Market and Manage your music online

You know me, still doing lots of work in music promotion and online promotion!

I’ve just started selling affiliate products from my blog - this blog and guess what? It actually works!!!

I couldn’t believe it! I’ve been getting $20 on single sales! If I can do it, artists can do it so it’s time for artists to embrace where the revenue is coming from in terms of the resources they need to succeed in the music business.

Get with kurb promotions! KURBPROMO@GMAIL.COM

$200 still gets you 12 hours promotion work - web design, email list and affiliate marketing management, social media, video, ad campaigns, seo, copywriting, all the service you need for online music marketing!

Let’s make a music business plan to make money and go to it.

Just been working away setting up basic structure for the ad campaign, it will still need some work before its ready to launch, but this is quite intensive work. It’s ready to test now, but again I’d like to take some more consideration on it to optimize, and bring your brand through more.

So now that these basics are at least underway, we need to start discussing what we’re going to be approaching people on facebook with and the more important bloggers.

I can come up with something but as usual, I think it would be better to get your thoughts, or I can present something, and I can then revise based on your suggestions.

As I say, I wish I could get this done faster, but I think it’s better long term to take a more considered approach - I could’ve banged out an average ad campaign in 2 hours and told you it’s done, but I think your work and your approach calls dor  a bit more thought.

Also, I have to underline that point that this promotion needs the website at its centre point - most of this promotion is ineffective without it, because without the site and the song available, there isn’t much to promote aside from social media, which you’re relatively new to in terms of your profiles developments.

so I’m going to finish up on the ad campaign tonight, also started on the research for which blogs and forums to target for the release, so I can provide a report for that.

usually I’d have the same person who does twitter help me with that but I’ve already sent them instructions for the twitter so I dont want to overwhelm them too much, we’ll see how we go, but this could be a bit of a slog getting through them all so we have a comprehensive list, then we’ll need to finalize our approach.

As I mentioned, if we’re asking them to promote it, they’ll want to see the website up and running as some kind of proof that this is the real deal, again we want to think about the approach because some bloggers may want to host the mp3 themselves, as I say it depends on the approach we want to take, striking the balance of keeping the bloggers happy but retaining some control.

I can put a staff member onto generating facebook fans/”likes” to get the ball rolling but it’s about how you want to use your allotted hours.

ust sorting your Facebook promo now, that should be no problem,

Twitter promo is underway,

Issue with the myspace promo - you didn’t set up your profile as an artist profile so you could upload music? You may have to set up another account by signing up as an artist / musician. We can promote this personal account, but I think it makes more sense to promote the official music account, so I have instructed staff to standby on this.

With the article marketing (this is backlink driven, designed to make your press release available for republishing and distribution - as seperate from the publicity angle we’re taking with the blog research + approach) we can start an any time since you have something up for your site, but I don’t think we should press the button until we know the full version of the site is to go live within 48 hours.

Good news, with a bit of hustle I managed to secure 100 euros free advertising credit - please note this did cost $US25 - when I’ve finished up with the campaign, you can add your credit card number and the code I provide and you’ll start with a 100 euro budget.

The idea you had about creating the discussion is possible - and i think its a good idea, too - it just again, has to be managed carefully. I’ve never done anything like it before other than generating random comments on youtube, its doable, but I cant anticipate the result.

from here:

I’ll continue to tweak the ad campaign and my list of sites and blogs to approach to promote the release, let me know your moves on myspace. I’ll be thinking on the best way to orchestrate this discussion.

once the social media stuff and ad campaigns are all sorted then I can focus on these more complex issues, thats my problem I’m having, because I usually do all this stuff over 3 months, it gives me a lot more oversight than I feel like I’ve got right now.

list below is the list of sites I’ve researched so far. This is all good, but my thoughts really are on hypemachine and pitchfork and those calibre of blogs/sites that have real clout behind them.

again, as we refine our approach, then I should have more clarity on the issue - as I mentioned publicity is not my forte, so we need to tread a bit more carefully here - as I say once the social media staff are all set up and the ad campaign is too, then I wont have so much going on in my head and I’ll be a lot more useful to you.

{ 0 comments }

It’s Matt from kurb, this is a blog about how I advise and what we offer in designing various online music marketing strategies for artist promotions.

We do web design and set up, ad campaigns, social media, search engine optimisation, email list set up, fan mangement, blogs, video, the works/

You can work with us for 12 hours for $200, you just need to email me, Matt -

kurbpromo@gmail.com

and let us see your website / myspace so we can get an idea of where you’re at.

Looking for a sophisticated music marketing strategy?

It’s a very exciting prospect working with clued up artists because it’s often a struggle illustrating how and why online marketing business models are preferable to clients who are stuck in the old away of thinking about labels, recordings, income from performances etc.

But using affiliate marketing to motivate others to push your music for a profit can’t change the perception that music recordings have decreased dramatically in value. You’re getting 69c a download, $7 an album - your margin is already too tiny to cut in a commission.

There’s no reason you can’t do it, but I can’t imagine it getting much take up because financial motivation just isn’t there for a product with low pay out, which is perceived to be overpriced anyway.

That’s why the model I advocate is pushing fanbase engagement to produce affiliate sales of other products.

As a musician and a character and a strong branded identity - you’re moving away from the stale, dry online marketing stuff and spicing it up with branding and narrative (through email list, etc.) that is going to bring fans on board with this new non traditional model.

If you understand all the back end marketing stuff then that actually switches our focus back to integrating music business and social media basics which are about engaging and compelling our core audience.

PPC and a pretty website can populate your list but the crux is making the sales.

We need to marry the ideas and business models of online marketing with solid content and fan relationships so value is going both ways, the fans are getting more than just the songs they expect to get for free anyway, and you’re actually establishing a model that’s significantly profitable.

And also a broader industry perspective of illustrating that your fanbase in demonstratably active, that’s whats going to get established music industry players taking notice and offering the support you’ll need to develop your career.

With most of my artists we can’t even begin to look out how we raise the standard of the content and “spreadability” “remarkability” of interactions and content, because we’re mainly focused on putting our online business model together.

If you know about online marketing, then you know once that system is in place the best support I can give you is working on how we really “raise the roof” with the standard of our content.

There are some slight improvements you could make to your website from a sales and marketing perspective - such as incentivising the email sign up with a free giveaway or something similar, but it’s a great start and looks professsional.

I have a number of strategies that I use but from a broad perspective it’s about balancing out development and engagement of your fanbase with strategies for increasing income from online sources.

We can do social media promotion, but I really like to focus on the development of content there that not only engages fans but feeds into propositions.

in fact managing “secondary” content is an important way to develop fans and hook those fans into your propositions, as well as text based material being the foundation of being discovered by search and relevancy on many sites and big search engines such as google.

What I mean by this is that we’ll often help artists develop content that can be used for newsletter material, blogs, social media updates etc., so it cuts down the need to micromanage each site and gets us into a routine of creating regular content for fans, which allows us to continue presenting your offers and then as we get more sophisticated over time, viral promotions that encourage fans to interact, be involved and tell other people about the act, and sign up for your email list.

Since you’ve got a good looking site, once we have this routine in place we can begin promotions in earnest. Online advertising campaigns are very effective when used efficiently at hyper targeting specific fans. As your fanbase grows we begin experimenting and optimizing with the regular content to see what’s most effective for encouraging fans to purchase offers, which, when working with us is not limited to just music but also other products we easily set up to run alongside

With a lot of the stuff you’ve mentioned, we offer services there, but as I’ve mentioned you have to weigh up how they fit into your overall business structure. For example, it’s easy to target fans on myspace, but hard to get them really engaged, simmilarly it’s hard to get deeper traction with youtube, but some many people use it as a default jukebox, I feel it’s important to have some content up on your youtube simply for the exposure, and we offer video services with great value for money there.

Our basic proposition is for US$200 per month you get 12 hours from my staff and I to put towards the specific goals and objectives you’re looking for. We ask for 2 months upfront for 3 months service, and if you’re happy with what you receive you are able to continue to pay monthly in arrears.

But as I say it doesn’t happen overnight so it’s important to decide whether you want to focus on building up fans and exposure first, or get straight down to business of creating profitable systems for revenue.

{ 0 comments }

I’m sure if you were as lazy a musician as I am a blogger, you wouldn’t have a chance but as I always say with a blog it’s the power of accumulation. The more you post, the more traffic you get. The more traffic you get the more people end up buying your stuff.

What I’m doing with artists hasn’t changed, website, email list, ad campaign, social media, search engines, videos, fan management, thats not snap your fingers material. And most artists aren’t getting the picture, this has to involve them.

You build the system, and it’s like a trap to build your fanbase, but then you’ve gotta have some nice juicy bait, great songs and a great offer to hook people in and keep them on the ride.

You don’t build these concepts out of nothing. You get 12 hours from us for $200 to get you one step closer to that point, in the mean time you can read what I write to actual clients about what we do. Music marketing.

EMAIL KURBPROMO@GMAIL.COM to ask me, Matt how our online music promotion packages could help you. If you have a website or a myspace, I want to see it. If you don’t, you need $200 so we can sort that out for you immediately.

Well there’s a process we follow which begins with creating the artist website and email management and centring all our promotional efforts around this.

So website building would be our first priority, but even then, without a significant budget for promotions we still have to focus on building steady momentum with a core fanbase over time.

We can use advertising campaigns and social media to drive fans but we still need to incentivize these fans by offering them song giveaways in exchange for email sign ups.

We also have to look at a feasible business model - the problem with most of my clients is they’re not thinking short term, so they run out of money before promotions can create an impact. You’re not going to making significant sales from downloads until you’ve built a significant fanbase so we usually look at other means to earn income until then, and look to focus our promotions around that.

That being said, having my video team work up video concepts for your singles will help develop your presence on youtube, but this still has to be part of the links in a chain that leads to ongoing fan contact which then in turn leads to sales/income.

We also like to do a video where you appeal directly to fans to get involved.

Our typical campaign is 3 months, thats $400 upfront and $200 at the conclusion, but to be realistic, you probably need 6 months to achieve profitability.

Bookings and agency is not really our speciality but I can certainly give you some business advice in that area. Even more so than someone who does what I do, someone who can really help you will want to be compensated so you need to know when you’re best placed to retain someone with those skills - until then you’ll be relying on yourself and

My general specialty is helping musicians become profitable. If I can’t make your music business profitable within 6 months then you’re not going to want to keep paying me so i have a very clear outline of what I have to do.

Commonly we do about 40 hours work in 3 months for US$600.

Yes we make youtube clips, but you get what you pay for. If my staff spend 10 hours on 3 clips they wont look that impressive, but you’ll have 3 clips. If they spend 30 hours you’ll have some decent clips but you would have put most of your budget towards videos which wont make your money back within 6 months.

That’s a decision you have to weigh up. Once you’ve got the money coming in though you’ve got a budget for that. Strategically, I would probably give away something free and use that to make a video promoting it in exchange for emails so we can start selling stuff to a fanbase we’ve built up. We can have a few products set up within a couple of months making $US20 p/sale for the hip hop market and thats much more profitable than selling 69c downloads.

At the moment we are also trialling a new strategy using this technique - by spending $100 on your credit card, you can get your 2nd 3 months promotion for half price - just $300. So $1000 over 6 months can take you to your first cheques arriving. That’s our aim.

If you want to do this you have to decide how you want to balance out the hours you provide between work focused on immediate business aims and social media promotion, video production and promotion, etc. - stuff that looks good but wont make money short term.

{ 1 comment }

Hi, it’s Matt from Kurb, I do music marketing work for artists, and I help artists and bands make money online. you pay $200 you get the service you need online, to get your online music business model happening. I can look at your website and talk to you right now about what you’re not doing write and what you need.

Design, persuasive sales, an email list, an ad campaign, social media promotion, a decent video, we talk and about it, and you decide what your 12 hours gets you when you pay $200.

Email: kurbpromo@gmail.com

So . . . what happens if you want to email me and get some online music promotions services?

I offer a personal service so it would be great to see a website or myspace for your groups to ascertain where they’re at in terms of developing an online promotions platform.

A band needs to start building a website and a mailing list as the hub of their promotions efforts and we use advertising, social media, and search engine + content strategies to drive fans toward the website for sign ups and that build a core fanbase and eventually sales.

We examine your business model to suggest and implement the best ways to create income short and long term, and provide copywriting and video services to engage fans, so it really depends on what specific services your groups will need.

So any additional information you can provide or any other queries you may have, I’m happy to look at and respond to.

WHEN YOU’VE MADE A START ONLINE:

If I can see that in terms of a lot of clients I deal with your artists have already made a start, the web stuff looks good, there’s content there and your artists are already active on twitter and myspace.

There’s 3 points I see where I can help.

email list - the only big issue I saw on the sites was the lack of an emailing list and incentives to drive sign ups. Email lists are important because the firstly build rapport with core fans, and then allow you a platform to continually extend offers and propositions to them - more on that soon. I use the professional platform aweber for all my artists valued at $200 p/year which means we can have an individual list for each artist, plus an umbrella list for the group/label. Once the email is set up, a big part of my job is facilitating and producing content for regular newsletters that serve as vehicles for offers and propositions to fans.

promotions strategies - I talked about 3 areas of promotion - advertising, social media and search / content - these are 3 different strategies we can use to target fans and drive them toward your artist sites with the aim of creating exposure, spreading content, gathering contacts and ultimately, getting sign ups for email where we can build a rapport that will lead to ongoing sales.

business model - I am a strong believer in alternative business models. 1 song sale can make 69c, one album sale can make $6.99, but the sale of a wide range of affiliate offers is a powerful model for artists to generate commissions of $20, $30 or more on the sale of items that may be far more compelling to your audience if they are becoming increasingly accustomed to not paying for music. Of course building up the brand of an artist long term and managing fan communication for increased performance revenues is also something to consider when evaluating where the most profitable outcomes lie.

At the moment we charge $200p/month for 12 hours promotion work in these areas. 3-4 hours will be from me setting up strategy, the rest from my staff who are experts in various areas of social media, advertising, search engine traffic, video production etc.

For $350 p/month yu can have twice the service, 24 hours work per month.

We ask for $400 upfront and after 3 months if you wish to continue you can pay us $200 in arrears each month from that point.

Of course happy to answer any questions or explain any further aspects of our promotion offers.

CHECK OUT SOME MUSIC MARKETING PRODUCTS! I LIKE MONEY! BUY THEM AND MAKE ME GET SOME!

(this is also what we do for artists you see? fans click the links, make the purchases, and I get half the money just like I will now if you click the link and buy the thing! artists can make good money this way sustainably by building a fan base and connecting them with products worth buyng!)

The new music economy

music marketing manifesto

reachfame database

Djing + Success

How to sell music online

record label music business plan

A to Z of music licensing

music career masters

run a hip hop label

buskers bible

{ 0 comments }

Hey it’s me, Matt from Kurb, I do music marketing work for artists, and I help artists and bands make money online. you pay $200 you get the service you need online, to get your online music business model happening. I can look at your website and talk to you right now about what you’re not doing write and what you need.

Design, persuasive sales, an email list, an ad campaign, social media promotion, a decent video, we talk and about it, and you decide what your 12 hours gets you when you pay $200.

Email: kurbpromo@gmail.com

I’m still working on websites for artists, we want your website up straight away so we can start testing it out. But my issues are at the moment -

- the video and the sign up are nice and prominent, but there’s no room for the opening spiel to be right there pushing the free song and giving fans directive - the still have to scroll down, its not really hitting them in the face. this could be a challenge for my skill level, but its really important to think about wowing the visitor from the get go, and getting them to do what we want them to do:

- sign up for email, download a free song, and buy something - either an affiliate offer or a download

The difficult part is deciding what to push, so when we start advertising we’ll be watching carefully for what is working - what people are responding to, and when a pattern emerges, thats what we’ll start to make more prominent on the front page.

if it turns out one particular affilate product starts to sell, we’ll push that prominently on the front page. If it’s one particular song that people are buying, we’ll push that - its about giving fans what they want.

- where the slide show happens  - this is where I want to be pushing our free “no strings” download, affiliate offers and sales of the actual album and songs. this shouldn’t be too hard, but soon we’re going to want to have a whole pages dedicated to selling affiliate offers and for selling the album so that when visitors click on the panels they are taken through to sales pages pushing either songs or offers.

so it basically be sliding along 3 variations of panels:

- get your free (artist track) - click here!

- Support (the artist) with this great range of products - click here!

- Buy music and songs from (the artist) - click here!

and finally
- perfect our final spiel now that the front page is done - this is easy so its the last thing I’ll do before we’re ready to say that the website is ready for advertising. Long term it would be good to make the spiel realllly long, so you have lots of info, punctuated by offering the reader the option to click off and buy something or do something else we want them to do. ideally for google, 2000+ words would be good. I can put this together from material you’ve sent me.

its just differentiating what we need to do now before we can start advertising (such as pushing sales and offers), and what we can leave for another month - lots of little things like the myspace buttons and making the background a litle bit more baseball/rocknroll

regards

ps - now you can see where the video will be positioned, its time to start thinking about having an intro video placed there. again over this year, you may want to do this regularly - ultimately you’ll need

- intro video
- video especially for our affiliate product page
- video especially for the songs + albums product page
- regular “stories” and “update” videos

if we can aim to be doing one p/month by the end of the year we’ll get a nice momentum going.

CHECK OUT SOME MUSIC MARKETING PRODUCTS! I LIKE MONEY! BUY THEM AND MAKE ME GET SOME!

(this is also what we do for artists you see? fans click the links, make the purchases, and I get half the money just like I will now if you click the link and buy the thing! artists can make good money this way sustainably by building a fan base and connecting them with products worth buyng!)

The new music economy

music marketing manifesto

reachfame database

Djing + Success

How to sell music online

record label music business plan

A to Z of music licensing

music career masters

run a hip hop label

buskers bible

{ 0 comments }

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 very soon - you get all the online music marketing services you need and eventuates to about 12 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 hope you’re selling lots of CD’s I do, but remember to have a back up plan for your business model, I’ve found it’s only getting harder to sell recordings. People still want to spend money where they see creativity and are inspired, but don’t limit that to your recordings.

slowly building up those “real” connections to your fans and me helping you with technology so you can retain that intimate, personal connected vibe with your fans while still keeping yourself viable as a professional.

It’s a hard road but in the future of the music business it may be the only one. Marketing and promotions can only do so much, and connection between the fan and the artist is now essential to building a business.

Getting everything for your music marketing campaign in order and accentuating your artist brand now could set you up for sustaining momentum long term. Generating income short term although, is another excellent way of maintaining momentum long term!

{ 0 comments }

Matt @ Kurb is not dead!!! Yes I’m back of course with more music marketing stuff, what a year! I’ve had to become quite lean I must say in 2010 and I think that’s given me plenty to share with artists because it’s no good just poking around what you hope will work, what you would like to work, or what used to work!

I’ve survived because of the work I’ve put into my sites and my blogs, in fact after 5 years, you’d have to shoot me and run me over twice to stop me. Too many keywords, too many links, too much relevant content.

I have many sites, this blog and others, a youtube channel, a myspace, more backlinks than you can imagine, an astonishingly tight advertising campaign, and it’s that stuff that’s kept me alive - my bills paid, though these days, sometimes I have to make my own breakfast, at least both my sweet black BMW’s are still on the road!

My fee is still US$200 p/month, and I could use the work, but believe me, if you need my help, you probably need it for at least six months, don’t think - no matter what I charge - that $200, $500, $1000 is going to buy you a career, or else we’d all be rock stars by now!

I am that guy that every musician needs - the business man, the marketing guy - so get in touch today!

KURBPROMO@GMAIL.COM

Alright so I see on the site you’ve taken some good steps forward. You’ve got a blog now, you’ve got a store you’ve made a start improving your site.

So long term we want to:

• get more people coming to the site

• get more of those people purchasing or taking steps that lead to purchasing

• continue to provide more purchasing options and products for repeat purchasers, and utilize these strategies toward other revenue goals – ticket sales etc.

The main ways of getting people to the site are:

advertising, search engines, social media and viral strategies

In that order you have advertising which the most expensive and most effective, ordered to viral promotions which are the most time consuming and most unpredictable.

That is why I favour reliable methods short term and expanding into other strategies long term.

But because advertising does cost money in spite of my experience in the area, we must carefully develop the site and experiment to the point that it generates a return. Then we can expand from there with confidence.

For example - In my pirate party entertainment business, I spend about $5 a week in advertising, which gets about 30 visitors to my site. I dont get a booking every week but I get at least one a fortnight so for arguments sake it costs $10 a sale, or another way of seeing it is that for every 50 visitors, I get 1 sale, so it works.

So firstly, your whole site must be prepared and developed toward the outcome of progressing the visitor toward the sale.

So first priority, is analysing the whole site for opportunites to do that.

Then we must use that to funnel visitors to a point where laying out the proposition in a compelling way can take place. This is called a “sales page” or a “landing page” and this is where advertising will send visitors directly for the purpose of clinching the sale.

Because sales can be difficult, we must make “intermediary” propositions that although not securing the sale, places the visitor, or fan, in a position that we can continue to proposition them over time.

This is the main purpose of an email newsletter and with my clients, we develop the newsletter as a sophisticated, hands free way of generating sales and managing fans of the group.

So advertising pushes visitors toward the site, those who don’t buy, we hope to sign up to email with an incentive (often a free download) so we are able to continue to proposition them again and again month after month.

Now you’ve got a system in place, it will need constant development and refinement to optimize sales, and a variety of offers to be tested to guage what fans actually want to spend money on.

Then we must return to the different ways we can attract visitors to the site so that they will either purchase or at least enter into our system, because if advertising and development of the site and the newsletter can prove that if 100 people visit the site, and it costs you say, $17, and 1 visitor will purchase immediately and 10 visitors will sign up and purchase eventually, then our job is to increase the amount of visitors using the other methods I described that are perhaps less effective immediately, but less costly long term – search engines, social media and viral marketing.

For now I just want to focus on search engines and the role of written promotions. Written material is important because it can be published to the newsletter for fan engagement, published to the blog for search engine material (the more you write the more visitors you get – after 2 years and over 300 posts I get 200 visitors a day to my blog) and then finally, I can use written material to publish on other sites for links.

If you have regular links building up to your site, and regular posts going up, then you’ll have no problems developing more and more search visitors over months as long as this schedule is followed each week.

What we’re doing is also filtering the content as it reaches our audience. Many of my clients follow this: A blog post a week is refined down to one newsletter per month.

This high quality refined content, including video content, is the content that we take to social media – youtube being the most important for you guys as a mainstream, visual medium. In fact when I say “social media” in the case of you guys, that’s mainly youtube, and video.

Finally the viral strategies kick in, this is when you’ve done enough advertising, search engine work and social media to actually have a core fan base that can be used cleverly to spread the word, and put more fans into the system, which by then should be highly developed and tried and tested thoroughly.

This is the other side from advertising – it doesn’t cost anything but needs a lot of thought, development and clever execution to get fans of various degrees actually involved in spreading the word, getting more sign ups.

So this means although you still may be spending $17 to get 100 visitors, a year down the track that will be matched with another 100 visitors from search engines and another 100 visitors from social media and viral effects, so if the model still stands, you’ll be making 3 sales immediately, and signing up another 30 who will potentially purchase later on, but you’re still spending the same amount.

But at some stage you reach a critical mass (usually about 1000 sign ups) where we have a solid core of fans you just need to keep them entertained and keep finding new things to sell them.

The focus moves from getting new fans to maximizing your relationships with the fans you do have because the quality of your work will ensure more people continue to sign up as fans anyway, you just have to make sure the growing base of fans you do have are kept happy.

It’s at this stage that administration in itself becomes a big job – ie that’s when I ask for a pay rise

But then, we are at the final stage - continuing to provide more purchasing options and products for repeat purchasers, and utilize these strategies toward other revenue goals – ticket sales etc.

So what I’m describing will take at least a year I should imagine.

My tasks will be:

• evaluating and working with your designer to implement sales and marketing not only through out the website, but sepcifically on “sales pages” that the website will funnel visitors toward

• full implementation and management of your email list

• full ongoing management of your ad campaign with $200 free credit to start you off

• support in blogging and newsletters to maintain target of 1 blog post per week and one newsletter per month

• full ongoing backlink building, 2 hours per month

• social media management – mainly use of youtube etc as distribution channels

• video support where necessary

• slowly and eventually, planning of viral strategies and fan management will replace website and advertising sales strategies as they become refined to their maximum effectiveness

In my experience, as I mentioned, this will take at least a year, and it’s all about maintaining the momentum.

I actually believe in guys who show staying power. I’ve been doing this for 5 years, that’s why I do well, because everyday it gets easier, because I’m relying less on attracting new business. In the beginning each sale is a fight, but after 5 years it just becomes a cycle of familiar names and faces always coming back on the strength of what I’ve laid down.

With the progress you’ve made, you’re closer now then you have been to creating revenue online, but it’s still a very long process, but also remember this is sustained momentum.

I can’t lie and say this could all happen in a few months, because I’ve never seen that happen, but slow building over a year or two, that could take you to a place of earning a solid chunk of revenue just from your site.

{ 0 comments }

<!– @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } –>

Looking for music marketing services and packages?

Here at kurb we specialize in affordable and comprehenisve online music marketing and music business models.

For $200 p/month you get 14 hours of broad ranging music marketing services - design, copywriting, blog support, email management, social media promotion, youtube video production and promotions, online advertising campaigns and search engine optimisation. We put together online music marketing strategies that get artists music businesses happening.

Contact: kurbpromo@gmail.com

Hi it’s Matt here again from Kurb Promotions and what I do is I work with artists internationally and my focus is all on online marketing, online distribution, and online business models that help bands create income online.

As you probably know the internet in increasingly the medium for music industry.

When it comes to radio, tv, and distributing CD’s that’s not what we do, we rely on the web to do very economical promotions with clear business outcomes.

So usually what I would do for a new artist in a 3 month campaign is set up their website, secure online distribution through itunes and dozens of other sources which distribute both internationally and to local download retailers such as vodafone, then set that up so you can sell through your website.

Sales and branding we work so that when visitors come to the site it’s compelling and got an engaging feel to it, so we can sign up fans to a newsletter.

We set up a professional newsletter sign up and email management so you can continue to contact fans and offer them not only songs, downloads, merch etc. but other products that I match and help artists sell alongside their music from their website and their newsletters.

I’ve been working with artists like this for about 4 years now and what I find is new artists find it very hard to make initial sales selling CD’s songs etc. until the fanbase is established, thats why I tie in new sources of revenue such as offering relevant deals which provide greater returns for the artist short term.

We use several techniques to bring fans to the site but mainly online advertising campaigns, this helps get your intial sign ups to boost your list. Every month or more you can contact this list with new offers that pay directly by cheque mailed out from the US and most of my artists are doing this right now.

We also do very cheap youtube videos, this can be part of the package, as well as promotions on myspace, facebook, but I like to delay this until we have the money making system of the website and newsletter in place.

The 3 month campaign is a total of US$600. What you get for that is 40 hours promotion which we use to meet the outcomes we agree upon whether that’s website development, newsletter and business model set up, general website promotion and online marketing, and online video work. Clients commonly pays US$400 upfront and US$200 after 3 months at which point if they want to continue working with us they pay $US200 at the end of each month.

If you’re in auckland, you’ll also get some discounts on some poster deals and cd/dvd’s for the group, and of course because we’re not seperated by distance it’s possible for us to actually do a fairly reasonable music video.

I do state clearly to artists it can take 6 months for the investment to start paying back more than a trickle, but of course at that stage, you have a solid money making system in place for your music and most artists continue to use my service in order to develop this further and stay on top of online marketing developments.

I know you artists are interested in social media in particular.

If this is a real priority, i can get your myspace promo going for a month if you just send some log ins and again - that exhaustive list of artist influence and some more detailied information about location - suburbs, area/zip codes, surrounding suburbs - this helps with our targeting.

but just remember, it’s not the getting of the fans, but what you do with them, this comes back to the writing, and coming strong newsletter concepts, because these concepts can be pushed out in the same way through social media.

but can we sell stuff through social media? possibly not to the fullest extent, so hook them in with bulletins and blogs etc, that pull them from social media back to your blog where you can have strong content and the offers running that are going to lead to checks arriving.

{ 1 comment }

What’s the deal with kurb music promotion and marketing music online?

$200 p/month, 4 hours billed by me putting together your online music marketing campaign and your online music business model, 10 hours from my team who have all the skills you need in social media promotion, strategy, planning, copywriting, design and web development, video production and video promotions services

EMAIL: kurbpromo@gmail.com and we can talk about it!

Got some spare time so I figured why not post on my music marketing blog?

You see with over 300 posts in over 2 and a half years, I’ve built this blog into an asset that brings in hundreds of visitors daily without too much further work on my part, but if I don’t post for a month, that will start to dip. Though just by doing a few recent posts, i’ve been able to jump back, and now I know for sure - continuing to post on a blog regularly like I do is only going to increase the momentum and search authority of this blog.

So as I’ve always said - what’s the best way to promote your music with half an hour spare? Write another blog. Google will love you for it.

Also been doing a Facebook promotions campaign recently thats been really working out. Social media marketing - myspace promotion, facebook, youtube promotion - is a service we offer but the problem is often that musicians expect to get fans but don’t seem to want to do any work to encourage those fans to get into the vibe once they’ve spent the money having us attract them, so it becomes a wasted effort.

A lot of clients I’ve had have thrown $500 at me and walked away expecting me to magic up a music career - that’s not how it works. If you’re not present and making an effort to get involved with your fans whats going to make you stand out so fans decide that you deserve theor support?

It’s like I was saying about the ok go viral video promotion - it showed that these guys were prepared to work, if nothing else. I’m pretty shocked at how most artists don’t really want to work, and even those who do aren’t really that smart about it.

Eric Herbert has a solid post he did recently on his Evolvor Music about the realities of modern music business models, that you simply cant depend on sales of recorded music if you don’t have a budget for it. It’s not going to work economically.

If you’re going to make significant money, you have to be established as an artist and that’s going to take years of work and plenty of financial investment.

Perhaps a lot of musicians are not taking the business realities seriously - no business will want to invest into you if there’s no evidence of demand, and you have to create that demand. That’s where services such as those we offer help artists get the foothold they need and can tell you from my own business experience, that once you become viable, the whole game changes. You’re no longer struggling, you’re no longer taking punts, you’ve got something going that works, you just need to scale it.

The idea of selling a lot of CD’s, downloads, copies of songs is based on a music business model of the musician becoming very widely known and recognised and that requires a significant marketing budget.

Trying to establish yourself in this way with next to no budget - following a musc business model thats in decline due to a product that has lost significant value - is a suicide mission.

The services we offer are for musicians who don’t have 5 figures to fund the launch of their career. hat’s why in my mind, my strategy for musicians starting out or launching a new release isn’t about selling recordings because the returns will see the money run out fast.

You need to have a business head on your shoulders and think about where the short term returns will come from in order to

Musicians to have very linear thoughts about the music business and it’s often their undoing. Much like CD’s, performance as a form of income isn’t viable until you’re established and peope actually want to pay a premiumto see you. Until then, it’s viability is extremely limmited and is very likely to exhaust you.

In fact my experience in the music business is of watching musicians slowly but surely become exhausted by the poverty and hard work. I’m still able to be a musician myself because I’m not broke, I have a good income.

So often we have to sit down and really look at where you can expand your income immediately or you’re just likely to burn out.

The steps with a new artist are easy to make quite simple if you’re looking to get involved in the services we offer:

1 set up an email list so you have a platform that you can connect and manage your fans in such a way as to cultivate the relationship to a point where sales of items through affiliate marketing, generating high commissions for the artists, for this you’ll need to have a brilliant newsletter put together and this is one of my specialities so you can actually make money from music!

2 make your site good, have a music website that actually functions to perform what you need it to do - compell and persuade those visitors to become fans by signing up to the list - a free giveaway will make all the difference here.

3 have an online advertising campaign to bring highly targeted visitors to your site. Sure use social media, use SEO these are long term strategies tha will help add to and develop your overall traffic inflow but if you want results fast and are too lazy or busy or whatever to actually do the work like so many people are, then you need an online advertising campaign and THIS is my other specialty.

If you have a credit card, I can help you secure enough credit for your first month or so, and we can also do a whole lot of other deals too!

That’s what I know about - I love music, I feel the pain that musicians endure being broke all the time, I want to use my finely tuned marketing skills to make real music business happen, not just dreams of one day - so get on a kurb music marketing package!

Don’t forget if you need music marketing service online, we’ve got’em - $200 p/month gets you 14 hours and we’ve got all the skills you need in online music marketing under one roof.

EMAIL ME, MATT: KURBPROMO@GMAIL.COM

{ 0 comments }