The Evolution Of Email

Even if you're not using it as much as you once did, you still have to admit that email has changed the way we communicate forever. Although chat, IM and text may be more immediate, email still serves as one of the best marketing tools that there is, as I've outlined here in many past posts.

Here's a very interesting infographic about the evolution of email. It's by Microsoft so it's biased towards their products, but interesting nonetheless.

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Google's Music Service Launch

On Tuesday Google did a beta launch of their new music service, called "Music Beta By Google." The service includes a free cloud music locker, a music player and integration with an updated Android music app.

The interesting thing is that Google, like Amazon (who recently launched their Amazon Cloud Player), went ahead with their soft launch without the permission of the major record labels. One of the reasons why Google might feel comfortable in doing so is that Music Beta doesn't include any sort of download store or streaming service that generates money, unlike what you'll likely to see from Apple soon. I'd say that the whole idea of the the record labels looking to be paid a second time for a purchase lockered in a cloud service like Music Beta can probably be put to rest now. Obviously both Google and Amazon feel legally comfortable with their position or they wouldn't have gone ahead with their services as they have.

Personally I don't see what the big deal is in terms of getting label permission to store songs. The only thing beyond cloud storage that a locker service offers at this point is a custom music player, although the labels feel that the ability to stream music that you've purchased on any device that you own to be somehow worth an additional payment. Good luck on that guys. It looks like that game is over.

One thing that's worth thinking about though - you still have to upload all of your music to whatever locker service you go with (meaning Google or Amazon, presumably not so with Apple's when it's launched), which can be a huge pain. Music Beta reportedly attempts to ease the pain by automatically determining what songs you listen to most and uploading them to the service first. The thing that label permission does is alleviate the need to upload, since the service will just look to see what songs you have on your drive, and allocate them for use in the cloud.

To sign up for a Music Beta invite, click here, then click on "Request an Invitation" in the upper right corner. Here's a video that explains the service.

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7 Marketing Basics Every Musician Should Know

Industry pundit Derek Sivers (who's also featured in my Music 3.0 book) had his "7 Critical Marketing Basics Every Musician Should Know" reposted by CyberPRurban.com. If you don't already know, Derek founded CD Baby, but also spent time at publishing giant Warner Chappel so he definitely knows the biz (he was a touring musician as well). But maybe the most interesting thing about Derek is he's a great student of marketing and how traditional marketing applies to musicians.

Here's his 7 marketing basics.

Lesson #1 - A Marketing Golden Rule: It’s about THEM Not YOU
When he was a student at Berklee College of Music, Derek was attending a music business lecture. Before the lecture started, he overheard his professor whispering to guest speaker Mark Fried from Warner Chappell Music that there would be no time to eat before the lecture and it was a 3-hour talk. Mark was looking hungry and there had clearly been a miscommunication about eating before the class started. So, Derek slipped out of the room to a pay phone and ordered pizza for Mark and for the entire class. Forty-five minutes into his lecture, Mark was eating pizza with the class and was extremely grateful to Derek (who was one of many students in the room) who went out of his way to help him.

After the lecture, Mark gave Derek his card and told him to keep in touch, which Derek did for the remaining 2 years he was at Berklee. When he came to New York he would meet Mark for coffee and their friendship grew. A week before his graduation, Derek called Mark to ask if there were any jobs at Warner Chappell opening up. Seven days later Derek had a job working at Warner Chappell in the tape room.

The pizza took Derek one phone call and $25 and it secured him a job in the music industry. There were probably 45 students sitting in that lecture hall that day and he was the one who ended up with a relationship with Mark and in the end…a job.

Lesson #2: Unsolicited Actions Will Get You Nowhere
While working in the tape room at Warner Chappell, Derek got to see first hand what it looks like from the inside when indie musicians send unsolicited music to a publishing company. Warner Chappell is a large publishing company that was not looking to sign new artists and Derek saw the packages arrive by the dozen on a daily basis. From this he learned exactly what never to do.

Lesson #3 - No One Is Coming To Save You In The Music Industry
If you hire anyone to be on your team, no matter what they are doing for you, you must understand that that person is your hired partner. You will both have to work to achieve your desired result. This is especially true in the realm of social media and online marketing.

Lesson #4 - Marketing = Consideration
Reach People the Way You Want to Be Reached. Stop thinking of it as Marketing and start thinking of it as creative ways to be considerate. Begin to pay attention to other artist’s messages and notice what works on you. The considerate thing is to be so novel and creative and innovative so that people say, "You have GOT to see / hear this musician play!"

Lesson #5 - Sharply Define What You Do
You cannot slice through the world’s attention if you are using a blunt knife and you will most definitely be blunt if you are trying to be all things to all people. Your message must be sharp and pointed. It’s OK to exclude 99% and have 1% worship you! Be unapologetic in your bluntness.

Lesson #6 - DIY Does Not Mean Do It All Yourself - Decide It Yourself
DIY does not have to mean do it all yourself. Doing it all yourself will surely set you up for exhaustion and will leave you no time to be creative. Decide It Yourself - you call the shots but you MUST learn how to delegate, put your fans to work and get things off of your plate.


Lesson #7 - It’s Who You Know Mixed With How You Persevere
Everything major that happens in your career starts with someone you know. Get used to staying in touch with hundreds of people with blogs and with your newsletter. It’s a psychological shift in your head but once you can make it you can be very very effective staying in touch with many people. This is the miracle of technology.

Make yourself meet 3 new people every single week: Do this by picking up the phone - people get hundreds of emails and dozens of phone calls.

TIP: AVOID saying the words “pick your brain” to anyone. That says, "I want something from you"

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You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for daily discussion of music, recording, and production tips and tricks.

The 3 Pillars Of Effective Networking

Here's a great post from the Networlding blog called The 3 Pillars of Effective Social Networking. It's not referring to digital social networking however, but to real physical social contact - as in one-on-one personal interaction.

This blog violates a number of digital social marketing principles though, as all I know is the author's name is Melissa, since there's no background about her anywhere that I could find. It seems that she assumes that you know who she is already, which can be a big mistake.

Good post though, about the 3 R's (recognition, referrals and revenue) and the 3 C's of making a referral:

"People love recognition, referrals, and revenue.

Make a referral, but hope you get back:

1. Credit (for the referral, especially when other people use your contact for their benefit, they should give you public credit for the introduction)
2. Contacts (that can help you and your business)

3. Compensation (If and when appropriate)"

Great advice that applies online or good old-fashioned person to person.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.
You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for daily discussion of music, recording, and production tips and tricks.

Your Music Is Your Marketing

Here's an excerpt from Chapter 4 of Music 3.0: A Survival Guide For Making Music In The Internet Age. It's about how your music has changed from being your primary product to your primary marketing device. At least when you're starting, you've got to be willing to give your music away, because a funny thing happens in this new age we're living in; the more you give away, the more it sells.
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"The major marketing tool for the M30 artist is the music itself. It’s no longer the major product that the artist has to sell, although it still is a product, so has to be used differently and thought of differently as a result.

Perhaps recorded music was never the product we were led to believe it was. In the M1.0 and M1.5 days of vinyl records and CDs, the round plastic piece (the container that held the music) was the product. The artist never made money when a song was played on the radio (the songwriter always did, although the artist might soon get their due depending on the status of current legislation), and the artist only made a small percentage (10 to 15% of wholesale on average) of CD or vinyl sales. The artist made the most money on concert tickets and merchandise while touring.  There was a cost involved in the manufacturing of the the container that transported the music (physical material costs, artwork, etc.) that had to be recouped as well as the production costs of the music. But if you look at music in terms of the advertising world, you see music in a different light.

If you’re selling a soap product for instance, the production for a commercial to broadcast on television or the radio is a trivial cost. It’s the total ad buy (the agency purchasing the radio or television time for the sponsor) where most money is spent.  Even then, it’s considered part of the marketing budget of the product, which might be about 3% of total sales.

In M30, if you consider the music production costs as part of the marketing budget in the same way as a national product, it takes on a whole new meaning.

Since the music is considered the major marketing tool for an artist, it should be considered a free product, a giveaway, an enticement. Give it away on your website, place it on the Torrents for P2P, let your fans freely distribute it. It’s all OK. Since most millennial’s feel that music should be free and have lived in a culture where that’s mostly so, don’t fight it. Go with the flow! Just as it was during the last 60 years, the real money in the music business is made elsewhere anyway.

Plus, just because you’re giving it away doesn’t mean that you can’t charge for it either at the same time or sometime in the future. There are numerous cases where sales have actually decreased for an artist’s iTunes tracks when the free tracks have been eliminated.

One is Corey Smith. After 6 years, Corey’s has built his gross revenue to about $4.2 million and free music has been the basic building block of his tribe. You can buy his tracks on iTunes (he’s sold over 400,000 so far), but when his management experimented by taking the free tracks down from his website, his iTunes sales actually went down as well!  The free music allows potential fans to try Corey out. If they email and ask for a song that’s not available for free, he just emails it back to them. He’s tending his tribe!

Of course, you can charge for your music with box sets, compilations, special editions and other value-added offerings. But the initial releases for an artist on any level (except for the already-established star) must be free to build a buzz."

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Music Revenue To Grow 60% In The Future?

Despite the official numbers by industry associations like the RIAA and the IFPI that show the music industry now has essentially a flat growth, there are still those that have extremely rosy predictions for the future.

In a recent article in the Telegraph, independent telecoms analyst Ovum forecasted what seems to be some unbelievable growth the music industry. According to the article,

"Ovum forecasts that globally, revenues from music subscription services will increase at a compound annual growth rate of more than 60 per cent from 2011 to 2015, as consumers recognise the benefits of being able to access millions of streamed songs for the price of a CD every month rather than owning individual downloads. Subscription growth will also be driven by technology giants Apple and Google which are expected to launch cloud-based digital music subscription services this year."

60%??? Now considering that the growth in the US in 2010 was only 3%, this prediction seems more than a tad optimistic. Okay, how do they figure? More from the article.

"Subscription music services are set to be a key driver of the boost to digital revenues, according to Ovum, an independent telecoms analyst. However, the music industry is not believed to maximising digital music revenues because of the amount of free music available online, including free internet radio services such as Pandora in the US.

Ovum analyst Mark Little said: “Digital music will experience what might appear to be healthy growth over the next five years, but there is a danger that this could mask the fact that the industry is not maximising revenue potential.

“There is too much free music available in the digital economy and not just the illegal kind. Free Internet radio such as Pandora or Grooveshark, and freemium on-demand music services such as Spotify, are offering free music without maximising advertising or premium subscription revenues for themselves or the industry.”

Too much free music? So how do they propose that all that free music be turned into paid music? As I stated in many blogs previously, I believe that the future of the music industry is predicated on micro- and even nano-transactions, where bank transaction fees fall by the wayside and music costs in the pennies rather than $.69 or $.99. The technology does exist, but it has to be widespread and common before that happens, but there's no sign of that yet.

In the end, I see growth as well, but 60% would be a pleasant shock. I wouldn't bet my band on it.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for daily discussion of music, recording, and production tips and tricks.

10 Creative Rules Of Thumb

Here are some great tips on how to stay creative from the Marketing Essentials International blog, but I seem to remember seeing them on Seth Godin's or Derek Sivers' blog as well. Regardless of who created the list, it's still pretty good advice.

Top 10 Creative Rules of Thumb:

1. The best way to get great ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away.

2. Create ideas that are 15 minutes ahead of their time…not light years ahead.

3. Always look for a second right answer.

4. If at first you don’t succeed, take a break.

5. Write down your ideas before you forget them.

6. If everyone says you are wrong, you’re one step ahead. If everyone laughs at you, you’re two steps ahead.

7. The answer to your problem “pre-exists.” You need to ask the right question to reveal the answer.

8. When you ask a dumb question, you get a smart answer.

9. Never solve a problem from its original perspective.

10. Visualize your problem as solved before solving it.

I especially like #10. Sometimes "making your own reality" is the best tip of all. Try it sometime. It works.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.
You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for daily discussion of music, recording, and production tips and tricks.

The Real Power Behind The Music Business

I had an interesting discussion with a group of readers at the recent ASCAP Expo in Hollywood over the weekend that kind of opened my eyes a little. I thought that most young artists were of the DIY mindset, but there's still a sizable contingent that believes that being on a major label is still the way to score in the music business.

Their opinion changed when I described the real power behind the throne of the music business, which brings us to today's post. It's an excerpt from my Music 3.0 guidebook regarding who actually pulls the strings of the music business. Be forewarned, it's not who you think it might be.
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Although it may not be readily apparent, Wall Street and Madison Avenue indirectly control the remaining M2.5 music industry through their tremendous influence on the financial bottom line of record labels, record stores, concert promotion, radio, and television. If you’re owned by a publicly traded conglomerate (as all major labels, major concert promoters, and radio and television stations are), then you’re in the business of selling stock, not servicing the consumer. What that means is that nothing matters more than quarterly earnings. To keep those earnings as high as possible, Wall Street turns to Madison Avenue to devise the best marketing strategy for keeping the profits high. Madison Avenue (in the form of the major advertising agencies) can bring in the big ad dollars, but only under certain content conditions (like programming that is tailored around the advertising), and the process repeats itself over and over. The advertising industry (Madison Avenue), not the music industry, therefore drives the music cycle in the United States.

In M2.5, it’s all about passing focus-group tests, which have separated listeners into the distinct demographic groups that advertisers are then able to tell stock analysts they have micromarketed their products to. As a result, radio, television, and live performances are no longer about aggregating and entertaining large audiences, but rather just a group of market niches. The bright side to this fact is that there’s one heck of an opportunity opening up for folks who don’t get hung up on trying to sell advertising.

Wall Street and Madison Avenue have tried to redefine what music means to people, but most people are voting with their wallets by refusing to buy any new recordings. The view of the vast majority of consumers is that very few new recordings are worth buying compared to those released a couple decades ago, and this has become the dilemma of the industry. You have to sell product to survive, but it’s impossible to develop that product while trying to please your corporate masters. It might work when selling soap or clothing or any other consumer product, but a creative endeavor like music just doesn’t work that way. It’s too personal, both to the artist and the consumer, to be a mass-market product.

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The Official 2010 Music Sales Stats, Or Are They?

As you can see from the chart on the left, the RIAA recently released their official 2010 music sales statistics. As with most stats, they can be interpreted different ways, both good and bad. Here's one way to look at them.

• 1.265 billion downloads were sold worth $2.38 billion. That's a lot of music.

• Ringtones (seen here as Mobile) were down by just about 28%, but worth $526 million, still a lot of money.

• There were almost 30% more subscribers to subscription music, but the revenue was down by almost 6%. Not a good sign.

• No surprise here, but CD sales were down by 23%, but that meant that there were still 226 million sold for a revenue total of $3.36 billion. That might not be as much as what was sold at the height of the business, but it's still a lot of music.

• Vinyl was up by 26%, but that only meant 4 million units for $87 million in income, a mere drop in the bucket.

• One excellent stat for musicians is that performance royalties were up by 60% to $249 million.

Now keep in mind that what these stats represent are every sale that's been recorded by Soundscan (the service that measures music sales whenever a barcode is scanned), but doesn't represent anything sold independently on artist websites or distribution sites like CD Baby or TuneCore. It's been suggested that there's actually a huge hidden and uncounted amount of sales that you'll never see represented. As a result, the music business may be much healthier than the RIAA stats indicate. The problem is, we'll never know for sure.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.


Check out my Big Picture blog for daily discussion of music, recording, and production tips and tricks.

The Changing Face Of Mobile

One of the truisms of our modern age is that just as soon as you think you have a handle on something, you can bet that things have changed and moved on. So it's true with the mobile space, as pointed out recently by Mike Walsh, a leading authority on consumer innovation and our digital future, at a METaL breakfast that I recently attended. He's written a great book called Futurtainment that looks deep into our present to see the comes next.

Among the many things Walsh talks about in the book is the generation known as "the naturals," who have never known anything other than the internet. It turns out that kids age 16 and younger use their phones differently from the rest of us. They communicate in short bursts, and are perfectly at home with text messaging and social networks, which they prefer to use rather than old fashioned talking or even email. In fact, social networking is such a huge part of their lives that internet addiction clinics are beginning to pop up world-wide as demand outstrips the supply. Yes, there can be too much of a good thing.

A great example of how mobil technology has changed some cultures comes from Turkey, according to Walsh. There's an old Turkish proverb called “At, Avrat Silah,” that translates into "Horse, Woman, Gun." Once upon a time, to be a real man in Turkey you had to have a horse, a woman and a gun, which Turkish men were willing to flaunt to show their manhood. The bigger the horse, the more beautiful the woman, or the bigger the gun, the more powerful and respected the man. Today the horse is now the car. Getting the woman requires you to be adept at Facebook (Turkey is one of the largest social network users in the world), and the gun is now the smartphone. The better the phone, the bigger the gun. According to Walsh, “When Turkish men meet, the first thing they do is put their phone on the table.”

The phone has already began to change the culture in a new way in the rest of the world (and it will change here soon as well) as it also becomes your wallet. With the addition of NFC (Near Field Communication), it's now possible in some parts of the world to swipe your phone near a reader to purchase purchase everyday items like subway and bus fares, food items, and nearly everything you can think of. You'll see more of this in the US in the next year.

While many of the tech savvy are still tied to their laptops, the rest of the world is moving on as their phones become their computer. As the mobile world changes, will you be left behind?

Be sure to check out Mike Walsh's website and book site for a real treat.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for daily discussion of music, recording, and production tips and tricks.

Is Social Media Ruining Students?

Yesterday I had the pleasure of addressing Dr. Mark Waldrep's music business class at Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson, California. They were a great group of people, but I was a bit surprised how little they knew about social media marketing and branding, but I guess that's why so many colleges use my Music 3.0 book as part of their course. One of the social mainstay's that many of them weren't into is Twitter, which isn't a good thing from a promotion standpoint, but might be a benefit as a student.

As luck would have it, this morning I was greeted with an email from Cathy Vance, who suggested the following infographic about students and social media. It shows how Facebook and Twitter can have a negative effect on grades and making money. That said, I advocate using both as a promotional tool if you're an artist, producer or engineer, which is a completely different application.

Via: Online Education

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for daily discussion of music, recording, and production tips and tricks.

10 Essential Twitter Stats

Here's a great slideshow from Hubspot regarding some stats about Twitter that you should know. I'm a big proponent of Twitter for marketing as I've seen it work first-hand. At least a third of the traffic to both of my blogs comes from Twitter.

10 Essential Twitter Stats

View more presentations from HubSpot Internet Marketing

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on music, engineering and production tips and tricks.