Music. Marketing. Management

How To Make Money in Music with Affiliate Marketing

Matt @ Kurb — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:41:40 +0000

If you’ve got less than $1000, you don’t have many options for serious music marketing without a whole lot of patience, reading a whole lot, and probably making a bunch of critical mistakes - in fact your best option is probably just to email me at kurbpromo@gmail.com and talk about what you get on our $200 p/month music promo packages and how we can get you set up in a serious, viable music business position.

Hi Matt from Kurb on the Music Marketing and Management blog once again, looking to make money in the music business online and independently!

Today I’m still talking about the affiliate marketing music business model – just yesterday I set an artist up with 13 affiliate offers relevant to their audience and their niche, and with commissions of 50-75% on the sales, this artist will be making anywhere from $10 to $45 on each sale, and whats more, the fans will be perfectly aware of how effective this will be for supporting the artist, because the artist will be sending them out a free download on completion of the sale.

To me this is serious money when compared with downloads - especially when you consider the money that has to be put into promotion in order to get money out from download sales.

You can’t give me $500 and expect to go toe to toe on itunes with artists who have hundreds of thousands of marketing dollars behind them, thats just crazy, you cant do that with $500 in your pocket.

Even if within a few months we can be getting a sale everyday, it will beat the hell out of the money that was previously coming from download sales or efforts to push the sales of recordings, but the beauty of it is that their doesn’t have to be a choice for the artist, in fact, you can empower the fan by giving them the choice of whether they want to purchase downloads or take up an affiliate offer and receive the music free.

If you’re interested in trying this out with your music or music business - get in touch with me at kurbpromo@gmail.com - we provide some of the most most affordable and value for money strategies to take your music to a place where checks are arriving with your name on it. If you’ve got $200 p/month and the commitment and patience to go through with it and help us to help you, there are so many artists out there that this could make a real difference to.

In fact I was so into it I decided it was probably time for me to start pushing my own offers! You’ve got to give yourself a chance or you’ll never find out what works.

So today what I’ve done is set up a whole heap of different offers that I’m going to be using so you can see whats available - remember we can do all this for you for under $1000 so if you’re looking for a real money making music business strategy lets talk: kurbpromo@gmail.com

So I’ve been working quite heavily on structuring and management of artists email lists for making money from music.

The beauty of the internet is that although as with any music marketing campaign you should be focused, the parameters are such that you don’t need to restrict yourself to only one marketing tactic or business model to generate income. You can test and compare, and in fact, you should.

You can use the comparison to help your fans make the right choice.

So although my suggestion is that selling songs on itunes is not going to be hugely lucrative, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t set up a range of offers to guage what will

But this post is as much about me as it is about you, because I figured, if this method of making money from content and marketing is so effective why aren’t I doing it myself?

So right now I’ve got a list here of affiliate offers that I’ve set up and where possible, I’ve even included the commission I would receive on each one.

So do you know what this means? We can make a deal! If you are interested in purchasing a number of these products or services you can receive free consultation, free marketing services, maybe even free youtube views from me!

email kurbpromo@gmail.com if you’re interested!

moviecapital / commission: $25 - this is a very high selling service that I’ve often used as an example here because most everyone likes movies and this offers 25 movie streams or downloads for $30 or 50 for $40

http://586d166ilawc0a081uwcxb3grm.hop.clickbank.net/

The following offers are all the offers I found relative to my music niche. Check out what there is! I found 13 offers relevant to baseball for one client, Health, Romance, Self Help, Games, Sport, Entertainment - imagine how many offers will be available in a niche relative to what your fans might be interested in?

sonicpro – music production software $18

http://c557a46ddnuh-b4mqko4rdqsb9.hop.clickbank.net/

chopper tattoo - $20 - Tattoos is a good one because it would appeal to certai music niches and these tattoo sites actually offer a good service, providing a cheap alternative to chosing a design from your local parlour.

http://61635e7crk6kt984kiy9llw-y4.hop.clickbank.net

Jamorama guitar - $31 - guitar lessons, good relevance here for guitar playing fans

http://2c038g-cre3bt855pc2km7fs81.hop.clickbank.net/

hip hop beats - $18 - you’ve got royalty free beats that rappers

http://be7beb8mqg0mza3bh–feoeo0t.hop.clickbank.net/

Learn Digital Photography $29 - alot of these products would actually make great gifts for perhaps not the fan who purchases them but a family member.

That means at christmas you can do your own gift guide, letting fans know that buying these gifts and getting a $29 pay out actually helps you out WAY more than buying a copy of your music which your fans nephew or neice may not really appreciate in their stocking as much as say . . . a digital photography course!

http://ca5f9d9bgl6exa20j5wqo5vbum.hop.clickbank.net/

Learn music production: $25.10

http://87f1b92ofe3hnn0cypv8-d1m3s.hop.clickbank.net/

Songwriting tips and advice guide: $20.49

http://1c3f9h0nljvctlcg1kujx35b1a.hop.clickbank.net/

Now this is where I really started to get interested - music marketing products DIRECTLY related to my niche! If you’re interested in buying these products through my link, I’ll definitely throw in a free bonus consultation or something to sweeten the deal -

In fact

IF YOU BUY ALL THESE PRODUCTS THROUGH MY LINK I WILL THROW IN A MONTHS PROMOTION - that’s 3 hours a week for 4 weeks - ABSOLUTELY FREE - and why wouldn’t I, I’m getting paid, and you’re not only getting a massive amount of music marketing advice and knowledge, you’re also getting a month working with me to help you implement it.

And look who I found!

It’s Greg from Gen Y Rockstars, who I know has heaps of solid ideas on online music marketing, and makes me totally confident in recommending this product.

The new music economy: $20

http://c65c0jyqdny9znf6z8negjvpbz.hop.clickbank.net/

What else have we got?

music marketing manifesto $14.26

http://a5219e4dml1lok3hv2q4j20f2h.hop.clickbank.net/

reachfame database $18.62

http://0cc94a0jecwmzlf1sk78h46y4x.hop.clickbank.net/

danny rampling - Djing + Success: $11.26

http://51a4c99irbwmna3yy6rngw1r2v.hop.clickbank.net/

How to sell music online: $19.79

http://9aa62b-bqh48-i091gj1ajq9df.hop.clickbank.net/

record label music business plan: $45

http://c57b3d1kkcwezl6pznurtko-fd.hop.clickbank.net/

A to Z of music licensing: $15.93

http://6c59e50mmh2jsa1q241apgcx2o.hop.clickbank.net/

music career masters: $44.37

http://ded1chwjld0bn8bky1101q3obe.hop.clickbank.net/

run a hip hop label $33

http://d6fc141odmz8xn3qy9qdsd5w7d.hop.clickbank.net/

buskers bible: $20

http://ecbcbezjme6i-92-vg-b6byeix.hop.clickbank.net/

home recording studio guide

http://3870fg7jmfzewn6p7is4phpy2e.hop.clickbank.net/

Well there it is - those are all the offers I’ve set up for my niche specifically related to music marketing - and I’ve made a note beside each offer of how much I make, but I’m not stopping there, I’ll continue to roll out new deals for both myself and my clients.

Next up I’m going to be talking about what I think I’ll be doing with my own own mailing list that will make people actually want to take up these offers and buy them,but in the meantime if you’re interested in working with me to set up a profitable system like this for your music business, get in touch - kurbpromo@gmail.com, the cost is $200 p/month and even if you’re at absolute ground zero with nothing we can still get a music business system land a music marketing strategy plan like this running for you within 6 months.

we can make a sweet deal - purchase the some or all of the products above and I’ll throw in free bonus consultation and billable hours put towards your online music marketing and music business development.

Get in touch: kurbpromo@gmail.com

Coming up soon on the music marketing management blog - Matt from Kurb starts his official super exclusive newsletter!

Make Money in Music: New Music Business Monetization

Matt @ Kurb — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:09:16 +0000

Hi out there music business lovers, Matt from Kurb back again with more talk on how artists are making money in the new music business. I am convinced now that although the value of recorded music has fallen so dramatically as to make recorded music songs next to worthless, musicians have the internet at their disposal to make money in new ways that sees fans getting what they want and musicians getting decent money.

After 6 months with us now paying $US200 p/month, I have no doubt that any artist has the ability to make money in a new way - what is this way?

Well it’s like this:

- a great website

- a great internet campaign made up of social media interaction, advertising, and SEO services

- an email list with powerfully compelling newsletters and free song giveaways

- affiliate offers attached to each newsletter, dozens if you wish, all paying commissions of 50%-75% on sales of products valued from $9 to $99 and beyond . . . now how many songs would you have to sell on itunes to match that?

So why not build real relationships with fans so that they purchase products in this way and you send them your music free? Fans get more, bands get more, I get my $200 p/month - everyone’s happy!

If you’re a committed artist with the right advice from a team like us, you’re bound to make this work offering fans something of superior value alongside an authentic connection which leads to sales that actually put decent money in your pocket.

Interested in our $200 p/month music artist promotion and marketing package? email me, Matt: kurbpromo@gmail.com

So what’s an affiliate marketing offer - how does it work?

Well the following link goes to a site called moviecapital which you can stream or download 25 movies from a massive database for $29.95.

Click Here!

If somebody purchases after clicking this link I’ll receive a pay out of $25.74 commission. Now that is way, way more than if I sold a download copy of my latest CD and I don’t think 25 movies for $29.95 is going to be a terribly hard offer to sell, especially since it’s completely legal and convenient.

So when working with a client to build this kind of system to market their music and use promotions to make money in the music business, what I’ll start with is combining blog posts artist have given me just to strengthen the newsletter and that’s probably a technique I’ll use, once I’ve sent an article for building backlinks, i’ll combine each blog post of the month down to about a paragraph in the newsletter so it’s punchy and filled with real “news”, not padding.

Because of the automated mail out system, talking about remixes of an old tune and other post with reviews of other musicians is good because it’s non time specific, it means a fan can get this in two weeks or two years and it will still be relevant, it still gives us an opportunity to offer our deals whether buying music directly or affiliate offers.

Once we have a 6-12months worth of newsletters, we refine the newsletters again - always refining, we will have links going back to the blog which, again offers opportunities to push our 2 sets of offers – direct artist purchases of downloads or relevant affiliate purchases.

So you need to have your current purchase links available for itunes, because we want to have that either/or choice going on – buy the songs, or buy the affiliate product and get the songs free.

the business model is really revolving around money coming through clickbank, but you’re maintaing a personal relationship with fans they will email you to let you know they purchased the product and at what time, you should be able to analyse in your stats exactly when a purchase was made in order to verify.

Then you email download links to them with a friendly message we put together.

So until we get to a few sales per day you should be able to handle that yourself and we’ll think about how to “cultivate” special fans for more purchases.

I think a really special physical product like a cd and maybe something a little more special can be a reward for repeat purchasers. If fans make repeat purchases that lead to $100 worth of commissions for you, then I think mailing out a cd and other customized products will be another way to motivate that core fanbase to repeat that behaviour, effectively developing a 2^nd list of special fans.

Maybe save the t-shirt until the $200 mark, if you see where I’m going. If a fan buys 10 click bank products and you receive $200, I think posting out a t-shirt would be a positive way of connecting with core fans.

But until then, artist we’re working with will need to keep the writing coming, with 10 string of email mail outs all with the offers available we’ll have plenty of content, but if you look at the newsletters i’ll be thinking of ways we can promote the offers more effectively (attractive designs integrated into mail out, anything we can do to make the offers seem more authentic) and later on perhaps leveraging the fanbase with non-sale based promotions to grow the numbers on the list.

Once we have a good 6-12 months worth of newsletters, we’ll also keep going over the newsletters we’ve already done to improve the “conversion” of sales and basically optimize the whole system.

So for one of my clients we found 23 products to promote - 13 are baseball related because baseball is a relevant niche to this artists music and 10 are music or other. Although this is plenty to kick off with, this is one of the things we’ll continue to review.

When we get sales, thats when we’ll start focusing on products that sell and swapping out the ones that don’t - or are inappropriate or of an inferior standard - for new ideas of what could possibly work for our building audience.

of course, i know it’s not that easy, but any way you can incorporate the products into your write ups (that become press releases will obviously help sales, but of course, you dont want to come across as pushy to your fans, especially in the early days.

I honestly think the best approach is to be honest and tell fans the most important thing is that the commissions allow you to keep funding and developing your music and if the audience get a great product or possibly a gift for a loved one, well thats a great bonus.

the good news is that with 13 baseball products, we can be talking about and pushing baseball topics - or whatever may be relevant to your niche - on the site as much as you like!

so initially the strategy is to keep pushing out content with these offers attached somewhat scattershot just to see what will work, when the sales finally happen, thats when we begin to refine - promoting the very best products in new ways, and increasing the reward for regular buyers.

i.e. when a fan has bought a set number of items say, 5 or 10, thats when we consider having a premium ace diamond product - for example, a cd + t-shirt combo to send out.

remember that all these links, if someone clicks them and ends up buying the product within 24hours, thats a payday for you.

and our aim working with the artists we promote and provide online marketing for is before a years promotion is out, to make every day a pay day!

Band and Music Artists Website Design, Marketing and Management

Matt @ Kurb — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:54:10 +0000

Need a music website design - redesign, promotion, development, set up?

We specialize in online music marketing so that’s why we build websites that do what artists need them to do without the extra expense!

. . . give me, Matt an email: kurbpromo@gmail.com

As a music marketing guy I head my music website designer team up to make music artist websites that are functional for promoton as well as impressive for branding purposes and what’s more we do design really cheap.

You can have a customized website with everything you need for $197 - but if you want something that’ll really get your fans buzzing, only $397 gets you all the extras and all the opportunities to hook fans in - a website including video, experting marketing advice from me on your selling points, slick social media integration, and with a larger budget, we can bring the “pretty” + “impressive” big time!

You MUST have a website to be taken seriously by the industry as well as fans, and conduct serious promotion to build your brand as an asset - if you don’t have a website for your music you don’t have a your own personal web property and you don’t have a platform on which to make money from music online! You need to sort that out straight away!

kurbpromo@gmail.com. . .

Well we do design, build, develop, and promote websites, I guess the term “implementation” refers to the fact that the service we offer is to get musicians sites up and running with as little cost or fuss, and to make sure you see the big picture beyond a pretty website.

For a start I would suggest you only consider a .com or your local web domains, preferably both.

.com for your international brand, and perhaps your location variation obviously for local fans.

But I guess that’s all part of the service - not just getting a pretty website but one that will set you up for the best chance to get traction and with thought for your marketing - I am not a designer, I supervise designers who implement websites with regards for marketing and promotions - traction with the fans that use it, and of course not charging an arm and a leg.

Hosting for the first year is included, you want email management so you could build an email list. This to me is the most effective direct route for independent artists seeking to establish an ongong income online.

You want 5000 words on there so google will take you seriously, preferably on a blog so it’s easy for you to add your own updates and keep google relevance high.

You want a backlinking campaign to tell google you matter broadly on the web - a pretty website with few words and few links will not fare well on google, which will be your main source of traffic.

As I say, we provide the full service for musicians so they get things in place now that will be effective for traction and income next year. We can pretty much cover that for between $200-$400, but when it comes down to prettiness and web 2.0 functioning you might want to have an extra $1-200 up your sleeve.

In terms of marketing, once everythings finely tuned, I might suggest an online advertising campaign but really I think we can talk about that once your music website is complete.

When we get started on your band or artist music website, the more source materials you supply the better.

Obviously that’s pictures for a start, which are going to be pictures of/from you to go on the site and be part of the design, and also any images you can send us that will inspire the designers to get something closer to what you want, something that inspire the design vibe of your site.

flickr and deviantart.com are good places to search for images that can provide inspiration.

so you should choose 2 or 3 images as the key images for your site, then more associated images we can use - cd/album art is an obvious one, and finally any other inspirational stuff you want to send us.

After the aesthetic stuff is covered I’ll get back to the marketing = what do you want your site to achieve? A website is a transient destination, what do you want to achieve from potential fans and visitors while they’re there and how can the design contribute to this?

I will get you to send some copy - ie a bio, band introduction to use on the front page of the site, then we may revisit this once the site is launched.

a youtube video as a placeholder would be a good idea too - really, whether you have one or not, because although you’ll be able to add videos easily to your blog, i think it’s important to use video where possible and so it should be part of your front page design - even if you dont have a decent video now, you will, and you will want that on your front page.

again something we can look at after launch.

I would, just as with any other regular client, suggest you giveaway a free download also, so you may want to send me a song so we can go with that

links to all your social media / storefronts etc

This is what I’m thinking, I take $300 off you to launch your basic site, after that, if you feel it’s not pretty enough, the copy (written bits) aren’t selling the band or the “outcome” persuasively enough, the video we’re using isn’t appropriate, or the site doesn’t lend itself to efficient social media connection, those are all problems an extra $100 would fix if you felt you needed to spend more money at that stage - which all depends on what outcome you’re looking for.

So basically if you want to pay $300 by internet banking I can give you our bank account and probably have my designers back with some initial drafts within a few days.

Viral Music Video Marketing and PR With OK go

Matt @ Kurb — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 01:51:15 +0000

Need a video marketing campaign on youtube?

We are specialists in youtube video promotions campaigns, with a wide array of techniques at our disposal for helping your video increase views on youtube and become one of the most viewed videos and blooming into online viral video success!

We have lots of different packages to guarantee huge amounts of views on youtube, co-ordinated strategies we use to get your video most viewed.

If you want the super dooper youtube video promotion I would suggest viral promotion for $200, guaranteed 100k hits for $500 or 50k hits for $350 and a co-ordinated promotion to get your video into the “most viewed” at a cost of $150.

For all 3 – a powerfully combined youtube promotions package – only $800!!

Email: kurbpromo@gmail.com

Okay so an article today reflecting on the success of ok go’s continued viral video marketing angle with consideration of 2 main points.

The ok go videos aren’t genius but they’ve put a lot of work into coming up with something that’s worth talking about - “remarkable” as Seth Godin says.

Most artists I see are not coming up with something remarkable and their really willing to work hard to make

a difference.

So . . . it appears that the band OK Go! Are on the verge of scoring another “viral” hit with their new video “This too shall pass.” which is the corresponding follow up to their first hugely successful choreographed treadmill video.

Of course I ended up checking it out in the end because obviously I do a lot of work in online video and music marketing so I thought this would be worth seeing for research purposes.

A lot of artists and clients approach me about video marketing in fact it seems to be a bit of a growth area right now and it makes a lot of sense strategically because in the online video area working on building up your youtube marketing is wothwhile because youtube still dominates that sector.

But I’m looking at what we can pick up from the video marketing campaign behind the latest ok go video because their dependence on this video being a viral hit is at the centre of their whole music marketing campaign.

This time, and this is one of the main reasons I ended up watching it, is they have the media resources of their label behind them which is pushing out the story of this new video all over the net, the link and the articles keep coming up, so eventually I succumb to see what all the fuss is about.

So they decided to keep with the theme of an epic low fi-ness – not particularly high production values but a device for extremely

This is what I started to think watching the video – there are a couple of principals at play here which are worth considering when you’re reflecting on your own viral video efforts

ok go! Are not going for a hi fi approach, instead they are putting painstaking amounts of work into the execution of their videos in order to ensure success. Are you putting this kind of detailed work and showing this kind of vision? Ok go know they have to deliver to a high standard to be effective and yet some of the videos I’m paid to promote really deliver nothing, they are a total outside contender with no obvious hook. What do you expect to happen to a video that really isn’t that impressive? Do you expect to give me $500 and become an overnight success? I don’t think that will work. What do you see happening after the fan has seen the video? Is your hope that the average viewer will remember your video enough from the dozens they’ve seen that day to ever act on it again? Are you going to make any attempt to ease the tranisition of someone who simply enjoyed your video to a real fan who is going to actually play an active roll in suportng you an artist?
Also, Ok go have not only a huge publicity machine in the form of their label, Sony, behind them, but an established angle for bloggers and media to pick up on and run with. This reminds me of what publicity and public relations is all about, because I studied it in school. The idea of PR is to do half the journalists work for them so all the have to do is pick and choose the way they want to present the story provided by PR and hey presto, the newshole is filled, and the media’s job is done. When you’re pushing a viral promotion are you doing the smart PR thats going to make your story runnable or are you still just crossing your fingers?

So – as you see ok go mentioned again and again in a series of endless prompts to get you to check out their latest viral music video marketing campaign – thikn about whether you’ve got the innovation and effort behind your video to really breakthrough aswell as an an expertl crafted youtube promotions campaign with which to promote it.

Go in with A Music Business Marketing Plan

Matt @ Kurb — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:44:07 +0000

Matt @ Kurb does music marketing services for musicians who want to make money!

We build band websites, we implement online music business platforms to make money, we develop online advertising campaigns and social media promotion - we do content - write blogs and produce video too!

YOU NEED THAT STUFF, AND WE DO IT CHEAP!

Email me, Matt: kurbpromo@gmail.com

If you’ve got $500, $400, $200 . . . email me, we can work something out, so you get what you need.

$200 will get you in the door *IF* you don’t mind rolling your sleeves up and doing some dirty work!!

Oh man, that was officially no post on this blog for over a month! How cocksure of me to think that I had done enough!

Don’t go a month without posting on your blog because that’s how long it took for my stats to start dipping, but a nice amount of leads are still coming through - musicians and other people coming to this blog, reading something I’ve said that connects with them and then emailing me to talk about music marketing services and things are ticking along nicely.

When you’re working with me it can seem a bit weird at first because artists are saying well what about my new album and my new video?

Well I’m sure it’s great but right now we need to set up a business model. That’s ways for you to make money. Because at the end of the day thats what makes you a professional, yes there’s all these rules about the music business but the traditional model of the music business is in disarray and more fundamental business ideas come into play.

If it’s not a business then it’s just a hobby. If it’s just a hobby is it really something you should be investing into? If it’s not then you need a long term strategy to build, unless you’re happy to pray for a miracle overnight.

So yeah, musicians give me their money for music marketing services after they read my music marketing blog, and I say well, let’s make your newsletter an event, because this is the event where you can make the most money schilling all kinds of vaguely related products as part of your newsletter, so it’s only going to work if the newsletter is a total blast of authenticity.

Your video on the other hand, doesn’t help us to sell anything, nor does your album really, but your newsletter on the other hand . . . you see this is important because if I can help an artist build a platform that allows for cheques to actually arrive with their names on it, thats a massive step around which everything else can be built.

So the point is, I like to get straight into building a strong newsletter platfrom and musicians are like well, what about getting more fans?

It’s a step by step process. What are you going to do with your attention deficit riddled fans once i get them to your website? Sell them your album right off the bat? It’s not going to fly.

So you set the awesome newsletter up with the sales links first, then you have a fancy website, THEN you start driving fans into your funnel.

You make that newsletter feel like it matters by putting effort into it, make it exciting, make them not care you try to sell them this and that, hell you gotta make a buck.

I could moan about artists being lazy but they’re probably putting all their effort into some video shoot, you wanna be on youtube, great, leave that to me, let’s get your business model sorted first!

It doesn’t happen overnight, but if you work at it and 6 months later you emerge into the cool breeze of having a business system in place can I tell you what I think we should do?

Promote your music.

Yes. Once you’ve got your independent business sytem worked out to deliver you cash, then you focus on the frontend experience for the fans knowing the back end cash machine is in the back and I’m in there tinkering away making sure each of those newsletters is tight and snappy and getting the fans worked up.

I know I just rattle it off but this stuff does take work, that’s a big thing I’ve recognised you’ve got to be involved in this and have a vision, or it’s not going to work out.

My commitment has been to get in with my staff and active in what we’re doing, encouraging clients to try and understand what it is we do.

We provide cheap music marketing and online music management, our goal is to bring you from where you are to a profitable position online, and that’s not going to work out for you with fake plays and fake friends and fake followers, and you’re not going to last.

It means work and time and spending money to have a really awesome website with a series of gripping newsletters and a really incisive, well thought out targeted online advertising campaign, because I of all people know that “good enough” is easy - I specialise in “good enough” that’s why I charge $200 p/month for something thats “good enough”, except good enough won’t cut it if you’re going to drive fans into your business model, you’ve really got to invest!

Invest into your business, every inch of it! If you’re not willing to spend the money AND the time making sure it’s just right how are you ever going to have an awesome website? It’s taken me years to learn I can’t just throw $50 at some dude overseas and have him come up with a website for you that will make your fans head spin.

It just won’t happen. You’ll be forgotten.

So let’s finish up.

A sensible business set up that’s ready to run is more important than having 5000 people come to your site next week, because building a succesful entertainment business is not something you’re just going to trip over it’s something you’re going to have to build so that it can sustain itself or you’ll never last.

Don’t give your last $500 to me unless you plan on helping me work out where the next $500 is going to come from, because you’re going to need to put months and years into this, so you better have a plan to stay in it or you’re gone.

Make Money From Music Online With Affiliate Marketing and Fan Management

Matt @ Kurb — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 05:26:21 +0000

Big post today to get you thinking about how to seriously make money from music.

Think it’s a sell out to push products under your artist brand, thinks it’s corny and fake and it’s not about the music? Well you can be poor and about the music. The way I work is that I’m in the music business and if I wasn’t making money I’d be somewhere else.

There’s no reason to be whining and complaining because your music business is failing. You need to get geared up with promotion strategies and music business models that are going to put money in your pocket so you can keep doing what you love.

Hi it’s Matt from Kurb here, I run a company that helps independent musicians promote their music and brands online and manage fan relationships to make money from music.

Our company is all about being affordable so if you’re realistic and realise it might take you a year or more to turn your great songs into a profitable business model, then you can afford to have us help you do that work until your independent music business is making money.

At the moment it’s still $US200 p/month - it will go up again soon - you get all the online music marketing services you need and eventuates to about 14 hours work p/month for that price.

Just email me, Matt at kurbpromo@gmail.com - we can talk. Just a warning though I hate phone calls and will only get on the phone with you if I know you’re not wasting my time.

I just sent this research I did on clickbank.com to another client and
I felt it was important everybody looked at this real examples as to
how sales of affiliate products through newsletters, blogs and
possibly even social media and article marketing can be significantly
more profitable than relying on your primary content which in most of
your cases is your music.

Take a look at some of the offers below you could easily be promoting
through your blog/newsletter/social media/youtube/etc.

just got some clickbank stuff here for you

I just threw in a search term “relaxing” as I thought that would be a
good starting point for your demographic.

look at the prices and commissions and then compare that to the prices
and commissions you get off your actual music.

I’m a big fan of giving your music away free specifically to fans who
buy products - or creating a special preferential group for fans who
buy affiliate products who get special treatment and exclusive free
music.

That way rather than getting $10 out of a fan and they get your album,
you focus on getting up to $20-^0 out of the fan and not only have
they got the album but they’ve also got an additional product, for
which the sales pitch is already laid out.

lets look at what I dug up for you:

this offer is 75% commission on a $39 product that’s $29.75 for you

there are 93 “green” products the most popular was this, again 75%
commissions on a $40 product = note conversions 1:15- 1:40 that means
for 40 fans who click through you shold get a sale. But of course,
your fans are motivated to buy because . . .

THEY KNOW MOST OF THE MONEY GOES TO YOU!

Free Energy Product - Huge Market - Unique Niche.
A Tweaked Sales Page Increased Conversions By 30%!! Up To 70$ Per Sale
With The New Backend Sale! Conversions From 1:15 - 1:40 , The High
Gravity Is A Proof! Magnetic Energy Product!
Http://www.magniwork.com/affiliates.html For Affiliate Resources!!!

So fans know you’re making most of the money. That’s okay. You’re
committed to making sure they get as much value as possible so they’re
happy to spend. What about this one, it’s $67 for you p/sale. What if
you prepared a special limited personalized release for 100 fans who
bought this product or one of similar value? That’s be a good way to
make $6700, once you’re in the 1000 fan range, this becomes possible.
Possibly even every month.

Convert Your Car Using Gas4Free Water-Fuel Conversion System.
Attention: New Diy Water Car Is Selling Like Crazy! Raising Gas Prices
Has Created Huge Demand! Few Refunds. Promote It Now Before It Becomes
Competitive! Some Affiliates Are Converting At 15% And You Receive An
Amazing $70.00+ Per Sale!

let’s look at the Arts and Entertainment section - there are 373 product offers.

the most popular is one of my favourtie examples - legal video
downloads. you get $25 on sales of legal movie downloads. the cheapest
package is 25 movies for $30. So throw your album in free and the deal
works, does it not? DOn’t you think your fans will be willing to
support you and the whole copyright issue by getting movies and music
legally and getting a great deal?

MoviesCapital.com - Real & Legal Unlimited Movie Downloads !!
Make A Killing Using The Only Legal & Real Unlimited Movie Downloads
SITE!We Are The Future. All MoviesCapital.com Movies Are Licensed And
Downloaded Directly From Our Servers. Coversions Sky Rocket! 75%
Commission!

Music lessons and language lessons can be very lucrative.

Jamorama Guitar - New Changes! Big Commissions! Low Refunds!
Best Selling High Quality Guitar Course In CB! Earn 75% On Our $49.95
Standard Edition! Earn 75% On Our $99.95 Deluxe Edition!! Earn 25% On
Our $149.95 Hardcopy Edition!!! Jamorama Is A Pro Affiliate Program.

Tattoo sites another popular deal for promotions. have your fans even
thought about getting movies, tattoo designs etc, off the web? This
one pays $20 p/sale. The idea over time is to build themes into your
newsletters that make sales appear natural. So you choose something
like tattoos, talk about what you think about tattoos post some tattoo
art, do a youtube video with one of your songs and some tattoos and
then tie in the product at the end.

try this:

“You can get a tattoo design online for just $27, there’s thousands to
choose from, and what’s more $20 of the money goes to me so I don’t
starve. And hey, if you actually end up getting the tattoo I will give
you a copy of my album free, how about that?”

Chopper-Tattoo - Top Tattoo Offer !
The #1 Tattoo Gallery On The Web. Converting Like Crazy! Pays 75%,
Affiliates Must See. Free Music Downloads With Membership Allows
Creative Marketing. New Affiliate Tracking In Email, Exit Ad, & Google
Upon Request: Chopper-tattoo.com/affiliates/

there’s one that sells hip hop beat site membership,
http://www.beats365.com/ again $20 commission.

or you could go completely ironic and sell joke products to people -
as long as they get something worthwhile extra from you and they buy
it knowing and with the intention that you get $30 and that’s how they
support you as an artist then it could work once you have a loyal
fanbase.

How To Be Funny!
Earn 60% Of $49.95 Per Sale! One Of A Kind Niche E-book Teaching
People How To Be Funny In Just 7 Days Flat!

so this is just a sample to get you thinking about what different
products could be offered month after month through your newsletter
and your blog AND our article marketing and social media which will be
far more lucrative than album sales alone.

Of course this is just the higher end of the market we haven’t looked
at free stuff yet - that is stuff that we can get fans to do that make
you money WITHOUT them spending any money at all.

So then we can divide our fanbase into 2 distinct groups, those who
buy affiliate products for preferential treatment and those who can be
otherwise encouraged into revenue generating activity without actually
making credit card purchases,

for now though however it’s important we choose our products and set
the tone for introducing this proposition, as we will do again, month
after month with each new newsletter/blog/etc and corresponding
product.

regards

More Music Marketing and Music Website Management Tips

Matt @ Kurb — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 04:15:25 +0000

Hi it’s Matt from Kurb here, I run a company that helps independent musicians promote their music and brands online and manage fan relationships to make money from music.

At the moment it’s still $US200 p/month - it will go up again very soon - you get all the online music marketing services you need and eventuates to about 14 hours work p/month for that price.

Just email me, Matt at kurbpromo@gmail.com - we can talk. Just a warning though I hate phone calls and will only get on the phone with you if I know you’re not wasting my time.

Hi Matt from Kurb here talking about what I’m talking with clients
everyday in dealing with online music marketing strategies and online
music management for revenue and making money in the music business.
Don’t hesitate to look us up at kurb promotions or the music marketing
management dot com blog for more information and music business
advice.

When you have one of the better designed sites around you’re starting
with an advantage – sure, it looks good, appears quite functional but
what I’m seeing when I look at your site is the sales and marketing
stuff I often talk about.

Fans have to be directed and told what to do, obviously they have to
be compelled, but at the same time it must be made completely clear,
so it’s with stuff like making that mailing list button bigger and a
more the focus of the whole page, or at least a “landing page” which
is a muster point for new fans to really push the email sign up,
that’s where we include the free giveaway etc.

So as long as you have the design covered, then I’m free to really
analyse what works in terms of sales, and then proceeding to testing
that.

The day to day stuff, a business like ours, kurb promotions – which
you can find on the music marketing management blog - do your myspace
promo for you, but really, content is the key to music marketing.
Written content, and online video content. This is what I call
secondary content, it’s simply bait to hook them into the mailing
list, into the primary content which is the EP.

I don’t know if your “news” section will work as well for google as a
wordpress blog attached to your site, great for SEO, that’s what I
recommend.

What email platform are you using for fan management and interaction?
It’s pretty much essential to use an autoresponder if you’re planning
on doing serious music business in future. We’ll set up your
newsletter for you, big picture, we basically work like this:

So at least 1 artist blog a week, 1 music video or artist video blog a
month, then we wrap the blogs and video up into the newsletter and we
promote the EP of course and anything else we can add in later.

We then use the written blog content to post to your myspace/facebook
and also I do my SEO backlinking with it also.

So with a blog going out each week and a newsletter and a video going
out each month, that’s basically an opportunity to sell something on
top of continuing to promote your releases to fans as well as building
the music marketing relationship - that’s where we’re going.

With the online video production, you can get help if you need it from
my staff, just by uploading the footage to them to work with if you
need help putting stuff together to meet the regular deadline set.

All I would be focused at the moment is: A video introducing
yourselves to the fans and inviting them to sign up for email. Make a
connection through video. Also, youtube is a jukebox, all your songs
should be up there even if the video is just something my guys put
together in an hour.

So when you’re set up with your music marketing platform that’s when
we get stuck into the google adwords online advertising, you swant the
best - and most - ideas and strategies available. If you can start a
new account with google I can secure you some free credit.

So with music marketing services like ours, basically you receive 10
hours a month from my staff that will be split between web design,
social media and myspace promotion, seo and online video production as
appropriate. My 4 hours will basically go toward your blog and
newsletter though some weeks we might focus on adwords instead.

Your job is to make sure that blogs and newsletters and videos go out
on the relevant platforms to complete the distribution of this
content fo rmusic management.

In future when we look at facebook promotion and twitter marketing and
we can see what’s happening, it might be more suitable for one of my
staff to do that job, those are things we would look at if you feel
you need more comprehensive services which is likely in 6-12months
when the fanbase is growing and those fans are active and purchasing
and need to be continually stimulated.

This is my approach we prepare now for when you have 1000+ fans who
are waiting for the monthly news and are willing to buy the things
you’re offering because they’ve watched all the videos, kept up with
all the news and they want to support the band. That’s when you’re
band has turned into a business that has got to be kept running.

So basically if you’re looking for music marketing services to get
started straight away we can fire up the myspace promotions
immediately and start getting our ideas together for blogs/videos
while developing the platform with a few of those improvements. Once
we’re set up we can get started on the ads.

Online Music Marketing Services: Music Website Design and Development

Matt @ Kurb — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:25:00 +0000

Hi it’s Matt from Kurb - here at Kurb we offer comprehensive and affordable online music marketing services which certainly includes all elements of website design, development and monetization of your website as a band, artist or musician. You also get lots of other stuff you need aswell - social media promo, online advertising, online video services, youtube promotion, email management, blog promotion, artist branding and much more, starting from $200 p/month. Email: kurbpromo@gmail.com

Alright more of a personal post today as I’m looking to work out what I need to do with my own artist websites. It’s that time of year where you actually get to put in some groundwork on the foundations of your online platform because once 2010 kicks in, often you’re just too busy to deal with improving the standard of essential parts of your music marketing platform.

An artists website is in constant development, ideally, if you want to create a hub for engaging fans then you’ve got to bring a dynamic level of interaction and appeal to your site, but obviously if you’re short on resources you’ve got to face the fact that other than blogging and streaming various content, updating the feel and functionality of your site maybe something you can only do every so often so you’ve got to be practical about it.

If your website is going to look a certain way and do a certain thing for 6 months you had better make sure it’s looking and working as appropriately as possible over that period.

Often making decisions about what it is that your website actually does is one of the most important parts of marketing and website design.

The purpose of your marketing as a musician is to increase sales and build relationships, and website design meets these purposes in two main ways:

Design (Branding): Your website LOOKS awesome and sends an instant message to fans that you are a true professional musician as possibly even a phenomenon. Professional design sets you apart from other wannabe’s and amateurs competing for audience attention. But good design is expensive and is useless if it’s not functional and fails to retain the fans interest

Functionality (Sales): Ultimately most musicians need to envision their website as increasingly less about mere promotion and information but a centre of commerce where propositions are actually being pushed to the fans.

A lot of artist have great looking sites, but there’s no business component to them.

- Fans are not being explicitly directed towards propositions

- Propositions are no good. “Get the new album for just $9!” well . . . no. I don’t want to spend $9. Here’s an old sales technique chestnut. Get the customer saying “yes!” if customers are not saying yes to your proposition then your simply not being competitive enough. If you don’t want to be competitive then you may as well go home.

- Fans are not being compelled. Sign up to email and get a free song? Sure it’s very common these days and to me it’s a good starting point. A lot of artists would say this devalues the music, giving it away free. Well it certainly does if you’re not working it!

“Free song” doesn’t sound that compelling does it? Why don’t you tell us exactly why the free song is so good, so that fans feel compelled to

Why not arouse their curiousity with a number different strategies that will make fans curious to hear the song and so why not sign up for email when it’s free?

Is the some interesting angle you can add that will draw fans in and make them curious? Because “Free Song” is just a throwaway, that’s what it feels like if you’re not making the effort to really sell the content of the proposition.

There’s no need to be hyperbolic and outrageous, just use a bit of colour and flourish rather than just “Sign up for a free song.”

As you can see, it’s useful to have someone with basic sales and marketing experience on your team if you’re looking for music marketing services

SO feel free to email us at kurbpromo@gmail.com to discuss how we can help you with web design and any other part of your music marketing and music promotion campaign in the music business.

Learn Our Best Online Music Marketing Campaign Strategies

Matt @ Kurb — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 13:23:59 +0000

Matt is from Kurb where we do online music marketing - affordable and comprehensive - that means video services, social media, online advertising, search ranking, fan management solution and new music busines models plus blogs and websites and other design.

It can’t stay at $200 p/month for 14 hours, it’s too cheap, it MUST go up to $250 soon.

EMAIL KURBPROMO@GMAIL.COM

When it comes to music marketing campaigns and artist management, development of new music business models, music marketing strategies, most artists understand that the need to look good in the eyes of the fan and often hiring a designer, photographer etc. to really give you a solid look is a good idea - as long as it’s not the last money you’ve got.

I notice a lot of music artists have a high standard of presentation, but as is common with artists, they’ve got a good start in building up the brand, but they’re not being aggressive enough in pushing fans towards outcomes that lead to sales long term.

You notice I say long term because obviously buy! buy! buy! is not the marketing angle thats going to endear you to modern and savvy fans online. Blast them with your amazing brand, draw them in with your irresistable proposition, and then just continue to wow them with carefully measured and staggered content that makes them want more. THEN sell them something.

A lot of the nature of this promotion is simply to keep returning fans attention to the fact that you have another set of propositons available for fans to purchase and support the band. Gradually stimulate their interests slowly, and have a variety of propositions available for different consumers.

I just would not buy a CD disc or an album. I wouldn’t. I don’t care who. I’m not buying your CD. I mainly spend money on stuff that impresses women. Have you got anything that might impress girls? Cos y’know I’d probably buy that.

THE BASIS OF ONLINE MUSIC MARKETING CAMPAIGN STRATEGY

Generally I suggest forming an email list and making this the basis of your strategy, pushing your email as an authrotive point of information and news, this way you can push the email sign up with perhaps a free download as your primary proposition in a situation where pushing for sales is going to be hard initially.

In creating material for your newsletter we can farm it out to engage fans on your blog, on social networks, etc. - this is my formula - 1 blog post a week, one video blog post a month, then we sit down at the end of the month with all that contnent and news and whatever else and we just make it a sharp little summary that will really make you look colourful and active, alluring - each month so fans don’t forget.

So establising a solid core of fans and a network to distribute content to them and beyond is the basis of your online promotion.

- Once your platform is established (email management, blog, sites and social network profiles more focused on outcomes)

- And your promotion is established (work we do promoting through social media, online advertising, search ranking results)

- And your fanbase is established (engaged fans on email list, facebook fanpage, REAL myspace/youtube/twitter fans not just empty numbers)

THEN – and this could easily be 6 months away – having discussed in detail, then we examine what you have on the table and how we can create business models that will that will tap the work you’ve done developing your fanbase for regular income.

To me, selling recorded music is limited in the new music industry environment. It’s something we face, but in terms of our long term strategy we’re looking at alternative business models that can create revenue and I’m working on them with different clients everyday.

Selling songs for $1 is simply not the most lucrative way forward in this business any more, especially for artists still establishing a fanbase.

So while we’re doing that, and developing your email list, and demonstrating how an email list can be used to develop automatic propositions to established fans that bring profit back to you.

Now in terms of costs the situation is this. When I charge $200 p/month that covers basic online promotion and set up but you are going to need a lot of content.

That is mainly writing and video, a regular stream of it.

That budget of $200 leaves us availaable to do SOME writing and video services for you but not as much as you’re likely to need. Just making you aware of that, whereas we offer promotion and additional content services (writing and video content) and branding for $350 p/month so you can consider that as we progress, because otherwise at some point within 3 months it will be up to you to provide this otherwise to maintain momentum.

So the deal at the moment is $400 upfront and in 3 months we review, if you’re happy you pay $200 and we keep going, if not you’re under no obligation to make the second payment.

The $200 a month represents 4 hours from me and 10 hours from my staff who assist in social media, search ranking, design and development, and video services.

So I’ve given you some outline of where I feel we could best help you, but you need to tell me what outcomes you’re looking for, if it’s particular content you want to promote or a particular angle you have in mind, then we can integrate that into our all over strategy.