Digital Marketing For Recording Musicians - PSHB - Jan 2014

If you record your own music
and want it to be heard and

www.projectstudiohandbook.com
purchased by the widest possible
audience, you cannot ignore
digital marketing. The problem
is that there are so many ways to
market online, you may have no
time left for music!
Digital Therefore, this article will help
marketing
you decide which processes
are essential for you, and which
you can ignore, by providing
essentials clear explanations and advice

on available technologies and
for recording
methods.
musicians
We will help you develop a
realistic plan of action which
utilises the most cost effective
getting started
solutions and doesn’t take up
hours of your time every day.
January 2014
Contents
Contents 22  Engaging content - circus vs art
23 Processes and technologies

01 Introduction 23  Website design & optimisation
01  A word on ‘traditional’ marketing 23  Organic search and search engine optimisation (SEO)
02  Important facts 24  Choosing keywords and keyword phrases
03  A word on collaboration 24  Adding keywords/phrases to your site, channels and content
25  Content marketing
04 Your products 26    Give aways
05 Understanding marketing terminology and concepts 26    Competitions
05  The sales funnel 26    Information and advice
07  Visitors, followers, leads, subscribers and customers 26    Newsletters
07  Channels 27    Podcasts
08  Interruption and permission marketing 27    Apps
08  Content marketing 28    Creating a music video
09  Call to action (CTA) 29    Video channel marketing
10  Plans and campaigns 30  Search engine marketing (SEM)
10  Tailoring conversations 31  Email marketing
11  Personalise your messages 32    Building your first mailing list
11  Search engines 32    Creating email campaigns
12  Scheduling announcements 33  Social media marketing
13  User generated content 34    Engage and connect with your audience
13  Recommendations, reviews and testimonials 35    Posts - messages, comments and tweets
14  Virality 35    Announce gigs, releases and events
14  Analytics & metrics 36    Social media channel ads
36    Use a social media management tool
16 Preparing for marketing
37  Affiliate and reciprocal marketing
16  Put yourself in your customers shoes
37  Retail shop optimisation
16  Determining your brand
38  Online display advertising
18  Determining your public persona
19  Writing copy 40 Suggesting a plan
20  Choosing keywords and keyword phrases 41  Final thoughts
21  Unique URL (website address)
ww.projectstudiohandbook.com Digital marketing for recording musicians getting started

Introduction
This is a long and comprehensive article, but the information and advice it contains is essential, and written
in straight forward, easy to understand language. Unless you are very lucky, or have others to do this stuff
for you, you are unlikely to succeed without it. We have condensed a vast amount of available information
down to what the recording musician needs to know.
The idea here is to help you market your music professionally and effectively, but not to get unduly
burdened by in-depth technical tools and jargon. When you have finished reading this article you will have
a good idea of how to implement a digital marketing plan that works for you, and your knowledge and
expertise will form a solid foundation if you decide to go deeper into the subject.
A word on ‘traditional’ marketing

Before the internet, traditional marketing was carried out by marketing and PR companies, and experts and
individuals in businesses and organisations using channels such as ..
• point of sale (displays in shops)

• print media advertising (magazines, newspapers etc)
• print media interviews, articles and CD and concert reviews (magazines, newspapers etc)
• newsletters, flyers and brochures (mail shots, junk mail etc)
• public advertising (posters, signage etc)
• plugging (getting broadcast DJs to play out tracks)
• broadcast media appearances
• etc
Today, these channels are largely inaccessible or of little importance to the vast majority of new and
undiscovered independent recording musicians. Not only have music magazine circulations plummeted,
traditional music broadcast audiences diminished, and many high street music stores closed, but there has
been a vast explosion in the number of artists self producing music for sale, all of whom are competing for
exposure.
Back to Contents ww.projectstudiohandbook.com Digital marketing for recording musicians getting started 01
The good news is that these traditional channels are no longer required to build an audience, and a
successful career in music is possible with a combination of effective online digital marketing and live
performance.
Important facts
Let’s begin with 10 useful facts ..
1. The web provides many digital marketing tools for free, or at low cost, thereby enabling
independent recording musicians to market themselves and their products.
2. Using online tools, music makers can build a customer / fan base and communicate with them
directly.
3. Digital natives discover and share music online primarily via video, search, and recommendation
(reviews and sharing through social media).
4. Once digital natives find something they love, they want easy tools to subscribe and share.
5. Once digital natives are subscribed, they can be encouraged to purchase.
6. For the first time, independent music makers are learning just what record labels have been doing
all these years, and are confronting the multiple challenges of marketing.
7. No matter how multi-disciplined and motivated you are, there is no way you can accomplish all
the tasks carried out by the typical record label marketing team, and therefore you will need to
prioritise the processes most relevant to your needs or collaborate.
8. The web provides an unparalleled opportunity for you to tell the world about yourself, your talent,
and your values. But there are also dangers. Casual comments can become headline news and
impossible to remove once they have been shared, so planning and self-censorship is essential.
9. Although there are some music makers who are using these new tools effectively, most are not, so
you have an opportunity to get ahead.
10. You can do this! Good digital marketing is about getting the basics right. If you build your own fan
base and sales, you can employ an expert later to get into the detailed professional stuff, and by
then you will have a good grasp of what they are doing.
A word on collaboration
It’s quite possible that you will identify processes which you deem essential but have no expertise in, such
as making music videos. In such cases you will need to collaborate with others or abandon them, but bear
in mind there are thousands of digital media students out there, building their portfolios and looking for
interesting projects to work on for free. You may have to give up some creative control, or do something in
return for them, but you will benefit hugely from their skills, ideas and input.
Your products
No amount of marketing will persuade users to become loyal fans and customers if the quality of your
recordings, videos and content is poor. Music appreciation is subjective, but the quality of your productions
and presentation is not. Your music must be well recorded, your videos edited effectively and your visual
design relevant and appealing.
You will want to differentiate yourself, have some individuality, and present your best work. Be critical,
seek opinions and critical analysis, but take care to differentiate between the opinions of people who may
not even care for your genre of music and those that do. Also, remember that even the most successful
artists have many vocal critics. It is not necessary that everybody loves what you do, but you will need
some independent and impartial validation of your talents before you publish (upload). If you are less
enthusiastic about some of your tracks, don’t release them. Second rate work will undermine faith in your
talent.
Once you have selected your best work to publish, you should at no times sound apologetic about any
aspect of it. Without boasting, show yourself to be confident and positive. You have great music, believe in
it and others will too.
Understanding marketing terminology and
concepts
Before we talk about specific technologies and methods, it is important to understand some basic
marketing terminology and concepts. Stay with us, this is important stuff.
The sales funnel

Marketing is all about a process that ends in a sale. The basic marketing processes are ..
• Get noticed (raise profile)

• Contact (make a connection)
• Turn a contact into a lead (get a contact to give you some useful personal information, such as their
email address and likes)
• Conversation (the courtship)
• Conversion (turn the courtship into a sale)
• Customer shares their experiences (recommendation, product review etc)
• Retain the customer and ensure they stay loyal
Essentially what you are trying to do is to create a buzz, get potential customers interested in you and your
music, gather some information about them so you can start a tailored and relevant conversation with
them, and finally turn them into a loyal fan, customer and advocate of your talents.
Therefore you will need ..
• products to sell
• marketing content to sell the products
• marketing tools
• publishing and delivery platform(s)
Products may include ..
• digital files (downloads, mp3, .aif, .wav etc)
• physical products (CDs, DVDs, vinyl)
• fan or subscriber access only content
• concert tickets
• merchandise (t-shirts, caps, posters etc)
• apps
Marketing content will include ..
• music videos
• copy - for your website, social media profiles and posts, blogs, emails, ads, and content meta data
such as for videos
• photographs - both marketing and documentary
• branding design
• free stuff for competition and give-away promotions - tickets, music downloads, signed photos,
spend a day etc
• expert advice and information
• apps and games
Marketing tools and delivery platforms may include ..
• an artist website (and unique URL)

• a blog
• podcast
• social media profiles
• a YouTube channel
• a Google account (for AdWords, Analytics, YouTube, Google+)
• an email campaign service
• music distribution
• your own online shop (eg PayPal, CDBaby shop widget)
• music retail outlets (eg iTunes, Amazon, CDBaby, Spotify etc)
Visitors, followers, leads, subscribers and customers
Visitors read your blog, visit your webpages, listen to your music online but are essentially anonymous. You
can use analytics at your hosting company or Google to see how many visitors you have had, but you will
know very little about them and you cannot easily communicate with them.
A follower is someone who has made themselves known in some way. They have Liked your Facebook
profile, shared your posts or content, are following you on Twitter, or have subscribed to your YouTube
channel. They’re not committed yet but you can still learn something about them by visiting their profiles.
However, you can’t sell to them. Even if you find their email address you cannot add it to your mailing list
and start emailing them. That will be both unwelcome and illegal.
Just because someone has Liked your Facebook profile, or subscribed to your YouTube channel, this doesn’t
make them a lead. Certainly they have taken some kind of pro-active action by showing that they want to
know what you are up to and by sharing their interest with friends, but they are not yet a lead. A follower
becomes a lead when they offer some personal information (email, age, likes etc) and indicate that they are
interested in you and your music by giving you permission to contact them. We can call leads subscribers
(whilst acknowledging that a YouTube subscriber is only a follower).
Channels
Marketing experts often talk about channels, which can be thought of as routes to communication.
Channels include ..
• social media profiles

• web sites
• podcast
• iTunes store
• email communications to subscribers
• newsletters
• YouTube
• apps
Interruption and permission marketing

Interruption marketing is the traditional model of trying to distract your attention away from what you are
doing (TV and radio ads, spam email etc). Interruption marketing has become less and less successful as
audiences have become more sophisticated. In the online space, not only is interruption marketing less
successful, but often illegal. YouTube is an exception, with the introduction of old interruption broadcasting
marketing techniques in the form of pre, post, and in-programme ads.
Most channels try to target their interruption marketing by gathering and using meta-data about you, your
browsing habits, and purchasing history. This means that you may notice ads becoming more relevant to
your interests. However relevant they are, you have not asked for them so they still fall into the category of
interruption marketing.
Today digital marketing systems are increasingly predicated on permission marketing techniques.
Permission marketing is a phrase coined by marketing guru Seth Goddin to describe a marketing method
which encourages and then responds to interest expressed by potential customers. We give permission
whenever we subscribe to a emailing list, or buy something and agree to let the seller send us information
about new products and services.
So, a visitor or follower becomes a lead when they offer some personal information (email, age, likes etc)
and indicate that they are interested in you and your music by giving you permission to contact them.
Spam email is marketing emails which have been sent to us without our explicit permission. Spam is not
only illegal, but can seriously damage a musician’s online reputation.
Content marketing
Content marketing involves giving potential customers (visitors, followers, subscribers)) something for
free in order to engage them with a product or service. This article is an example of content marketing. We
are giving you free advice in order to get you interested in our project. In our case, you are not technically
a customer because we don’t sell anything, but the principal is the same. Content marketing is hugely
important for recording musicians so we will talk in depth about methods later in this article.
Unique and return visitors

Businesses grow by keeping existing customers loyal and finding new ones. We can categorise website
visitors and their visits thus ..
• New unique visitor - a new visitor, follower or lead

• Unique visitor - an individual who visits a website (they may visit multiple times)
• Page impressions (views or visits) - the total number of times a webpage has been visited
• Visit time - how long the page or video was viewed
• Bounce rate - the percentage of visitors to a site who leave quickly having only briefly viewed one
page (usually the home page)
Marketers are interested in statistics on new visitors because it is evidence that their efforts are working.
Web site designers and content creators are interested in unique visitors who never return because they
want to know where they have gone wrong. If a visitor reaches your site, spends 20 seconds with it, and
then leaves and never returns (bounces), you will want to know what’s wrong. Perhaps your music is just
not their cup of tea, or are your prices to high? Could they not find what they were looking for? Is your
advertising giving a false impression? Is there anything you can do to keep them interested and engage
them?
Call to action (CTA)

Calls to action are an essential part of almost all marketing processes. They are designed to solicit a
response from a visitor, follower, lead or customer. You are probably reading this article because you
responded to our call to action to join our subscribers and download this article.
Here are some example CTAs ..
• Ending each post in a social media conversation with a question (eg “what do you think?”)
• Letting a visitor to your site know that if they subscribe they will get a free download or be entered
in a competition
• Asking questions in a forum (people love to give their opinions)
• After a sale, asking your customer to write a review and share their purchase
• Adding a link in an email to your music on Amazon
• Adding a “subscribe” annotation to a YouTube video
• Adding a link in a YouTube video to your music on the iTunes store
• Any kind of button or link that encourages your visitor to engage further, such as entering a
competition
Plans and campaigns

A marketing plan may define the overall objectives to be completed over a long time reference, and will
usually be divided into separate campaigns, each of which has defined objectives. For example, your
primary marketing objective for the forthcoming twelve months may be to get as many subscribers as
possible before the launch of your new album next year. To achieve this you may decide to implement a
number of campaigns, such as ..
• a content marketing campaign (eg competition)

• a social media campaign to encourage subscribers
• an email marketing campaign
• a YouTube video campaign
• a Google AdWord campaign
Tailoring conversations
It is important to differentiate between how you communicate with new leads and existing customers.
Existing customers will expect to be understood and valued. You will have had an ongoing ‘conversation’
with them and a history of communications. However one sided the conversation may have been, you
should not sell to them every time you are in contact. You must demonstrate that you value them by
rewarding them, perhaps with discounts and freebies or offers not available to “non-members”.
New leads will often need incentivising to get them to engage and subscribe. You may need to offer
something of value (see content marketing methods later in this article) and demonstrate that you are
interested in helping them, by gaining their trust. It may take time for them to become customers. The
best way for you to do this is by demonstrating you have something entertaining or useful to offer, and are
honest and genuine.
Personalise your messages

Try to address your messages, posts, communications to a single person. You may be writing for a group of
followers but each is reading your post as an individual so address them accordingly. If you have their first
names (eg email subscribers), use them. Otherwise simply avoid addressing them as “guys”, of “folks”.
Also, try to make your posts as much about your audience as about you. We’re all interested in ourselves
and our own agendas so try to take advantage of this knowledge and make your audience feel valued and
good about themselves. Tell them that they will be having a great time listening to your music or attending
your gig, not that they will be doing you a favour.
Search engines
Search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo etc) use software methods (spiders) to “crawl” the web, indexing
content (web pages, blogs, social media posts etc). This content is then ranked (evaluated and assigned a
relevancy metric) for its relevancy to keywords/phrases used in common search terms. It is important to
acknowledge that content is ranked separately for multiple search term.
When a search is initiated, the search engine returns its results as a list of links. The most relevant results
are placed at the top of the results page beneath any paid ads (eg Google AdWords / Pay Per Click). The
position of a website page link in the results list is know as it’s page ranking. Thus a single piece of content
will have multiple ranking for different search terms.
Ranking is not based on keywords/phrase relevancy alone. Search engines use a number of other factors
when ranking content, including how many visitors the content has had, the page bounce rate, and how
many external pages link to it. In short, popularity is important too. This is where marketing comes in,
increasing the popularity of pages and their content.
Incidentally, Google also appears to consider whether content is hosted on its own YouTube and Google+
services.
Search engines regularly (within hours or days of publication) index ..
• blog posts
• social media posts
• forum posts
• web pages
• YouTube video descriptions and meta data
• etc
At the time of writing Google accounts for approximately 80% of all search, with Yahoo at 9%, and Bing at
8%.
Scheduling announcements
It is likely that you will be publishing new content at both scheduled and unscheduled intervals, such as ..
• continually as you initiate and respond to social media dialogues

• whenever you have a new promotion, event or product to announce, such as a competition, gig,
single, album or video release
• a weekly blog
• a monthly newsletter
Many businesses employ an ‘editorial calendar’ to schedule their marketing activities for regular intervals
throughout the month, and although this may seem like overkill, it may be a good idea to set deadlines
and reminders where appropriate. You want to strike a balance between keeping your channels fresh and
updated and avoiding having to post when you have nothing to say.
If you have a website, you should update it each month and announce the update visually on the home
page. Even if you have no new news or releases, update your blog, or add some new photos.
User generated content

Good user generated content is gold dust. Many artists owe their success to a vocal and loving fan base.
Creating a fan based groundswell is not usually something an artist can orchestrate, but you can facilitate it
by ensuring fans have ample opportunity to share their enthusiasm.
Examples include ..
• enabling comments in your blog

• adding a forum to your website
• adding like, follow, and subscribe buttons to your website
• making it easy for fans to share content with share buttons
• encouraging reviews and testimonials
• allowing comments and posts on your social media and video channels
• engaging with fans via social media
When it comes to building a community and audience, social media works well. It’s not the most time
effective way to create a customer user base, but it will strengthen an existing one. If you have fans who are
evangelising you and your music, you are in a very good place. Praise, thank them and look after them.
Recommendations, reviews and testimonials

When it comes to choosing music we have a great deal of choice. We all use reviews to help us choose
products, so encouraging positive feedback for your music and merchandise is essential. Whenever you
have an opportunity to facilitate and encourage customers to share their positive experiences, you should
take it. Whenever a customer buys your music or attends a gig, ask them to write a review, and offer
incentives such as discounts and freebies if they do.
Virality
A term closely related to user generated content is virality. This describes content that has been shared
multiple times (usually 100,000’s of times) by users and is most commonly associated with video and
music. Content without a call to action (such as a link to your web site or invitation to subscribe) that goes
viral is a wasted opportunity, so ensure all your products are ready.
Analytics & metrics

Analytic and metric tools help you to measure the success of your campaigns. They can provide a vast
amount of information about who visits your channels and sites, where they came from, how effective your
keywords/phrases are, how many subscribers opened your emails, etc.
At Project Studio Handbook we use analytic tools at our ..
• Google account - for analysing visitors to our site, search terms, and AdWord campaigns (http://
www.google.com/analytics/)
• YouTube channel (Analytics tag in Video manager)
• Facebook profile (See insights tab)
• Mailchimp account (campaign reports)
Analytics and metrics help you to make the best decisions you can, run a campaign, and then analyse the
results of your efforts and improve and refine your strategies. Here are the primary terms used ..
• CPA (cost per acquisition) - essentially this figure lets you know what the average cost has been for
each sale, by dividing the value of the sales (profit) by the customers
• page impression - when a page is viewed
• CTR (click through rate) - percentage of visitors to a page (page impressions) on which an ad (or
link) is located, who clicked the ad
• form submit - when a form (such as an emailing list suscription) is completed and submitted
• PPL (pay per lead) - the average cost of each new lead
• CPC (cost per click) - the average cost of each click on a call to action
• PPC (pay per click) - usually used to refer to Google’s AdWord service
We would not expect newcomers to digital marketing to embrace these tools immediately. They can be
complex and alien, and full of unfamiliar jargon. Consider exploring them once you have created and run
some campaigns.
Preparing for marketing
By now you should have a firm grounding in concepts and terminology. But before we start planning,
creating and running our campaigns, there are some important factors to consider and decisions to be
made.
Put yourself in your customers shoes

It is essential that at all times you try to put yourselves into the shoes of a potential customer. The chances
are that you are a music fan, so start by asking yourself exactly what kind of things get you interested in a
new artist, or how you get updates on an artist you are already a fan of.
For example ..
• Do you read and value product reviews?

• Do you recommend and share your likes with friends?
• Are the views of established and respected critics important to you?
• Do you click on ads, and if so where? Google? YouTube? Facebook?
• Do you turn to YouTube to see what the fuss is about?
• Do you like competitions and promotions?
• Do you use search engines to find new music?
• Do you subscribe to emailing lists?
We can’t say this enough, try to think like your audience at all times.
Determining your brand

Whether you are a solo artist, a collective project, a producer, or a band, you need to establish a clear image
that differentiates you from your competitors. If you present a consistent image your audience will be clear
about who you are, so you need to develop some guidelines and stick to them. Things to think about are ..
• website design aesthetic (eg organic, artsy, illustrative, contemporary, corporate?)
• social media channel branding (thumbnails, portraits, avatars, background images)
• photographic styling
• clothes/fashion
• hairstyle
• locations (performance, exterior, landscape, cityscape, industrial, homely?)
• props (things that surround you in images should reflect your values)
• colour palette (decide upon and keep consistent across all marketing channels and products)
• typography
• logo
• copywriting
You will want to represent yourself and your music through your imagery and words as accurately as
possible, so if you are into death metal but are partial to pink, think carefully about how this might be
perceived. Also, shock tactics may get you noticed but then quickly dismissed.
Try not to simply copy some effective pre-existing branding that you like. Think carefully about what
the branding says about you. Look at an artist you like and try to understand how the branding they use
enhances your perception of them and their music. It’s not enough to just have great design and ideas, they
must be relevant to you and your music. Neil Young suffered a low point in his career when he embraced
vocoders and sci-fi imagery. His audience were confused and even his record company sued him!
One of our team recently introduced their 6 year old daughter to the music of the group America. She was
captivated by the song “Horse With No Name” (she is learning the guitar and it’s a great song to start with).
She asked to see the CD cover. She read the lyrics and then on seeing there were 3 musicians asked “which
is the main one?”. Quite naturally she wanted to associate and relate the singing and words with someone.
It was pointed out that America is a harmony group and all members were equally important. She instantly
got it. But she also said she preferred the one who didn’t have a beard!
Your audience, fans and customers will follow a similar process to establish in their minds who you are and
what you represent. You therefore have an opportunity to channel this process by sending out the right
visual and written messages.
Try not to muddy the water and confuse your audience. Sometimes what you leave out is more important
than what you put in. Factory Records were a hugely successful and extreme example of this idea. Their
record covers were designed by Peter Saville and completely de-emphasised the artists personalities.
Determining your public persona

There is a delicate balance to strike between mystery and approachability when developing your persona.
It is easy to make mistakes, but if you get it right and stay consistent, you have a great opportunity to
present an appealing persona.
A big part of the appeal of an artist can be their mystery, and many successful artists carefully control the
myth surrounding their image. We remember being appalled when David Bowie appeared on a prime time
TV chat show. His career was at a low ebb at the time and his record sales in decline, but we didn’t want to
know what books he was reading or what he thought of the government, he’s the thin white duke space
alien for goodness sake!
You may have heard the phrase “A prophet is never welcome in their own land”. This roughly translates to
mean, people who know you well, also know your faults, and can never idolise you and your music however
great it is. Being a music artist is partly about re-inventing yourself. It is an opportunity to play the role of a
person you’d like to be. Audiences want to buy into the mystery of re-invention, that’s why they love actors.
Too much familiarity can breed contempt. Do not expect many of your friends to buy your music, and don’t
take it too hard when they don’t. They simply know you too well and will never regard you the way they
regard artists they don’t personally know.
You may want to post videos showing you in conversation, or at work in the studio. Think very carefully
about whether these will undermine or enhance the image you are developing through your music and
branding.
On the other hand, some artists are successfully promoting their brand through the personalities and by
being familiar and approachable. Corrine Bailey Rae’s site largely consists of a personal blog. But she is
careful with her words, oozing positivity and a love of people and the world. We’re pretty sure she isn’t
going to start bitching about her health problems or a problem relative anytime soon!
For some artists, it’s all about being the approachable girl or boy-next-door, and letting people know
exactly what they are doing and thinking about at any moment in the day. This approach is perhaps more
about ‘celebrity’ than ‘art’, but if you choose this route you will still need to self-censor if you are to avoid
courting controversy. Unless controversy is what you are about of course!
Consider whether you want to communicate in the first or third person. For example, which is better ..
“Thanks for coming to my gig on Saturday. We had a great time didn’t we! Did you see the girl in the bunny
outfit? Hilarious! I’ve left a little thank you present on my website. Love you all. Alma.”
.. or ..
“Alma loved all the tweets from fans who enjoyed her concert at the Blue Line last Saturday night and has
made a free recording of two songs from the gig available to them via download on the website”.
Finally, think about how you want to share your personal values. For example, Chrissie Hynde is well known
for her outspoken words on animal welfare and is of course a vegetarian. She is an artist of great talent and
integrity, but we can’t help feeling that, as meat eaters, we have a fundamental philosophical difference.
Would we have bothered to even listen to her music if the first thing we’d know about her was that she
wouldn’t approve of that aspect of our lifestyles?
Writing copy
A big part of your marketing content is the copy you will use for your web pages, ads, announcements,
emails, blogs, newsletters, posts and meta-data. You will need to employ a style that is clear, professional,
consistent and best serves your objectives. Whilst choosing keywords/phrases and writing meta-data
are largely technical and organisational processes, you may need to adopt individual tailored styles for
announcements, social media posts and emails.
Writing good copy is a specialised skill and you may not be the best person for the job. Consider
collaboration. We know of several artists who use their mothers to help them write well expressed and
interesting copy.
A final thought. Use a spell checker and have someone else read your copy before you publish. If you proof
read your own copy, you risk missing glaring mistakes and reading only what you expect to be there.
Choosing keywords and keyword phrases

Around 50% of traffic to websites arrives via search engines. You may find that even though you have saved
bookmarks/favourites, even you find it easier to enter a quick search term when you want to return to a
familiar site. Optimised keywords/phrases are essential to making this work for you.
As we now know, text content and meta data are the primary ways in which search engines determine how
relevant your content is to a given search term. Let’s try an experiment and search for Garth Brooks. If you
type “country music” into a search engine (try it) it won’t return any country music artists websites on the
first page, so even if you’re the biggest selling country music artist in the cosmos (he once was) you will
need other accompanying keywords. Now try typing “Garth”, and finally try “country music garth”. With this
last keyword phrase, the search engine is better able to return relevant results. Therefore, you will need to
employ a combination of keywords/phrases in your own marketing content.
Keywords/phrases can fall into several categories including branded and non-branded. For example ..
• The Milt Poke Coral (branded keyword phrase)

• Country music band (non-branded keyword phrase)
• Metallica (branded keyword)
• Metal (non-branded keyword)
Although search engines are location aware, including the name of your town, state or county in your
keywords/phrases is one way to stay high in result rankings when your area of operation is geographically
specific. Try a search term like “wedding band Kansas”.
There are many online tools for analysing how effective your keywords/phrases choices are (including
of course Google Analytics), and finding out what search terms have led traffic to your site or channel.
Although you may be constantly refining them by analysing how successful they are using analytic tools,
you will need to maintain a basic consistency across all the content you have created that uses them.
So for example, Project Studio Handbook (PSHB) uses the phrase “FREE essential theory videos for project
and home recording studio owners” in ..
• the meta-tags of each site page

• the description tags of all its social media channels
• meta-data in its videos
• social media and forum post signatures
• etc
Start by writing an initial list of words. Include branded and non-branded keywords/phrases, and then think
of some generic but relevant terms such as “fuzz-box” or “hand drawn animation” which can be used in
meta-data. You can use Google’s AdWord service to help you identify the best keywords/phrases too.
Unique URL (website address)

If you want to be perceived as a serious artists it is essential that you have a unique tailored website with
a suitable url. You can use a CMS (content management system) like WordPress to build your site, a hosting
companies templates, or a service like CDBaby, but you should not rely on only having customised social
media profiles. You will therefore need to find and register a url. You can do this by using any hosting
service. Search “hosting” and a list of services will be returned. It may be useful for you to use a hosting
service that is geographically close to you so that fast support is available at times convenient to you.
We are in the UK and have successfully used Fasthosts, 1and1, and Dataflame. Whoever you use, you will
find they have a page where you can search for available URLs and then register them.
URLs can be registered and hosted separately to a web site, so you can register a URL with a hosting
company but use it for your WordPress blog site with a simple re-direct. The Suburban Pirate is a good
example of such a site .. http://www.thesuburbanpirate.com
You will want to use your artist name if possible, and unless you want to indicate your geographical
location a dot com is best. Dot com domains are the most memorable and can be used for non commercial
sites too (such as projectstudiohandbook.com).
You may find that your artist name has already been registered in which case you can augment it. For
example “geoffwalker.com” could become “geoffwalkermusic.com”.
Engaging content - circus vs art

If you read YouTube’s guidance on building an audience for your channel, and look at the most successful
videos (number of views), you will get the impression that you cannot be successful without a gimmick or
having sensational content. We call this circus vs art. The truth is that most of the viewers of those videos
will never be customers. We all like to share entertaining content but most of this activity is irrelevant to a
business unless it translates to sales.
For example, like many others, we have marvelled at the virtuosity of Guthrie Govan’s guitar playing, and in
his interviews he seems genuine and likeable, but have we bought his CDs? No. And this is because there
is too much of the circus about what he does. No doubt he could make listenable music and we would buy
it, if he would just cut out the exhibition playing now and then! We watch Guthrie Govan to be amazed, and
buy Neil Young’s albums for the art and long term listening experience.
Therefore, the ‘commitment’ of your audience is paramount. You want them to make a greater investment
in your music than just gimmicky curiosity so you can develop a long term career. For most of us this means
making music and videos that are emotionally engaging. The most important metric of your YouTube views
is how many viewers and subscribers become customers. We know of one music project that has received
over a quarter of a million views for their YouTube video (it’s highly entertaining). How many mp3 sales
have they achieved? Precisely 0.
Processes and technologies
Now that you have some solid principles to underpin your marketing plan, it’s time to look at the various
technologies and processes and offer some practical advice.
Website design & optimisation

A unique dedicated website is essential to show your audience you are a serious artist. The site can be
hand crafted or built with a system such as WordPress but it must have individual branded and customised
design, a unique URL, and great content. The site must also be optimised for search (See SEO below).
Your site may be minimal and contain only a few pages (http://www.joewilkes.co.uk, http://www.
billybellottewill.com), but it must facilitate user interaction by integrating or linking to channels such as
social media profiles, YouTube channels, Soundcloud profiles, forums and blogs etc. You will want visitors
to be able to find out about you, hear your music, watch your videos, share their enthusiasm and become
customers.
WordPress (http://wordpress.com) is one of the simplest platform for building a customised website if you
don’t have, or have access to, web design skills. You can also use the templates provided by many hosting
companies (eg http://www.1and1.co.uk/), or a dedicated service like CDBaby. We know many musicians
who have successfully created their site with these tools.
If possible you will want your site to follow responsive design guidelines so it is automatically optimised to
large screen (desktop) and small screen (smartphone) devices. However this is an advanced subject and not
suitable for newcomers to web design.
Organic search and search engine optimisation (SEO)

Organic search results are links to web pages that a search engine considers most relevant to a search term.
These results are not driven by paid for adverting. Search engines know that if they don’t deliver relevant
results, users will move to their competitors. This means that even paid for ads (more on these later) may
not be ranked above (and therefore appear above) more relevant organic search results.
Choosing keywords and keyword phrases
Choosing the keywords/phrases that produce the best results for you is likely to be challenging, especially
if the words that describe you and your music are either too individual or too generic. Keyword phrases
such as “jazz fusion” will produce too many results, whilst “Ocean Jazz Extruders” will not be a common
search term. Using localising keyword phrases can help (“jazz fusion Bolton”), but you will almost certainly
need to research, try out and refine your choices. Some excellent advice can be found here .. http://moz.
com/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research.
You will need a Google AdWord account (free) if you want to research keywords/phrases for organic search,
and if you decide to run an AdWord campaign (more later on this). This is a good place to start .. https://
support.google.com/adwords/answer/2999770. Don’t be intimidated by all the technical jargon, just focus
on identifying the most successful keywords/phrases. Remember you can also test ideas out at a search
engine.
Adding keywords/phrases to your site, channels and content

You need to think about SEO whenever you add content to your website, blog, YouTube channel, and social
media posts, and whenever you are configuring meta-data.
Here are the most important points ..
• Ensure the titles (headings) and description fields of your YouTube videos accurately represent
the content of the video and contain keywords/phrases most likely to be used by viewers when
searching. So instead of writing “pedal powered machines” use “bicycle”. Also, if your video is
entitled “Recording session at Blue Dolphin studios” but the description is about a gig you did last
saturday night at the Barfy, the search engine will be confused.
• Always enter meta-data keywords/phrases where available (eg YouTube video, <head> tag of web
pages). Description meta-tags in webpages are not used for ranking but can be displayed in search
results.
• Write clear and concise body text that is relevant to your title, and be precise with your terminology
at all times by avoiding abbreviation or substitutions of keywords/phrases. For example, use
“video” not “vid”, and refer to your “new music video” rather “new video”. Write primarily for your
users but with search in mind.
• Create a simple and clear heirachy to your site with each page being accessible from a text link.
Ideally use a common navigation element.
• Ensure the <title> and first <h1> heading tags of your webpages clearly represent the content
of the page and include simple keywords/phrases. This is especially important because search
engines use title tags to both help rank pages and for link text in search results. Our homepage
<title> and <h1> tags contain “”FREE essential theory videos for project and home recording studio
owners”.
• Use no more that 65-75 characters in the title tag.
• Place keywords/phrases towards the beginning of a title tag.
• Use the title/heading keywords/phrases 2-3 times again in the body content.
• Use the title/heading keywords/phrases in the <alt> tag of least one image on the page.
• Create URLs that are descriptive and contain keywords, for example “projectstudiohandbook.com”
and “planetoftunes.com/synth/synth-types.htm”.
• Use hyphens to separate words in URLs.
• Ensure link text reflects its purpose so “here is a photo of Alma on stage” is preferable to “for a
photo of Alma on stage click here”.
• Don’t use images of text, search engines can’t index them.
• Don’t place content in rich media file formats such as Flash.
• Always configure the <alt> tag for images.
• Don’t hide content behind password log-ins if possible.
• Avoid placing content in iFrames.
• Avoid placing links in JavaScript.
Content marketing
As we now know, content marketing involves giving potential customers (leads) something for free in order
to engage them with a product or service. It is one of the most important tools for recording musicians.
Methods include ..
• give-aways / freebies (gig tickets, free downloads and CDs, t-shirts etc)
• competitions / prizes
• information and advice - such as video reviews or how-to’s (eg how you get your guitar sound)
• newsletters
• podcasts
• apps
• music video promos
Give aways
If you’re going to give something way for free, you will want to make the process visible and/or useful for
you. You could for example ask visitors to your site to subscribe to your email newsletter in order to receive
a giveaway. Or you could start a competition on Facebook and ask followers to vote on the best entries.
Either way, try to maximise the exposure so that the end result is tangible and measurable.
Competitions
People love competitions and there’s no reason why as a creative artist you can’t come up with something
engaging and unique. Although offering a physical prize such as a microphone will be popular, try to think
of prizes that minimise your costs. If you offer a gig ticket as a prize, rather than posting a printed ticket you
could simply add the winners names to your guest list.
Information and advice

You are a music maker and have talents so why not produce a video master class on some aspect of music
making close to your heart. An artist we know offered a master class webcast on alternate tunings, whilst
another on vocal exercises. Google hangouts is an excellent platform for this, or just create a YouTube
video.
Newsletters
Newsletters work when you have things to say about your activities that can be gathered together and
published at scheduled intervals. They need to contain more than just news and although they do not have
to be long, they do need to contain information and content that is interesting and engaging. Subscribers
value newsletters only when they contain content of value and quality, so don’t think you can get away
with just compiling all your latest tweets and social media posts. You should not commit to a newsletter
unless you think you can devote time each month to producing it.
You can produce a newsletter in any word processing or page layout programme that can include images
and links and which can be published in the preferred format of a pdf. You should brand your newsletter
and pay attention to its presentation, design and the quality of it’s images. You can attach your newsletter
to an email, distribute it via your website as a download.
You may prefer to construct your newsletter in the form of an html email using the tools provided by a
service such as Mailchimp. You will need to pay close attention to the design and include multiple calls to
action. Consider including short summaries of content with buttons that encourage to continue reading the
full article at your website.
Podcasts
We love podcasts, but have yet to find a use for them ourselves. If you have the gift of the gab you might
want to consider creating one. You could talk about your creative processes and perform new songs you
are working on. Or perhaps create a podcast in the form of an interview or conversation with someone. You
can plan questions and bookend the interview with news items about your activities and other artists you
love. You will want to create some kind of short branding “jingle” to start it and perhaps some music to
segueway between sections.
Google “creating podcasts” for help and visit Apples advice page at .. http://www.apple.com/uk/itunes/
podcasts/specs.htm
Apps
Many artists are embracing mobile apps as an effective way to engage with their audience. This is a vast
subject and technically involved but the benefits are clear and there have recently emerged some solutions
to help non-techies to make their own apps.
If you are interested these links may be useful ..
http://appshed.com/component/content/article/2-uncategorised/30-aboutl
http://mashable.com/2012/05/09/building-cheap-mobile-app/
Creating a music video

Perhaps the most important single piece of content you can have is a great music video. We don’t think you
should even consider releasing a new single or album without one. Documentary videos are good too, but
only once you have generated interest with a music video. The good news is that creating an HD video no
longer costs big bucks.
At the budget end of the market you can film, edit and publish a video with no more than an iPhone and
iMovie. You will want some way to support the phone with a tripod attachment, and if you plan to shoot in-
doors some additional lighting. Smartphones are not optimised for low light conditions so outdoors is best,
and you will find editing software limited for green screen work.
Because video can become an important part of your online profile, you may decide to invest some money
in better equipment. Here’s our recommendations ..
• a consumer AVCHD (mp4) camcorder that records to an SD card, has an external mini jack mic input,
a headphone socket for monitoring, and which can preferably accommodate lens attachments
• an SD card with 16Gb or more capacity
• an additional hi-capacity battery (camcorders come with small batteries)
• a battery powered stereo mic with mini-jack plug (such as the Sony ECM-MS907) which you can
place close to a source even when the camcorder is at a distance
• a wide angled adaptor lens (optional)
• a tripod
• 2 LED lights (search ebay for “CN-600SA LED”. We bought 2 from a supplier in China and are more
than happy with them)
• light stands (the cheapest will do, LED lights are relatively lightweight)
• a can of green paint (you can find and print a colour swatch from a suppliers web site, get your local
DIY shop to scan it and make up some matt emulsion for you - the colour match does not have to be
accurate)
• a flat wall to paint
• a video editing programme with green screen chroma keying and colour grading features (we use
Final Cut Pro X)
• a YouTube channel
If you only plan to create music videos, you won’t need the mic because you will be editing soundless
pictures to your pre-recorded music track.
Video channel marketing

YouTube is the delivery platform you should be using for your video for several reasons ..
• videos rank highly in Google search results

• you can add meta data
• you can develop a community by having people subscribe to your channel
• videos can be embedded in other websites
• the YouTube mobile app is excellent
• you can add meta data (keywords/phrases) to help people discover your video
• you can integrate your channel with social media
• you can add in-programme captions, and calls to action in the form of annotations and links
• it integrates into the Google Analytics and AdWords eco system
• its free!
YouTube has extensive advice for maximising the impact of your videos ..
go here for help in setting up a channel and understanding usage guidelines .. http://www.youtube.com/
playlist?list=PLbsGxdAPhjv9eg9JHbQXwBHUB5LK3mKm1&feature=view_all
go here for professional advice on marketing and optimising .. http://www.youtube.com/yt/playbook/
In addition to this advice, here’s our top 10 for YouTube marketing ..
1. customise and brand your YouTube channel

2. use your artist name, song name, and “music video” in your title
3. provide a short description for both your channel and each individual video that contains your
keywords/phrases
4. configure keywords/phrases for each video
5. add calls to action in the form of annotations, especially channel subscribe buttons and links to
your music on merch (eg iTunes) stores
6. brand your video with opening and closing captions which include your website URL
7. organise videos into playlists (music videos, interviews etc), and don’t forget to include videos that
other YouTube users have uploaded (perhaps someone filmed your gig on their mobile?)
8. upload your video in high quality HD using the native camcorder/edit format (eg AVCHD/mp4 or
QuickTime) - don’t re-compress it before upload
9. enable social media linking in your page header
10. provide a custom thumbnail image that you have optimised in Photoshop so that you don’t have to
rely on one of the 3 random frames that YouTube suggests
Search engine marketing (SEM)

For most businesses, search engine marketing is the most effective way to acquire new visitors, leads and
customers. Unlike organic search (SEO), SEM is predicated on the old model of paid advertising, albeit with
several new twists.
Because of Google’s dominance, SEM is closely associated with the Google eco system of AdWords and
ppc (Pay Per Click). Because SEO alone may not create a high page ranking for your website, AdWords is a
service that allows you to pay for a more prominent position on the first search result page.
The service is relatively simple to understand ..
1. You choose keywords/phrases which you think users are most likely to use when searching for
content relevant to your product(s), ie your gigs, music and merchandise.
2. Because competitors may want to use the same keywords/phrases, you “bid” on how much you
will pay every time a user clicks on your ad. The highest bidder’s ads appear higher on the search
results page (either above or to the left of organic search results).
3. You define a daily budget that you are willing to spend (start with someone like $5).
4. You choose at what time, and in what geographical locations your ads will appear.
5. You can choose to have your ads appear on other sites too, such as a music forums, shops, blogs, or
online magazines.
6. You design a simple text ad, choosing your words carefully for maximum impact.
7. You design a landing page which the ad points to, and which develops the ‘conversation’ started
with the ad.
8. Add Google’s conversion tracking javascript snippet to your ‘checkout’ page, or the page that
records a successful campaign outcome (eg subscribe signup confirmation page)
9. Every time a user clicks on your ad, you pay Google a fee (your bid amount).
10. You monitor the conversion rate (eg sales, new subscribers, time spent at your site) using Google’s
analytics tools (click through rates, unique visitors, conversion rates, cost per acquisition etc).
11. You refine your ad and landing page to improve conversion rates.
For mobile marketing, AdWords use geo-location information to serve your ads to mobile users based on
their location, so for example, if you had unsold tickets available for your gig, Google could serve ads only
to users who were within the geographical location of the venue.
For more information on getting started go here .. What is AdWords? .. http://www.google.co.uk/ads/learn/

market-online/videos/what-is-adwords.html
Email marketing
As we already know, email marketing is valuable because it falls under the category of permission
marketing whereby visitors have given you explicit permission to contact them directly. Their engagement
is strong and it is likely that they have considered becoming “customers”.
We could write all day about email marketing but fortunately the leading provider (Mailchimp) provides
great advice and help as part of their service. We recommend you sign-up (it’s free) as soon as possible,
and integrate email marketing into your plan immediately. You will want to make it worthwhile and easy for
visitors to become mailing list subscribers.
Here are a few points to help you ..
• create a single (subscribers) list but segment it by including a field in your sign-up form to
differentiate subscribers, so you can target particular groups with different campaigns. We use a
“Subscriber groups” field where subscribers can choose a group that best describes them (student,
educator, studio owner etc)
• add sign up forms to your social media channels and website
• incentivise subscriptions with free stuff and offers
• tailor your emails by creating generalised and targeted campaigns
• consider your subject line carefully, it will have a huge impact on open rates
• always send a test email and check it carefully to see if it arrives in good shape, and the links in it
work as expected
• don’t run a campaign unless you have something to offer of value
• use effective calls to action in your emails
• use Mailchimp’s music specific features (read about them here .. http://mailchimp.com/resources/
guides/mailchimp-for-music/)
• use the analytics (reports) feature to analyse open and click-trough rates and alter your targeting
strategy to address any failures
Building your first mailing list

You can start your list off by adding colleagues, family and friends who you think will be supportive, but do
not add the email addresses of anyone you think may not be receptive, or who are only an acquaintance or
stranger. Emailing subscribers who have not given their consent is illegal.
Creating email campaigns

When you are creating an email campaign, you will need to consider several factors. Here’s a few tips ..
• don’t send a campaign when you have nothing new to offer

• ensure your campaign has a clear purpose
• add value, give your subscribers something, a new video to watch, free advice, a coupon/discount
etc
• use images, not just lots of text
• don’t give it all away - provide a teaser to content and a button which takes subscribers to the
complete story on your website, where once they have finished reading they can be directed to
your videos or music
• if you are promoting a video, include a screenshot of the YouTube player which links to the page on
your site where it is located
• once again - consider your subject line carefully, perhaps make it a teaser (eg “Guess which famous
guitarist I just saw at the gym?”)
Social media marketing

There are a great many social media channels, but for a recording musician we recommend creating and
operating these four as a minimum ..
• Facebook (create a specific musician related page if you already have a personal profile)
• Twitter
• Google+
• YouTube
Ideally you would operate just a single channel, but because of the differing demographics of each, you will
risk losing out on interaction with possible followers. Facebook caters for a younger more social audience,
Twitter subscribers are generally older and more interested in business, social issues, culture and art.
When you create a Google account (required for setting up a YouTube channel or AdWords account) you will
be ‘encouraged’ to create a Google+ account. Google+ is growing in popularity so you may as well go ahead
and create one.
You should customise and brand each channel carefully with a relevant title, accurate description,
biography, background image and profile image, and enable any social media integration available
(YouTube allows this).
You may also wish to create a Soundcloud profile, but we are unconvinced that they send the right message
about you as a professional and individual artist. Much better to host preview and free mp3s on your own
site.
You can use social media to achieve a number of objectives ..
• engage and connect with your audience

• announce gigs, releases and events
• embed follow, share and subscribe buttons in your website pages
• advertise products
• drive traffic to your website or shop
• increase your visibility
• build reputation
• run promotion, discount and offer campaigns
Engage and connect with your audience

Many fans prefer to follow an artist rather than subscribe to an mailing list because they don’t have to share
their email address. However, this implies an interest without commitment. Ideally you want your audience
to follow you on social media, share your posts and the content from your website and channels, and join
your mailing list.
Many artists have discovered that focusing on encouraging likes and followers, and posting multiple times
each day, has taken up huge amounts of time and not been successful in converting user to customers.
Certainly, if you follow a policy of responding personally to every post, you will not be able to keep up
when your channels become successful. You may therefore need to establish a policy. You may decide to
use your channels just for announcements, or make it clear you post just once a day, or direct follows to
your blog. Whatever you do, you should post at least once a week.
Don’t forget to reward loyalty by responding to frequent users or offering incentives and freebies. Also,
don’t just respond to conversations about you, initiate them by showing your interest in others.
If you are a beginner, don’t be afraid to ask family and friends to get the ball rolling, follow and like you and
share your content.
Posts - messages, comments and tweets
Here’s some useful advice that many recording musicians have found increases the effectiveness of their
posts ..
• put any call to action links towards the beginning

• short posts get less clicks, so write a bit more
• don’t use long paragraphs, divide your posts into nice short easily digestible chunks
• publish your posts towards the end of the afternoon and evening (for your followers) when they
have more time and are ready for distractions from work
• publish more posts towards the end of the working week and at the weekends
• ask for re-tweets (“pls RT”)
• don’t publish multiple messages (especially tweets) all at once, spread them out, perhaps one per
hour
Announce gigs, releases and events

Social media is an excellent platform for news. You should consider creating announcement specific
landing pages at your website and include links to them in your posts. At the very least you will want to
provide a link to a new YouTube video, a venue box office, or your iTunes store.
Embed follow, share and subscribe buttons in your website pages

Make it easy for your audience to share your content by adding and enabling share plug-ins to your website,
blog and channels. We would recommend using a widget tool such as Add This (http://www.addthis.com).
It’s simple, speeds up page loading time and provides analytics and metrics data.
If you prefer, you can embed and configure plug-ins individually. Here are some useful links ..
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins
https://about.twitter.com/resources/buttons
https://developers.google.com/+/web/
https://developers.google.com/youtube/youtube_subscribe_button
Social media channel ads
Both Facebook and Twitter allow you to advertise to promote your profile, pages and posts/tweets. It is
unclear how valuable these services will be for musicians, but paying for more likes and followers who
don’t convert to customers or email subscribers is not a good use of your marketing budget, so if you road
test a campaign, analyse the results carefully before rolling it out long term. However, you may feel there
is some commercial value in having large numbers of likes and followers who do not convert to customers,
because they demonstrate your popularity. How you measure the value of popularity other than by sales, is
more challenging.
Twitter (http://ads.twitter.com) allows you to advertise to try and gain more followers or promote an
individual tweet. Because tweets can be regarded as text ads, you could promote a tweet that announce
your new album, with a link to your merch store (eg iTunes). You can choose geographical location, gender,
a daily spending limit, maximum campaign budget, and a maximum bid amount for each follower (which
you should set lower than Twitters suggestions, at something like US 20 cents / UK 15p).
If you are going to promote a tweet (promoted tweets), publish it first so you can select it from the list in
the dashboard. Promoted tweets are identified as promoted tweets on the page where they appear. You
will pay for clicks on any links they contains and when they are initially re-tweeted, but not when they are
subsequently shared or clicked on.
Although a tweet can contain a link to a subscribe form for your mailing list, you can use a new feature
called a “Lead generation card” whereby your tweet incentivises a follower to join your mailing list.
Effectively the tweet works as a sign-up form. Better still, it integrates with Mailchimp, so new subscribers
are automatically added to your list.
The click through rate (CTR) on Facebook ads is tiny compared to Google AdWords. Facebook users aren’t
looking for products, and ads are an example of interruption marketing. However, in theory the data
Facebook keeps about its users should help ads to be targeted and effective. So if you think you music will
appeal to those that have stated in their profiles that they love Adele, then buying an ad that appears on
their page which says “If you love Adele, you’ll love this too” may be effective.
Use a social media management tool
We would recommend using social media management tools such as Hootsuite (https://hootsuite.com) and
TweetDeck to post to multiple channels simultaneously. They will save you time and ensure consistency,
but be careful not to auto-post the same content to all your channels all the time. Don’t assume your
audience has subscribed to just one of your channels.
Finally, you should only devote time to social media marketing once your content, SEO, and SEM is working
well. Social media is a long term game. Think of it more as a means of maintaining your customer base.
Good SEM will have a far greater impact on your sales.
Affiliate and reciprocal marketing

Although these are not processes generally practised by music makers, it is worth explaining them.
Reciprocal marketing is, as the name suggests, when two or more business (or musicians) work to promote
each other. They link to each other’s sites and channels and carry display ads for each other. This may be a
practical arrangement for artists who share something in common such as the same manager or label.
Affiliate marketing is an arrangement whereby an affiliate is rewarded for driving leads, subscribers, and
customers to a target site. Affiliate marketing can be as simple as rewarding a customer for recommending
friends and families and thereby securing additional sales, or a contractual agreement with a marketing
service that builds pages, sites and channels specifically for the purpose of netting new leads and selling
them to you.
Retail shop optimisation

Like shops in the real world, the web retail experience is the final crucial step in a sale, and must be as
engaging, simple and trustworthy as possible. Retail isn’t just about a single successful transaction for
a product, it’s about suggesting and displaying related products, nurturing and rewarding loyalty, and
building trust in your brand.
These are the primary options ..
• sell from your own site using an integrated ecommerce/shopping cart service such as PayPal,
Google checkout, or one provided by your hosting company
• create a shop / profile at a site like Amazon or eBay
• sell via a digital download store such as the iTunes music store
• use a trusted digital distributor and retailer, such as CDBaby
There is nothing stopping you implementing all of these options, but you may find it easier to hand
everything over to a service like CDBaby where you can choose to opt into a wide range of options
including selling downloads and CDs from their store, and from iTunes and a wide variety of other outlets.
You can still sell from your own shop too.
Whatever you choose, it is essential that you take advantage of any options available to customise and
brand the shop and checkout process. It is also important to take advantage of any features that help you to
encourage customers to write reviews, or at the very least get friends and family to write some for you.
Online display advertising

This is a process whereby your ad (normally text, image, banner) is served to targeted websites when users,
who’s data profiles (stored in cookies) suggest they may be receptive to your products, visit those sites.
Because cookies can deliver detailed information about a user’s activities, including how long they stayed
on a page, display advertising can refine behaviour to increase success, essentially optimising the chance of
your ad being clicked on.
Online display advertising is usually orchestrated by so called “ad server” or “ad network” service, a type
of digital ad agency which stores thousands of clients ads, records information about individual user’s
browsing and purchase history, and tries to display (serve) relevant ads to them when they visit websites.
However, ad networks have not yet been embraced by independent recording artists, perhaps because they
are perceived as belonging to the the ‘professional’ mainstream advertising industry sector.
Google are one of the few businesses who have succeeded in making advertising user friendly and
approachable for small businesses and individuals. As well as search result pages, Google AdWords can be
served to third party sites using the ad network model (Google Display Network).
An alternate and ‘old school’ method is to simply buy ad space on a relevant site, as you would in a print
magazine. This is simply a matter of contacting the site marketing department and negotiating a price.
Always haggle! You could advertise on music specific related sites where you think users will be interested.
Most ads are simple gif animations with links to a landing page (usually a tailored page at an artist’s
website), and are are easy to create in Photoshop using layers and the (animation) timeline. The site will
provide exact dimensions but most banner ads follow standard sizes .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_
banner#Standard_sizes
The downside to this model is you will be paying a fixed fee for your ad, even if you get very few clicks.
Suggesting a plan
This article has covered a wide range of subjects and technologies for you to consider, and only you can
decide which are best for you. However, here is a suggested plan of action to get you started ..
1. Search for and register a unique URL.

2. Ensure you have enough great product / content. This means your best compositions, performed as
well as you can, brilliantly recorded, and some great styled photographic images (location, fashion,
props).
3. Determine your branding, and write it down as a specification (colour values, fonts etc).
4. Create re-usable marketing materials (bio, album covers, logos, descriptions for channels, profile
thumbnails and background images etc).
5. Create a Google+ account, and a Google AdWords account.
6. Using your AdWords account, research and choose keywords/phrases. Plan to use these them
throughout your website, other channels, content and meta data.
7. Setup a Mailchimp account and create a signup form to add to your social media accounts and
website.
8. Setup dedicated artist social media profiles and integrate your Mailchimp signup form.
9. Create a Hootsuite account to manage your social media profiles.
10. Create a YouTube channel, customise it and integrate your social media channels.
11. Upload your videos, and optimise their titles, descriptions and meta data (keywords/phrases) for
search.
12. Create at least one creative music video. If you can, create more than one, including a performance
based video, and one from a live gig.
13. Organise your retail shop options. We recommend choosing a digital distributor until you are
familiar with all the options and processes, and using them to handle all your retail including iTunes
and an integrated shop on your website (eg CDBaby shop widget).
14. Upload your music to your shop and ask friends and family to write reviews.
15. Create a social media sharing account at AddThis.
16. Create your website, but don’t publish it until you are ready to launch. Add your social media feeds
and share/follow buttons, bio, email sign up forms, retail shop, mp3 previews, and videos. Include
some way for agents and industry to contact you, such as a php form. Ensure your website is search
engine optimised. Add the Google conversion tracking javascript to relevant pages.
17. Decide what incentives and marketing content you are going to use to drive subscribers and turn
them into customers. Create them.
18. Publish your website and content and announce them and your YouTube channel.
19. Post to and populate your social media channels, following and liking selected profiles that will
enhance your brand, and adding incentives to encourage subscriptions.
20. Ask friends and family to support your social media profiles by following and subscribing. When
you have published your content, you will ask them to write reviews.
21. Create a schedule for your AdWords campaign, announcements, social media posts and updates.
22. Design an AdWord campaign and associated landing page at your website. Put your music video
and some incentives (free tracks?) on this page.
23. Set a campaign budget and start your AdWords campaign.
24. If you have decided on a social media ad campaign start that now.
25. Use analytics to refine your AdWords and other ad campaigns.
26. To begin with, concentrate on driving users to your website, keeping your social media channels
and website updated and fresh, getting users to follow and share your music, encouraging emailing
list sign-ups, and monitoring your AdWords campaign daily.
Final thoughts
Try to remember that when you are in the thick of it, wrestling with some complex dashboard, or the right
way to phrase a message, all you are trying to do is ..
• drive traffic to locations where your music can be heard

• build an audience of fans
• sell your music and gigs
• encourage your fans to share their positive experiences with others
The advice in this article has provided you with the means to implement a powerful digital marketing
strategy. You will be able to avoid the many mistakes made by others and maximise your chances of
success. Don’t forget that this is a starting point, you will learn by your mistakes as you go, identify
and refine the most effective processes for you and your music, and be ready for new technologies and
opportunities as they emerge.
As a creative artist, you are accustomed to thinking creatively. Don’t just be innovative with your music, be
innovative with your marketing too.
Good luck.
The team at www.projectstudiohandbook.com

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If you record your own music

and want it to be heard and

Digital Therefore, this article will help

essentials clear explanations and advice

23 Processes and technologies

ww.projectstudiohandbook.com Digital marketing for recording musicians getting started

A word on ‘traditional’ marketing

• point of sale (displays in shops)

The sales funnel

• Get noticed (raise profile)

Therefore you will need ..

Products may include ..

Marketing content will include ..

Marketing tools and delivery platforms may include ..

• an artist website (and unique URL)

• social media profiles

Interruption and permission marketing

Unique and return visitors

• New unique visitor - a new visitor, follower or lead

Call to action (CTA)

Here are some example CTAs ..

Plans and campaigns

• a content marketing campaign (eg competition)

Personalise your messages

Search engines regularly (within hours or days of publication) index ..

• continually as you initiate and respond to social media dialogues

User generated content

• enabling comments in your blog

Recommendations, reviews and testimonials

Analytics & metrics

At Project Studio Handbook we use analytic tools at our ..

Put yourself in your customers shoes

• Do you read and value product reviews?

Determining your brand

• website design aesthetic (eg organic, artsy, illustrative, contemporary, corporate?)

Determining your public persona

Choosing keywords and keyword phrases

• The Milt Poke Coral (branded keyword phrase)

• the meta-tags of each site page

Unique URL (website address)

Engaging content - circus vs art

Website design & optimisation

Organic search and search engine optimisation (SEO)

Adding keywords/phrases to your site, channels and content

Here are the most important points ..

Information and advice

If you are interested these links may be useful ..

Creating a music video

Video channel marketing

• videos rank highly in Google search results

In addition to this advice, here’s our top 10 for YouTube marketing ..

1. customise and brand your YouTube channel

Search engine marketing (SEM)

The service is relatively simple to understand ..

For more information on getting started go here .. What is AdWords? .. http://www.google.co.uk/ads/learn/

Building your first mailing list

Creating email campaigns

• don’t send a campaign when you have nothing new to offer

Social media marketing

You can use social media to achieve a number of objectives ..

• engage and connect with your audience

Engage and connect with your audience

• put any call to action links towards the beginning

23 Processes and technologies