MSi9W - Week 9.1 ~ Creating the Funnel of Love

Music Success in 9 Weeks No Responses »
Sep 052010

I am at the point in this 9 part exercise where it truly becomes evident that I am a business. This is where I figure out how to bring in a consistent revenue stream that can support my activities as a songwriter and musician. I am creating the funnel that draws in customers and entices them to pay more and more for my products.

Everything up to now has been laying the foundation for the store that I am building. I have my basic product which are my songs and live gigs. I have interaction with my customers through my newsletter and social media. I am collecting information on my customers so that I can better serve them. And I am scheduling time to keep this cycle going so that it all grows. Watering the garden.

Now I need to lure the customer in further and get them to send me money consistently and at higher levels of pricing. the basic product is what it is, but it can be packaged in different ways so as to make it seem more valuable to the consumer. The idea behind getting fans to pay more is to think of it as a funnel where the least expensive items that would be appealing to the widest demographic is at the top. As you go deeper into the funnel to the tightest point, the products get more expensive and the number of fans who would buy at that level becomes more exclusive.

As I read through this chapter I took a look at my website to see what exists in terms of the funnel. At this time I really only have two levels. Level 1, the widest, consists of free mp3s in exchange for an email address. Level 2 is the purchase of my CDs. Very basic and very obvious. I’m sure that this is what a lot of artists have on their sites: here’s a taste for some information and then you can go buy the whole CD. See you at a show! If any other business were to operate like that they’d go out of business in a week.

I need to think outside of the basic “Buy My Music” paradigm and brainstorm other products and other ways of packaging my basic product. Here’s what I came up with:

  • lyrics on t-shirts
  • lyrics on mugs
  • personalized songs
  • Gift-a-Song: songs for your friends and family as a gift
  • Gift-a-Gig: concert for a friend
  • USB flash drive with all my music and videos
  • stickers with my CD cover and info
  • songs as themes for your business, podcast – commercial
  • mp3s, CDs

Here’s a possible T-Shirt idea with a song lyric:

The take-away from this chapter is that there is more to the music that I write than just the obvious application of recording it and plying it live. Bob Baker often says that we as musicians can learn an awful lot from studying how other businesses market their products. He also says you can’t really have ‘sales’ until you’ve had ‘marketing’.

The other aspect that I am going to have to convince myself of is that this is a viable way to think about my music. As I have had to do constantly over the course of these 9 weeks, I have to convince myself that I am an entrepreneur.

The next thing I need to think about is which of these packaging items I think will work and then where do they fit on the funnel. Here’s what I think it may look like (a first draft):

I did not include the prices since I’m not quite sure what those prices would be at this point, but they would be priced according to the depth of the funnel.

I found this chapter enlightening. This is the ‘think-out-of-the-box’ type of thing that really makes money for an artist and also spreads the product around. This is also something that takes time to develop and does not just happen overnight. When I look at the things I can develop, I may not have that deep of a funnel as compared to other artists. But it all starts with a taste, the ‘pink spoon’ from the ice-cream store an then that leads to an ever more evolving relationship with your fans.

Posted by Darryl at 6:19 PM Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,

MSi9W – Week 7.2 & 8.2~ Building the List & Networking - addendum

Music Success in 9 Weeks No Responses »
Aug 272010

I want to add an update to these two post topics and it comes from an experience that I had last night at an outdoor gig.

When I was up on stage playing I could clearly see that people were digging my music. People were smiling, laughing at my banter between songs and bobbing their heads to the groove. Yes! They like my stuff. They will definitely come up and talk to me afterward, I know it! I made a point of inviting people to talk and to sign up on the list.

My set ended and another performer was up. Out of respect to the performer I did not work the crowd when she was up. I was preparing myself for the networking that was coming up after she was done. I was going over things in my head that I wanted from this crowd and it was mainly email addresses. I didn’t expect to sell CDs since the crowd was being asked to donate money for a charity, but I had them out anyway. I created a goal for myself of getting at least 5 email addresses. That was reasonable and it was a large crowd of about 40 people and their kids and dogs.

Dickenson Park, Newtown CT

This is what happened that makes me take a different look at collecting emails at gigs. I was on stage for a last song with all of the performers and prior to getting on stage I happened to ask my lovely wife to pass the email list around until I got off the stage. That was the key: asking my wife (or someone other than doing it myself) to work the crowd. As the song finished I saw people stand up and start to leave! I had to put away my guitar, unplug, get off the stage, talk to a few officials who were thanking us, etc. I was stuck on or near the stage and people were leaving. WAIT! I want your email addresses… I finally got off the stage and started to network in the crowd, but then I got caught up in single conversations that took time; people were leaving!

At some point, as the sun was disappearing beyond the trees, I bumped into my wife and she handed me my clipboard. It had 10 email addresses! I had gotten 2 using my iPhone to automatically sign them up to my Constant Contact service. So, wait let me do the math… 12 emails! 200% of my goal!

Here’s the takeaway: I will get more from an audience in terms of email addresses, tips, CD sales, etc, if I have a team member there to help out.

To have someone whose task is to simply ask for an email address is a huge asset. I, as the performer, am at a disadvantage. I just got done with a performance, I have to pack up. If I do talk to people, they want to have a conversation which keeps me from mingling. But having a person work the room with just 2 questions to ask: Did you enjoy the show? Can you sign p for Darryl’s list? That’s creating a system that works.

Now I just have to get my wife to come to ALL of my gigs with her clipboard!

Posted by Darryl at 10:40 AM Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

MSi9W - Week 4.3 ~ Blogging, Podcasting, Twitter and Flickr… Oh My!

Music Success in 9 Weeks 2 Responses »
Jul 312010

And… perhaps a final word here about Twitter and Flickr.

It has taken me almost a year of using Twitter to really grasp it. I’m not a social person, I do badly at parties and mixers and schmooze events, but I understand the necessity and I usually can hold my own for a bit. People tell me that I’m quiet, but I prefer to think that I am ‘verbally efficient’. I comment and talk about things that I know something about and things that interest me.

OK, that said, how does it apply to Twitter? Well Twitter is a lot like a cocktail party: a lot of little conversations going on. Some of them are interesting but most of them are silly mutterings that have nothing to do with anything I want to talk about or comment on. That’s OK, I will politely listen. But at some point I have to get in on a conversation and start making relationships. I do this by retweeting peoples’ statements that are relevant to me and commenting on statements that I feel I can add to. I mentioned in the last post (week 4.2) that bloggers just want to be recognized for what they do; so do tweeters. It is ‘micro-blogging’ after all. You get a Tweeter’s attention when you comment or RT and then they follow you and at some point want to know more about you. YOU = MUSIC = GIGS = CD SALES —> or so the story goes.

The other thing that I’ve learned about Twitter is how to automate it. Since I’ve set up my Google Reader I can extract blog posts that are relevant to me and tweet about them. I do this using TwitterFeed.com. Another way to automate tweets is by scheduling them using Hootsuite or TweetDeck. Whenever I write  blog post I use excerpts from the post as tweets that I then schedule across the week so that I keep drawing attention to my post.

There is a lot one can do with Twitter just ask @Carlalynnhall author of Twitter For Musicians. I have a gig coming up in Ohio and I’ve intentionally started following some Clevelanders in hopes that they will come to the gig. I’ve only mentioned the gig once and NEVER directly to them. But I’ve struck up a relationship with them and when I really start tweeting about it I hope they will then ask me what’s up and what the details are.

Flickr. I’m still on the fence about it. I’ve set up an account, but it doesn’t excite me. I can post pictures to my Facebook Fan page and to my Tumblr blog. People can also see them and comment on them. So what is the difference? Perhaps you can leave a comment telling me?

OK – on to week 5 and my newsletter. Good timing because it is the first of the month and time for a new issue to roll out!

Posted by Darryl at 10:40 PM Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

MSi9W - Week 4.2 ~ Blogging, Podcasting, Twitter and Flickr… Oh My!

Music Success in 9 Weeks No Responses »
Jul 292010

As I said in my previous post, this is going to be a multi-part blog-o-rama on this topic of week 4. Today I spent about 4 hours scouring the web for blogs that do reviews and podcasts that play my genre of music. I then put the findings into a database spreadsheet that was suggested by Chris Bracco on his Tight Mix Blog.

I started out using delicious.com and typing in some keywords. I found a few blogs, but it was slow going. Then I had a light bulb go off over my head and thought about the great newsletters that I get from CyberPR that often (well always) have interviews with podcasters and bloggers. What better way to research than to go to CyberPR’s New Media Interview archives and pillage!

I easily filled my quota of 30 bloggers (20 to go) and podcasters from the list of interviews I found. I also found a reference to a great source for bloggers called the Blog Catalog which allows you to explore the blogosphere using keywords. Blog Catalog is a great resource and very easy to use and capsulises what the blog is all about so you don’t have to waste time.

My next steps with the info I’ve collected:

  • put the blog URLs into my blogroll
  • bookmark the blogs into delicious.com
  • add the blog RSS for each blog into my Google Reader
  • monitor the blogs and start commenting
  • follow the ones that are on Twitter and Facebook
  • get some music up on the Podsafe Network

Next on the agenda:

  • add more blogs to my list by going to google.blogsearch.com and technorati.com
  • search for reviews of like sounding indie artists
  • check out last.fm and thesixtyone
  • start using my Flickr account – I’ve had an account for a long time, but haven’t used it

To Be Continued…

Posted by Darryl at 10:30 PM Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

MSi9W - Week 4.1 ~ Blogging, Podcasting, Twitter and Flickr… Oh My!

Music Success in 9 Weeks No Responses »
Jul 282010

(This post and the consequent chapter 4 posts are a combination of Chapters 4 & 5 of the 2nd edition of Ariel’s book which I did not have at the time of this writing…)

This topic is going to require multiple posts this week, I can feel it. I’ve read through Chapter 4 several times and I’m just starting to map out my strategies and schedule my work.

Let’s start with Blogging and Podcasting. I’m a blogger and I’m a podcaster, so I know a bit about both. The question is how to get MY music on other people’s blogs and podcasts? If the average blogger/podcaster is like me then they are probably a combination of the following:

  • music-lovers
  • music-thinkers
  • musician-helpers

they most likely have:

  • day jobs
  • families
  • not a lot of time

they are also:

  • independent
  • somewhat organized but not efficient
  • happy to help, but don’t like being ‘sold’ or ‘pushed’

bloggers and podcasters don’t always ‘Do it for the Money’, but:

  • they do like praise
  • they do like FREE stuff
  • they do like to be recognized
  • they do like to be mentioned

While I may have an insight into who a blogger/podcaster may be, I still need to find them and create a relationship with them. Here’s my strategy so far:

  1. Create my Google Reader
  2. Subscribe to and follow blogs and podcasts found on delicious.com
  3. Keep track of podcasters and bloggers from the CyberPR’s newsletter
  4. Schedule weekly times to comment on blogs and listen to podcasts
  5. Create a database spreadsheet of blogs and podcasts
  6. Follow up

It’s all about the relationship and community. I plan to release a CD in the summer of 2011 and now, almost a year in advance, is the time to sow the seeds.

To be continued…

Posted by Darryl at 1:14 PM Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,