This week's chapter in the CyberPR Blog Contest is centered around a very important paradigm that some artists don't necessarily like to embrace; The concept of thinking of themselves as a commodity and their fans as a customer. I admit, I'm not always comfortable with that notion, but I completely agree with it, especially from a business standpoint. If you want to have a successful business, you have to give your customers want they want. Same thing with being a successful musician, gotta give the fans what they want.
One of Ariel's tips is moving away from the old business model of selling a few things to a large group of people, but instead, sell many things to a smaller group of people. Instead of trying to reach all of the masses, find your hardcore group of fans and deliver products to them that they WANT to buy from you.
So how do you do that? She suggests to start out by building up rapport with your email list. Don't communicate with them only when you're trying to sell something, but instead reach out to them for other reasons to help foster the relationship.
Ariel provides us with her 3-step process on how to get the most out of our newsletter - Greeting, Guts, and Getting. Start off with a personal greeting, something non-musical. Then move to the Guts of the email aka "the meat" of the newsletter. Then the last step is Getting them to act. Put in something that will get them to take action, like joining up to follow you on a social networking site, or offering them a free download, etc...
The next section is about using surveys to find out what your fans want so that you can maximize your potential to deliver it to them. She suggests waiting until you have a real fan base (minimum 1,000 strong) to ask them what they want from you. It's gonna be awhile before I get to that level but fortunately for me, the next chapter in the book is on growing your list :-)
I think the thing that I'll definitely take away from this lesson is the concept of selling many things to fewer people. Not sure what I'm going to do to make that work for me just yet, but I'll be spending some time brainstorming on that one for sure. Might even try and get some ideas from my fans while I'm at it... :-)
Blog Contest Week 4 - Musician's Web 2.0 Guide
Hard to believe that it's been almost a month since I wrote the entry for Week 3 in the CyberPR blog contest. Check out my last post to see some of the reasons (*cough* excuses *cough*) why (as well as pictures of our new cats!).
One area that I've been struggling with as I've read through this book is in the way that I perceive myself as a musician/artist. Here's what I know: What I know that I AM: a songwriter and a composer for film and tv What I know that I AM NOT: a touring artist My dilemma lies in finding that line between writing music for use in film/tv and writing music for mass (hopefully) public consumption. Because I don't sing, or at least not in a voice that most would find pleasing, though I can do the scary cookie monster growling thing fairly well, I typically write more instrumental tracks. And though most of what I do is guitar driven, I am NOT a "shredder" like some of my favorite guitarists - Satriani, Vai, Petrucci, Gilbert, etc... - who typically write guitar driven instrumental music. I do have some side projects with a couple of co-writers that do sing, Crushing Gray (rock/metal) and Big Blue Shoes (indie/rock/pop), but I still have a desire to "do my own thing." I guess what it REALLY boils down to is a fear of failure. I think every artist deals with that though. In this instance, my fear is about something that I'm planning on launching next month. I know that on my own, there is NO WAY I will be able to achieve the results that I'm hoping to get. But instead of dwelling on that now, let me try to get back on topic for this post. Trust me, there will be plenty of time to talk about "the big project" after I announce it next month. Ok... Chapter 4 - A Musician's Web 2.0 Guide... There was a lot of stuff in this chapter that I was already doing or familiar with. But instead of glossing over it I wanted to put the time in to it as if it was all new to me. The first exercise was to head on over to CommonCraft.com and check out some short videos on different Web 2.0 concepts. Though I was already familiar with the concepts, it was fun to watch the videos. They were short, concise and amusing. Well worth the 15 minutes. Up next was setting up a Google Reader. This one has been one of the best pieces of advice for me personally so far. I had worked with an RSS reader once before a few years ago, not Google's, and just didn't enjoy the experience. But Google got this one right. With the exception of a few social networking/community sites, I've now got the RSS feeds for all of the sites that I visit on a daily/weekly basis set up in my reader. What a great time saver! The next section was blogging and podcasting. One of the things she mentions to do is to sign up for an account with http://www.mybloglog.com. So I signed up for that and you should be able to see their plug-in is now on my blog. This next exercise was to identify 50 blogs that you would like to have your music reviewed on. Remember the indecisiveness and the fear of failure from earlier? I think this exercise helped contribute to it... lol... I had to skip this section for the time being. I do plan to revisit it later, but it will be for when I go back through this book for my "band" projects, Crushing Gray and Big Blue Shoes. Actually... I just had a thought... instead of looking for blogs to review my music on the basis of it as being art, I think instead I will look to have it reviewed more for the basis of it's production quality! Yeah!!! I think that will be more in line with my "goals" at the moment. Then I'll start expanding the list to include reviews on the quality of the art. Whew... I'm glad that thought popped into my head. I actually feel a sense of relief, as funny as that may sound. The next step was to join the Podsafe Music Network. I was glad that the book had the web site URL listed near the back of the book, but it would have been handy had it been included in this specific section as well. I didn't realize it was in the back of the book at first and I ended up going to google to find it. I created an account there and will begin the process of adding my music there over the next week. The next section was on Twitter, which I've already been using for a while. I've got things synced up now so that when I upload a new track to my ReverbNation profile, it updates Twitter which in turn updates my Facebook profile. Thanks to an article by Robert Holland from http://www.facebook.com/SocialSEO - I was able to get my Twitter feed to update my Facebook Fan page as well. Unfortunately, the specific method he was advocating, using Yahoo! Pipes, no longer works due to a change in policy by the Third Party developers. I'm still able to do it, but it's not as "neat" or "clean" as Robert's first plan was but it still does the job. Finally, the next step was to get set up on Flickr. I wasn't sure if I was going to follow through with this step or not as I was beginning to get concerned that I was starting to spread myself too thin. But I figured I'd go ahead and do it anyway. I created my account and uploaded a couple of live shots of me from a show I played a couple of years ago, a picture of me with the legendary Bill Gaither, and a picture of each of our cats, both past and present. That's all for this week's chapter. Now that I think I'm out of my funk and moving forward again, I plan on getting caught up this weekend and knocking out Chapter 5 as well as trying to do a better job of organizing my time for blogging, facebook, etc... so that I don't start to get the feeling of being overwhelmed with all the "non-musical" music stuff that I'm trying to keep up with. Until next time... An update
I've got another blog entry coming up for the contest I'm in but before I get to that, let me get everyone up to speed on what's been going on the last few weeks. There have been several things that have both helped me stay focused and at the same time keep me distracted.
The short version is that it took me a few weeks to really work through the grief of losing our cat, Grey. There were several days that I just didn't feel like doing anything with music or being active online with Twitter or Facebook, and for the most part I didn't. Now let me say, I'm not one for drama and I'm not out for attention. I wouldn't go so far to say that I was depressed, but I was definitely not myself.   Even today, I still miss our cat but I think the grief is over with. One reason for that is we are now the owners of TWO cats - Ronan (the tabby on the left) and Teyla (the calico on the right). And to any Stargate: Atlantis fans out there, the answer is "yes" but I'll save that story for another day. Needless to say, they have definitely filled a void that our last cat left, and it definitely took the both of them to fill that hole.Another distraction for me is college basketball season is in full effect right now. My love for music is equaled (some might even say surpassed) by my love for Kentucky Wildcats basketball. And with the season we're having, especially compared to the last two-four years, I'm in hoops heaven right now. But all has not been lost. There were a couple of weeks in which I actually was very productive on the music front, thanks in part to one of my friends and colleagues, Lydia Ashton. She gave me a chance to work with her on scoring the music for a short action/drama film. We had a quick turnaround time (2 weeks, start to finish) but we were able to get it done in time and the director really liked the stuff we came up with. I'll put a link up to the film as soon as I get one. This was my second score-to-picture gig and I gotta say that I absolutely loved it. We had to stay close to the temp music, which was fine, but we still had a chance to be creative. I enjoy the challenge of trying to write something that's similar to what the director originally heard when they put in the temp music but is still original and unique and sounds like me. THAT... is fun. One of the most exciting things that I took from that project was getting to write my first ever non-guitar and non-drum kit based cue. Typically, every piece of music I've ever written has either started with a guitar riff (electric or acoustic) or a groove on the drum kit. But while working on this film, I got to write a cue that was based more on synth pads, ambient sounds, percussion and strings. I had a blast! Once I figure out a "formula", I hope to start knocking out some more cues like that. Speaking of cues like that... Earlier tonight I got an offer to work on another project for one of the larger libraries that I write for. I'll only be writing a couple of cues for this one. It's a VERY quick turnaround but should be fun. Until next time... Connections Earlier this week I read online that one of my favorite bands, Demon Hunter, was about to release a new album in a few weeks. I decided to listen to one of their older albums, Summer of Darkness, while I was working. As I listened to the album, I felt a connection that I can't really explain. I've got hundreds of Cd's and there are very, VERY few of them that I have the same type of strong connection with.I'll try to put it into words but I doubt I can. The hard part in doing so is that while listening triggered some specific memories or emotions at the same time, they were also generic and vague. Make sense? Nah, not to me either. But regardless... that album makes me feel something. As I think about it more, I can kind of pinpoint some of the reasons why the album connected with me so much. First off is the music itself. They weren't the first band to do the heavy-yet-melodic style but they were one of the first Christian bands that I personally heard do it that well. And that's another thing... I'm gonna get on a soapbox for a second... OK, actually, I'm not... I'll just say that everything that Demon Hunter did on that album, from the music itself to the artwork, screamed excellence. I wish more people would follow their lead in that regard. And speaking of the artwork... I have no doubt the visual imagery that they provided for that album is one of the reasons it connected with me so much. It just added another element to the overall listening experience. They do that with each of their albums, another reason why they're one of my favorites. This is also one of the first albums I got after getting back into music. From around September 2001 to March 2005 I took a break from the music scene. When I got back into it, a friend of mine told me about these guys and after watching a video from their first album I was hooked. Sorry if this post has been a bit more of free-flow than normal. But I guess what I'm trying to get at is that I wonder how many other people out there have similar albums and stories. Is there a specific album that you have that no matter where you are or what kind of mood you're in, the moment you begin to hear it, you have all kinds of thoughts and emotions rushing through your head? Anyone? Blog Contest Week 3 - Optimizing Your Website
It's been a bit easier to focus on music this week, especially compared to the previous two. Having to go back to the day job helped re-establish a bit of routine but I'd be lying if I said that everything is back to normal. But I was able to do a better job with my Daily 5 this week, definitely better than the previous week.
Here's a quick update on the six music goals that I set for 2010 back in Week 1's post.
Week 3 - Optimizing Your Website is the shortest chapter in the book at only 3 pages in length. But those pages contain 6 steps for maximizing your web site. Some of the steps include adding your pitch to your home page, making sure your page loads in 3.5 seconds, getting rid of flash intros and adding a consistent look and feel across all of your online presence. Even though I had originally planned to have my web site re-design finished around May, after reading through this chapter I decided to move it up. Instead of writing some new tracks over the holidays, I spent some time writing code instead. I took the steps Ariel mentioned and tried to incorporate them into a new site. While I was working on this, I heard from one of my old college roommates, Nathan, who happens to have the moniker of being my #1 fan. He's been there since the very beginning when I first learned how to play guitar back in the dorm room. He truly earned the name. The reason he wrote was to give his opinion on my perfect pitch. He mentioned that my more recent material had started moving towards a keyboard-based, dirty synth lead type of sound, a la Linkin Park. And while he thought the pitch was good, he felt like if I was going to continue in that new direction, that maybe I should consider that. I was glad that he brought that up. And since he's a big fan, I had to consider what he was saying. Even though I know I still have a bit of the Foo Fighters influence in my songs, the more recent stuff doesn't reflect that as much. So I revised my perfect pitch and ran it past him and got the approval from the #1 fan. So here is the new perfect pitch: Imagine a steel cage match between Sevendust and Linkin Park with Joe Satriani as the referee... I agree with him that it's more fitting and is a better description of where I'm at now musically, as well as the direction I'm heading in. Now back to the website... I tried to implement Ariel's 6 steps in my new design. First off, I added my pitch to the site. I put it in a spot so that it's always there, no matter which page you land on, so there will be no doubt for anyone who visits the site as to what my music sounds like. The next step was making sure the page loads in under 3.5 seconds. I implemented some caching on the back end to help with this process. Another step was to not use a Flash intro. That was an easy one since I don't program in Flash :-) The fourth step was to implement a consistent look and feel throughout the net. I've partially done this in regards to my other social networking sites but I haven't completed this one yet. Mainly because I was waiting to go live with this site before taking on the other ones. But that will be one of my Daily 5 items for the upcoming week! The next step was to give away an exclusive MP3 or video or something that would entice people to sign up for your email list. So I made myself a banner ad with "FREE MP3" written on it to hopefully entice people to sign up. The final step is to make it clear to the user that once they sign up they'll be told how to get their free item, as well as make sure they know their email address will never be given out to anyone ever. To handle the first half of that step, I was able use a feature in my ReverbNation account that sends an auto-response when someone signs up for your email list so that made it easy to manage the instructions aspect. Coming up next week is the Musician's Guide to Web 2.0. Looking forward to that one as I suspect it will be a crucial step in the process of getting my music out there. But now I've got a couple last minute things to check and then I'll be publishing my new site. It should be live within an hour or so of posting this blog. Until next time...
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