Innovating Around Music Marketing and Music Artist Branding

FROM OUR MAIN BLOG ABOUT MUSIC MARKETING AND MUSIC BRANDING

Need seriously professional online music business support?

My name is Matt Turner and my company Kurb specializes in online music business – marketing, management, strategy and business models for artists and organisations.

We do websites, design, online advertising, video promotion and production, email management, brand strategy, content marketing, administration . . . everything basically.

We tailor online solutions that are comprehensive and affordable. I run a team of staff in the Philippines, India, Bangladesh and here in New Zealand which offers insurmountable value in online music marketing to musicians in the US or Europe.

Our fees start at US$200 p/month which gets you 4 hours from me building your online marketing and branding strategy and 10 hours from our support team in design, social media, video, and content.

You simply won’t get this standard of service and expertise at this price elsewhere.

Contact me, Matt: kurbpromo@gmail.com

Just been reading more on Chris “Long Tail” Anderson’s new “Free” thing.

So how many books did he write? I think I must have been hearing about this for about a year now and every time it’s got a new bi-line. But people are still talking about it, has he been rereleasing new versions or what? Has he been drip feeding the chapters?

But reading various articles around the blogosphere it astounds me how few music business bloggers seem to understand business. It doesn’t have to be a struggle.

If you’ve been wasting your time for years and not getting anywhere, somethings wrong, and it’s not talent, because you can get by without it and plenty do.

Music business bloggers should be pointing the way using innovative concepts, not saying daft things like “how are we going to make more money out of songs and gigs if everything is free?”

Hey newsflash: It’s 2009 and you should know by now that the answer is: You’re not.

Just like your various royalty cheques, songs and performance fees are no your bread and butter, it’s just a little bonus cash you can use because god knows if you’re a musician you probably need it.

So right now that doesn’t mean stop being a musician, it just means to succeed in music with a career, you need people who understand business on your side. Now that used to be the label, but now the label is nothing, it’s just a bunch of guys with an office.

Guess what, I’ve got an office too but I’m not asking you to sign away anything. If you don’t feel it’s right, you’re not stuck with anything. That’s why I ask for $400 upfront for our music marketing services and if you’re not happy after 3 months you can walk away. Just decided right now I’m going to put that up to $500 before the end of the year.

My prices have to keep going up because between me and the 7 guys in india and the Philippines that work for me, we do damn good work for the money we’re paid.

Often you’ll get these guys who have been in the industry awhile and they’ve learnt a lot but they still started out as rock’n rollers who really didn’t want anything else but to rock, and good on them, we can learn from their experience, but you have to understand that most people who had a natural predisposition for business probably cottoned on pretty quickly to where they could actually make money quickly and easily and that’s not the music industry.

A lot of artists don’t understand how much competition there is for the tiny amount of glory and even tinier amount of money available in this business.

That’s why even the wisdom of the old timers with their experience and chops are so valuable.  But this is the thing – they can’t smell money. Not like I can.

This is why I feel really qualified in the music business, because after being in this for almost 5 years now, I am quite keen to make my first million soonish in the next few years because I’ve learnt first hand that goofy dreams don’t make money, even the goofy dreams of truly talented people. So I’m not that keen to mess around with the sort of things people won’t spend their good money on.

Like big pipe dreams. Like songs and gigs from artists with no profile or brand. Until you’re establish these are not going to contribute to your progress that much.

The only reason you had to gig relentlessly in the past was because there was no internet to offer an alternative. Now you gig relentlessly because you’ll never be a truly great artist until you’ve done at least a few hundred shows.

Seriously, when you pay someone like me to help you get moving in the music business it’s not going to be like me coming over to help you build a treehouse and then your mom’s going to bring out lemonade and hot dogs afterwards.

The music game is a bitter trail littered with broken dreams. Because the young musicians were so confident, they spent years butting their head against the same brick walls until their motivation is gone, and in the early stages, although still important, it is no longer essential to have your hometown behind you.

It’s the age of the internet now, and the internet means internet business.

THE BUSINESS:

Business is about providing services and products that quite simply outplay and exclude the competition from even being considered in the minds of your audience.

Which is not hard considering how many fools there are in music and how many music business people, as I said, don’t seem to “get” business.

The situation we’re in is that less people want to pay for music, the people that do pay, want to download it and they expect to pay less. It’s not looking good for songs, albums recordings of any type to be big breadwinners.

Look, I know it’s all about art. Where do you think I came from? I loved the art, the creativity but somewhere I realised . . . I was always good at school and with money, but making music and being a musician and managing the networks and social politics that musicians must do as they move through a “scene” was always a struggle for me and I finally accepted I would rather be a successful business person than a mediocre musician.

But people like me are needed in order for musicians to grow thier careers sustainably. People who understand money and business, because I can tell you from experience, life is hard when you have no money to keep moving forward with. You got money, you can make decisions and make things happen.

You can give it to me to make you famous!

I can also tell you that once you have money, as you probably have been told, you just find a whole lot of new problems that ruin your life, but for now, your problem is you can’t move forward with your music because of money.

Because you need to structure a career around a new innovative business model beyond that of one which either only generates 69c a sale from Itunes or gigging which is hugely intensive and not scaleable.

There I go again with my “business concepts”, but what you need to understand is that both of those activities are a total drudge that will wear you down over years and make it harder to realise your art in it’s purest form and create a vivid brand. Making big money from selling heaps of songs and booking big gigs is something that comes naturally once you’ve put the work into building your brand that makes you a total powerhouse of themes, motifs, ideas, concepts – a brand – that totally feeds the idealogy of your chosen niche / demographic / market, TRIBE.

Doesn’t that sound good? Okay now we need to keep you eating in the years it will take to get there. That’s why you need some business help from me to not only be planning for a future where we are running a business with thousands of customers who are your fans, but until then, looking at what you’ve got and me using my internet smarts to help you get some money going so you can afford to keep paying me to work towards that end goal – in a year or two when you’ve got thousands of fans following what you’re doing and we’ve built a masterful mechanism to facilitate communication and of course sales and marketing to this fanbase.

That’s where you need to be thinking about innovative ways to take what you’ve got and provide as something that people would really want to pay for.

When I first start work with an artist we need to get the people first, which is basically the service we offer, we get you fans and then we talk about making money from them. But then it becomes about ideas, innovations concepts that connect with people in a way that it makes it perfectly logical and reasonable to give you money.

You see what I’m doing here? I couldn’t start a label because that model is dead, and I can’t make money from songs or by managing performers. So innovated that business model to providing my online markeitng and monetization service for $200 p/month so I could get paid – and now in order to get the fans and audience who read this blog engaged I am talking about my experience as a failed musician and a successful business person in such a way so you’ll put it together yourself:

Without. . .

A website, with persuasive marketing and frictionless functionality

A pro email management platform

SEO optimisation

PPC / online advertising campaign

A blog to use as a quick publishing channel

Social media marketing support on myspace/youtube

As well as guidance for facebook / twitter

Outsourcing cheap overseas labour to manage and administer digital tasks

Affiliate marketing set up and tracking

You don’t have a good grasp on the shape of the new music business, and from a lot of the music business articles I read, they’re not telling you nearly enough about this stuff for you to succeed without professional help.

My company of course provides all these services in acomprehensive and personal may for our music marketing clients so please contact us today:

kurbpromo@gmail.com

Superstar Music Marketing Reality Check 2009

FROM OUR MAIN MUSIC MARKETING BLOG

Need seriously professional online music business support?

My name is Matt Turner and my company Kurb specializes in online music business – marketing, management, strategy and business models for artists and organisations.

We do websites, design, online advertising, video promotion and production, email management, brand strategy, content marketing, administration . . . everything basically.

We tailor online solutions that are comprehensive and affordable. I run a team of staff in the Philippines, India, Bangladesh and here in New Zealand which offers insurmountable value in online music marketing to musicians in the US or Europe.

Our fees start at US$200 p/month which gets you 4 hours from me building your online marketing and branding strategy and 10 hours from our support team in design, social media, video, and content.

You simply won’t get this standard of service and expertise at this price elsewhere.

Contact me, Matt: kurbpromo@gmail.com

Alright time for another music marketing update here on my blog and now that we’re past half way through 2009 and I’m taking a bit of perspective on it. I can’t really complain.

I’ve had a good year so far and I could be doing a lot worse. I think I’ve only put my prices up once so far this year but I also feel that the clients I have working on music marketing strategies are getting more than ever. I have 8 different people with different skills all contributing to our operation.

What I’m saying is I’m doing well. Are you doing well? Than why the hell not? Internet marketing and music online has been happening for a while now, did you miss that?

In the recent past we could only speculate about how to break new acts, and play with new technology, but now I really feel as if we’re getting on with it. Certain ideas and concepts that have been theorized now appear to be returning results, and that’s what artists want.

And because I’m seeing results – and I don’t mean fake views on youtube or fake friends on myspace – but increased unsolicited sign ups to artist newsletters, responses from building amounts of genuine fans, I count that as a success.

The ppc adword campaigns pretty much just churn over and we can raise fanbases as quickly as people can pay for them but if you’re not willing to invest in expertise and scale then it can’t help you, and if you’re not prepared to engage the fans you’ve built than you’ve wasted your time.

There are a variety of ways to benefit from increased google results but what if the top google results for your name are full of negative connections and bad press?

Right now we’ve been able to bury a couple of unfavourable tabloid articles about one client on google by increasing rankings for several artist controlled sites, and this is the only way your expensive music pr campaign will work anyway – what do you think people do when they hear or see your name on a tune they like?

They google it. And they find some bad review of you? Some tabloid about how you turned up at some event looking dowdy? Oh man. Your average music industry people just don’t have the skills that we offer in these areas. But these are areas that matter, that if they’re not covered at this crucial stage when you’re trying to break through from the bottom, then you’re slowing yourself down, you’re not building organic growth you’re hoping for a miracle.

Building an artists brand, marketing presence and career online folds out over years now. If you want a career and you’re financing it yourself then this is going to take years.

Y’know when artists I’m working with are now signing up fans everyday who are then downloading free mp3’s and we’re facilitating true fan – artist relationships, I see the work paying off because getting the next 100 fans is going to be nowhere near as hard as getting the first 100, and so it will go.

When you do have 1000 fans, if it’s taken 2 years and you’ve given me $5000, it’s going to be easier to get the next 1000 fans. And when you have 10,000 fans, lets face it, doesn’t that make you a star?

I know what it means for me. There’s 10,000 ways to make money out of 10,000 fans and that’s my job, but you gotta be prepared to commit to getting there!

I’ve been at this almost 5 years now, and artists are expecting to build careers in 3 months? You’ve got to understand what you’re doing is a business. And there a stages to how a business develops that are not at all related to how “stars” were hatched in the 90’s, with a huge million dollar marketing injection from the get go.

I grew up pretty middle class, so it’s been eye opening for me to be reaching this stage in the online business and I say this because: what are you going to do if and when YOUR music business is turning  $100,000 profit a year and growing?

1st gear is great for climbing this hill as you’re trying to break through. But you don’t want to get stuck in first gear when it’s time to cruise down the other side.

You’re going to need more assistance, not less, and it takes business savvy. I’m only just learning how this game is played once you step up to the next level.

I’m extremely grateful after 5 years for what appears for me an opportunity to become relatively wealthy in the music business and basically, live a more lavish lifestyle than I expected. So grateful in fact, that I will listen to people call me up and ask me repeatedly to explain exactly how I will make them money form their music in 3 months.

Well that’s easy. I can’t.  I can’t do that. I charge $600 for 3 months to spend helping you in each and every way I have built my own music business with the benefit of 5 years hindsight, experience and resources.

It’s 3 months because that’s the least I believe I can do and know that if the artist walks away they will have benefitted from the work I’ve done.

But honestly if you want to be successful in music, entertainment or whatever internet content it is you provide, and you want my help to do that, than being prepared to feed me $50 p/week for a year or two is nothing. Because I’ve been doing this long enough to know what I’m doing is working.

But they’re demanding and slightly arrogant about it. I talk to these people everyday, they ask me to prove I can help them. I’m nonplussed. If I could prove I could make you famous for US$600 do you think I wouldn’t have thousands of people lining up with $600?

Do you think to achieve a lifetime goal and dream is worth $600???

I’m looking forward to proving I can make people famous because I reckon I could charge at least $20k for that. But I can’t, so I just charge $600.

So when and how do I expect to the work I do with artists to pay off?

Music Marketing Services: Tools for Concepts, Branding, Innovation, Distribution

Matt @ Kurb and his team of designers, writers, content distributors, social media marketers, google adwords PPC managers and video producers provide a complete online marketing solution for musicians, entertainers and performers.

Email Matt @ Kurb: kurbpromo@gmail.com

It’s just $400 up front to get your online music marketing campaign running with a website design, blog, email list, myspace and youtube promo and guaranteed targeted traffic every day.

If after 3 months you don’t think it’s right for you that’s fine, you keep all your designs, videos. market research and email list data.

$400 For PROFESSIONAL and COMPREHENSIVE marketing? Get in quick!!! Ask about the $100 free advertisng credit!

Want more info on what we provide? Artist Management // Youtube marketing // video production

As well as cheap graphic design // blog promotion // gig promotion

it’s like this:

branding and sales refining > launch online advertising campaign >
which combined with music pr leads to > targeted traffic to your site
> email sign ups > fanbase that can be leveraged for traditional
sales, advertising or alternative means of revenue through ongoing
newsletters

I’m used to these situations so I’ll will be responsible for your blog
and your email sign up page so if you already have an artist blog established that can be dealt
with on your end.

I’m just managing the sign ups and pushing out info through the blog channel.

So the important point is I have plenty of experience in online
advertising, and with your publicity efforts included, and working
your social media, getting people coming to your site won’t be a huge
problem, I’m experienced here. The issue is getting them to care
enough to engage.

That’s why I’m focused on this heavily right now.

When it comes to “bringing your brand to life” you need to provide raw
content which is basically, aside from music most obviously is:

- photos
- writing
- video

basically the first hand stuff that I can’t replace you for.

Photos can be given to our designers to make powerful visual images
Writing can be used by me and my staff to create newsletters,
articles, press releases
Video footage as well as pictures music titles etc. can be put
together by my video staff for more powerful engagement

When we get into this deeply which is not likely to be within the
first 3 month cycle, we conduct this process as a co-ordinated
campaign pushing a fully realised concept or proposition.

First we’re just getting into the idea that you provide content as raw
material for branding and marketing purposes, then once we’ve used
these techniques to establish your platform (ie get fans signing up)
we launch more powerful more compelling ideas or “hooks” that keep
existing fans in the loop while attracting new fans.

Your platform (site, blog, social media, email management), online
advertising campaign, and my staff and the work they do – these are
just tools. These tools are only as good as the ideas and the
propositions they convey.

When you’ve got us to put all this in place for you after 3 months,
the only thing to add is powerful creative ideas that have appeal and
viral qualities.

You’re the artist. I’m here to help you develop these ideas, and have
this system put in place for you so you can create attention, but when
it comes to truly unique and innovative marketing, those are ideas
that have to be developed.

for example:

What’s the new song about?

What can we give away free to get people interested? Should we have a
competition? Can we add an interactive element, a viral element? Do an
article on “how to be a  . . .?”  This is where the brainstorming
begins and ideas are developed.

And good ideas do take time!

The idea is by the first 3 months you have an established platform and
your building sign ups daily, then we’re planning each newsletter as
an entertaining episode and every month we’ve got new ideas whether
it’s one song theme or another, something old or obviously, something new -
and we’re pushing new sales propositions to that established list
within that concept.

Of course, we can’t replace you, there will be no “ghost” so to speak,
but this also requires that you are able to update your blog every
week this is what I refered to by providing “writing”.

The list belongs to you, yes, as does the design work etc.

I wish I could promise you results in 2 months. But setting up a blog,
a professional email solution, and an effective advertising campaign,
that all takes work.

The google thing is also really important particularly for you.
Influencing google also takes months, but I’m sure we can get your
official sites coming up in the top results by then.

So this takes almost $400 worth of work alone – so, I want you to give
me 3 months and as I say you’re under no obligation to pay the second
$200 after that, if you don’t want to stick with it I’m happy to give
you the email list data, advertising campaign data and research,
designs etc.

There’s a big difference between a radio campaign and online
marketing, a publicity campaign to service your promo is just a one
off thing, the work we put in place will benefit your online presence
long after the 3 months is up.