Infinite Fan Base

I’ve noticed a few incidents over the past several weeks that have a single cause. From missed rehearsals to delayed gigs to unorganized events, they all had one thing as the cause – unclear expectations.

The most egregious of these problems is an uncertainty with time. When you announce a time, make sure that you also announce the details with the time. For example, don’t say that an event will start at 5 and then open the doors at 6. Or, even worse, announce that a band will start at 5 and then push them back to 9.

For many in the music business, when a time is set it means the activity will begin at that time. Whether it’s an interview, business meeting, lunch, or a gig, the announced time translates to “This event will start at time X.” So, as a consequence, most people get to the venue early. In the corporate business world, this is fairly standard practice. When it comes to gigs or rehearsals, well, not so much.

In one situation from my past, all the band members were trying to get to rehearsal as soon as possible after their day jobs. We wanted to fit in as much practice time as possible into our schedule. Unfortunatley, one of the members was consistently running late from work, which left most of us sitting around twiddling our thumbs. Things only escalated from there. Once the pattern started, the other guys would delay their arrival because they knew we weren’t starting on time. It created a vicious circle. We finally fixed the situation, but not after lots of frustration and missed practice time.

My philosophy is this – If you can show up 5 minutes before the gig, plug-in and go, then more power to you. If it takes you longer to set up, then you need to show up sooner.

If you are running into that problem, here’s how to handle it. State the time and include the detailed action. Be specific. Don’t say, “We’ll meet at 6.30.” Say, We’re going to meet at 6.30 to setup and start playing at 7.” Or, “We are meeting at 8 to load up the van and leaving at 9.” Be fair, but be clear. Usually that solves the issue.

There can be other issues with this method, but it helps 90% of the problems. If you’re in a situation in which you are consisitently juggling lateness and missed rehearsals, then you’ll find being specific about the time and the actions will create an instant improvement.

Great video on the music industry.

Before the Music Dies

- Director: Andrew Shapter

- Writers: Joel Rasmussen, Andrew Shapter

Update: I can’t get the video to stream through the site yet. I’m working on the issue now. For now, just follow the link above direct to Hulu.com

My Inbox stays flooded with emails. Many of them are newsletters and announcements, with the senders ranging from musicians to labels to corporatations to marketing gurus. I’m an information hoarder (or whore…), so I am always on the lookout for good content, new headlines, and new ideas. The irony of the situation is this – The more I collect, the more I am disappointed with the use of email.

As I type this post, there are 7,046 unread messages in my Inbox. Most of those I will never read. Why do I sign-up for announcements if I don’t read them? Because I’m always on the lookout for that one cool idea.

On the whole, I see bands and bars make the same mistake over and over in email communication. I have this theory that bands and bars aren’t aware of how a poorly written email hurts them, because they have a built-in “hook.” Bars serve alcohol and bands serve music. That’s it. No tricks. No gimmics. A fan knows they want to hear the band or not. A patron either wants a beer or not. There’s no need to do any convincing.

However, I always wonder how much more effective they would be if their email communication was improved.

The typical email consists of something like this:

(band version) ”We’re playing at SchmoJo’s Tavern on Friday from 9pm-12pm. Come out and see us.”

or

(bar version) “Happy Hour is from 5pm-7pm. We have Great Big Green playing tonight at 9pm-12pm. Come out and see us.”

Now, before you ask, I’m not being facetious. I looked through my Inbox and there are 2 emails almost verbatim to the above. I only changed the names.

So, wha’t s the problem with these emails?

They are self-centered and egomanial. It’s all about me, me, me. There is absolutely no connection to the fans at all.

When you are sending out an email, you are communicating with your fans and patrons. You should pretend you are having a conversation with a real person. Just because it’s an email, don’t treat the recipient like a simpleton at your beck-and-call. Show them appreciation and respect and they’ll return the favor.

How do you do that? The next time you are writing an email annoucement, pick a single fan and picture their face. Imagine in your mind that you are talking with them one-on-one. Pretend that you haven’t seen them in a few weeks. In your email, write like you were talking to that one person. What would you say to them? How would your communication be different?

If you ran into this person, I doubt you would say, “We’re playing on Friday night. Come see us.” and then walk away. No, you’d take some time to chat.

In the band email above, here’s how that would go:

“Hi -

Thank you for coming out to our last show. It was great to see you. We really appreciate your effort in supporting us. It makes a huge difference to us when you come to our shows and we have a packed house of fans. The energy level from a full house makes for a good night.

We’re playing this Friday at SchmoJo’s Tavern. We’ll start at 9pm. If you’ve never been there, they have a great selection of beer and the atmosphere is killer. Everyone always has a good time there.

The last time we played there, there was an out of towner who became a new fan of the band. And she was also a BIG fan of Guinness. She and the crowd had a great time and the encore was, well…., memorable. Especially since our new fan graced everyone with her physical interpretion of our song. It was a sight to see.

I’m sure this Friday won’t disappoint. See you there.

Thanks,

Great Big Green

Details-

Date: Friday

Time:9pm-12pm

Location: SchmoJo’s Tavern

”

Now, go back and read that email again, but imagine you are talking to a friend or a fan. It makes a huge difference, right?

And the brilliant part is this – It only takes an extra 5 minutes to write the second email. The second email provides the same information, but also creates a connection with the reader. It also spreads goodwill for the bar owner and creates a sense of community with your fans. And if someone on your list didn’t go to the last show, you can bet that they are calling their friends to find out what happened with the Guinness lady.

When you are writing your next email announcement, take an extra 5 minutes and have a conversation. Don’t just jot down the facts, pretend you are talking with a fan. You’ll find you’ll energize your fanbase more, which will always help you in the long run.

Good luck.

P.S. – If you are saying, “We didn’t have a drunk lady at our last show,” then you’ve missed the point entirely. You can always find something to discuss. When you create a mental image of a friend or fan before you write, it will become obvious what things you should say to them.

This is the second part of a discussion about big corporations and how they missed the change inside the music industry. Part 1 can be found here.  Free Music – How Big Corporations Failed to Get It (Part 1)

Here are three other reasons:

* The ‘moneymakers’ were still selling – Many people don’t know this fact, but labels make the big money on only a handful of artists. Some artists make money, but when you consider the costs of recording, touring, distribution, and marketing, it takes a huge fan following to really hit the jackpot. And, because of this, the big money is made from only a few acts.

When the web came along, the big artists weren’t immediately affected because they had existing marketing and distribution channels in place. Since the artists who were cash cows weren’t seeing any revenue changes, the web was easy to dismiss. (In fact, it was some of the big artists who spearheaded the attack against music sharing.)

* The ‘non-moneymakers’ weren’t gaining any new revenue – This is a similar view as above, just superimposed over the smaller acts.  The other remaining artists weren’t seeing any additional revenue from the web, so it was difficult to give any credence to the free model.

I can guarantee you that if an A&R guy or marketing exec walked into a meeting and proclaimed his artist had seen a 1000% increase in revenue, the entire organization would have started learning HTML.

* View that sharing music was being a pirate rather than being a supporter – All artists should be paid. However, when you are just starting out, it’s very difficult to build a fan base. The web allowed many people to share music in an easy, convenient, and fast way. With a push of a button you could create an entirely new network of fans just by sharing your music. That type of reach is unprecedented.

Unfortunately, the sharing was viewed as a violation of copyright, which sent the lawyers and lobbyists into a frenzy. Since the web was seen as a violation, no one stopped to consider how to take advantage of the new medium.

It’s easy to look back over the past few years and point out these mis-steps. I know from experience that it is very hard to change the opinions of a large organization. Sometimes it’s downright debilitating. When you put yourself in the shoes of a corporate exec, sometimes you need to give them a bit of a break on not seeing things sooner.

On the positive side, there are great strides being made by large corporations as well as start-ups that are using the web brilliantly. In my opinion, it’s a great time to be a musician. You now have more potential at your fingerpoints than at any other time in history. My advice is to use as many of them as you can and make it big.

Big corporations have it bad. The past few years have seen big business (and its leaders) burdened by public humiliation on issues of ethics, misconduct, stealing, cheating, and lying. The recent economic downturn has not helped. Listen to the news and the latest talk is about organizations getting ‘too big.’

The music industry is no different. The fact that technology is re-inventing the music biz is old news. Topics around copyright, licensing, distribution, and price are all over the web. Exactly how that change will occur is still up in the air. I’d like to look back at some of the beliefs that limited the industry, specifically big business, in the idea that a digitial tsunami was coming. (Most of these revolve around the idea of music being free.)

* The idea that free can’t support a business – The big wigs inside corporation are all driven by a single motive – to make money. That’s neither good nor bad, it just is. However, when you use a single variable to guide your decision making, it creates tunnel vision. Everyday the execs deal with budgets, sales forecasts, revenue projections, and record sales numbers. And they evaluated their options based on money. So when they heard music being given away for free, it confused them. “How the hell can you make money on something that’s free? ” was a typical response.

Of course, the issue here is about revenue, it’s about the source of the revenue. Rather than money from music sales, the money would come from other sources, like touring and merch and licensing.

(On a side note, this issue of free is not peculiar to the music industry. In the tech world, the rise of Linux and other open source projects brought this exact same response. In fact, the quote above was a response from one of my old managers. I had approached the owner of the tech  company with the idea that we should be keeping an eye on Linux as a growing competitor. The rebuttal above was spoken in both a condescending and frustrating tone. I guess I just didn’t ‘get it’ in his eyes. )

* Old mindsets and unwillingness to change – This is a particularly nasty one.  How often do you hear, ‘Son, I’ve been in this business for 25 years and I’ve seen everything.’

Well, the unwillingness to accept change as a constant is often catastrophic. The famous quote goes ‘The only constant is change.” (source: Heraclitus) Industry leaders were repeatedly downplaying the impact of the web and the internet. It would never disrupt the music industry in their eyes. In some cases, they tried their damndest to stop it with legal action and lobbying, which is still going on today. But you can’t stop change.

To be clear, there are numerous business principles that don’t change. Profit and revenue are still important, as well as keeping expenses aligned with your revenue. Marketing and sales will always be critical for success. In the years ahead, we’ll look back and discover these principles still govern successful businesses. The parts of the industry that changed were structural issues like distribution and promotional channels.

* Failure to recognize how fans really find music – Spending millions of marketing is one way to find success, but only because you are bombarding the consumer and training them to want to buy the music. If I see a picture of an artist enough times, eventually I’ll listen to it if only to see what the fuss is about. Will I become a die-hard fan? Doubtful.

The music I absolutely love comes from shared experiences and recommendations from friends. It was the people I really trusted that led me to give new music a really good listen. Besides, who else besides my friends knew me the best? The radio station didn’t. Neither did a magazine ad. Once someone I trusted told me about a new artist, the chances that I became a fan increased exponentially.

How could the music companies have cashed in on this? If they had implemented a review and recommedation system at the same time Amazon started theirs, the music industry woulud be owned by them today. And I don’t mean they would be ‘big.’ If they had started a recommendation system back in the 90’s, they would be so big the FCC would be attacking them alongside Microsoft and Google.

[ Part 2 is coming. We'll discuss at least 3 more reasons the big corporations didn't see the 'free' issue. ]

In business marketing, there’s a concept known as inside-out marketing. It’s where the company produces marketing campaigns and information based on their own internal knowledge and perception of the product. In reality, the company view of the product and the customer view of the product are always different. So, you (as the customer) feel disconnected from the product. 

You have probably seen this all over. You’ll see ads that go on for days about themselves and you’re left wondering “Why do I care?”

Bands are also susceptible to this. They’ll get caught up in their own mind and start to forget about the fans. They’ll expect the fans to show up just because they are playing. Some will, some won’t. 

If you spend a little time and engage your fans, you’ll create a fanbase following that is unstoppable. They’ll tell their friends, they’ll buy your stuff, and they’ll come to your shows. 

So, how do you do that? Well, the easiest way is to tell them ‘Thanks.’ 

At every opportunity, you should be thanking your fans for their support, their attendence, and their help. Every show, email, or conversation should be focusing on thanking the fans. 

Add that one little change to your shows and you’ll see their loyalty grow and your numbers increase.

The article at Techcrunch:

Stealing Music: Is It Wrong Or Isn’t It?

Arrington makes another impasssioned argument, this time about the issue of downloading music. A point that he missed is that there are thousands, maybe millions, of independent bands and songwriters who would kill for people to download their music. The issue of ‘putting aside the law’ is really only a valid point for the larger bands.

The real benefit of the Web is that music listeners can discover and find new artists that they never would have found on the corporate sponsorsed radio channels. Sure, in some cases, the time of searching is an investment upfront.

But, over time, you’ll have a huge array of bands that completely fill your need for art and music.

All parts of the web stats session have been posted.

Web Stats for Musicians Part 1 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUZdzr-aQ5A

Web Stats for Musicians Part 2 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZOtlBQZMgs

Web Stats for Musicians Part 3 -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9P2r-KU5vY

More to come.

Sign-up for the newsletter.

I’m finishing up the video on Press Releases for Musicians. In the meantime, I wanted to provide you with a few resources for you to review.

PRWeb.com

This is a paid press release distribution site. It provides a more comprehensive distribution than the free sites, but it does cost money. ($80 for the starting membership level.) There is, however, another reason to visit the site. They have a tutorial on writing a press release and they list releases that have already been released, which you can use as examples for writing your own.

Tutorial for writing a press release – from PRWeb.com

Press Release Examples from the the ‘Music’ category – from PRWeb.com

Enjoy. The video will be up soon.

Last week, I created a series of short video sessions entitled “Success Shortcuts – 7 things that every band needs to know”

The videos are based on some common issues that bother everyone. The topics ranged from everything from time management to health. They are important things to keep in mind as you try to increase exposure. It’s very easy to get caught up in maelstrom that is the music industry and then burn out.

Video channel is here: http://www.youtube.com/InfiniteFanBase