Music Marketing

I am a fan of artists and managers A) starting off by doing what they can themselves to help market and sell their own music, and B) seeking out partnerships with companies that can help them to do more than they are able to do themselves, for a fair price, and C) building up, communicating, and monetizing their own list in a meaningful way, using best practices with direct-to-fan marketing. I think direct-to-fan not only has the potential of generating more margin for artists now, but if done properly, DTF (direct-to-fan) can also help to ensure that artists are building a passionate base for the future. It’s not the only marketing segment that matters, but it is a segment that all musicians and managers should be paying close attention to, and integrating into their other traditional marketing and sales campaigns.

I’ve been working with Shamal, Gary, Ian, Adam and others at Topspin for the past 8 months or so creating a course dedicated to outlining the best practices that folks should be aware of in terms of online DTF (and traditional) marketing, and how Topspin’s software can be used to help facilitate these best practices. I’ve had the good fortune of not only taking a look inside Topspin’s platform to analyze their key features – a content management system that hosts your media assets, a fan management system that collects, organizes, and analyzes fan data, detailed reporting features, e-mail management system, widget creation and viral tracking, and more – but also to see the best practices and real data that Topspin has generated from the 150+ campaigns they have run over the past couple of years. While every marketing and sales campaign is different, this course presents folks with a unique opportunity to “look behind the curtain” to see exactly what has worked for some bands, how they set up their offers, the income they generated from these offers, and how they went about acquiring new fans. I think it’s helpful information.

I sat down with Ian here at Berklee in August to do a quick overview of the course, which turned into a bit of an online marketing clinic. Below is one of the clips from our conversation. To see them all, click here.

Online Music Marketing with Topspin is enrolling now, and begins on January 11th. If you are interested in learning more about the course, feel free to connect with one of our Admissions Advisors at 1.866.BERKLEE (US) or 617.747.2146 (International).

While I’m preparing the agenda for the online music business chats I’m hosting tonight (discussion items so far: the effect Apple’s variable pricing has on publisher’s income, Sarkozy’s thoughts on the three strikes rule, direct to fan marketing techniques, and more), I thought to drop a quick note here to say that our next term here at Berkleemusic begins this Monday. There’s little I like more than to talk about music and the music industry, and I’m lucky for the opportunity to do that with 19 other folks from around the world on a weekly basis. If anyone is interested about what studying music business online is like, I’d be happy to give you some background. Direct message me here: www.twitter.com/atomzooey

www.artistshousemusic.org, a non-profit online musician’s resource funded by the Herb Alpert Foundation, interviewed several Berkleemusic authors and instructors last fall. Take a look at the player below to watch some great clips with George Howard (Artists Management / Music Industry Entrepreneurship), Don Gorder (Legal Aspects of the Music Industry), Rick Peckham (Guitar Chords 101 + 201) Matt Marvuglio (Basic Improvisation / Basic Ear Training 1 – interviewed by Berkleemusic’s Dean of Continuing Education Debbie Cavalier!), Jeff Dorenfeld (Concert Touring) and myself (Music Marketing 201).

I think these videos do a good job of illustrating the deep background and knowledge of the faculty teaching here at the online school.

Check them out: