Marketing Your Music Online
Road Rally 2009 Panel

Dan: I'm interested in the harp thing that you just mentioned, Tony. And I think sometimes people create music, which is certainly not mainstream music, and I agree with you as far as getting the creative methods of getting it out. Staying with you for a second, can you mention somebody else that you are aware of who does a type of music that we may not think of as mainstream, but is seeing relative success by imaginative marketing?
Tony: Well, much of the success that I see is from artists who are really working the fundamentals, some of the fundamentals that we've talked about. I think that there are, obviously, creative ways to do that. But, if you read what Ariel writes, I mean, she's got great stuff, great tips about how to work your iTunes strategy. It's just, have that database; build that database.

“If you give them a little something for free, it's a great way to have a little perk, a little carrot for folks to give you their contact info.” – Tony van Veen

How many folks here have a database of fans or of potential customers? So, close to half the room. How many of you have more than a hundred names? OK. More than 500 names? A thousand names? Two thousand names? Five thousand names? You got 5,000 names? Very good. How many names you got? Eight thousand? How many e-mail addresses? OK, it's impressive. So, for everybody else, you may think, "Wow, how am I going to get to 3,000 or 5,000?" And it's the same way you eat an elephant. One bite at a time. You start with one. It starts with having a list manager where you can capture that info, and then making it easy for folks to give you their info and sign up. And, if you give them a little something for free. You know, "Get a free song," "Download a song for free after you give me your e-mail address." It's a great way to have a little perk, a little carrot for folks to give you their contact info.

Ariel: And to deliver that, I recommend using ReverbNation. They have a fantastic widget. If you go to tinyurl.com/reverbfreebribe, I set up a page for you guys where you can go and download the best and easiest way to deliver free music to your fans in exchange for e-mail addresses. I talked to the guys there last week, and they said the artists that are actually offering free music in exchange for e-mail addresses are having 600 times the sign-up rates as those of you that are not. So this goes back to what Tony was saying: giving away music is a very, very effective way of building your newsletter list. And I know you're all in here for an Internet marketing seminar—an hour of Internet marketing—and we're talking about newsletters, which maybe doesn't feel like Internet marketing to you guys. But I promise you, this is the fundamental cornerstone of how to make money on the Internet... absolutely, totally proven.

Tony: I remember when I was playing, I was licking stamps for my newsletter. So, last time I checked, you could not send out an e-mail newsletter before there was an Internet.

Ariel: There you go. But the point is, like if you're also just thinking about Twitter and Facebook and all that stuff, the real key component is having a newsletter list and making sure you're sending your newsletters out regularly and consistently, and you're consistently building that list. Even if you don't play out a lot, you can build it online. It's a very effective place to build a list.

Ariel, I'm curious about the iTunes tips. Can you give us one?
Yes. I actually was at a party about a year ago, and I ran into a new friend. This man makes an entire living—and lives in New York City—off marketing himself only in iTunes. And I was like, "OK, come on over." Well, he came over and he allowed me to interview him for four hours, and I pumped him for everything he did, and he broke it down for me step by step. You can find that on my website. Basically, what this man does is, he creates playlists in iTunes with artists that sound like him and are charting on the iTunes Top Ten.

How many of you are on iTunes for sale? Fantastic ... most of you. How many of you have actually had the experience of purchasing music on iTunes? Who has their music on iTunes and has never purchased anything on iTunes? Be honest. OK. That's like cooking a meal for a hundred friends without tasting the food. I encourage you deeply to go home and purchase your own music on iTunes so you can understand the process by which your fans are going thorough. Now, when you go to purchase music on iTunes and you complete your process, a little list pops up that says, "If you like this, you might like this," and they have sound-alikes and things that are getting compared. And then there's also some little things called iTunes Playlist, and those little lists come up and it's songs that are similar to the songs that you create. You can create those iTunes mixes within the walls of iTunes, and when you do that you are increasing your chances of getting sold. So my friend totally gave me the ins and outs of how to do that. It's a bit arduous and it does take work, but it's very, very effective.

Dan: That reminds me of what we were talking about, Bob, a little bit before the panel, which is experiencing the mediums that you're using before you start using them. Let's talk about that a little bit.
Bob: The way I phrase it is, become a consumer of the technology before you become a user, before you use it as a promotional tool. Because you wouldn't go into a studio and say, "Hey, I'd like to record an album," and they say, "What kind of music is it?" and you say, "Well, I've never really heard any music. I've never really listened to anything, but I want to be a songwriter." Like, you wouldn't want to direct a movie without ever having watched one. So it's the same way when people come to me and say, "How can I use blogging to promote my music?" And I'll say, "Well, what kind of blogs do you read now?" And they go, "I've never read one, but I understand I should be doing it, so I just want to know how."

“Become a consumer of the technology before you use it as a promotional tool.” – Bob Baker

You have to get comfortable with blogging, with podcasting. Learn what it's like to subscribe to one, and listen to them so you get an idea. The same way you listen to songs and you're influenced by certain artists more than other, once you start reading blogs or listening to podcasts—or whatever the tool or the medium is—you'll start saying, "Oh, I like the way they do that," or "That kind of sucks. I'm would never do that on my own." You start developing your own personal taste, so that when you create your own blog or podcast or start Tweeting, then you'll know how to do it better and be more effective at it. So become a consumer before you start going crazy using something as a promotional tool.

Ariel: I want to add on to that whole blog thing. While you're doing that research, comment. Do not read a blog without commenting on it. Every time you comment on a blog, put your website address on it, because that creates an external link to your website, which raises your website's profile. When you comment, don't just say, "Ooh, I liked that"—actually add to the conversation. Be polite, but even if you strongly disagree with the person—in fact, even better if you strongly disagree with the person-say why, be of service, give a tip, make a suggestion and point them back to your website. It raises your profile, and you will also then know what your readers have to go through in order to comment on your blog.

So all of that goes back to knowing how to work the process. As an aside, if you're not comfortable with just diving in and commenting... And p.s., commenting is not, "Hey, check me out." Get that? It's commenting on the thing. But, if that doesn't sit well with you and you just want to kind of read and lurk for a while, sign up to myblog.com and to google.com/reader. Any blog that has those applications inserted in their blogs, your photo will pop up and you'll be leaving like a little breadcrumb trail of who you are. And I promise you, every single person who writes a blog is checking maniacally at how many people are checking their blogs, how many people are reading their blogs, how many people are commenting on their blogs. The biggest bloggers—and the smallest—are constantly measuring their effectiveness as bloggers. So by seeing your little face there, and by seeing your comments, they might not comment directly back to you, but you are deeply affecting your influence in their blogosphere.

One other thing about that: If you want to see an artist on Twitter who I think is brilliant and amazing, and has the perfect balance between being funny, being a contribution, being awesome and selling stuff, follow John Mayer. It's John C. Mayer—Twitter.com/John C. Mayer—and just read how John Mayer communicates with his fan base, because it's astounding.

Dan: For musicians that may not have the information or the ability to do it on their own, I know there are obviously services. And Debra, Bob, and Ariel, you all certainly provide services for people that require your services. It's kind of a two-part thing. How do you qualify clients, and, more importantly, how should clients qualify you to chose to work with you? Can we start with you Debra?
Debra: Absolutely. I mean, anyone can join my membership; anyone can download the free stuff—and I do have lots of free stuff on my website, as is recommended. When I work with someone privately, I actually do an hour session with you before you hire me or I chose to work with you, because working with a coach is an intimate relationship, and if the chemistry doesn't work—as we know in intimate relationships—then the relationship doesn't work. So I do an hour-long session with people to determine whether or not we're a good match. What I've found is that when we're not a good match, the client generally isn't as satisfied and we don't have nearly as much fun, and that's really important to me. So that's usually how I do it. Now, as far as working with a coach—and there are a lot of coaches out there—I recommend that you work with people who are certified, who have been trained as a coach, not someone who is really good in the music industry and then calls what they do coaching, because usually it's not. Usually, it's a consult, which is a completely different animal. So I recommend working with coaches who are really coached. And, again, interview them, talk to their clients. Most of my clients who have testimonials on my website also link to their website, and you can contact them and ask them how they liked working with me. A lot of my clients have done that in the past and have talked to future clients and given them feedback. So interview them and do your research. Do your due-diligence.

Bob: To be honest, my primary role is as an author, a speaker, a teacher and a book publisher. I feel that that's how I best serve the musician and the artist community, so I don't do a whole lot of service work. When I do, it's usually short-term stuff where I'm brainstorming with people, helping them clarify their identity and who their ideal fans are, and how to communicate that. I do some of that on a limited basis, but what I would recommend, since I know a lot of people are all confused by this whole marketing thing—particularly internet marketing. Everybody just wants to delegate it and just want to find someone to do all that stuff for them. What I would recommend is, the earlier on you are in your career—and I've been preaching this do-it-yourself, kind of self-empowerment message for many years—I think you should try to do as much of it as you can as early on as possible, if, for no other reason, to become—in the same way you become a consumer before you're a user of a technology—you also want to become an educated entrepreneur and understand what the person you're going to be delegating it to, what they go through, what's involved in those things. So I really recommend that you try to do as much as you can yourself. And your reason for delegating shouldn't be because you're tired of this—the same reason you wouldn't pursue a manager because you're wallowing in obscurity—you pursue those things because you can no longer handle the workload. You're having success on your own; it's time to delegate, and those are the best reasons for it. You've been doing it yourself, you understand the ropes, you know the qualifications of the person, and then you can hand it off to somebody. That's my two cents.

Tony: Great point, Bob. So many artists want a manager just because they don't want to make the calls. And nobody is as vested in your career as you are. And if you're not interested enough to do this as a second fulltime job after your day job is done, the odds are going to be really long, folks, unfortunately. If you're committed, you're gonna have to walk the walk.

Ariel: Really good points, you guys. At my company we do two things. We are a PR firm, and we do place our musicians online, on blogs and podcasts, and radio stations. I read thousands of blogs so you don't have to, and I can cut through the noise and help you get placed. But the only type of client we will take on is a type of client who is willing to understand that when I go away and I'm no longer your publicist for the three or four months that you've retained me, the Internet goes on.

So this goes back to that conversation of like, "I just hate this so much, I want someone else to do it." I can read all the blogs for you, I can get you some very important placements online, but the truth is, what feeds all of online publicity is social media. So if you flat-out refuse to participate on Facebook or on Twitter, if you refuse to update your website so that it works in a way that's having a two-way conversation with your audience, you are a terrible client for me. We have plenty of artists that hire me to do that stuff, and we'll do it well for three months, and you'll end up dying in obscurity as everyone else catches on to how to use these things. So my ideal client—and we work with every genre, every level, independent, signed, small, big, everything—is the type of client who says, "OK, I don't understand exactly how to use all these things, but I'm willing to learn."