Market and Manage your music online

Hi this is Matt from Kurb Promotions, we offer a broad range of online music marketing services.

Packages start from $250 for 12 hours documented consultation and taskwork.

Services include web design and set up, online advertising, web promotion and search optimisation, fan management systems, social media marketing, content creation and promotion including video production, youtube video promotion and video marketing, copywriting, blogging and more . . .

We help you decide what could work, and then our team goes to work!

you just need to contact kurbpromo@gmail.com

Happy to discuss serious projects over skype.

Okay here goes my new script pitching for your business offering my online music marketing services!

Hi I’m Matt from Kurb Promotions and I’ve been working with bands and musicians online for over 4 years now showing musicians new ways to promote their brand online. Back then online promotion was just a cool new idea, now it’s pretty much fundamental.

In the music industry now, marketing investment falls on the artist. You’ve got to accept that. What we aim to provide artists is a full and comprehensive online music marketing and business service at the most affordable price, so what the artist gets is a team at their disposal with all the skills to build an online presence that will provide a viable income.

For that we charge $200 for 10 hours or $250 for 15 hours per month. That covers every aspect of your onine campaign, everything, website, content, advertising, marketing, optimisation, everything, including regular skype talks where we can discuss exactly what we could do with those hours to help you get where you’re going. You may need a website, you may need to get fans signing up to your newsletter, you may want viral promotions for your latest video and because this is not an ebook or a course, or a membership site or elearning package - that means that each week I will discuss with you the best strategy for you, what to expect, and then we’ll get it done for you. No where else are you going to get that amount of personal attention and across the board skills for the price.

So I’ll describe exactly what we do in terms of creating campaigns as quickly as I can. Don’t forget if you want to talk to me more about this and the specifics of what you’re doing,  don’t hesitate to email kurbpromo@gmail.com and tell me about what you’re trying to do, so we can start talking about where the online marketing we offer here at kurb could provide you with the results you need.

Remember we work with artists from whatever stage you’re at. But, bear in mind, to succeed in marketing your brand online you’ll need to look at applying these strategies:

- an effective website

You don’t need just a pretty website to impress fans, but a website that is successful in securing sales, opening up communication and presenting clear, strong propositions. Think about using your website as an a chance to offer an experience that will bring them closer to you, connecting with you, and open to actually buying your stuff.

- a strong competitive proposition and business delivery model

What is the basis of your proposition and how suitable is your business model for the online environment? You can’t expect people to buy your stuff even if you’re unknown. A solid business model is a way of developing income for you online that works.

- search engine optimisation & online advertising campaigns

The packages we offer to help you with search engine optimisation and online advertising are simply some of the best value marketing support you can receive from anywhere for the price.

Your website, once developed, absolutely needs smart search optimisation and advertising in order to secure ongoing targeted, high quality traffic. Both online advertising and search engine optimisation can be so effective when done correctly, but in order to be competitive you need someone experienced and knowledgeable, and those people with true skills in these two fundamental areas charge a lot. But I work with musicians, I’ve always worked with musicians, so that’s where you’ve got a great opportunity.

- content: video content, written content (blogs)

Content is one of the most important thingsto understand about what is happening right now online. Artist need continual content online to promote themselves and stay relevant so once we establish the basic platform of your campaign, how we develop and use contenton it to produce outcomes from fans to support the artists becomes more important. We help artists with the strategies as well as the content and the distribution and promotion of that content to build fans and get those fans and telling their. Just be aware it can take months just to get to this point, but this is where the real opportunity to build a solid fanbase exists. Content that connects with people delivered in the right way. With our video team, our writers, and my creative ideas and consultation we can build viral campaigns for you.

- platform with which to deliver content most effectively and interact with fans (social media etc.)

Beyond your website, other online and social media platforms give your content an opportunity to be seen and shared by more potential fans. If you have quality content in the form of blogs or videos or podcasts or other media that we can help you create, having an effective presence on social media sites can provide a larger audience, and used in interactive and innovative ways to connect and provide more connections and positive experiences. It’s important to use social media for your music business in a way that clear outcomes can be achieved and this does come back to developing high quality content as described earlier.

We provide both active strategies to grow your social media following, and content based strategies to keep your presence active and interactive.

But What exacty you need and how much you need of it is of course all dependent on your situation, this requires a fair bit of consultation and strategy.

You’ve got to be realistic. It usually takes as long 6 months to get a solid platform for an artist so serious ongoing campaigns and fan experiences can roll on, and sophisticated viral campaigns can take months of planning in advance to execute. It’s about having us there as the affordable option to co-ordinate your campaign and to keep it moving so you get there.

So this video has been a quick run through of the most important things we offer in terms of online strategies. Over the months $200 or $250 per month can add up, and I’m not going to argue that I can work magic for less than $1000, but you will receive more for that money than you would from any expert because no one offers this breadth and depth of service at this price, under these terms. Places are strictly limited, and we have had waiting lists in the past as we’ve grown.

I’m happy to talk to you about what we offer that would suit your needs and budget, what to expect, and examples of what we’ve worked on, I’m on skype and happy to connect with you there - do you just got to email me when youre ready for this kurbpromo@gmail.com, as I mentioned we do have limited places and we can’t always take everyone  but I look forward to hearing from new artists soon and seeing what we can do.

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NEED HELP WITH MUSIC MARKETING? WE HAVE A RANGE OF DIFFERENT MONTH LONG UNITS:

$250 for 1 / $600 for 3

TALK TO ME, MATT ABOUT HOW OUR UNITS FIT TOGETHER TO PROVIDE COMPREHENSIVE ONLINE MUSIC MARKETING SERVICES FOR YOU AS AN ARTIST, PERFORMER OR BAND.

Our unit services include: websites, advertising, written content (blogging, press release, bio, newsletters), music video content and music video marketing, social media, publicity, electronic distribution.

KURBPROMO@GMAIL.COM

I should really be posting here more often, I run dozens of sites and even when I don’t post here, it still seems to do better than some of my other sites. Why is that?

Excellent keywords in the title of my site for music marketing management, a nice weighty mass of content that has nicely ripened in the search engine results pages (SERPs) due in no small part that I’ve managed to pick up nice bunch of links from diverse sources.

I did so well here, that I began to believe I could write about anything anywhere and as long as I posted every other day or so, it would take off like this blog has sometimes threatened to do, but it really hasn’t happened.

At the moment I am quite nicely disentangled from the busy-ness that has dominated my life building up my businesses for the last few years and what I really wanted to do was to get back into my own musical art, approach it deliberately looking to find the business angles so I could return to this blog with lessons learned.

Many of my old examples were based on comparing this business to the business of a full time musician and the comparison is only valuable to a point. If I could prove that I was making money as a musician rather than making my money off musicians, what I had to say here would have a lot more credibility.

So now I might just spend a little bit more time blogging generally about issues I see as relevant to me in music marketing - I have pretty much cleared the slate as far as my current music marketing campaigns but I am really enjoying a break from it because as muchas I enjoy music marketing, it is complex. It is complex to deliver a system that will work for everybody, so perhaps if I’m more transparent about what I’m doing, more people will be able to decide whether the merits of the systems I use are right for them.

I still want to keep blogging here, but not in the way that is all about me being some big marketing hotshot guy, because I’m going through something a lot of artists and careers must face. I’m no longer struggling. I don’t have to take on any particular job if I don’t want to. I don’t have to do music marketing if I don’t want to. I’m actually really interested in broader video work and general branding is music is tied up with that too, it’s all about creating that vibe.

You know you have to create something special.

But my feeling is that there’s no point building a house without having solid foundations. What’s the point of having a great song, an amazing video, fans raving about your live show, a freaky brand, an inspired marketing campaign, what’s the point of any traction if you’re not bringing it together online to use it as something you can leverage to propel yourself to the next stage?

What I just described is not an opportunity many people get and you can’t waste it. When you do something people care about, will you even be prepared to go with it? Not if your platform online is not ready to have 1000 new fans land on it with a splat tomorrow, not if when the fuse of mass inspiration is lit, you’re not ready, you’re all wet, washed up, that inspiration is quickly dissipated.

An explosion is no good to no one if it doesn’t happen at a strategic point in your operation.

You need to minimize resistance against fans who one day after years of hard work, will clamour for as much access as possible, and you’ll need smart systems in place to parley that access into serious career opportunities.

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Don’t call it a comeback!

That’s the funny thing about music, it always pulls you back. I don’t think I will ever leave music, but we all make mistakes, I’ve made plenty of them and all you can do is pick up and move on.

What I was doing before was not working. I am trying to find a way to make online music promotions affordable enough for musicians to back themselves and in doing so I was making it too hard on myself.

I would have loved to believe I could make a good living offering the services I do, but I also run a cd dvd duplication business, a postering business for local gigs, and of course I do all kinds of combinations of this and online marketing for various clients from wherever, doing whatever you can imagine!

So the problem is when you have artists with big dreams and not much money, you’re trying to make something work for them, but I’ve overpromised, I’m disorganised trying to run several different businesses, and I have quite a turnover of staff simply because I can’t pay them enough to stay!

The music marketing side of the business had developed serious viability issues because it was taking up a lot of my time and only earning a small portion of my income.

My short term solution has been not taking on any new clients this year so far, and I’m not going to review that until I feel I’ve delivered on all the promises I’ve made to my old clients. Now that I’m in a position to reapproach the online music marketing side of my promotions business I need to do it in a new way.

The problem isn’t that we can’t give musicians good AND cheap service.

The problem isn’t even that musicians expect too much.

It’s not even that there isn’t enough money in it!

The problem is that I, personally have to get organised. That may sound like I’m one of these flaky hare brained music industry bottom feeders which I’m sure we’ve all encountered but it’s the reality that good music marketing services can be provided efficiently and affordably but it not straightforward especially when for me as a businessman, I’m looking to provide my clients with a service when what we’re dealing with in the music business now is such a vacuum.

The flipside is that anyone who can figure it out and make it work stands to gain a lot. There are too many people out there who want these services and they’re tired of all kinds of ridiculous internet scams and big promises.

You know this business is hard work and if you’re smart you see the money working long term - but unless you know you’re committing to something that will pay off it’s hard to throw yourself into it, and that usually the case when artists don’t understand the fundamentals of how online media works.

The musicians I’ve worked with in the past have been unbelievably patient with me and my mad ways, but it is a fact that we’re in wild west territory and it’s ridiculous for me to act as if the things I started doing in this business - spamming myspace and whatever else - are solid principals to base your internet marketing on.

It takes hard work, talent - obviously - and ideas. Not just one idea, but an endless conveyor belt of ideas, you need to be that dealer on the corner, dealing out the good stuff until they’re hooked.

If they’re not getting hooked, then you need to start supplying better gear.

So the point is to make a go of this, we all need to work harder. I need to find a way to supply musicians with the websites, ad campaigns, search engine optimisation, video marketing, blogs, newsletters, press releases that they need, as well as getting into co-ordinating these aspect into our favoured “mini campaigns” - each one a bi-monthly push for more social media fans, more newsletter sign ups, and a bigger pool of fans to leverage for more attention, more opportunity and more sales.

I’m back into it and ready to at least start talking to artists honestly about what we can do and what they are ready for. No nonsense, it’s time for hard work and to step up, and to take the time to execute good ideas, because even id they don’t work, you’re learning the process.

What it takes 6 months to do at first, might take only 2 months the second time and be twice as effective - as long as you keep at it, you plan and you don’t slack off and give it up - I’m only back because despite the burn outs I’m coming at it with more experience than ever and a more truer vision of how we can truly make online music promotion work.

Let’s get started!

MARKETING MUSIC ONLINE: THE BASICS ARE STILL THE SAME!

Well your website as it is may work as a showcase but you need a blog where you can start putting out content every week for fans and interacting with them. A blog works because it’s an easy tool when you’re under pressure to turn out content very regularly.

When you’re ready, the next step would be to graduate to a regular email newsletter. Often you can take 4 blogs you’ve written each week and compound them into a monthly newsletter with added info to keep your fans keen.

Newsletters don’t just keep fans in the loop by going to them, which is essential, but the beauty of the newsletter is it’s easy to sell a range of products - and we’re not just talking music and merch although that is included.

Once your newsletter is up around 1000 fans you want to be hitting them with not only with updates, fresh material etc, but a new proposition every month for a “bundle” or some kind of package or a range of products you can take a cut on.

You can also add advertising to your site once you have the numbers to make it worthwhile.

Once your site platform is complete we could look at an ad campaign set up, but as I mentioned you really want to capture those fans, driving them directly to sign up for your email newsletters so you can continue to bring them into the fold, and sell them on one of your deals.

We could set up everything I’ve described here for $600, but once it was set up, I would be suggesting how you could build campaigns using advertising / social media / youtube / blogging etc to really push the numbers of fans up to 1000 and beyond so you have a network to spread your content virally and of course more numbers to shop your monthly proposition for.

That is my suggestion of a goal you could move toward - especially to build your foundation - but if you’ve got other ideas about what you want to achieve, I’m open to discussing that also.

YOU CAN SKYPE ME, EMAIL KURBPROMO@GMAIL.COM, LET’S SEE YOUR WEBSITE AND LET’S TALK!

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I am reflecting on the music business more now that I am edging slowly away.

I’m still drawn to the passion of it, and the desire to do enjoyable work that is valued in way other than money, but I’ve been forced to accept that the music side of my business doesn’t create the largest share of revenue, and it’s a shame I can’t continue to devote the personal resources to it as I have in the past because of other marketing and promotions work I’m doing in my business not so much related to music, but generally more lucrative and less stressful!

But I could see it as an opportunity to become even more inventive and innovative. I just need to be smarter in order to bring musicians what they need in a more effective way.

My central assumption is that whatever happens, people will still want to connect with music but more individuals will continue to want to be heard.

We’ve talked here at the business about different packages and how they could be represented and the concept of rock band and guitar hero games and how they helped to supply the fantasy of the rock star.

It IS supply and demand in so many ways - more musicians than ever, less people paying attention.

The culture that I see growing in the market my business operates in is the Pop Idol culture, where everyone wants their piece, the old boy who pulls out his guitar and plays at the pub on a sunday, he wants a website, he wants his recordings online, he wants to be there, to be found, to be part of this media.

And it’s got nothing to do with the music industry. Who’s music industry, on most blogs it’s all huge figures and corporate monoliths and I forget that’s nothing to do with me. My turnover is tiny. My profit margins are enormous by comparison. That’s what it means to be small.

As the industry fragments in this way - I dare not say “cottage” industry because technology takes us beyond that concept of tiny independent but co operative cells of activity geared to specific niches - well we need different organisation to provide for this.

I’m in that boat with this old guitar man, I’ve worked hard, now I want to enjoy my hobby which is my music, to have my website and my songs online presented professionally and in a way where people can find me and hear about what I have to show for my self.

I already have a job that makes money, this. Now I want to spend the time to see how right I am about everything I’ve said here and putting it into practice.

My point is, more and more people, just like me, don’t just see music as a hobby which in itself merits

I could delve deeper into the zenith of westernized culture and how individual expression

So there’s more people wanting to participate in the music market at lower levels, but on the user side, there are less barriers, and numerically and by way of technology, larger cumulative audiences for music products and services, but this market has become so fragmented.

In practice, people will still turn to music for connection and community, and I look at my locality, New Zealand, and see a market that is too small to ever be served by massive corporations pumping and dumping american chart fodder. This can apply to any small market - a corporation from overseas is not the right business model to mediate between what could be 1000 artists, and what could easily be 100,000 people who are interested in this music largely because it is local and it is niche.

What is the right business model to mediate

I believe by getting involved in more aspects of the business we are not only getting experience but we are building loyalty in the market. The purpose of this is based on the fact that we really know nothing about the music industry except what I’ve already stated:

- musicians will want to be heard

- niche fans will have an ongoing interest in niche music

- the current model is based on organisations far too big and cumbersome and relying on a dead “superstar” based cultural paradigm to ever manage these multitude of niches properly.

But if what we do now helps musicians and fans, it means that in the future, whatever it is musicians have to do to be heard, and whatever fans have to do to enjoy and actively consume thess relevant niche experiences we will have the trust and loyalty to offer this market confidence in conducting transactions through and with us.

Bands will still want cd duplication just the demand will decline to the point cmparable to vinyl now. Bands will still need printing and postering / flyer services - design, websites and services related to marketing and promotion, and branding especially. Fans will want information, and merchandise which represents affiliation and

Determining exactly what will be valuable enough to be the most viable though - well that takes a crystle ball, unless you’re feeling lucky or maybe you just have a hunch . . .

Maybe it’s back to my old business plan for the magical website that does everything . . .

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Alright today we’re talking about rolling out packages for our new online music marketing campaigns. I’m in a constant state of refinement! That’s how you make it work. Keep trying different things

We’re throwing around a lot of ideas about how we will build music marketing campaigns in 2011.

We need to make our packages affordable and clearly defined. This is a business, I’m a businessman and entrepreneur, I need this business to work for me as well as delivering what artists want.

Artists want to be famous. Most artists will never be famous. Usually I aim to make artist their money back. If they can make their investment back, they are still in the game, they have moved forward in their promotions, and they have broken new ground in terms of their business.

They have a business that works, then they will need to refine and scale it to the point it can cover your bills. But first I got to cover my bills!

SO the new plans we’re drawing up aren’t radically different, It’s just a little bit more “macdonald’s” except it tastes good because I’m still head chef. I just want to make it easier for artists to choose the meal combo they want, and to know what they’re getting.

It’s like a Big Mac. It’s not going to be the best thing for your career, but it’s a whole lot better than starving for online promotion, and it’s very comforting to know what you’re getting is what you can expect.

SO we start of with month long platform units, then move to 2 month mini-campaign units where all our platform stuff works in synergy to promote certain concepts following a theme and offers with big deal ideas.

How much or many of those do you need? Who knows. Will your promotions stuff - internet systems put in place - probably have a glitch or break down and need to be fixed? Sure.

Will I go on and on about confusing internet marketing concepts? Definitely.

Well it takes as long as it takes until you recognise where your opportunities lie to develop your business, serve your fans.

If you get signed from that point, if you sign some kind of deal with some kind of backer, you may or may not still need us. That’s for the future.

You may have to stay independent, and manage your assets long term, maybe that’s the role we’ll play. It’s as I’ve said, so much is open ended in the music business, especially right now. Serve the fans and you’ll have a career, and you’ll need us to manage and do admin so you can coast on your achievements. Who knows. That’s for the future. For now we need to build your music business and it will take years, so we had better get started.

At the beginning you must build your platform with a number of units that represent the services you may need.

Website unit: $250 in a month

You must have a website to promote yourself online. You get your blog and newsletter set up included, and of course you get the domain and hosting for 12 months.

Ad campaign unit: $250 in a month

Full ad campaigns on adwords and possibly facebook. Includes at least $100 free credit.

Newsletter, Monetization and syndicated content unit: $250 in a month

Content developed for biography, newsletter, press release, article marketing, blog posts, short campaign executed for linkbuilding etc. affiliate marketing and/or advertising set up by request.

Social Media Set Up and Blast: $250 in a month

This sets you up on all major platforms, and we use various blast techniques on twitter, myspace and facebook to attract targeted fans as appropriate. Social media channels tied to syndicated content channels.

Video and Promotion unit: $250 in a month

If you already have a music video great, nonetheless you need to create an intro video for your homepage - the specific point of being encouraging signing up people to your newsletter, and/or other specific outcomes.

Blog Publicity unit: $250

This is a bit of a new one for us. Lots of people offer music publicity, it starts at about $2000. I copy them as far as I’m able, but I don’t really have the contacts. I do have a few techniques I use that can work though. We need a letter to charm the bloggers, we need a killer offer or angle for them to get in behind, and of course my staff will do the legwork of identifying who to send to, and then actually sending them out from your email. No fuss for you, rock star!

SO then we move to the campaigns, which plan and execute on all these parts of the platform around a core idea.

Usually that idea involves selling something, promoting an event or just trying to get fans to tell their friends and sign up even more fans for when you do try and use this to sell something or push a tour or something.

The idea is they are mini campaigns that come in waves bimonthly so your fans never get the chance to forget you and you’re there with something new to sell each time, as well everything else you’ve got available.

Content is promotion, offer a good concept, and then tie it to a transaction your fans will accept.

It’s marketing, stupid.

But how many mini campaigns do you need? What is the natural trajectory of this?

do it twice, do it 20 times, we’re going to hit a vein at some point, we have built a system to accomodate at least a few thousand fans before you have to step it up, so we’re ready.

And you’re going to get 1000 fans at some point. You’re going to start making money, a lot more than you pay me.

There are going to be different business priorities, first one being paying me more. Whatever I’m doing will be working so you’ll want to keep doing it, and you need to look after your fans, and be there, it’s our job to make that happen.

Managing all those fans will start to create administration issues, but also now that you’re making money we need to get down on some serious business, optimizing the whole market we’ve got going with the right products and offers, the right partners, the right deal for the right fans.

You’ll have to start giving me more money to cover everything as well as keeping those bimonthly campaigns rolling over until . . .

Something gives, you break at some point.

Either one of our mini campaigns catches fire it may be the first, in may be the 20th, or, you reach a critical mass, it might be 1000 it might be 10,000 but something changes.

People are taking notice. A big opportunity comes along. When that happens, well we can celebrate, but that’s gotta be 18 months away at the very least. Maybe you will have given me $6000 by then, but I should hope you’ll be ready to make it back, and I guess those parameters offer a lot of opportunity still!

THE PROPOSITION.

A proposition must look attractive to your fans. The same way I titillate you with possible deals that seem irresistably workable, you must tempt the fan with what you can offer.

That’s what I do here, play with ideas about what my audience wants and how I can give it to them.

I could offer a deal of $5000 and 2 years. Give me $5000 now, and if you don’t make it back directly off systems I put in place within 2 years, I will give it back to you. Wait.

Give me $5000, I will do 288 hours work for you over 2 years, I will collect all the money you make online, and then I will give you at least $5000 plus whatever else you may have earned.

No that could be tricky. I just need to pay you $5000 if you don’t make it back in 2 years.

Butit’s a stretch, no ones going to front me $5000 just yet. That’s why we talk about platform units and mini campaign units.

How many campaigns do you need? Well initially, a mini campaign may not make back the $500+ you pay me. But sooner or later it will. What then? Why stop?

You might be signed, you might still need my services, you might not. I’ll be doing fine I’m sure, as will you and the opportunities we have to make a great business arrangement in the new music industry is wide open!

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At the moment I have been very tentative about new work I’m doing in online marketing because I still have a lot of work to complete for established clients and it doesn’t feel right, signing up a whole lot of new people but once this is done, I can think about getting new clients if anyone requires our music marketing services.

It’s basically $250 for 12 hours p/month, and we can do just about anything when it comes to what you need to do business with your music online. We can chat on skype about what exactly you might need. Just email kurbpromo@gmail.com

So at the moment I need to sort out 3 ad campaigns, two are a full ad campaigns, and one just needs some tinkering. The clients have to have their credit cards ready, and I need to get those vouchers so they can get maximum free credit, up to $130, that usually last 2 months, we try to sign up about 100 fans with that money in ads.

Glitches happen a lot! Stuff goes wrong. Jack of all trafes in online music marketing, master of none! That’s the truth but I guess that’s why I’m so cheap, I can organise everything!

For some reason google doesn’t like one of my clients sites, so we’ve had to put the landing page somewhere else do google changes its mind and lets us run ads. He got 87 sign ups with $100 so that’s a pretty good investment, we just have to sort this out.

Also, I need to talk to a past designer of mine about fixing a glitch on the artists websites with their sign up forms. The submit button for the email sign up is only half there, and it looks unprofessional, a messed up looking button, it looks ratty. This won’t do because it looks like the site isn’t even properly finished. Really you want to have a super sexy sign up form, I wouldn’t be ashamed to make sure your sign up form was THE hottest most eyecatching part of the site.

Lead the viewers eye. You want either super powerful, strong image of your good self, or a hot hot video real big, so viewers know what to do. The video or strong powerful image needs to be suggesting toward the sign up form that the ultimate outcome of the viewers destiny on this site is to sign up for that form. Work it. Sell it. You are hot business and you will get that email.

So theb there is some older clients still I need to clear up some stuff with, I need to do their adwords also, and so I might want to bundle it all up. I hate leaving my clients without their ad campaign and site at least set up with their newsletter. That way you’ve got a basic fan collection situation. Pay for ads, ads bring targeted traffic, traffic signs up to email, you can email and develop rapport with core fans and sell them stuff. Simple system.

SO finally, before I take on anybody new and look at the spaces we’ve got, it will take one final last review of each of these artists sites, to check and improve, some of these guys will need bios drafted up and put together.

Often a bio is also an article, a press release and a blog post, AND a newsletter. this introduces the musician to the idea of syndicated content. Different ways to serve beans in a can to different mediums, breakfast, lunch, dinner.

Same idea, different channels. One good idea, multiplied and distributed strategically.

SO the musicians all got their ad campaigns sorted, they all got their websites sorted, Newsletters were set up. Then we moved onto social media. A video could be a unit too.

Units. What does $250 for 12 hours in a month get you? What does that represent? A unit.

Website unit: $250 in a month
Ad campaign unit: $250 in a month
Newsletter, Monetization and syndicated content unit: $250 in a month
Social Media Set Up and Blast: $250 in a month
Video and Promotion unit: $250 in a month
Blog Publicity unit: $250

Remember that includes your skype consultation at least once a fortnight. This way, you choose the units you need. Got a good website already? Got a decent video? Skip it.

You see it’s all coming back the little systemisation of it, we love it!

We all need to be clear, alright? Too many people, it’s not clear, they’re going on and on about all this and that, and I’m listening to all their problems on Skype, but $250 is not that much. But you know what you get.

Well what then? Get famous?

NO. In 6 months and $1500, you have only built a platform, the foundations that you can develop something from, a fanbase an income. Maybe you’ll have 500 sign ups by then, it’s quite possible, maybe you have got some money coming in. But it’s just the start.

Maybe if magic happens you will be pumping, but lets get real, 6 months, $1500, is not going to make you famous. But you will have everything in place to kick start your promotion, make money and build momentum when that magic happens and people do start to take notice, when things do start to happen.

The trap is set.

Now you need to drive them in there. Ads work great, but why stop there when the power of a great idea whose time has come is unstoppable?

That’s what you need. You need big ideas. The platform is there. The channels open - we got blogs, newsletters, social media, article marketing, video, publicity, all the channels are there. You need a big idea, and a big deal.

You want to produce outcomes, you’re either selling something so hot it’s crazy, or you’re doing something so insane everyone is talking about it.

What is it? These ideas don’t fall out of the sky.

I say you execute the first campaign over 2 months. 1 month planning, and 1 month execution.

What does a campaign unit require?

28Updates>4Blogs>1newsletter: 4 hours

video + campaign: 8 hours

adwords: 2 hours + $100
facebook?

Article marketing: 4 hours

strategy / consultation: 4 hours

22 hours?

2 hours design..?

probably need 4 hours at least for blog publicity, but possibly not if the unit was already complete.

24 hours, 2 months, $500 + $100 for your ad campaign. Deal.

It’s a big deal.

Next we’ve got to shake it out, because going from platform units to campaign units - that follow bimonthly because that way you are constantly cycling the attention of your fanbase all year - only leads from campaign units to what?

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Hi all, Matt from Kurb here stopping by for a post and an update on whats happening with kurb digital music marketing services.

If you’re interested in our music marketing services, flick me an email on kurbpromo@gmail.com - to be honest it is looking increasingly like I will be taking on no more new clients this year but I’m interested in hearing from artists who might be interested in getting started in the new year.

I’d much rather have a holiday, and I seriously have to catch up with the clients I have currently on the books, so at this point, new business may be fairly limited. I’m thinking it may be time for a review in our approach. Because the modern music industry is such an unpredictable and shapeshifting creature, you really must be sensitive to where you can create unique and innovative value for your audience (tribe, market, etc.)

So last month was one of my best months in business ever, so I must be doing something right.

What am I doing right that musicians can learn from?

I just read a retweet on twitter that said “You can’t plant a seed today and expect to eat an apple tomorrow. Respect the process.”

Online things take time. I’m already doing well enough to have learnt some effective strategies, but that doesn’t mean I won’t continue to reexamine what we’re dealing with and the best way to create value with the resources we have available to us.

Often that’s been my approach:

What am I doing that is successful?

How can I package that and offer that to musicians?

Well I been doing this for 6 years. I built a website and I started promoting it, and I tried heaps of different ways, and eventually some things started to work, and some things kept working, and then I started getting more clients, and slowly you start to get established and it has it’s own momentum, you can’t really be dislodged.

That’s why a lot of people fall off in life, not always because they fail, but because they succeed - you kind of get moderately successful and you kind of just coast along, because once you finally emerge, you find yourself getting quite comfortable when you get there.

But I can’t put 5+ years of development and promotion into a 3 month package. Sometimes it’s hard to see how 3 months fits into a career plan when you don’t have the vision or the experience to create a plan that is realistic, especially when your grasp of how music business works is spurious.

So what is the best way to provide services for musicians requiring online music marketing and promotion?

Well it’s different for every artist. There’s no other business where you’re going to find the scope of clients we deal with, and all their needs must be considered carefully depending on the circumstances. General concepts apply, but some strategies will be more effective and connect more successfully and possibly at different stages, in short, it’s complex!

It’s a hard task working out a sure fire plan for music marketing success because there’s a different plan for every band depending on your strengths and weaknesses.

It’s hard for us to create a streamlined service when this factor exists. It’s complicated, but it’s not. Your content is hot, your business chops have been fully utilized, you will make it work. But coming up with great content, a great business plan, a great marketing strategy that’s not something you’re going to trip over.

It is an epic undertaking. You’d need 2 of me at least.

So what can I do for artists? I always gravitate to the concept of making money. If an artist can make money, they can keep going. “Keeping going” may not sound glamourous, but if you’re not established in the music business “keeping going” is a worthy ambition to start out shooting for because it’s by keeping going that you get there!

A career plan, a music business plan, these are hard things to construct without being responsive to the rapid change and demand for innovation we’re experiencing, plus you must be prepared to take some risks, fail, and fail again before you ultimately succeed.

I will definitely be thinking about the best way I can continue to offer music marketing services.

I will also continue to work on my own campaign for fun and experience as well as sticking with some of the clients who have stuck with me, because I don’t change up my whole deal when I’ve already committed to working with an artist in a certain format.

But deep down I have the sneaking feeling I will have to tear it all down and start again with stronger foundations for my next iteration of effective music marketing services.

Look at this way, if it takes 5 years to build a business and career in music (similar to most other vocations really) how do I make a business out of that? Instant solutions are hard to sell because they don’t exist!

I want to do things in a new way, in a more effective way that delivers the most value to the most people, it’s a philosophy that underpins success.

Before you decide to spend your money on promoting your music, what are you going to do that’s new and more effective and delivering a message to your fans that resonates with them?

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Hi this is Matt from Kurb we provide a marketing service especially tailored to musicians to give them complete support in all aspects of marketing their music and creating a music business online. Because my skills are in a lot of demand, I charge $250 for 12 hours over a month, or you can have the skype consultation only package - 3 hours of skype consultation for $100 - remember we’ve been specializing in online music marketing for 4 years now and we know it inside and out - websites, email lists, social media, advertising, publicity, youtube - the works!

Contact: kurbpromo@gmail.com

Whether I get active about taking on new clients or not one thing is for sure, I won’t be putting my talents to waste because I will be keen to have another crack and using my skills to promote my own projects and generally converging aspects of what I do here for money and satisfaction, so it seems less like work and more like actually something creative and engaging.

When I say my own projects I’m not talking about business projects I’m actually talking about creative and entertainment projects - experimenting with creativity and creative industry and business models, and I will always be keen to report on how I’m going with that.

I have some broader philosophies that I tend to hinge off. True and great talent is a magnificent thing but it’s not the only thing. Lefsetz speaks the truth when he talks about artists being more than just people who create great art, great music. People need to look to musicians and artists for inspiration. When you actually want to create value for an audience that you can dine on, it’s more than about a catchy tune, it’s about a brand that represents something.

I hate the way a lot of people use the word “rock star” - a rock star used to mean someone who does what the hell they like, who sees and speaks of more than what us mere mortals know of. A pop star is someone people revere simply because of the sheer industrial effort put into maintaining their projected image, but fans know that it’s all a fantasy, that it takes dozens of staff and entourage and special effects to create that image and there’s only so much inspiration that can provide.

At some stage the falsity of it must be called into question and I think that creates an opportunity for the real rock stars to return. Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, these women’s careers are built on the concept that you can’t discern the real woman behind it. But somewhere there must be somebody ready to inspire people with the fact that they get out of bed being who they are, they are who they are 24 hours and they don’t apologize for being the real deal.

They may not be pumped full of plastic and airbrushed up the wazoo, but the reality that these people represent will be far more enchanting because they don’t require that level of artifice to maintain the charade. They are a living legend, a walking work of art.

Because I’ve been so busy with my other businesses I’ve also just been working hard updating some of my clients websites and a number of recurring themes come up.

What do think will happen when someone who has never heard your music comes to your site?

Usually they will leave again and never ever remember who you are.

What are artists doing to change this in the 10 second window they have to reach out to potential fans? How can a website be used properly to attract fans?

Well we know about content strategies and we know about advertising, which pre-selects your fans so that if they get to your site there must be something they’re interested in.

But what do they do on your site? Why are you trying to get people to come to your band’s website?

They’re not going to buy anything. You’ve got to blow their socks off before they’ll even consider it. How are you going to open a dialogue between yourself and these fans? How are you going to start a relationship you can build? Because if they just leave again, there is no relationship, and there’s no patronage, there’s no deal.

You must be making the effort to connect in 3 ways, using your website as the key platform for progressing these relationships:

- email - the best way, the only way to turn the relationship quickly into a profitable one where the fan becomes your customer, as well as take advantage of the automation that can make this so effective as a business strategy

- social media - people like their familiar territory and there are plenty of people for whom which facebook is the internet. I don’t use facebook, but I will follow you on twitter, and some people still use myspace. you’ve got to go to people where they are and streamline your promotions in order to reach those groups effectively

- music - failing all else, you are going to lose that potential fan forever if they leave your site without signing up for email, without connecting on social media, and they don’t even take the chance to download some of your music.

you should make at least some music available on your site even for those who won’t sign up. Which may even up the ante, but if you want to be an entertainer or a musician today you must find a way of producing large and prolific amounts of content in order to maintain an audience or these people that you do manage to get email addresses and social media conections off will quickly forget about you.

Again my choice is to bring more people on board, to outsource creative staff to help me, and you will need to do the same thing if you truly see yourself as a professional because otherwise you won’t have the depth and breadth of content you’ll need to be taken seriously.

Gosh I still haven’t really got into what I see as my personal website strategies but I’m sure I’ll have an opportunity to lay that out next time I come back to drip a new music marketing blog post on music. marketing. management!

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Hi it’s Matt from Kurb here and we are still offering 12 hours for $250 in music marketing and promotions, that covers advice and implementation in all aspects of your music career and promotions online.

I’m also going to be introducing a skype package - that’s straight consultation - 3 hours for $100. You can use as much of your 3 hours when you like and how you like, but it is simply chatting on skype and I am happy to visit certain websites and social media profiles of yours to check them out, comment and advise you appropriately.

Remember I won’t be hustling you to spend more money because I don’t really hustle so much in music marketing any more!

CONTACT: KURBPROMO@GMAIL.COM

Hi everyone as I said I will be continuing to take on new clients when I can and I will always keep the door open, but building this part of my business is probably not my main priority - I will always work with a small group of musicians and entertainers in online music marketing and music promotions but I am certainly not taking all comers any more. I have to keep the numbers of musicians I work with down to a manageable level because when I get offered great money for a big project, I can’t just turn around and let down all my musician clients so it’s a real juggling act.

The issue I find, where I’m providing the most value for clients, is overseeing campaigns. I’m starting to realise just how hard it is to co-ordinate every element of a musicians online campaign, and distinguishing the viability.

Especially when I can see now that most clients need to be working with me for years or, consider paying me double time to make things happen twice as fast.

If I had an amazing record of successes then I would have no problem charging 10 times as much to make people into successful entertainers, but it is so challenging, that such an achievement has not been straightforward. Making people famous is not the easiest thing in the world as it turns out.

I need an artist who will stick at the ongoing promotions requirements for a start, nothing happens quickly now, and creating and executing an artist campaign that captures what that particular artist truly offers is a hard thing to bring to life on the budgets I run, but it’s certainly not impossible, because everything I do for my artists are things I’ve already been doing and been successful in for years.

That’s the secret though

When I’m working on managing projects such as musicians campaigns, I find it takes a lot of mental perserverance to have everything lined up - which basically means right now, I have to put in a lot of mental effort on music marketing campaigns but the money I receive on other promotions projects I work on is often a lot better despite this.

I’m also a lot more financially secure than I once was so I’m not really desperate to chase every dollar that comes down the road, but I will still write this blog because blogging is great promotion and it’s a great way to thrash out thoughts and new ideas in a useful way.

Also because I am planning to have more free time, I will probably be getting back into my personal projects, but of course, my whole view of the purpose of it and my role within the entertainment industry has changed, but I still think this is an excellent place to discuss more practical applications of music marketing and promotions online, and especially business, because I’m still a businessman at heart, I still see profit as a pretty strong indicator of the value that something truly creates for audiences and fans.

If you don’t want to make money from your music then I can really appreciate that but I think most people are like me and would find a lot of joy and satisfaction in the fact that their music actually does create market value and even though I wasn’t much of a musician I think I have learnt enough now to try a different approach - if I have time to write new music!

One thing I would really like to get into is remixing and producing tracks for my clients and getting more involved in the process there so for me, it’s about the boundaries between work and leisure being broken down - isn’t that what we all aspire too?

Doing this job has made me quite radical in my approach because artists often want to discover a system but the industry is such a lolly scramble right now, there is no system, but what still exists is the need to connect with fans.

I think it’s time to move to the next post before we get into new and radical approaches to music marketing . . .

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