such a large topic so you will see affiliate related articles come up alot of the time within this blog.

Making Money Using YouTube Without Making A Video

2007-12-05T16:11:00.000Z

This is a quick and easy way to make a small amount of income from Google Ads.

If your site is music related, go over to YouTube and find videos that match your interest. I like the idea of "the best techno for 2007". With this you can find out a list of artists that you like in that year, name the song and write a line or two about that song.

Then go onto YouTube and find a video with that group or artist singing that song. If you list ten artists then you should have 10 YouTube videos (YouTube gives you the code to put onto your site, its called embedded). Just copy and paste that code where you would like the video appearing on your page.

Now, log into your Adsense account (its free to join up) and then go for a leader board style and then place the Adsense ads by the side of your YouTube videos. The ads that will only appear are related to the content.

Now if you have a separate page for "the best techno for 2006", "the best techno for 2006" etc, then you will have alot of Google Ads and alot of clickthroughs.

Now you could make this idea slightly bigger and dedicate a whole site just to YouTube videos and place your Google Ads by the side of them.

You could even dedicate a page per artist and have YouTube videos just from that artist.

So how much has it cost you? Well, you are hosting the website anyway for your own group, and any additional html pages are technically free. YouTube hosts the videos, and you get money from your Google Ads.

With this technique you are also increasing the chance of people coming onto your site, and on top of that they are targetted visitors because you will only put "the best...." of your style.

How to increase sales from your music site.

2007-12-05T08:07:00.000Z

Now testimonials have got a good reputation, generally...well see for yourself, this is one persons view of this actual article:

"Wow Dominic, I didn't realise how easy it can be to implement this music marketing technique!" R.Greggs, Chicago.

What is the problem with this? Well for one, it is made up. I've just done it. And two...who on earth is R.Greggs?

Now this is what I automatically think of when I go through any site, be it musical or not. The problem come in the fact that most testimonials are just too distant.

Sure people can put a web address down and even a picture. It does actually help a huge amount. It makes you less distant, and now more reliable. However, we are now in the 21st Century and our selling techniques should really keep up with the technology on offer.

The technology? That is Flash. Now I have said in the past that a web site shouldn't be made out of Flash...with the main reason being the search engines will not pick it up. But Flash is such a simple tool that it must be integrated into our web sites for us to stand a slightest chance of selling anything.

So what do we need to do?

First up is to actually embed Flash into our sites so that it is easy to work, preferably free, looks nice, easy to set up and more than anything...fool proof for the user.

Now I have searched high and low for a flash player that meets those demands (I couldn't tell you how many I have downloaded), and I have found one. Now I think that it is a traversty that this software hasn't been shouted about.

The various free players- MP3 or Video (which can be found here). All you need to do is download either a movie player, or an MP3 player, upload the various players components to your site, upload an MP3 or Flash movie file (FLV), then tell the Coding Wizard where everything is stored. It will automatically give you the code. You copy and then paste it in to the source section of your HTML where you want the player...and thats it.

Simple.

As a side note: You see we should do everything ourselves so that we are not reliant on any other service. Youtube has a habit of stopping videos overnight, their quality is poor and it looks like we are cheap. Sure use YouTube for traffic generation and generating leads, but I wouldn't use it to sell on my site - it isn't professional especially if you are selling DVDs or software. Doubts will go into customers minds about your products quality...and the sale will walk away. There are also dedicated movie sites that charge per month...but we want to reduce our money output. So what do we do?

So the best way is to be clever at the start and buy a web hosting package that is cheap yet plentiful. Just be careful about your monthly bandwidth. Most hosting companies now offer incredible bandwidth solutions/ month so you shouldn't worry about that. I am with Superb Web Hosting who give me bandwidth of 750GB/ month...which is more than ample and at a normal hosting price. I don't need specific video hosting, poor quality free hosting and I don't need to pay anymore cash...bargain!

Anyway what do we actually do with our Flash players?

Ahh, I am glad that you asked. Now this is what your competition are not doing. You see you could record customers reactions to your music (especially at a concert) and place these as testimonials.

Promote concerts by recording previous concerts/ Gigs. Then question some of the goers before and after to see what they think? Promise them a free ticket, T-Shirt, CD etc for their trouble. If you get some bad reviews (which may happen), edit them out.

If you are friendly with your testimonial makers, why not get them to do a short piece on your stuff? Only a handful (literally) of sites have done this. Completely novel- they have interviewed buyers of the product to see what they think. Now that "nobody testimonial" has become a someone. It doesn't matter now who they are. How powerful is that style of testimonial? It generates thousands of sales weekly for some sites.

You should be using the Flash players to play your music (please no reduced quality or 1 minute play versions). Now I have increased my sales by well over 100% by doing this technique. Throughout my texts I have placed an MP3. So instead of having a bulk amount of MP3s in one place - where they can easily be forgotten, I have placed them throughout and leveraged the same set of MP3s to a better advantage.

The Flash players should be used to interview your group or yourself. Because the Internet is so faceless, adding a "face" to your site increases your credibility ten-fold. If you are the head of the company/ site, have you on your sales pages stating what you are actually selling- pointing out benefits to the customer, backing up your text.

If you don't like what you look like, the Flash players should be used to play your voice to help and direct people into making the proper decision.

Got a video or DVD? Flash player it at a reasonable size and quality to demonstrate what you have. Sales will increase with a demo of what you have.

Always remember though, that some people do not want to sit down and listen to you stating what you can be done. They want to see what can be done...that is the difference. If you play the guitar...Flash player yourself playing a certain specific style on one page and another style on another page. Therefore if I want to know how to make Flamenco music I don't want to see loads of other styles before you get to mine. Don't speak the specific style, just play it (and make it sound cool, vibrant and listenable).

So as you can see, there are a huge amount of scope for Flash players and they should be right up there with your top music marketing strategies.

Autoresponders or money generators as they are usually called.

2007-12-04T18:55:00.000Z

In advertising there is a saying, people will only recognise your "brand" or product if it is shown to them 7 times. Some people say more, but 7 is a good ball park figure.

There is also the issue of getting past loads of competitors in a very competative environment. How do we do it?

Well we give away stuff. People love free stuff, and the Internet was practically born out of the need to share free stuff.

How do we make our money?

Well we can either relate the freeware to an affiliate product and make it a "how to" product or a report. This is good but we can also add to this. Because what will happen if our product is a bit of software, it is hard to put in affiliate links and make the product our own. So what do we do?

The ultimate thing we need is to capture email addresses. Without this our money making business ideas will sink.

To get our freeware product we need a page highlighting the benefits of our product, i.e. what it can do for them, rather than how it is made. This will be constantly be written about in this blog.

Now, we ask for the email address (say you won't give it away to anyone etc). Now if you have highlighted benefits and done a good job selling the freeware, people will be barking mad not to sign up.

Now you add you autoresponder. the best one is http://www.freeautobot.com/. The site looks adverty, but it is how they make their money, but the bot is totally free and a solid bit of software. Now we can make some money.

Send the person an email about 48hrs after they have downloaded thanking them for downloading. Give them an article with quality info written in, then offer a paid product or even a related affiliate product. Then send them an email about 1-2 weeks after that email with similar info. Then 3 weeks etc...always keeping you in their mind.

I would even offer a newsletter to them, offering other free stuff which they can get once subscribed.

Never spam, always say at the bottom of the email that they can opt out of the email when they want.

And never blatently advertise the fact that they are going to click on an affiliate link. An affiliate link is only good when it is a recommended, reviewed, or how-to affiliate link. People are too wary that everything is a paid for link and they don't really trust what they click on, unless they have asked for it.

So that is how reviews or how-tos work well because these people want to know about your product!

By promoting your freeware like it is a paid product increases its perceived value. Making the whole thing look professional from the start.

Even if people don't go through your site and give you the email addresss, make links within the product to highlight another free product that they can download...if they give you the email address! That address is then linked to your autobot.

With these autobots you can do everything automatically, leaving you time to promote and create products.

Email courses, sending out products, offering a newsletter sign up etc can all be done with autoresponders.

Give them a go.

Adwords for Musicians?

2007-12-03T18:43:00.000Z

Most people who have seen the Internet have got an idea what Adwords are - the small ads that appear usually on the side of web pages and they are from Google.

Now this has been a great way to market.

Why?

Well, you have people who only click on your ad because they like what they see, they are qualified, targetted and they know that it is an advert so they don't get angry when they see one. They click on the link, you pay Google a small fee per click, and everyone is happy.

Great!

Well yes, for certain businesses it is. But what I have seen regularly are musicians using it to sell their CDs.

This is not a good solution, especially when those musicians post their MySpace address...argghghgh!! Also, who are you? So what if you have released an album, why should I buy it...what is the incentive?

I believe these artists are doing it to get traffic, if that is so, STOP NOW!

There are plenty of free SEO (search engine optimisation) ways to go, and hopefully we will be covering most of them in this blog. However before anyone goes onto Adwords...make sure your site converts first, and you know what you want to accomplish!

This is bonkersly simple, but so important. If you have traffic going to your page where you sell, and they are not buying, then Adwords won't make any differece apart from your bank account will decrease. If people are buying, great...do you really need Adwords?

Also, what are you accomplishing? Sales, newsletter signups, traffic?

If you are a professional musician who is well known, then using Adwords is really good, especially if you say "get a 20% discount, not available anywhere else"...then you will do well. For the musician who isn't signed, why should people buy from you if they know nothing about you and haven't got a clue who you are?

It is hard enough to sell anything online, don't make it harder for yourself by spending out money on something that might give you nothing back in return.

What Do The Engines Look For?

2007-12-03T15:17:00.001Z

Ahh the old question...how to get in on around about on the search engines. If we really knew 100% then everyones site will be the same, so ultimately no-one really knows...its a trade secret, what ever anyone tells you.

There are a few hints and tips that Google and the others do send us.

1. Make sure that you have in coming links from worthy sites. Sites that link to yours makes your more appealing (gotta be good if people are linking to you right?). To do this, make up articles and submit them to various directories.

2. Make sure that you post your website into directories. Yahoo! Directory is too expensive and they put you in eventually (why would they want to exclude content rich sites?)

3. Make sure that you post your homepage into one paid directory. I use JoeAnt.com and they are very good. This tells the engine that you are serious and are a genuine person, this then relates back to your site.

4. On topic info is good. Having a page dedicated to similar topic to what you main page is about is good. Having a casino review on a music site is bad, having drumming details on a music site is good.

5. The more content you can build the better chance the placement. Having 40 pages of 20 different keywords is going to bring in better chances, income and traffic than 5 pages dedicated to 5 keywords.

Building links is such a big topic, so we will dedicate many posts down the line to it.

5000 Search Engines To Submit To?

2007-12-03T14:54:00.000Z

Oh dear, now that is quite bad and a bit of a time worry to do. So you go for these submission companies right?

No.

Why?

Well for one, there are 3 search engines that will give you 95% of all the free search engine traffic: Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Now I have found that Google then MSN give me the most traffic.

So input your site into them manually. Don't over submit (many times a day), they do have rules. It is usually once a month or once a day. But keep to their guidelines. Once you have done that leave it.

Make new webpages and once the engines know that you are there they will check you site now and then especially if you add content (web pages) on a regular basis.

You first marketing task...its a must!

2007-12-03T14:00:00.000Z

People have always asked..."how do I make money with my music"? Or, "How do I promote my music"?

The best way? It is really an Internet Music Marketing must tip:

Email.

I can hear the moans and groans now, but email has, and will always be the best marketing tool in your marketing weapons toolbox.

Someone has bothered to give you something very sacred and personnal- they are a targetted entity. They want to know about you, they want to know about your music. You can not really buy this type of qualified visitor.

However, sending them only buying alerts will quickly put them off. Each email you send should indicate:

1. What your group is about
2. Exclusive "subscriber only" songs
3. free bonuses
4. T-Shirts
5. Groups news

The list could be endless.

Get a newsletter up and going (from your main site) and attract fans to it, even do a free subscription service/ private area site for email subscribers only?

What is wrong with MySpace and the rest?

2007-12-03T13:49:00.000Z

If you read my previous post you will realise that MySpace and other community sites rely on traffic being generated from you. You promote your community site and MySpace puts their feet up.

1. The problem with this is that the site relies on traffic generated by you. If some new kid on the block appears and is better than MySpace, then people drift over to that.

2. Also as the site becomes big, you get lost and you need to shout much louder to get recognised. You need to become more dedicated, contact more friends and interact much, much more.

3. MP3.com happened. This was one of the first community sites and it was good, but way ahead of its time. People has MP3.com/Artist.html site names and promoted it in the same way as we do now. But when the site collapsed...so did their sites, they had no back up and they had no way of contacting the traffic to tell them of a new address.

This is why we must always have a base, our own website, just in case.

Most professional artists have their own site PLUS a community site (which their record label sorts out and maintains). Look up Basement Jaxx. They are on MySpace, but, they also have their own website.

Community sites are traffic generators. They can keep you in contact with your "friends" and sort out a network of new fans where you promote and display various deals from your main site

Its the only way to go.

What do I do First?

2007-12-03T13:39:00.000Z

It sounds really odd, but many people still haven't done this one simple thing...

Get a website!

We have all seen bands showing their MySpace band page etc, but ultimatley you need a website. If you don't you haven't got control over your traffic cominig in, or going out. Also you haven't really got much control over your site looks and what is placed where.

It is a marketing must...get a site for as little as $90/ year which includes enough disk space and bandwidth to place MP3s in streaming format . You keep your traffic and tell it where to go around your site.

I shall talk about community sites like MySpace, facebook etc throughout this blog because they are important.

But first things first. Get your band name up as a dot-com name, find a free template on the web. upload and configure.