MUSIC INDUSTRY BLOG

Owning a Gibson guitar is like owning a BMW.

It’s a statement.

For BMW, the “German Engineering” stamp is impervious to Lexus.

For Gibson, “Made In The USA” is just as sacred.

It takes decades to establish the reputation that Gibson has achieved.

Yet only minutes to flush it down the toilet.

Gibson, like many heritage brands, engaged itself with a young spunky marketing consultant that dazzled its management team with social media catchwords like “viral”, “buzz” and “tweet”.

How the conversation went down:

Spunky Consultant:  “You’re doing everything wrong.  Everything!”

Gibson Management:  “We are?  Sales are up.  Overhead is down.  What do you mean?”

Spunky Consultant:  “Sales Shmales.  It’s not about the money, it’s about your brand equity!”

Gibson Management:  “Sales Shmales?”

Spunky Consultant:  “You want to connect with your fans, engage with your customers and create a conversation around you, see?”

Gibson Management:  “Will that increase sales?”

Spunky Consultant:  “Forget sales already.  I’m going to get you buzz.  You do want buzz, don’t you?”

Gibson Management:  “Does buzz increase sales?”

Spunky Consultant:  “Look, do you want followers or not?”

Gibson Management:  “I… guess… that… we… do…”

Spunky Consultant:  “Great!  Make the check out to…”

So what happened the next day?

Gibson launched a new website that displays each of its exquisite instruments in the light that they deserve.  Best of all, on every page of the website, beneath the featured instrument, they included threaded comments (like on YouTube) where visitors can comment on the featured guitar and the community can vote the comment up or down.

This is spunky, dynamic, web 2.0-ish online social media marketing at its finest!

Except for one thing…

The most popular comments, those that received the largest number of votes, make Gibson look like a Buick, not a luxury premium.

One comment in particular, truly struck a chord with me.  Here it is at No. 1 with 452 votes for the Gibson Les Paul Dusk Tiger:

I can see the salesmen at Guitar Center now: Salesman: “Hey man check out the new Gibson Dusk Tiger! It’s got all of these amazing features!” Customer: “It looks kinda stupid.” Salesman: “Yeah but it tunes itself! You can dial in any tone you want on this baby!” Customer: “Can you dial in a less stupid looking finish? My band will laugh at me if I turn up to a gig with that thing” Salesman: “It only comes in the one color, but it’s LIMITED EDITION! There’s only gonna be 1000 of these made!” Customer: “I think it’s a limited edition because there’s a limited market for these things. Even then I doubt that there are enough guys out there wearing the leather pants, wolf t-shirt and eye makeup necessary to look as stupid as this guitar. And those guys usually don’t have $4000 to waste on what is basically a gimmicky Les Paul dressed as a gay tiger, so you’re going to have a hard time selling these, aren’t you?” Salesman: “Like you would not believe”

Where do you think Gibson went wrong with its online marketing strategy?

Leave me your thoughts please.

1. Email Is The Holy Grail
Whether you’re tricking out your MySpace page or performing at your local venue, always think about what you can do to collect more email addresses. Believe me, there is nothing of greater importance than your email list.  If you’re not using a professional email marketing service (EMS), you should start now.  Mad Mimi is my favorite but I have also tried iContact (which I hated), MailChimp (which I liked) and Emma (which I loved but it’s a bit pricey).

2. Passive Radio Is Passé
Massive online radio sites get your music in front of targeted music fans.  They are not your average passive radio listeners, they are music fanatics feverishly searching for music just like yours.  Yeah, you have to pay for the privilege, but the exposure you get in return is guaranteed and trackable.  In the music biz, it’s hard to find that kind of bang-for-your-buck value. Jango Airplay is the largest online radio promotion service that I know of.  As a Jango affiliate, I regularly send artists in their direction.  The feedback from these artists has been phenomenal.

3. Get Professional Help
Whether it’s your songwriting or your marketing (or anything else), never underestimate the value of expert advice.  We Are Listening provides professional assessments for songs and lyrics.  It’s what we know and what we’re good at.  But you can find a service, coach or consultant for any project you wish to fast track to success.  The humility required to ask for help and receive critical feedback is the mark of an independent artist and entrepreneur that people want to listen to and associate with.  Personally, I can use all the help I can get!

4. Stand Out
You don’t have to be loud to stand out.  The smallest touches can make a huge impact… and I don’t mean limited edition vinyls or glow-in-the-dark t-shirts.  For example, I recently discovered that you can create your own custom M&Ms.  It’s awesome.  Imagine every M&M with your message and image on it, any colour scheme you like, and branded packaging.  Great munchies at a gig.  Lovely gift for any holiday.

5. Follow The Leaders
I can’t think of a better way to learn about the music industry and make great connections than by following individuals who have been there, done it, succeeded, and willing to share their experiences with you.  For free.  I recently published a post on the subject that should get you started:
14 Music Industry Leaders (You Should Follow)

6. Be An Outstanding Communicator
Most people are not.  But it’s something that can be learned.  Remember Secret #1 (Email Is The Holy Grail)?  Well, that email list you’ve been growing is not worth a dime if you can’t put a compelling message together.  Outstanding communicators stand out, lead and succeed.  Are you an outstanding communicator?

Bonus Tip
If you’re already running your own newsletter campaigns, whatever you do, don’t do this.

3 Music Marketing Success Stories:
$10,000 In 48 Hours (Without A Label)
How To Get 200 New Fans A Week
How To Raise $10,000

Yesterday, I received a newsletter for which I didn’t opt-in to from an artist I have never heard of.

To make matters worse, he used “Vote for me, promote my stuff!” as the subject line.  The message was in two languages, only one of which I can understand, and it read:

Promote my music, post links in the web, send my reverbnation ploayer to other people, you can copy the player and paste it in mails or comments on other websites like myspace. If you want to buy my musik just click the shops, or the links that I will post on myspace during the day! ; )

I accept that, as an occupational hazard, I am added to artists’ email lists without my permission on a daily basis.  Not a problem.  When I receive their group messages, I swiftly click on Spam or Unsubscribe, depending on my mood.

This guy, though, failed [himself] on all fronts:

1. No permission from me
2. Pompous subject line followed by a…
3. Conceited message that’s…
4. Irrelevant to me

Don’t do this.

3 Music Marketing Success Stories:
$10,000 In 48 Hours (Without A Label)
How To Get 200 New Fans A Week
How To Raise $10,000

I just discovered that anyone can create their own custom M&Ms!

Just imagine:  Every bite with your message, artwork, logo or face on it.  How cool is that?

You can also choose from a variety of personalized color schemes and packaging.

It’s so awesome you have to check it out.  Yum!

Music marketing is hard. Really hard.

I have made all the rookie mistakes and then some.

From building websites to building an email list, I have spent a small fortune creating my business. Had I known then what I know today, I could have saved thousands of dollars, spared myself countless sleepless nights, and achieved the success I enjoy today much sooner.

If you’re already enjoying the success you deserve, read no further.

But if you’re feeling disgruntled with the music industry, frustrated with the promise of a multitude of internet services, and darn right pissed off that all the work you’re doing isn’t paying off, please read on. I’ll make it short.

Secret #1: Email Is The Holy Grail
Whether you’re tricking out your MySpace page or performing at your local venue, always think about what you can do to collect more email addresses. Believe me, there is nothing of greater importance than your email list. If you’re not using a professional email service, start now.

Secret #2: Passive Radio Is Passé
Massive online radio sites get your music in front of targeted music fans. They are not your average passive radio listeners, they are music fanatics feverishly searching for music just like yours. Yeah, you have to pay for the privilege, but the exposure you get in return is guaranteed and trackable. In the music biz, it’s hard to find that kind of bang-for-your-buck value. Jango Airplay is the largest online radio promotion service I know of. Are you on it?

Secret #3: Get Professional Help
Whether it’s your songwriting or your marketing (or anything else), never underestimate the value of expert advice. We Are Listening provides professional assessments for songs and lyrics. It’s what we know and what we’re good at. But you can find a service, coach or consultant for any project you wish to fast track to success. The humility required to ask for help and receive critical feedback is the mark of an independent artist and entrepreneur that people want to listen to and associate with. Personally, I can use all the help I can get!

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Is the number of fans who open your messages, read your comments and click on your music player declining?

Maybe it’s time to try something different.

With SnailMailr, you can send a letter by postal mail directly from your desktop.  There’s no need to print anything, stand in line at the post office, purchase stamps, or practice your illegible handwriting on the envelope.    SnailMailr does it all for you and will even print a high quality image to include in your letter.

For $1 a piece, you’re not going to want to send a letter to 10,000 fans but, for the handful of supporters who truly went out of their way for you, it’s a lovely gesture.

Try going out of your way for them with a personal letter by postal mail.  It’s easy and looks great.

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In a press release distributed today by ReverbNation’s own Jed Carlson, ReverbNation, the all-under-one-roof music marketing portal with almost 400,000 users announced the pre-launch of a new product dubbed Site Builder, a collaborative effort with Bandzoogle, a custom website building service for indie artists.  Site Builder enables artists with no technical know-how to easily create their own websites in just a few clicks and automatically integrate their content from their ReverbNation accounts and connect their websites to other supporting ReverbNation features such as FanReach, the popular newsletter client.

“It’s critical for Artists to have their own ‘home’ where they can develop fan relationships, grow their brand, and conduct business directly with their fans,” says ReverbNation Co-Founder Lou Plaia.  “Site Builder is another step in creating a true, turnkey solution for the DIY artist.   Soon we will be adding a comprehensive direct-to-fan store that will allow artists to sell merchandise, music, ringtones, and tickets to their fans through all of their fan touch points online.”

The addition of Site Builder to ReverbNation’s comprehensive, one-stop service brings the company even closer to its 360-degree vision for DIY artists.

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Topspin, the enigmatic media technology company “dedicated to developing leading-edge marketing software and services that help artists and their partners build businesses and brands” has combined forces with Berkleemusic.com, the online extension of Berklee College of Music, to provide music marketing courses for artists and music promoters to master the Topspin direct-to-fan marketing strategy and dedicated technology tools.  The first online course, Marketing your Music with Topspin, available exclusively on Berkleemusic.com, is slated for release in September 2009, with course enrollment beginning next month.

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Marketers use focus groups to determine the consumer attitude toward a new product before millions are poured into launching it.  It is a form of qualitative research and practiced by companies of every size and discipline.  Focus groups are designed by experts, require considerable resources and take time.  However, the core principle of acquiring pertinent feedback in order to improve a product or arrive at a solution for a problem before “the damage is done” can be effectively applied on a much smaller scale, if done right.

I caught up with the General Manger of SoundOut, James Sopper, this week to find out how his company has brought the value of focus groups to artists and labels through a cost-effective and intuitive online platform.

James, please tell me a little about your professional background, how you got involved with SoundOut, and your role at the company.

I graduated from Imperial College in London with a Masters Degree in Aeronautical Engineering about nine years ago and, pretty soon after that, I took on the role of Technical Manager for a triple World Speed Record campaign.  After a good few years of speed-sailing and many days spent on frozen lakes in Canada, I began working for a large US medical company as a project specialist and it was while I was there that I was introduced to David, CEO of Slicethepie, by a mutual friend.  After speaking to David at length about the new business he’d spent the last year setting up he invited me to join the team (I say “team” although at that stage it was four desks and a foosball table set up in what was formerly a school classroom!).  Three months later, in mid June 2007, Slicethepie was born.  Since then, I’ve been leading various strategic projects behind the scenes at Slicethepie, the latest and by far the biggest being SoundOut.  My current role is SoundOut General Manager and I’m tasked with day-to-day operations as well as pushing forward with new developments, features and improvements .

What is SoundOut’s core offering?

SoundOut’s core offering is Consumer Insight and Analytics sourced directly from music consumers.  We take a whole stack of blind reviews of your track (both numeric 0-10 ratings and written text reviews), crunch the data for you and present the results in an easy-to-read report.  We report on things like gender bias for the track (whether guys like it more than girls for example), age bias and whether there was a consensus of opinion on the track or whether opinion was divided to name a few.  We also analyse the text reviews using some very clever processes built for us by CFL Software Limited which pull out the key themes mentioned in the reviews – things like “heavy bass line” or “long intro” – and let you know the overall sentiment behind those themes (whether they were thought of as positive aspects of the track or whether those elements let the track down).  I guess the main difference to other sites is that the reviews submitted to SoundOut are blind; the reviewers can’t choose which tracks they review and they aren’t told the name of the track or artist until after they’ve submitted their review so the artist gets genuine, anonymous feedback.  We also do a lot of analysis on the actual text used in the reviews which is revolutionary.

When did you launch SoundOut and what has the response been like to date?

SoundOut was launched on January 13th 2009 so it’s really only been about five months since launch.  The response has been great so far but what’s really surprised us is the number of SoundOut users who have come back to order more reports.

What is the relationship of SoundOut to Slicethepie?

They’re sisters!  All the reviews for track submitted to SoundOut are collected via the Slicethepie Scout Rooms.  There’s a huge army of music fans out there who have dedicated a lot of time to reviewing music on Slicethepie – SoundOut simply taps into that knowledge and experience.

How do you propose that the artists/music promoters who order a report from SoundOut leverage this data to meaningful, career-advancing opportunities?

That’s the million dollar question!  SoundOut reports are being used by large number of music professionals for various purposes – everything from radio station programmers drawing up playlists to labels as a pre-A&R filter and, of course, the artists themselves.  So I guess it depends on what you want, for example, the age and gender information from a SoundOut report can help an artist decide which radio stations are the most appropriate ones to send demo tapes to.  I won’t go so far as to say that a SoundOut report is going to open doors for you but it will give you a little insight as to which doors to go and knock on first.

A report from SoundOut is certainly nice to have… but is it a “must have” in today’s climate?

I’d say that in today’s climate, information is a “must have”.  Gone are the days of just seeing how many “friends” you can get to add you as you can on MySpace – bands need genuine feedback from people who listen to music just as much as record labels, radio stations and music supervisors.  It’s no secret that the majors have been using market research and focus groups for years but the costs associated with these were always beyond the reach of all but the biggest marketing budgets.  SoundOut offers a credible, reliable, fast and cost effective solution to bring this kind of data to aspiring bands and indie labels.

What success stories, if any, have you recorded to date, attributed to the use of SoundOut?

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and seeing as SoundOut is only five months old it’s still too early to tell for sure.  I can tell you that a number of artists have put entire albums through to help them determine which single they should release first – those albums are due to be released later on in the year so it’ll be interesting to see what conclusions they draw from their reports and how those relate to the decisions the artists themselves have made.

What can we expect from you in the near future?

We’ve got some pretty big plans for SoundOut and are putting the finishing touches to some really neat new features.  The accuracy of SoundOut has attracted a lot of attention and because of that some of the stuff we’ll be releasing later in the year will help artists monetise their music and access new markets… so stay tuned for more updates!  As always, if anyone has suggestions, comments or ideas, then please feel free to email me at info@soundout.com

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Extraordinary.  I’ve been poring over new music marketing strategies since I graduated from college, examining everything from joint ventures between bands and brands to iPhone apps and free disc-on-keys, chronicling 360 deals and studying the convergence of digital with traditional.  So complex the music industry has become that I sometimes don’t understand my own diagnoses.  Over the weekend, I learn that Katy Perry has set-up a voice center with SayNow where she calls in from time to time with a personal update and fans can leave her messages (she calls some of them back, apparently).  It seems that the “next-generation” of artists and promoters, myself included, have been swept off our feet by communication and relationship management technologies and forgotten that there’s nothing quite like picking up the phone from time to time.  Praise you Katy Perry!

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