7steps MarketingPlan

The 7 Pieces of Marketing
Music Online
A Music Marketing Plan For Today’s Music
Industry
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2
Dear Reader,
Indie Leap was created to be of service to independent musicians who are dedicated to success in their music career. It is our
philosophy that musicians have never had more opportunity to make a living in their music as they do now. We have entered
a time where the record label model is no longer absolutely necessary for success. There are those out there who still dream
of being picked up by a major label and then being carried through a successful music career. However, that is just not a
given anymore. Even if you do get picked up by a label, that doesn‟t guarantee anything anymore. The record labels still have
money, but, independent musicians are now able to obtain things like major distribution on the internet on their own for
very little money.
There are a number of other resources available to independent musicians in today‟s internet/music industry. Finding these
resources and learning how to use them takes time. I wrote a series of blog posts that map out what is needed to market your
music online as well as some of the resources available to musicians to accomplish this task. I have compiled these posts into
an eBook format to make it easier to digest.
You likely got this eBook from my website www.indieleap.com. I will be exploring more about how to use these resources as
well as others on my blog. So, keep reading the blog and stay connected. I absolutely always want to hear feedback to find out
what is working for you or your band. I love to find new resources and strategies. So, please share with me your insights. Or
if you have questions and could use a third party opinion, Please leave comments on the blog or contact me at
tom@indieleap.com. I will always try to respond as quickly as I am able.
Please enjoy,
Indie Leap Crew

Indie Leap – The 7 Pieces of Marketing Music Online 3
An Introduction to Marketing Your Music Online

Marketing your music online is the name of the game these days. If you handle your music marketing yourself it is an
obvious must do. Even record labels big and small have to focus intently on marketing music online. The wild and crazy
thing is... you can be almost as affective marketing for your music online as the record labels can. Sure there are some things
out there that just take the kind resources that a lot of independent artist just don't have. But if you learn to leverage
your social networking for marketing, blog marketing, press releases, use a good auto responder for your email list and so on,
you can really turn the exposure that you have already into actual sales of your music and merchandise. You can really make
an impact with your music marketing efforts online. If you don't have a good idea of how to manage your social networking,
don't worry. You don't have to have a gigantic budget to figure it out. Visit the following websites for great information about
how to manage your Social Networking as a musician: Music Success In Nine Weeks or Road Map to Social Media Success.
Let me give an example: Friends of mine plays in a group. A fantastic duet of kinda enhanced a cappella. People love them.
They sell a bunch of CDs at their shows. Finally they put together a website and started selling their music online. Without
doing a thing to market that website, they sell CDs to people all over the U.S. I purchased their CD online myself. One day
while talking to my friend on the phone I was amazed to find out that Ma Muse had released a new album. I asked her why I
didn't get an email letting me know about the new CD. Having made a purchase online, I had to give my email address. She
said "hmmm... we are just starting to put together an email list." I asked if the people who had already bought their first CD
were on that list and she told me "No, that's funny isn't it? We have just been collecting names and emails at our concerts."
To this I said "ludicrous!! I have already parted with my money because I like your music. I am a prime candidate to receive
any marketing message that you send out." The point here is that my friend could possibly double her sales if she takes a
couple of small steps to set up an online music marketing strategy.
Online music marketing is a learned skill and one needs to put together a system. There are a bunch of different tactics out
there, but the most important thing is to devise an online music marketing strategy comprised of several tactics that make
sense given the demographics of your audience. For more information about how to put together an online music marketing
strategy, sign up for my newsletter at www.indieleap.com.
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Step One - Research

As I said in a previous post (Online Music Marketing - Do It!), with a couple of simple steps you could market your own
music online (without the help of a record label) and possibly make a profound impact on your desired audience. In my next
few posts I will spell out some simple steps to get started with your online music marketing campaign. This post is dedicated
to step one... This step is the first step in the process of marketing anything, music or otherwise. Many independent
musicians don't think like a marketing professional and furthermore do not regard their music as a product nor do they
consider their audience consumers. Here's the deal... for the purposes of this post that is exactly what we are going to do.
Research
So... what is the first step in marketing your music online? Research. Now, maybe this seems boring, but it is extremely
important. If you are planning on making any kind of impact with your music online, you first have to figure out who your
audience is. There are 1,802,330,457 Internet users worldwide (26% of the global population). There is a pretty good chance
that not every person on the web is a potential fan of yours. So you need to figure out the demographics of your audience.
There are the typical demographic factors such as age, gender, race, income bracket, level of education and so on. I imagine
that you can answer some of those questions off the top of your head. Here is a suggestion... At your next several gigs look
around at your audience. Try to notice any of the above demographic characteristics that you didn't immediately have an
answer for. Then start to look at what they are wearing. Look for anything that they have used their sense of taste to
purchase. If you can find any common threads amongst your audience, that will help you immensely to market your music
online. While this is a good idea for any marketing plan, this is especially crucial in marketing music online.
Listen to Me!
Let me explain why... If you were a designer of handbags and were looking to capture some of the existing handbag market,
you would try to find people who are already shopping for handbags and attempt to get them to notice yours. Not to say that
is easy, many designers fail in accomplishing just that. But the point is that there are people looking for handbags online.
These people are looking in a general sense (meaning just searching for any handbag) and in specific sense (searching for a
particular brand or style handbag). So if you have designed a clutch, you might want to find a stream of people who are
looking for a clutch style handbag and try to position your product in front of their eyes. You are selling music. People aren't
usually on the Internet just typing into Google the word music by itself. Nor are they searching for music according to style
(i.e. typing "country music" or "emo" into Google). People have to discover music while doing something else. The question
that I am suggesting you answer here is... discovering what? Well if you notice that your audience is all wearing the same
brand of jeans, or a certain baseball team's hat, or a certain style of shoes, then you are closer to answering that
question. Knowing what material things your audience spends money on is only one thing to pay attention to. The next thing
to try and figure out is, in short, everything that they spend their money on. Lifestyle choices. What do they do for
fun? Where do they buy their groceries? What kind of car do they drive? Do they take the bus? Do they live in houses or
apartments? in the city or the country? A great method to answer as many of these questions as possible, is wise use of all of
the Social Networking sites available. I will give you an overview of which social networking sites to use and a basic approach
to using them in a future post. For in-depth knowledge of how to use these tools effectively visit these websites - Music
Success in Nine Weeks or Road Map to Social Media Success.
First Things First
So, in short, the first step in marketing your music online is to figure out who you are marketing to. Before you go through
the trouble of making your music available online, crafting a marketing message, and developing a system to deliver that
message you need to determine who wants to receive your message and be exposed to your music or you will just be spinning
your wheels.
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Step Two – Internet Home Base

Before you dive too deep into this post, please read Marketing Your Music Online - Step One. And as a reminder, check out
the rest of my posts to get even more information about music marketing.
As an overview, I will briefly recap step one... In step one we discussed market research. It makes no sense at all to throw
your music at the entire world via the Internet. We discussed a couple of methods in which to decide who your target
audience is. The point that I really wanted you to take away from that post was... make sure that you are marketing your
music to people online not to the Internet itself.
Your Website
So... let's move on to step two. If you want to market your music online you will, very simply, have to make your music and
your message available to people who are online. This might sound like an obvious concept, but I can't tell you how many
times I have seen musicians not take advantage of the resources on the web. What am I even talking about...? Well, the
Internet is made up of billions of interconnected websites. This is why we call it the web. What you or your band needs to do
in order to market your music online is to be one of those websites. Now I can already hear some of you saying, defiantly, but
I have a MySpace page or a Facebook page or a ReverbNation page. I am certainly not telling you to trade those things in for
a website of your own, but you just simply cannot exist on social networking sites alone. You absolutely must have both.
Why? Because you need to have a place where you can control 100% of the content that your visitors are seeing. Social
networking is going to be a large part of your online presence, don't get me wrong, but your website should most certainly be
your hub online. This is where your message is detailed and delivered in the most effective way possible. This is where your
message leads your visitors toward your sales funnel. This is where you can concentrate your efforts in branding yourself.
Social networking is a part of this process and will be covered generally in a future post. For in depth information about how
to use social networking as a musician, visit Music Success in Nine Weeks and Road Map to Social Media Success. These are
the best resources I know of to really hone your social networking efforts.
I know that many of you don't have a lot of money to spend on things like website design or hosting. Here's the thing... of all
the expenses that we incur as musicians or as humans living on this planet, it seems like hosting is a pretty reasonable valu e
for the money you will need to put out for this. The hosting service I use is: Host Gator. They have plans starting at $4.95 per
month. However, I strongly recommend that you choose the plan above that for $7.95 per month. The major difference here
is the latter plan offers unlimited domain names for the same monthly price. This is very important for what you want to do.
I will give you one example of why this is desirable: If your band name is "The Noisy Pieces", you should seriously consider
buying www.thenoisypieces.com, www.thenoseypieces.com, www.thenoisypeaces.com and so on. With the $7.95 per month
plan you are able to put all of these domain names (and more) under the same hosting account. The point is simply, you
don't want to rely on people getting the name of your band right in order to find your site.
Free or Not to Free
Why not free hosting? you ask... Well, free hosting is cool for one reason only... It's free! I love free things with a passion and
if there was a free option that I knew of that worked, I would certainly tell you about it. Here's the deal with the free
hosting... Free hosting accounts often force you to allow advertisements for whatever the hosting company chooses to appear
on your site. Now if you have an indie pop band and people who visit your site see advertisements for baby diapers, this is
not good. Not only does it not jive with the feeling of your band or your site or the interests of your visitors, it also offers an
exit from your site to your visitors. Also not good. Unwanted advertisements are only one reason to avoid free hosting. Two
other important reasons are: you don't get to have your own domain name and it may not stay free. With free hosting your
domain will look something like: www.hosting company.bandname.com - no good. You definitely want www.bandname.com
(as well as variations). Also, I have heard of free hosting becoming not free. This means that you can choose to pay what they
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are suddenly asking you to pay, or you can lose your domain with them and any visitors you have coming to your site or
inbound links you have won't work. Again, no good.
So, very simply, having your own website is an absolute necessity and having that website hosted is the best way to go hands
down. Again the company I use for my hosting is: Host Gator. I find it affordable, their customer service is very
accessible and I have never had any problems with the company.
I did not talk about any design suggestions for a musician‟s website. This feels like a topic that deserves its own post. I will go
into the detail of design suggestions in a future post. The only thing that I will say now, in case any of you are wanting to
jump into the design phase is: Host Gator offers basic design templates and editing software and don‟t use flash. It is slow to
load (visitors hate slow websites) and the search engines can't read it. I will expand on that in a future post.
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Step Two-A – A Little “How To” on Websites

This is the third post in my series Marketing Your Music Online. The last post Marketing Your Music Online - Step Two
covered the importance of having your own website as an independent musician with your own domain name that you
control 100% of the content on. After posting Step Two I got to thinking about what I had written and realized that in order
to really serve musicians, I would need to explain a little more in depth, some best practices when setting up your website.
That's why this post is called Step Two-A. It is really an extension of Step Two. Step Three will cover a number of the various
methods of making your music available for sale online (i.e. - digital distribution - this is a moving target these days). As
always, remember to check out my other posts for more information about Online Music Marketing.
How to Structure Your Website
So, before we dive into it, I will first tell you that website design is not my forte. I am not going to tell you how to code a
website in this post. There are a number of resources available for free on the Internet to learn basic HTML and PHP. In my
opinion that is all you would need to do it yourself. This post will cover, however, crucial pages to include in your site and
how to structure them. I will say upfront that there are many, many turnkey musician website templates available out there
to possibly take advantage of. Some of which are free and some are not so free. I am sure that there are a solid handful of
these options that are very good. If you plan on using one of these services I would like to offer a word of warning... I
mentioned in Marketing Your Music Online - Step Two about not using a flash based website. So make sure to avoid any
service that offers flash exclusively.
I have found some success in using a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) website design software. I have a very
pathetic basic knowledge of HTML that I have really just picked up by reviewing source code from other websites and pages
that I have designed with a WYSIWYG designer and I have been able to build basic websites on my own. So, I imagine that
anyone can do it. For a basic HTML training simply look around on the Internet. It is not difficult to find. Or... buy yourself a
copy of the Complete Idiot's Guide to HTML. Even if you use a template I feel that it is important to know a minimum about
how your site is put together. In Step Two I suggested you use Host Gator to host your website. Host Gator provides some
basic templates and some basic design software that is plenty sufficient for one to put together a basic website.
Onward...
Ok... That information should be enough to get you started on website design (that's all I started with and I get by). Now I
want to go through a couple of things about site structure that are important when you are trying to market your music
online. Marketing to music fans online is tricky at best. I want to talk briefly about what pages to include in your site and
some content that should definitely be included.
Home
First - your home page. Your home page should display your band name prominently, a nice photo, social media links
(twitter, facebook, myspace, etc.) and links to the other pages on your site. Even though I am going to suggest that you have
separate pages for the following items I would add to your home page: your contact information (if you are looking for gigs),
newsletter opt-in form (I will explain this in depth in a future post), a music player with at least 3-5 songs available to listen
to (full versions - not 30 second or 60 second clips. An additional note here is it might not be best to set the player up to start
playing automatically, some people find that annoying, then again that might work for you) and the next few upcoming gigs.
Second - the about page. Simple... Band bio, personnel (with bios) include photos.
Third - Media page. Put up the player again on its own page and more pics and videos if you have them.
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Fourth - Calendar. Upcoming gigs. Make this easy to find. You want people to come to your next show, don't you?
Fifth - Contact page. This should include all of the contact methods in which you use. Maybe you have a lot of traffic and you
don't particularly want all of your fans to have your phone number so just give out an email address. You want to have some
way for people who want to hire you to be able to get in touch with you and you want to give your fans and potential fans a
way to interact with you. Also include on this page another opt-in form for your newsletter.
Sixth - Store. This is where you sell your music and your merchandise.
Seven - Blog. You should have one. I will talk about this in more depth in a future post.
Now, I mentioned that your home page should have links to all of the other pages on your site, but this holds true for all of
the other pages on your site as well. There are a few reasons for this, but the biggest reason is that all of these pages are
important to your visitors and you want them to be able to get to each one of these pages no matter where they happen to be
on your site. I, for one, find it very frustrating to have to return to the home page of a site to get to another page on the site.
This is entirely not cool.
On a similar note... I want to talk about layout. I think the easiest way to go about laying out your site is to think simple...
really simple. Don't put too much information on a given page, scatter it around or use a bunch of colors causing your visitor
to not know what to look at. Decide what the page is about and focus the page's content and layout on that subject only. I like
to have the navigation bar listed vertically along the right side of the page, but that is my personal preference. My suggestion
here is to look around at sites you think are straight forward, easy on the eyes and not a pain in the neck to navigate to get
some ideas. These don't have to be musician‟s websites necessarily but they certainly can be.
Search Engine Optimization
Search considerations and additional pages to include...
It is not likely that people are out there surfing the net and could possibly stumble upon your website through the use of a
search engine and then decide to buy your music (I am not saying this won't happen, I am just saying that you should
probably not set up your website with that goal alone). That being said there are a couple of easy things that you can do to set
up your website so it can be found by someone who may actually be looking for you or your music.
You may have a really catchy band name (and I hope you do) and hopefully your domain name matches your band name,
still people looking for your music could be forgetting your band name (I know... how dare they). However, these people
might remember one of your songs. Even then, I would bet they don't know the name of the song unless the name is in the
hook and that is the part of the song that is stuck in their head. So, how do we deal with this? How do we set up our website
so that someone who doesn't know your band name and doesn't know the name of the song that they want to buy from you
can find you online? This is one of the few instances that Search Engine Optimization is used for marketing music online. I
am not going to explain search engine optimization in any depth except to tell you that this is what you will be doing if you
follow the steps below.
1) Make lyrics pages. This means make a separate page for each song with lyrics written out. Why do this? Because when the
only thing a potential fan can remember about you or your music is one line from one song, they might put it in a search
engine. If that lyric is not somewhere on your site, your site will not show up in the search results.
2) Make the more memorable lines from each song more prominent. Not to get too technical but if you took my advice and
learned some extremely basic and very available HTML you should be able to follow just fine - buckle up! Make the title of
the song an H1 tag. This is just the HTML language for a Heading Tag. Then take the first line of the chorus or the hook and
make it an H1 tag as well. If the song title and the hook are not the same then you may want to make the title an H1 tag and
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then make the hook into the subheading and give it an H2 tag. It is commonly hypothesized that search engines give more
weight to the content in the H1 and H2 tags.
3) Put it in the title tag. In every page on your website there will be Meta tags. There are several, but I am only going to focus
on three here. The Meta title, Meta description and the Meta keywords - listed in order of importance. No content that you
add to these tags will be visible on your site. However the title tag is visible at the upper right hand corner of the browser
window (for example while you are reading this the upper left hand corner of your browser or on the tab that you have active
should read - Marketing Your Music Online - Step Two-A | Online Music Marketing and Artist Promotion. That is the title
tag of this page. So, one would think that you want the song title to go in the title tag. I would suggest however, to let go of
any notion to brand the name of the song and put the key lyric that people are likely to be searching for in the title tag (i.e. if
your song title is different from your hook, I would put the hook in the title tag as that is likely what people remember about
the song or if there is a particular lyric that everyone remembers that is not the hook or the title, it may be best to put this in
the title tag). This takes some guess work and may need to be changed at a later date... and that's ok.
The description tag should contain lyrics that may be being searched for as well. I would suggest simply putting the title of
the song and a dash and the hook or some other catchy lyric in the song. The keyword tag is really not all that necessary here.
If you want to use the keyword tag its fine, it may not make one bit of difference. If you do I would just put the lyrics in
question and maybe the musical genre or genres that best describe your musical style. It will not likely make much
difference.
Don't Go Yet!
One more thing... Your band might have a signature way of dress or you might all wear wigs or you might say something over
the mic at the beginning or ending or a show that would be somewhat unique to you. I would at a minimum put this
information somewhere in the content of your website (a blog is useful for this - we'll get into that later). For example, let‟s
say you're a punk band in Seattle and the bass player dresses up in a clown costume at every show. If I am looking for your
band on Google I might type in "punk band Seattle Clown bass player" or some variation of that. If that content is not
somewhere on your site it is not likely that your site will be returned in the search engines.
Well, that's what I've got for you on that for now. I hope it is helpful. Keep a look-out for Marketing Your Music Online - Step
Three in a future post.
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Step Three – Digital Distribution

This is step three in my online music marketing series. In the last two posts (step two and two-A) I discussed the importance
of having your own website and some tips on creating your site. Please check out Marketing Your Music Online - Step
Two and Two-A for your reference. In step three I am going to discuss an incredibly crucial piece of the puzzle. Something
that is so important to online music marketing that if you were to make poor choices in this department it would ruin your
efforts in other areas. Keep reading...
Digital Distribution
In previous steps I have talked about setting up your online presence in the sense that you need an online presence and even
before that you need to do a little bit of leg work in order to figure out who you are marketing your music to within this
online presence. This step is going to be all about making your music available to purchase online. That's right, that
incredibly confusing subject of Digital distribution. This subject confuses so many artists today and rightfully so. It seems
that a lot of artists I meet simply go with the most well known distributor or the one their friend is using. Why is this subject
so confusing? Well here is my opinion (I want to stress the fact that it is my opinion)... Online retailers of digital products
have opened up their formats so that any individual could potentially distribute their products within their stores. I am not
saying that this process is easy, in fact, it‟s not at all. However, it is possible. This made it a lot easier for someone to develop
a business designed to distribute digital products to all of the various online retailers. A middle-man. Not a bad deal for
musicians, deal with one company and your music is then available in every major and many minor online retail locations,
available for the masses to discover, purchase and fall in love with. This sounds great. The fact of the matter is that it is great.
This is the very reason that making it as an independent musician is possible in today's market. Having the opportunity to
distribute your product to so many venues and make it available to so many potential consumers is really phenomenal.
Here's the downside... There are a lot of hacks out there. There are some tried and trusted entities out there as well. Then
there are the lesser known companies that may be fine and may not. Who to choose is an ongoing discussion. This is
precisely the discussion that I am trying to engage in right now.
Easy Now...
I am purposefully going to tread somewhat lightly on the subject for two reasons. One - I do not consider myself to be an
expert on this subject specifically (meaning, I am not specifically in the digital distribution business), although I do know
some things and I intend to share what I do know. Additionally this part of the industry is always changing. The technology
that enables companies to distribute to all of the online retailers is always changing and so is the technology that enables all
of the online retailers to distribute to the end users, the consumer. What I will not do in this post is, to make a
recommendation on a specific distribution service. I simply intend to point out a couple of gotcha tactics that can make thei r
way into the terms of service and the fine print. I will also mention a few distribution services that I am familiar with as
examples of the common differences between platforms. My overall goal, to be clear, is to provide an overview of a solid
format for an online music marketing campaign to be successful in generating CD and merchandise sales at the same time as
creating meaningful exposure. I think an entire book could be written on digital distribution and maybe one should be. The
distributor that you ultimately pick will need to fit your specific needs and goals. I will make the simple point that you need
to do the research on whatever company you choose in order to really know what their deal is.
Ok... So, rule number one when picking your digital distribution company... What is your goal? You will have to go back to
Marketing Your Music Online - Step One in order to figure this out. As I said above, the distributor you choose will need to
fit your specific needs and goals.
There are several different platforms and business models to consider. Each one varies sometimes very little and other times
it couldn't be more different. Along with business models there are just as many fee schedules and gotcha clauses that may
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or may not really get in your way. So, rule number two is to read the Terms Of Service (TOS), Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQ) and as much of the website as possible.
Don't Do What Everyone Else Does
I want to point out that it doesn't matter if there is a musician you've heard of who is a customer of the distribution service
that you are looking into. It matters only if the service will meet your needs. I would like to point out a couple of different
models that are available and the companies that offer them. This is not, by any means, a complete list of digital distributo rs.
Nor is it a complete list of business models. (For a complete list of distributors along with a complete list of a ton of other
useful services I would recommend you check out the Indie Bible). I've mentioned these companies and business models to
provide examples of the differences in services available. I will also point out that the different models out there essentially
consist of distribution plus... That is, distribution to several online retailers as well as some other service. The different
models that I have examined for this post are as follows:
 Main stream digital distribution plus social networking

 Main stream digital distribution plus physical distribution
 Direct to fan distribution
 Main stream distribution plus direct to fan distribution plus marketing
Each company offers more, smaller, and sometimes quite substantial, pluses that I have not mentioned above.
Some of the Players
Perhaps the most well known distributors for independent musicians are TuneCore and CD Baby.
CD Baby has been on the scene for quite some time now. In fact, Derek Sivers, the founder of CD Baby, basically invented
distribution for independent musicians. CD Baby entered the scene as a physical distribution hub and a kind of music
discovery warehouse. Since, CD Baby has merged with the main stream of digital distribution offering distribution to ITunes,
Rhapsody, Emusic, Amazon, Napster and so on... CD Baby will also provide artists with a credit card swiper for CD and
Merch sales at shows. The current fee schedule is $35 onetime fee plus $4 per album sale and 25% ($0.29 min.) for every
mp3 download. CD Baby additionally allows you to set your own prices. I don't know... if you plan on selling a lot of CDs this
model could get really expensive. But... a lot of artists like CD Baby. I personally have followed Derek Sivers for some time
now and I have to say, I really like the guy. That being said, he no longer owns the company. The company overall does
appear to be very proactive in finding ways to assist Independent Musicians. That's worth a lot. CD Baby is also partnered
with Sonicbids, an online DIY booking hub. I am not entirely clear on how this partnership works. There is also Host Baby.
CD Baby's sister web hosting site. I suggest you read the TOS. In my quick review of the TOS I couldn't find any information
about take-down fees. I would think they are there, but I didn't see anything when I looked. Again, read the TOS.
TuneCore was one of the first digital distributors to make a splash in the DIY Indie Musician world. The general structure of
TuneCore (as of this writing) is digital distribution to all of the major etailers such as ITunes, Amazon, Emusic, Napster, etc.
and physical distribution through Amazon. The fee schedule currently looks like this: $49.99 for the first year per album and
$19.98 per year for each subsequent year. Singles and ringtones are $9.99 per year. This is a flat fee. TuneCore delivers 100%
of all net proceeds from the retailers to the artist. WATCH OUT! There's a gotcha here... When signing up for the distribution
package you need to pick your stores. If there is a store you missed then you will have to pay $1.98 for each additional store
after you have already given the green light. So, make sure to pick all of the stores you will want before you say go. A couple
of pluses that TuneCore offers include: music video and film distribution to ITunes, a partnership with Guitar Center to
allow for TuneCore artists to be played on Guitar Center Radio during business hours and a partnership with Universal
Music Group to offer a la carte record label services. The partnership with UMG was controversial when it was established.
Some applauded the record label's intention to cater to the DIY Indie Musician and others seemed to feel that it was a sneaky
attempt by the label to rob musicians from the inside of the DIY network. Who knows what they are thinking. If you think
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this works for you, then maybe TuneCore is your thing. Oh... There is a take-down fee (termination of service) of $20 for
each album that has been active for less than six months.
I would also mention SongCast. SongCast is pretty much straight digital distribution. The pricing is $5.99 per month plus a
$19.99 onetime fee per album. In some circumstances this may work out to be less expensive than some of the alternatives.
For example; if you have several albums to make available. Notice there are no annual fees for each album. Just a reasonable
monthly fee for all of your music and a onetime fee per album. Songcast additionally has a radio station that plays songcast
artists 24/7. I don't know what their listenership is. I suggest researching that before you let your decision hinge on that fact.
There is a take-down fee for any album terminated that has been active for less than 8 months.
The next company I want to talk about did not start out as a distribution service. Reverb Nation was originally geared toward
providing social networking between musicians and their fans. However, Reverb Nation has joined the game and is now
competing with the larger distributors. Reverb Nation has two distribution plans. The Standard plan provides distribution to
28 stores and costs $39 per CD per year. The Pro plan provides distribution to 38 stores for $59 per CD per year. Reverb
Nation does not take any additional monies on the sale of your music. There are other limitations, but nothing out of the
ordinary. Reverb Nation offers a whole slew of other services including email marketing, street team management and all
kinds of stuff. There are other companies that probably do a better job these other services, but Reverb Nation has them all
under one roof. Reverb Nation overall offers some really great stuff for musicians and it is worth knowing about and their
digital distribution service could well be for you. The take-down fee is $30 for the standard plan and $50 for the Pro plan.
These are steep in comparison to alternative services.
**My Favorite**
The next type of service on my list is a topic that really excites me. The direct-to-fan movement is why I started this blog
and Indie Leap in the first place.
BandBox is a service that gives you a widget (a music player where one can listen and purchase your music). You are able to
put this widget on your own website, Facebook, Myspace or anywhere. You can upload whatever audio you want and provide
it for your fans wherever you want. You can even upload the audio from a live show and have it be available the same night as
the show! (if you want to stay up all night). I think this is great. This gives you the flexibility that you should have in today's
music industry. There are two levels of service. There is BandBox basic, the digital only service for $9.95/month and
BandBox Pro which is digital and physical CD sales. BandBox does not take any additional money from the sale of your
music beyond the monthly fee. What is really cool about this... is that you pay the monthly fee and you get unlimited album
uploads. That is great. If you have a lot of albums, this could be one of the most inexpensive models available to you.
However, there is no main stream distribution.
Another direct-to-fan system of note is Nimbit. Nimbit is really a platform designed to serve several needs of independent
musicians in one place. There is a direct-to-fan distribution component to the platform. You can create your own store
through Nimbit. Nimbit calls this a skin. The neat thing here is that you can put your store (skin) wherever you want to. Put
it on your website, on Facebook, and so on. Your fans can also put a store on their own site. How cool is that!!? It is common
knowledge amongst marketing gurus that word-of-mouth or referrals are the most powerful and effective form of marketing
in existence. Anything that facilitates that is a cool thing. There are 3 levels of service and with them come 3 different fee
schedules. There is Nimbit Basic and that is FREE!! Nimbit basic gives you the ability to sell your digital music on Facebook,
MySpace and your own website, track your fans, some analytics tools and the ability to accept credit cards. Nimbit
Indie costs $12.95 per month and gives you everything that Nimbit Basic offers as well as the ability to sell physical CDs,
merch, etickets as well as MP3s on Facebook, Myspace and your website and warehousing and fulfillment for Cds and
merch. Once you start paying for your service you also get digital distribution to the major online retailers such as Amazon,
Emusic, Rhapsody, ITunes and so on. These are only some of the additional features of the Nimbit Indie. Nimbit
Pro costs$24.95 per month and is their top level of service. Everything from the last two levels and this is where you can
customize your storefront and really integrate their dashboard with your own website. Nimbit does take a 20% commission
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for all transactions coming from one of their storefronts. They don't take any money from transactions from another online
retailer. This can get steep if you are selling a lot of music. However, in my opinion, they are really offering a lot of flexibility
to an artist. This is just another thing that you will have to weigh against your goals.
There are many, many other digital distribution services available. I have only highlighted a portion of them. The point here
is that each service is totally unique. The platform of any given service could work great for you and it could be a total
headache. I am suggesting as strongly as possible that you look into exactly what it is that the company is offering, read the
FAQ and the terms of service, but beyond that, you absolutely need to know what your goals and targets are. If you have
done a good job with Step One, you will have a solid grasp on what you need for distribution. For example; if you know that
your target audience spends a lot of time on ITunes, then that will be your major concern. You will know if your audience
generally buys one track at a time or whole albums. The pricing plans tend to work well for one or the other but not
necessarily both. On the other hand, if your audience are big Facebook users, then you are going to really want to consider
Bandbox or Nimbit or something similar.
Take Away This...
I am trying to impress on you two major points... Know who you are selling your music to and READ! the FAQ and terms of
service to really understand what you are getting. There are usually very annoying consequences to making the wrong
decision. I know this was a long post, but this is a hairy subject to navigate. I was hoping to clear a path to some answers.
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Step Four – A Little More Personal

This is step four in my online music marketing series. In the last post (step three) I discussed the sticky and ever-changing
subject of digital distribution. In step four I will cover a big money maker that is grossly underutilized and misused by
musicians and businesses alike. Without this piece of the marketing puzzle it is hard to really even call it marketing. This is
the step where you take off your musician hat and pay tribute to the direct marketers of old. You will have to learn at least
some minimal copy writing skills to do this well. I will cover the basics, enough for you to put together a minimal plan. What
am I talking about? Keep reading...
Email
Email. Many musicians and artists alike that I talk to, don't like this part of the independent musician career. I think it is
generally because they don't like the idea of the pushy salesman and don't want to be seen as such. I guess if that is how you
feel than don't participate in email marketing. The alternative is to just trust that your fans will know about the products you
are offering, your upcoming shows, your newest CD and what your music is like and what inspired you to make it entirely on
their own. To this idea I ask this question... Do you think that your fans will come to your website and become so enthralled
with everything about you that they will buy everything that you have for sale and then check your site regularly to find out
where you are playing next and if you might have something else for sale that wasn't there last time they visited? Yeah, when
you put it that way, it does sound a little farfetched. Yet this is what many musicians (and small businesses and major
corporations for that matter) do. Think of your email subscriber list as a list of people who want to know what you are up to,
but don't want to put the effort in to find out. That is a good start in how to deal with this issue.
Take a Good Look at What You Have
Your email list should be made up of several types of fans. There are the fans that have attended a show and liked what they
heard and signed up at the show. There are the fans that have come to your website maybe after a show or after being turned
on to your music from a friend or radio or whatever. There are the fans who have bought a CD. There are the fans who have
bought some other merchandise. There are the fans who have bought everything that you have to offer and have attended as
many shows as they could. Each of these different types of fans, or whatever different types of fans that you can think of,
should be segmented within your list. This way you can send a message to everybody on all of your lists or just the portion of
your list it makes the most sense to convey that particular message to. I'll explain further... keep reading.
In the previous paragraph I described briefly a couple of ways people (or fans) can be added to your email list. Now I want to
talk about making it possible for them to do so. I can't tell you how many times I have visited a band's or a musician's website
and not been able to find a place for me to join their list. You need to put a "name capture" form on EVERY page of your
website. It doesn't necessarily have to be prominent on every page but it shouldn't be buried either. There are two places that
I recommend making the name capture feature a focal point of the page. The first one is kinda obvious. You should have a
whole page dedicated to signing up for your email newsletter (or whatever you are inclined to call it). Yes on this page it
should be very obvious how to sign up. The second place where I feel your name capture feature should play a big role is on
your home page. I know, I know... There are all these great graphics or photos on your home page and you don't want to ruin
their effect or busy the page. Well, what can I say? There have been plenty of times I visit a website (of a musician or
otherwise) and I find a name capture feature on the home page and the first thing I do is to sign up. Especially if the
company or band is offering me something I want in return for signing up, we'll talk more about that, keep reading... But
first, I want to talk briefly about how to deal with the name capture on the home page. The simplest general suggestion I can
make is to put the name capture form in the sidebar and put it at the top. That way you don't have to make it bigger than
anything else and you don't have to try too hard to make it stand out.
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As for the rest of the pages on your website, place the name capture form in the sidebar either at the top or somewhere
toward the middle (hopefully above the fold). If you really don't want it to be a significant part of the page, put it at the
bottom of the page or at the bottom of the sidebar. As long as you have it there somewhere I won't give you too much grief.
Where to Get the Tools
I have left a couple of important questions unanswered until now... Where do you get these "name capture" forms? and how
do you manage your email list? This is actually easier than it seems. There are a number of companies out there that will
handle all of this for you, for a small fee, of course. The good news is that most of the companies that offer this service are
really pretty reasonable price-wise. I will give you my recommendations in a minute. First, I want to tell you what you should
be looking for. Make sure to look out for the following features:
 The ability to customize and design your own name capture forms
 List segmentation options. Usually this is in the form of a "if someone signs up for list C then automatically
unsubscribe that person from list A" type of function. Example: if I sign up for your list and a month later I buy
your CD, you want me to be moved from your potential fan list to your proven customer list.
 How many subscribers can you have? Are there different prices for more subscribers?
 How many emails can you send per month? What does it cost if that number is exceeded?
 What is the maximum number of messages you can load into your auto-responder?
 Tracking tools: what type of tracking is important to you and is there a tool that will meet your needs?
 Do they have a shopping cart? If not how difficult is it to integrate one?
As you begin to explore the various companies out there you will develop more questions of your own. One word of caution...
because of anti-spam laws and the tendency for people to abuse these services for spamming purposes; it is not always that
easy to move your email list from one company to another. Most of the time, a reputable auto-responder (or email
marketing) service will want to make sure that all of your subscribers have given you permission to email them. Therefore
they tend to want your subscribers to be acquired in one of two ways. The best way is for someone to sign up themselves and
then to confirm their intentions to be added to your list via email. If you have a list of people that have already done that then
these companies generally want you to enter their names and emails by exporting your list from the previous company to a
spreadsheet of some kind and copying from that spreadsheet and pasting to the new company. This is generally for the
protection of your subscribers to minimize any unwanted emails - spam. There is sometimes a limit on how many
subscribers can be added manually. For example, Aweber limits this method to 2,000 subscribers per day. So if you have
20,000 subscribers this would get to be a pain, but if you have 600 this really won't be too much of an issue. And besides,
you don't want to spend your life making these kinds of decisions all the time. Do some real research on the front end and
make the right choice for you.
My Research
Listed below are some of the companies which I am aware of. I have heard something in the positive about each of these
companies, but the only one that I have personal experience with is Aweber.
 Aweber - Easily well known to be among the most reliable and professional auto-responder services available.
Aweber provides name capture form templates and allows you to input the HTML code manually or install it easily
with JavaScript. The interface is easy to use and the tracking options are intuitive and helpful. Aweber allows you
to segment your lists into several different categories and provides very useful reports and graphs for you to track
your progress. Aweber allows you to have unlimited number of follow-up messages as well as send out broadcast
messages. Aweber used to have the best deliverability in the industry. Although I think others have caught up. You
are able to integrate Aweber with almost any shopping cart, as far as I know. You would certainly want to look into
how Aweber or any name capture/auto responder integrates with whatever shopping cart or purchase/checkout
method you are using to sell your wares. A relatively recent feature that Aweber has added is an API feature
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allowing you to create your own app to access your Aweber account. I don't know a lot about it but you can find out
all about it on their website. By the way you can try Aweber out for one month for a $1. The regular monthly fees
are $19 for the basic plan which includes 500 subscribers. From 501 to 2,500 subscribers it is another $10 and
from 2,501 to 5,000 it is another $30 and so on... Honestly, I am slightly annoyed that they changed this. I think it
used to be the $19/month up to 10,000 subscribers. That was nice. But, what are you going to do...? I guess you
have to look into other auto responders to make sure that Aweber is the one for you.
 1shoppingcart - In a lot of people's minds this company ranks number one in the auto responder race. These guys
have a lot to offer. I personally have never needed the things they offer and therefore have not taken the time to
personally check them out. However, I know some people who have and I see reputable vendors using them all the
time and they seem to be liking their experiences. This service is really set up to be an all-in-one e-commerce
solution. There is, however, an auto responder feature that is quite extensive. You can segment your list, have
unlimited number of follow-up messages, there are name capture templates and if and when you become ready,
you are able to rather seamlessly integrate their proprietary shopping cart feature. This is definitely handy. There
are also different levels of service that allow you to create an affiliate program for your products. That's kinda cool.
The basic auto responder plan is $29/month and then it goes up based on what type of shopping cart functions you
are interested in. In order to have a fully functioning shopping cart and affiliate program, the price is $99/month. I
didn't see where the website mentions pricing increases for more or less subscribers. I also didn't dig for it. It may
be one price for unlimited number of subscribers, but I would make sure of that before you choose 1shoppingcart
for this feature alone.
 icontact - I have seen a lot of internet/direct marketers using icontact lately which is why I have included it here. I
am not all that familiar with the service, but I have spoken to a representative of the company who was extremely
helpful. They certainly seem to offer something rather interesting. These guys offer most everything that the two
services listed above offer and I saw something else that intrigued me... There is a "forward to a friend" feature that
enables your subscribers to forward your emails to their friends. This sounds cool, it is a link that you can add to
your emails so that your recipient can forward that email to a friend. If they use that link, you are able to track the
fact that your email has been forwarded and by who. This tells you who your mega-fans are. Cool. Another cool
thing with icontact is that they offer you a facebook widget that enables people to sign up for your newsletter or
whatever on your facebook fan page. This is really cool. icontact's pricing starts at $9.95/month for up to 250
subscribers then it goes to $14/month for up to 500, $19/month for up to 1,000 and so on. You can check out
icontact on their website, or go ahead and call the guy I talked to - Josh Arcand at (800) 232-9690 Ext. 4142. Tell
him Tom Siegel from Indie Leap sent you. Once you sign up for icontact you get assigned an actual person as an
agent that will help you with all of your questions and get you set up the way you want to be set up. If you call the
number that I gave you, then Josh will be your agent. He was very helpful. I certainly recommend checking out
icontact, but I suggest really checking it out. Remember to really read the TOS for whatever service you are
checking out. Just as a side note I am considering switching to icontact myself.
 ReverbNation - Reverb Nation seems to be offering more and more all the time. I really tend to like what these guys
do for the independent musician community. Reverb Nation has an auto-responder available that is specifically
tailored for musicians. There are all kinds of features that you will not find with any of the options above. Of course
there is a free version and a paid version. The free version is limited to a fan collector (name capture) and I think a
maximum of one automated email. This is cool if you don't have any money. You should be doing this at a
minimum. Fan Reach Pro is a little bit more beefy. They offer many of the features offered by the above described
services as well as specialized things like providing direct access to your music and your merch through your email
and some type of social networking integration where it automatically finds out your fans info for you to see how
much exposure they can offer you. I have not read the TOS in depth regarding Fan Reach Pro. I will say that I have
found Reverb Nation to have some limiting features. I am not trying to bash them, but I would just be sure to read
the TOS carefully before you take action. The pricing for Fan Reach Pro is based on the number of subscribers and
it appears to be quite reasonable. From 0 - 999 subscribers is $9.95; 1,000 - 2,500 is $14.95; 2,501 - 5,000 is
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$19.95, and so on. This is relatively inexpensive next to the services listed above. I strongly urge every musician to
check out what Reverb Nation has to offer in general. There is a lot on this site that could be quite useful.
 Constant Contact - All the time I hear about musicians using Constant Contact. However, I almost never hear of
any direct marketers using this service. Constant Contact enjoys a lot of main-stream exposure relative to the other
services mentioned here. There are a number of services offered by Constant Contact. For the purposes of this post
I am speaking to their email marketing service only. Their pricing is based on number of subscribers and is not
unreasonable. 0 - 500 subscribers is $15/month; 501 - 2,500 is $30/month, and so on. On their website they talk
about an auto-responder feature, but they do not mention how many messages you are able to load into your auto-
responder. I do not want a limit. I want unlimited emails in my auto-responder. I want to be able to load an entire
years worth of emails or more into my auto-responder so that I can have the opportunity to get the business side of
my projects on auto-pilot. I have not read in depth their TOS, but I highly recommend that you do. I can't tell you
why but I am skeptical of their service.
Read The TOS (Terms of Service)
So, in short, look carefully at all of your options, read the TOS carefully and choose a service that suits your needs
specifically. Remember to keep your end goals in mind when making choices. Alright... That is enough of that. I want to tell
you very briefly about the basics of composing an email. I am not going to talk in length about this because there are so man y
other highly qualified places for you to find this information. First off if you want to really learn to write effective emails then
simply sign up for someone's newsletter that is producing results consistently. Here are the basics, in short:
Wait!
I got a little ahead right there. First I want to tell you that you don't need to be selling anything at all in your email. In fact it
is better if you don't sell anything about two thirds of the time. The primary aim of your emails should be to stay in contact
with your fans and potential fans (mostly the potential fans). People have a tendency to forget just about everything. So if
you are sending them an email once every two weeks or once a month (minimum), it will make it a little harder to forget your
name. So if you aren't selling something, what do you write about? Just keep your subscribers updated. Let them know about
a song that you have been writing, the time you have spent in the studio, the trials of getting ready for your next tour or a trip
to the beach that the band went on that moved you in some way. Whatever really. You are connecting. Just connect :)
So What About When You Are Selling Something?
The skeleton of a "sales message" should include the following categories in some form or another. Attention, interest, desire
and action. The first part of a sales message is generally the headline. For the purposes of email, your subject line is your
headline. This is the most important part of the entire email and here's why: If your headline doesn't interest people they w ill
not open your email. If people don't open your email, then everything else you write and the information that you are trying
to convey doesn't mean a thing. So I would try to include the first three aspects of the "sales message" formula in the
headline - Attention, interest and desire. Save the action piece for the body of your message.
The actual email message should generally contain more detail that draws more attention, interest and desire. You should
describe what you are offering and explain how what you are offering will benefit your fans. Try your best to use sensory
descriptions of the benefits to really put your readers in the experience you are offering. For example, a lot of artist will send
out a notice about their next show that will go something like this: "Hey, come check us out at the Blue Barn on Washington
Street this Thursday night at 9:00. Its gonna be a great time." Some will write more and some (believe it or not) will write
less. I'm suggesting something more along these lines: "When you push open the heavy door of the Blue Barn this T hursday
night, you will feel the electricity from the stage and the body heat from the dance floor. Make sure to step up to their
signature blue bar, grab a drink and let the funky beat drive you over to the dance floor. The Blue Barn is located at 1234
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Washington Street and the show starts at 9:00... We're really excited to see you there." Maybe you think that is corny. Maybe
it is. My point is, just be exciting and try to avoid the "just letting you know" tone.
Then you have to direct your readers to some type of action. If you are telling them about your new CD, then give them a link
to your website and tell them to "click the link below to hear some samples from the new CD". If you don't give them any
direction they will do nothing. So just tell them to do something. If you are writing to tell them about a show, tell them to
RSVP on facebook or tell them to call their friends and put it in their calendar... Whatever it is, just make sure you give some
kind of direction.
Ok... That is what I have to say on email. It turned out to be an awful lot in the end. Sorry for writing so much. I will try to
keep the next post down in size.
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Step Five – Join the Party

This is step five in my online music marketing series. In the last post (step four) we went over email
marketing including some how-to discussion along with a short list of resources available for musicians.
In step five we're going to go over an area of marketing your music on the Internet that is either your first
stop or the last place you turn to market yourself and your music. This next step takes a little bit of know-
how to get it exactly right. You may be of the generation that grew up with it, and you may be someone
who doesn't gravitate to this type of human interaction. What are we talking about...?
Social Media
Social media is currently one of the most, if not the most, important marketing vehicles available in
today‟s music industry as well as today‟s business landscape overall. While it is difficult to project the role
that social media will play 3, 5 or 7 years from now. It seems likely that it will play some type of role. One
of the intricacies of social media is that, while it does seem likes it is here for a while it changes all the
time. That makes it difficult to keep up with. If you are still feeling not so sure about social media, don‟t
want to spend your life with your nose in the computer or think that social media equates to the
breakdown and corrosion to our society? Then I would encourage you to really attempt a new perspective.
I will tell you right now that I struggle with social media. I just can‟t seem to keep up with it. I don‟t
particularly enjoy surfing facebook for hours. I haven‟t trained myself to look in the right places quickly
and I get wrapped up in other things sometimes and just simply forget about it. However, I am fully aware
that social media is a piece of this marketing puzzle that we all will need to remain in today‟s marketing
game, let alone be competitive.
This is not going to be an in-depth how-to article on social media. While I know my way around social
media, I learned what I know from elsewhere and it makes sense to let them deliver the in depth how to's
as they already have. I have discovered a number of resources that could possibly support you as an
independent artist. In my research, I have uncovered some of the basics of social media for the major
platforms out there. I will point these out as we go along here, The purpose of this post is to discuss the
importance of social media as a piece of your online music marketing plan and to point you toward the
best information that I have found to help you effectively use the tools available.
I am also not going to tell you which social media platforms do what. I kind of assume that you have heard
of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr and so on… If you have not heard of these sites and even if you have
I am once again going to direct you to the experts in social media to discover the right social media
platform for what you are trying to accomplish. As far as I am concerned, this is the place to go for
musicians to learn about social media.
First Of All... Its Really Cool
The first thing I want to talk about is how incredibly cool Social Media is for independent musicians. I
mean, the younger generation takes it for granted and the older generations are starting to. Why is social
media so cool? It used to be that an artist didn't have a prayer of making a living without a record label
backing, distribution and promotion. Now we can manufacture our own media materials, handle our own
distribution and we can reach a reasonable sized audience from home. You can get on Twitter and be
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heard by thousands of people. Your friends on Facebook can recommend or otherwise turn their friends
on to your music in seconds. That is a lot of potential. You don't need hundreds of thousands of fans. You
just need a targeted group that will spread the message and buy your stuff. Now, is the first time that a
musician can run their music career like a profession rather than struggle for years or decades to move
from garage band to rock star. This does mean that you have to work at it and learn a skill beyond your
music, but if you are choosing music as a career, you have to focus on some of the stuff supporting that
choice.
So, about social media... I would offer an observation about the title "Social Media"... The word 'Social' is
not arbitrary. This implies that social networking is akin to socializing in the physical sense of the word.
Picture you are at a cocktail party with friends and family and their friends and family, what are you
doing? I would imagine that you are walking around talking to people, finding out what they have been up
to, sharing stories and so on. This is what 'Social Media' is mimicking. So try to think of anything you do
within any social media platform as a part of a conversation.
Start By Listening
If you are going to equate social media practices to conversation, it is important to take a moment to learn
something about how people communicate. It isn‟t rocket science actually. It is very simple. People talk
about things that interest them and they want very much to be heard. So, in order to get noticed within a
social media platform, you need to make it known that you are listening. I am not the first person to say
this. Most social media advice you can find out there says exactly that. I know this is true for me.
Whenever I post a witty status on facebook, I am secretly excited to see people 'like' it and post comments.
People just like themselves. It's natural. For example, one study has shown that people like even the
sound of their own name so much that somebody with the name Dennis or Denise is somewhat more
likely to become a dentist. Is it vanity, or is it totally natural? Whatever, that‟s the way it is.
So, I know that I said I wasn‟t going to get into a lot of how-to stuff, but I am going to throw the single
piece of advice that turned up in my research over and over again as a key element. In order to be
successful in social media and to really benefit from your efforts, you have to listen to your fans and
respond to what they are saying. You will likely get nowhere at all if all that you send out there is stuff like
“check out our new CD „Blammer Head Sharks‟ available for sale at BLAH, BLAH…” or “Don‟t miss our
show at the Locker Room on Thursday night. Should be a blast”. While people might care about that stuff,
they will care a lot more if you make them feel like you care about them.
At this point you might be thinking… “what is this guy even trying to say?” It‟s like this… look at your
friend‟s posts, like them and post comments. Add to their conversation and they will like you.
So, how do you listen? There are a number of techniques that equate to listening in social media. Instead
of trying to round up what I think are the best techniques I am simply going to send you to Ariel Hyatt,
the musician‟s social media expert.
Ariel's book will help you to link as many of your social media platforms together as possible. Fickr,
twitter and facebook can all be intertwined. Ariel Hyatt explains all of this in her book and in her course. I
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definitely recommend her programs for anyone who would like to learn how to do this stuff. This will save
you time and will minimize the strain on your patience if that is an issue for you.
Make It Easier
There are tools available to you also, that will help you along the way. You don't have to have your face in
the computer at all hours to accomplish something with Social Media....
My point is… there are all sorts of services popping up all over the internet that are designed to help
musicians with their social media. You have to read their TOS, look for reviews and measure what they are
offering against your goals to make sure that you are in line. Here are a couple of tools out there for you to
check out:
I recently watched a webinar with Elizabeth Edwards featuring Matt Conn who
represents RootMusic.com. The company that makes the Facebook app bandpage. This app makes a
Facebook fan page make sense for musicians. After watching the webinar, I definitely recommend
checking this app out.
Hootsuite and Tweetdeck enable you to schedule your posts on Facebook and Twitter. Setting up an
account is easy and the platform is reasonably straight forward. Nimbit and Topspin offer an interesting
platform for social media. I have written some about these platforms in Step Three. Each of these services
give you a social media manager that allows you to schedule posts on facebook or tweets on twitter. This is
kinda cool as it gets all of your social media efforts linked to one central command. They also give you the
ability to sell your music straight from your facebook fan page. I know other facebook apps allow you to
send your facebook fans to iTunes or CD baby or where ever you are selling your music. But to be able to
sell your stuff straight from facebook is a definite plus. Make sure to read the TOS thoroughly before
signing on to anything.
Hire Someone Else To Do It
There are also services out there that will take care of your social media for you. I cannot speak to their
efficacy; however, if this interests you, I encourage you to check them out. The range of services varies
widely along with price. Here are two such services that I know of:
 Ariel Hyatt‟s company CyberPR will run a campaign handling your social media as well as press
releases, blogger exposure and more. You can get the Headliner Package - a 3-month campaign
for $1,995, the Rock Star Package - a 4-month campaign for $2,795 or the All Access with Virtual
Assistant Package – a 4-month campaign for $4,995. Go check out Ariel‟s site to see the specifics
on what these packages offer.
 Hypegenius is a service that promises to add targeted friends on Facebook, increase followers on
Twitter and get more views and subscribers on YouTube. The most affordable package ranges
from $275 - $600 and guarantees 500 targeted twitter followers, 500 targeted fans on Facebook,
500 targeted friends on YouTube and 3,000 additional views on your YouTube channel. I don‟t
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entirely understand their pricing; it seems like an awfully wide range. If you are interested, just
contact them to figure it out.
That's what I have to say about Social Media for musicians. I want to stress the main point of this post to
you... Social Media is not going away. If you don't like it, that does not mean that your fans or potential
fans don't like it, in fact, they probably do. So, dive in, either become an expert or at least learn enough to
do the minimum.
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Step Six – If You Don’t, You Should

This is step six in my online music marketing series. In the last post (step five) we went over the moving
target of social networking. In step six we're going to go over an area of marketing your music on the
Internet that is often not considered as it does not necessarily resemble a marketing tactic at first glance. I
will explain both the why's and the how's in this post. What are we talking about...?
Blogging
The first thing that we are going to talk about briefly is how to set up a blog.
There are a number of blogging (or content management platforms) that work quite well. To some extent
which one you choose is a matter of preference. The platform I have the most experience with is
Wordpress. This is one of the most widely used platforms out there right now. Wordpress offers a lot of
flexibility and is relatively easy to use.
A few other popular blogging platforms include Blogger, Tumblr, SquareSpace and Posterous. With the
exception of SquareSpace these blogging platforms are free (including Wordpress). For more information,
check out this very nice overview of these different platforms. I use Wordpress as I like the flexibility of
being able to add plugins and gadgets to customize my reader‟s experience. There is always a trade off.
Wordpress.org is a little more complicated to set up, but offers the flexibility I am interested in.
Wordpress.com on the other hand is just as simple as the others. Blogger is great and easy to use but has
some limitations in the customizable department. I would say that it‟s a personal decision, but I would
add that learning the Wordpress system has been worth it for me (and it wasn‟t that hard). Wordpress is
so flexible many people use it as their main website.
There are a couple of things I recommend to include in your blog. First, I recommend whatever theme you
choose (or design) have a prominent RSS button. Along the same lines I suggest you put a sign up form
for your newsletter in the sidebar. This is easy to do in Wordpress. Simply take your code snipit from your
auto responder (covered in Marketing Your Music Online - Step 4) and paste it into a text widget and drag
and drop it into the sidepad organizer (many of the auto responders have a wordpress plugin to offer as
well, making this even easier to do. I know Aweber does). This is also where you would add adsense code
if you are interested in including this (not necessarily recommended for musicians). You can also embed
your music player widget of choice. If you are using Nimbit, Banbox or another service that gives you a
widget you can embed it on your blog and sell your music from your blog. Great idea. I am in favor of this.
Other things that you may want to have on your blog include: your blog roll (a list of your previous posts,
organized by date), links to favorable press or anything else that supports your online or offline presence,
links to your home page, links to all of your social media platforms (put a Facebook „like‟ and a Twitter
„follow me‟ button on your blog) and link to your commerce area and your contact information.
Why Bother?
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For Your Fans
Before we go any further, I want to talk about why blogs are important for musicians. It is slightly
different than blogging for a business or even a professional blogger. Here‟s why: Your audience, your
fans, fantasize about your life. The 9-5 office worker with two kids at home, a mortgage, two car payments
and all of the rest of the baggage that goes along with all of that idealizes your lifestyle as a musician. Now,
I fully realize that the above description of the 9-5 office worker may not be that far from your own life or
the grueling everyday grind of being an independent musician doesn‟t always feel glamorous or sexy.
Before you curse me out through fiber optic cables, understand that your fans don‟t know that and they
tend to think that a musician‟s life (especially in the rock genre) resembles one big party. So, as a
musician, your blog is kind of a glimpse to the backstage area of your life.
Hold It… It sounds a little like I am saying that you should fit your „musician image‟ into the cliché
rockstar image box. I don‟t mean to be conveying that. Just to clarify, I am suggesting you offer the pieces
of information about your life that contribute to making you an artist. I‟ll explain that further, keep
reading.
For You
That is why your fans might like your blog, now why do you want to give your fans such an incredible gift?
Well, a couple of reasons stand out. First, people tend to get hooked on stories. Imagine your blog posts
are telling a story about your tour, the making of your next album, your song writing process or whatever
subject that might merit a “next installment”. Your fans might find themselves waiting in anticipation for
what is going to happen next. Think Soap Oprah meets Indie Musician. The more your fans are on your
site or in contact with you and your music, the more they are likely to know about your upcoming shows,
new merchandise and new releases. The more they know about these things the more likely they are to
buy things from you and/or go to your shows. One way that blogging platforms facilitate this is called an
RSS feed. Your readers (and mine for that matter, that means you if you are wondering) can subscribe to
your blog and get email notifications every time you post. That is one reason it is a good idea to post often.
Your readers will see your post in their inbox and hence be less likely to forget about you all together. We
DON‟T want our fans to forget about us.
Content
Now to get into the meat of this topic… Content. Blogging doesn‟t have to be complicated or take a lot of
time (disclaimer: I should take my own advice here). As a musician, there are a few main things to keep in
mind that will help you to simplify the process. Let‟s talk about the type of information that will be the
most effective to hold your audience‟s attention.
What To Blog About
So what type of content is the best type of content to include in your blog posts? This is not that
complicated. One good way to captivate your audience is with some type of series, in your case this will be
in the form of a story. I would suggest tracking whatever project you are working on. Think studio
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sessions, tour, songwriting, looking for a new guitar, bass, keyboard, drum set, etc. or whatever you are
doing that is expressly a musician type thing to do.
A point of clarification… Your blog post is not a status update a la Facebook. And while, Twitter is
supposed to be micro blogging, it is also not the same thing. More about what not to post below, but for
now, just know your blog should be more an in-depth look at your experiences as a musician, band or
artist. At the risk of being overly repetitive, I am going to say it again, you‟re painting a picture of your
lifestyle as a musician. This is not where you tell people that you are going to get a cup of coffee. However,
an interesting story about what happened at the coffee shop or that you saw a woman wearing a really cool
blue hat and a song was coming to mind because of it… That‟s a blog post.
One thing that illustrates my earlier point about music fans and their fantasy of living the life of a
musician is the eternally coveted backstage pass. How can we offer a tour of backstage for our fans? A
photo says a lot. Somewhere around 1,000 words, I suppose. That‟s right I am suggesting that you post a
photo… that‟s it. Add a caption for explanation and SEO purposes and move on to the next thing. A photo
or a series of photos even can tell a story about backstage just before the show or just after. You can also
use a photo to include your fans when you are in the studio or changing a flat tire while you are on tour.
Change up the feeling of your photo posts. Post some landscapes that you find mesmerizing (this is cool
because when you post a picture of something like the Grand Canyon or some other landmark, it will
entice comments about how your fans have been to the same place. This will make them feel like their life
isn‟t as far from the musician lifestyle they fantasize about.), a comical event or just a shot of your
dressing room or studio set up. Remember whether you intend to tell a story or not, your audience will
make whatever you post into one. You might as well work with it. Give pieces, not so little that nobody has
a clue what is going on, but not so much as to leave no mystery. If you haven‟t already figured this out, you
need a flickr account. You can link Flickr to your blog. For some great tips and tricks I will always point
you to Ariel Hyatt.
If a picture is worth 1,000 words, what is video worth? Yeah video (YouTube widget embedded in a post)
is a great way to easily post on your blog and connect with your audience. Again, just post a caption that
lets your readers know what the video is about. This will help you in terms of clarity and SEO.
What Not to Blog about
Before I end this post, I want to cover a little about what not to post.
I already mentioned the distinction between your social networking status updates and your blog posts.
Keep that in mind. Some more things to keep in mind: If you are not a full time musician, I don‟t
necessarily suggest chronicling your effort to quit your day job. That is the same old struggle that Joe
Shmoe and Plain Jane are facing day in and day out. Don‟t post about going grocery shopping or anything
else particularly mundane. This doesn‟t mean that you need to be exceptionally exciting all the time. It
just means that your fans already know what is like to be an ordinary person. We know that musicians
aren‟t as extraordinary as others would like them to be, but they don‟t, so, keep the fantasy alive. The trick
here is to paint your musician self and hint at ordinary person stuff. Think… changing a flat tire
(something everyone has to deal with once in a while) while on tour (something the majority of your fans
know nothing about).
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That‟s it folks. Blogging for musicians. It's a really great way to connect with your fan base and keep them
engaged in your process. I strongly urge you to try it. I want to stress simplicity, because your complex, in-
depth blog posts won't have nearly as much impact as regular posting will. .
Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for the final step in the Online Music Marketing series - Step 7. I hope you
are all putting together your online music marketing plan and beginning to take action.
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Step Seven – Shout It Out!

This is step seven in my online music marketing series. In the last post (step six) we discussed blogging. In step seven we're
going to get out the bull horn and stand from the highest point we can find and scream it to the world!! What are we talking
about...?
Public Relations or PR
There many forms of PR available to the DIY independent musician. I say this over and over, but, I am really excited about
this, so, I will say it again. The fact that all this is available to artists is nothing short of incredible. Previously these
opportunities were only available to major record labels or well connected publicists.
In this post I will cover a few of the PR applications that are available to musicians. I will focus primarily on the most
effective avenues. Those being Bloggers, Internet Radio and Press Releases.
Quick Note
Social Media can be considered to be a form of PR, however, I have already dedicated an entire post Marketing Your Music
Online - Step Five) to this subject as I did blogging for musicians (Marketing Your Music Online - Step Six).
PR Medium #1 - Bloggers
Reaching out to music bloggers was uncovered in 2006 to 2008 as a back door into a niche community to market your music
to. It is no longer the tricky marketing tactic that it was then as it has gained popularity, which in turn has weakened its
affect somewhat. However, this practice is still alive and well and is considered well worth your time and effort. There are a
lot of strategies to get music bloggers to blog about your music. The first step is one of the more complex parts of this
process. It is the same if you are marketing anything to anybody.
You have to know who you are marketing to. You have to know bloggers in order to know how to ask them to write about
your music. The easiest way to get to know a blogger is so simple and yet is often overlooked. Read their blog. I know that
sounds infantile, but, bloggers get an incredible amount of anonymous solicitations that have nothing to do with the topics
that they write about on their blog. I write an industry blog. I don‟t review music. I have musicians regularly posting on my
blog or emailing me asking me to listen to their music. When this happens, it is clear to me that this person has not read my
blog at all. It wouldn‟t take long to figure out that they are barking up the wrong tree. I‟m not just talking about soliciting a
blogger of a completely off topic blog either. Let‟s say the blogger does review music. If the blogger writes about Death Metal
and you play folk music, you can deduce that this blogger may not be the right fit. Reaching out to them would be a waste of
everyone‟s time.
That Was Easy - Now For Something A Little More Challenging
That is the simple discussion. A more complicated discussion is about developing a relationship with a blogger who would
possibly be a good fit for your music.
First you have to start by attempting to understand music bloggers as a group and then as an individual. To better
understand music bloggers as a group check out this post, and this post and this post. A great way to develop a relationship
with a blogger (or anyone, for that matter) is to have a conversation with that person… about them… not you. If you read
their blog you will have a lot of things to discuss with them and will be better able to refrain from talking about yourself, your
accomplishments or even… your music. That‟s right… don‟t talk about your music. At least not right away. This is a strategy
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that has existed in marketing that is a gazillion years old. It is an underlying topic discussed in the classic book by Dale
Carnegie “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. Yet it is underutilized.
The basic strategy is this… Once you‟ve developed a relationship with a blogger, then, and only then, do you ask the blogger
to review your music. Be grateful and accepting of criticism. Ariel Hyatt or Ariel Publicity and CyberPR has a lot to say about
approaching bloggers. Check out her book Music Success in Nine Weeks. Among other things the book covers bloggers
extensively.
PR Medium #2 - Internet Radio
Let‟s talk about radio. Internet Radio is more and more available and some of the internet radio stations are effective and
some are not. The user influenced content radio stations like Pandora, MOG and Spotify are really fascinating. When your
music is played on these stations you are more likely to reach your target audience. Let me give you an example… If you play
Latin style rock and someone has made a station in Pandora based on Santana. When your tune comes up, this person will
be more likely to be interested in you and there is a better chance they will be interested in finding out more about you.
To get your music on Pandora check out this guide on their website. Some distribution services discussed in Marketing Your
Music Online - Step Three will submit your music to Pandora for you. This is an amazing opportunity you have available to
you as a musician to gain exposure. Pandora has over 60 million listeners as of this writing.
There are several other internet radio stations that are worth the effort to get some air time. Jango is also a popular internet
radio station that will recommend your music to listeners of similar more well known music. Jango allows listeners to „like‟
the songs they hear and also to become „fans‟ where they give up their email address. Could be useful. This station provides,
for musicians, a way to buy air play.
One could say this is kinda backwards. I mean the way it used to be, the radio played your music because they thought it was
good and the musician got paid through ASCAP or BMI (of course this is excluding the discussion about payola). I say this
type of radio play is akin to a plumber paying for advertising time on a local radio station. Your music career is a business
and businesses have to advertise to get the word out. In the good old days when the radio paid musicians I would say that a
plumber had better of odds of succeeding than a musician. Now I would say that gap is closing.
Last.fm is an internet radio station that merges radio listening with social media. Users can share music they like and the
service will suggest music that other users with similar tastes are sharing. There is a paid version of this service that allows
you to target and promote a specific campaign but the basic uploading of your music is free. So I would check this out.
PR Medium #3 - Press Releases
So the last form of PR that I will cover in this post is Press Releases. Press Releases don‟t accomplish what they used to. The
way it used to work was a Press Release was piped out in the news media and the message reached X number of eyeballs or
ear drums. It still works this way to some extent but the Press Release format is so readily available to anyone, that the
general public has begun to regard this format as noise. The number of brains connected to those eyeballs or ear drums that
will actually retain your message is significantly fewer than it used to be.
So, why bother, you might ask. The major benefit of Press Releases is really related to Search Engine Optimization (SEO). If
your press release gets picked up by a news site with a lot of page authority then searches for related keyword phrases will
turn up your Press Release and your message will be heard.
There are several companies that provide a press release service. One of the largest companies and most referred to is PR
Web. PR Web is generally considered to be reliable and will likely reach as many corners of the internet as possible. Another
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service out there is Market Wire. I don't know as much about these guys. However, I have heard that they do a good job with
the local media outlets. But, that's just rumor.
Don‟t know how to write a press release? Well, I am not going to tell you… Here is a comprehensive guide on how to write a
Press Release. It‟s not rocket science, but, like anything else there is finesse to it. I recommend looking over the guide and
jumping in. The best way to learn this type of thing is to do it.
So that‟s my take on PR. PR is so powerful that there are whole companies whose only function is to handle PR for artists.
I have sent you here before and I am going to keep sending you, because few other companies understand independent
musicians and have musician‟s best interest in mind. Ariel Publicity / Cyber PR does a great job.
This concludes my online Music Marketing Series. I had a great time putting this together and I hope it is of some use to you.
Please leave your comments below. Feel free to share your personal experiences. I would love to hear how you are doing.
Tom Siegel
P.S. – For more information about how to put together an online music marketing strategy sign up for my newsletter at
www.indieleap.com.
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The 7 Pieces of Marketing

Indie Leap Crew

An Introduction to Marketing Your Music Online

Step One - Research

First Things First

Step Two – Internet Home Base

Free or Not to Free

Step Two-A – A Little “How To” on Websites

How to Structure Your Website

Search Engine Optimization

Search considerations and additional pages to include...

Step Three – Digital Distribution

Don't Do What Everyone Else Does

 Main stream digital distribution plus social networking

Some of the Players

Take Away This...

Step Four – A Little More Personal

Take a Good Look at What You Have

Where to Get the Tools

Read The TOS (Terms of Service)

So What About When You Are Selling Something?

Step Five – Join the Party

First Of All... Its Really Cool

Hire Someone Else To Do It

Step Six – If You Don’t, You Should

For Your Fans

What To Blog About

What Not to Blog about

Step Seven – Shout It Out!

That Was Easy - Now For Something A Little More Challenging

PR Medium #2 - Internet Radio

PR Medium #3 - Press Releases

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