Jason | Solveig Whittle

What Makes Jason Webley and Friends’ “Margaret” So Brilliant

December 23, 2014 1 Comment

As 2014 winds down, I find myself both excited and bemused to write a final music marketing blog about a Seattle indie artist I first met a few years ago. His newest project, Margaret, hot off the press this month, impresses me both musically as well as promotionally (although I hesitate to use that word, and he would probably cringe at it, too). One of the things that characterizes this artist is a fierce allegiance to the creative much more so than the commercial, but perhaps that is a large part of what makes this music project such a great example to discuss.

Watching the way the marketing and promotion of this album has unfolded since I first heard about the project in April of this year has taught me a lot, and I hope you take something from my analysis.

[Tweet “Good music and creativity are at the heart of successful music marketing. “]

Good music and creativity are at the heart of successful music marketing. I have never seen that embodied so clearly. The marketing is important, and executing well is important, but without good music, marketing only takes you so far. First and foremost, I believe that what drove Jason’s project was making good music that was meaningful to him.

What is good music? Ah well, that is a subjective thing. All I can say is, I know it when I hear it. And I know when I don’t. And so do you, and so do fans. Marketing is just the icing – it doesn’t disguise a bad cake, but it sure makes a good one taste better. Now, it is true that music is subjective, and there are many tastes, many genres, and many niches. However, some music is just well written and well-performed, and even if you don’t like the genre, you can appreciate the musicianship. Most importantly, good music moves the audience emotionally. Passion, combined with creativity and craft, make art that is magical.

[Tweet “Passion, combined with creativity and craft, make art that is magical.”]

The second most important thing to get from this article is that being flexible and listening to what your fans want from you will go a long way. If you start with a great live performance, and then get a clear message from your fans to release a CD, do what they say and they will buy it.

There’s a bit more to what Jason did with this project, however, so I’ve outlined below the 10 elements I think were most effective at propelling the project forward at such speed and with such success.

Marketing, Music, Social Media, Thoughts

Walking The Dog Episode 5: Integrated Marketing

April 25, 2014 3 Comments

In this latest installement of my weekly podcast, I discuss two current articles and the issues they raise around marketing your music online through social media and other online marketing tools. I record this podcast every Friday morning while I walk my dog, which is where I do some of my best thinking about whatever is on my mind that week related to my music and music promotion as a DIY musician.

The first article I talk about in my 16 minute podcast this week is from Digital Music News, entitled See How St. Vincent Doubled Her First Week Album Sales, by Nina Ulloa. It shows that an integrated digital marketing approach incorporating multiple ways to reach a customer can be a very successful technique for increasing music sales. I talk about my conversation this week with Jason Hobbs of The Found Group, the digital marketing agency that handled St. Vincent’s campaign, and how I see the techniques of this campaign might be applied by DIY musicians.

I also discuss an article on Social Media Today entitled Why Facebook Is Not Part of My Social Media Strategy by Shell Robshaw-Bryan, which makes the case for leaving Facebook out of the marketing mix entirely. Although Robshaw-Bryan was starting a blog (not a band or music website) from scratch, she makes some good points about the decreasing effectiveness of using Facebook to build a community – whether you pay for advertising or not. Is it worth paying? Is it worth even playing?

[Tweet “”A customer usually has to see a product around seven times before they’ll make a purchase.” – Jason Hobbs, The Found Group”]

Regardless of what digital media tactics you use as a musician, from Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram or more, the fact I found most interesting is something marketers in other industries have known for years: it takes an integrated digital marketing campaign with multiple customer “touches” before purchase happens. There is no single event, or single digital platform – no silver bullet – that will result in an immediate sale.

This is just as true for customers buying music as customers buying beauty products or cars. With the exception of a live performance, most fans will not purchase music from an artist after just one interaction. Building an online community using multiple digital platforms, and using a “retargeting” tool such as The Found Group’s found.ee can help expose fans to an artist as a person, and to their music, multiple times. This multiple exposure is necessary for a fan to progress along in the consideration process, the “sales funnel”, if you will, to the end result of a purchase.

And the ultimate business goal of any marketing campaign purchase – whether it’s a ticket, a digital download, or merchandise. Being a “Like counter” is not as effective as creating community, word of mouth, and buzz that results in repeat purchases by fans.

What are your experiences with Facebook advertising, with integrated marketing, and with how you see fans process of deciding to buy music? I welcome your comments below.

Conferences, Live, Music

The Best Expenditure Of Your Money, Musicians

October 20, 2013 11 Comments

How Important Is Your Live Show To Your Career?

Tom Jackson believes that the most successful artists are those who are amazing live performers. A few weeks ago, Stevie and I attended a two day bootcamp with live music producer Jackson and his team to see how we could improve our own performance. I was not disappointed.

In his many years of experience working with everyone from big name artists like Taylor Swift, The Band Perry, or Jars of Clay to up-and-coming indie artists like the Canadian country duo The Reklaws, Jackson has learned that fans don’t just come to a live show to listen to music. They come to feel emotion. What they crave is to connect with an artist, and to have their lives changed.

As for merchandise, most fans don’t buy a CD because they want to listen to the studio version of the song they heard live. Merchandise, Jackson says, is a prop that help fans relive the emotional moments of a live performance. The merchandise is a memento, and the emotional moments in a show are what it’s all about.

The Steven Spielberg of Live Music Performance

Tom Jackson teaches musicians how to make their live stage show remarkable. He helps artists deliberately create emotional “moments”. Jackson is the Steven Spielberg of live music production. This is the science of stagecraft and performance art. He teaches musicians how to use moments to create true fans, because it’s those moments that bring people back again and again to see your live show. It’s those moments that create the word-of-mouth buzz that propels an artist forward.

Marketing, Music

iTunes Past and Future: Hypebot’s Spitz and Bylin [Podcast]

May 8, 2013 No Comments

Alas, a decade is practically an eternity online, and as such, the download-to-own concept that iTunes revolutionized is already showing signs of age. The growth of subscription-based streaming services like Spotify and Pandora, and the current cultural dominance of YouTube, with its more than three billion videos viewed daily, hint that that music consumers are now largely content to listen, rather than own. – Time Entertainment, April 28, 2013

In this two-part podcast, Jason Spitz and Kyle Bylin of Hypebot’s Upward Spiral Podcast and I discuss some of the customer needs and behaviors that drove iTunes adoption: the unbundling of the single from the CD purchase, as well as the product characteristics (seamless integration with the iPhone, ease of use, standardized pricing). It’s interesting to hear the generational differences in how we adopted (or didn’t!) iTunes to build our personal music libraries, and to note that iTunes clearly was a substitute product for pirated music, even if an imperfect one.

In the second half of our discussion, we cover the transition of customers from download to streaming and debate where the future may lie for Apple’s iTunes and the consumption of music. We discuss iTunes competitors, and what factors might determine whether Apple will continue to dominate music distribution, such as the ubiquity and seamlessness of wifi, and the deep pockets of a platform player like Google, Amazon or Apple, as compared to a software-only offering such as Spotify or Pandora.

Kyle Bylin is the founder and editor of sidewinder.fm, a music and tech think tank, and also conducts research and develop music product concepts for Live Nation Labs. Jason Spitz is an ecommerce expert helping bands, comedians, and other artists build direct-to-fan businesses. In addition to being super-knowledgeable about the music industry, Jason and Kyle are expert conversationalists, and they always pick topics that are timely and interesting.

I sure had fun talking to these guys. Please let me know what you think of our discussion in the comments below!