Top 10 Ways To Sell More Merch
May2711:42 AM
Filed in: Indie Advice
I remember reading an interview with the band D.R.I. many years ago, who said that if it wasn't for t-shirt sales they wouldn't be able to exist as a band. As a kid, I was shocked that a band wasn't able to survive on music sales and performances alone. And that was many years before music's digital revolution.
So here we are in 2010 and band merchandise is more import than ever. As an artist, independent or signed, merch is your lifeblood. It's your store front. It's where you make your money. It's where you connect with your fans. It's what gives your band a face on the streets.
Your merch table is your music career survival kit, and it deserves to be treated as such.
As a former music buyer for one of Canada's largest music chains, I spent many hours analyzing consumer behaviours and how people react to product placement, display techniques, and their affect on sales. It's not a hard thing to grasp, much of it is common sense: Make your shit look good and put it in a highly visible location.
So let's get to it. Here's my list on how you as an artist can make the most of your merchandise...
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Band uses recyclables to finance new recording
May0702:59 PM
Filed in: Music News
It's often been said that people look for hope in the bottom of a bottle.
But if you're assuming that Fredericton's own Ross Neilsen and The Sufferin' Bastards hit the bottle looking for inspiration behind their smokin' new record, Redemption, you ought to think again.
To cover the costs of producing their new record, Neilsen and the Bastards relied upon the generosity of fellow New Brunswickers, who donated their returnable beverage containers so that the band could claim the deposit money to put towards their recording fees.
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Watch It Grow: An Experiment In Digital Busking
May0702:59 PM
Filed in: Indie Advice
If you're a regular reader of The Bleeder Blog, you'll remember a blog we posted in late April titled: Vancouver Musician Cultivates Earth Day Interest. On Earth Day, April 22, Victoria singer/songwriter Scott Valentine hit the streets of Vancouver and handed out 19,000 digital songs via free download cards.
It's a little grassroots street level marketing campaign which I've decided to call Digital Busking (or if you prefer, Busking 2.0). So if you happen to hear this term pop up anywhere in the next couple of years, remember that you heard it here first!
Continue reading for exclusive photos and feedback from the event...Click To Read More...
Top 31 Ways To Suck At Social Media Marketing
Mar2912:46 PM
Filed in: Indie Advice
If you want to truly SUCK at using social media, please follow this list closely and you'll be guaranteed limited exposure and zero online buzz!
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Top 10 Ways To Break Up Your Band
Jul0910:52 AM
Filed in: Indie Advice
I've worked with tons of bands over the years and one thing remains constant, they almost all breakup eventually. Sure, some can go the distance and outlast the others, but what sets them apart from the bands that just can't seem to keep it together and fall apart?
Well, if you hate the music you play and you want to break up your band, here's a quick checklist for you:
- Leave the business side of things to just one band member.
- Don't have regular band meetings.
- Don't educate yourself on marketing and promotion.
- Don't make a list of goals (and never revise them if you do).
- Don't utilize the power of social media and online networking tools.
- Don't take your band seriously as an entrepreneurial business.
- Don't network with other bands and industry people.
- Don't build a team of passionate and experienced people around you.
- Assume that potential fans, blogs, press, radio stations, labels and agents will find out about your band just because your music is so damn awesome.
- Don't respect your fans, and don't interact with them in the way "new media" empowers you to.
The Online Artist Report Card
Jun1708:48 AM
Filed in: Indie Advice
Some of the things I discover online are far too important to just send a quick little tweet about, and this is one of them. In today's world of Web 2.0 and the development of independent artists, what you do in the online world is quite possibly the single most important aspect of your career.
Are you hunkering down at the computer every day, connecting with fans or trying to find new ones? Are you easy to find online? Is there enough interesting content about your band to keep fans interested and excited about what you're doing?
I found this Online Artist Report Card on the music marketing and social media blog Way Cool Jnr at this link, which was originally developed from Native Digital.
So if you're pursuing a career in music, take the following quiz and see how you measure up with 'Social Media Marketing'.Click To Read More...
Show Success Before Asking For Help
Jun1112:17 PM
Filed in: Indie Advice
Regardless of how everyone is probably sick of hearing all the press and buzz about Twitter, myself included, I continue to use it daily to spread music industry related news and articles, free mp3's, and tips for music marketing and promotion. To the uninitiated, Twitter is an over-hyped, social web-thingy that doesn't really make any sense. But if you give it a chance, and 'follow' the right people with similar interests, you'll find a wealth of information and knowledge that would otherwise be lost.
Here's an example of the type of thing I send out on Twitter: http://sivers.org/success-firstClick To Read More...
3 Axioms of 21st Century Music Biz
May3110:59 AM
Filed in: Indie Advice
The following summary regarding the marketing and promotion of music in the twenty-first century comes from James Lamberti, VP Of Marketing & Artist Services for Topspin Media, a new technology startup.
These three tiny bullet points summarize the business perfectly for today's artist and content owner. Of course, it does over-simplifiy things greatly as none of these steps are simple to excel at, and each requires a tremendous amount of time to successfully develop. Click To Read More...
Give 'Em What They Want
May2702:02 PM
Filed in: Indie Advice
To be a successful business you need to understand your customer, how they relate to your product, and what they want from your product.
Is the music business doing this? Are you doing this?
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Scott Valentine Presents: Choose Your Own Price
Apr0302:52 PM
Filed in: Music News
As with everything Scott Valentine does, he's challenging the status quo and music industry standard, and has come up with an incredibly generous and original offer for his fans to buy the Seasons album. If giving away every track on the four CD album wasn't enough, Valentine is now letting you buy the album by Choosing Your Own Price.
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Podcast: Media, Gatekeepers, Fandom, Gaming & More
Mar2304:23 PM
Filed in: Indie Advice
Have a spare hour to listen in on a captivating discussion from music industry insiders?
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Building Your Fan List
Jan1911:24 AM
Filed in: Indie Advice
What's the most important part in Music, that has always been there, and always will be, but is the most Ignored?
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