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Digital Strategy, Music, Product Management

How to Market your Music Online

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October 8, 2018

- Digital Strategy, Music, Product Management

Music consumption has changed a lot over the last 20 years and that means how you promote your music and build an audience has changed too. Last year, streaming music made up 43% of music revenues and this is only set to grow. These services are now so easy to use they are significantly helping to drive music discovery. So, if you’re an indie label or artist who’s just starting out, what do you do?

Having spent the best part of 10 years in digital music marketing in the UK, doing campaigns for the likes of David Guetta, the full roster of Ministry of Sound artists and even LazyTown(!), Anne-Marina our principal consultant had some thoughts and we’ve decided to make those tips available here…

Making Your Music Available  

First off, this is no longer a day and age when you should be wasting money pressing promo CDs.  If people ask to buy your music after a gig, you want to be directing them towards iTunes and Spotify etc.  There are now lots of digital distribution services like Distrokid that help musicians to publish their music online through multiple different services.

To give your music that extra boost, put it up on YouTube for free too.  When you do this, make sure you categorise your music properly so that users will be able to find it and the various algorithms that power the recommendation engines can recommend your music to the right audience.  

Demographic and Behavioural Targeting  

Once you’ve got your music available, and have a couple of gigs going, it’s time to open your music up to new people. You can do this via demographic and behavioural targeting both on Facebook and Google AdWords. Both these platforms have a plethora of data on their users, knowing all about their tastes in music, so it’s pretty simple to narrow your audience down in the first instance, and then expand out to similar audiences.  You can also use this data to target people who might be looking to book a band, by targeting people who recently got engaged for example.  

Your Band Website  

This doesn’t need to include every last gig you’ve ever done, or the full history of the band (unless it’s quirky), but there are some key things you want to make sure are quickly visible through a quick scan: – Contact Details to book the band – Embedded video to listen to some of the music on YouTube – Links to download your music via iTunes / Spotify – Upcoming gig listing  

If you want some tips on what your website should contain, take a look at our case study of the STEPS website – 5 Key Ideas To Improve Website User Experience. Your website is also pretty important for building up your own fanbase data, it’s important not to rely on 3rd party social networks for all of your interactions with your fans.

At Your Gigs  

The final piece of the puzzle, once you have people coming to your gigs, you need to make it simple for them to close the loop and purchase your music. So make sure any signage you have at your gigs has a “Download on iTunes”, “Listen on Spotify” and your website URL. The last thing you want to do is to engage people at the gig and not make it easy for them to become fans.   All in all the key thing is to make use of the channels with the biggest audience and ensure you have a joined up marketing strategy (across social and web). If you need some help with it, drop us a line – info@g67.com.au
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Digital Strategy, Digital Transformation, Music

GDPR Overview 2018

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February 14, 2018

- Digital Strategy, Digital Transformation, Music

What do the data regulation changes mean for artists around the world 

 
GDPR Definition
 
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a regulation created by the EU to cover the usage and data protection for individuals within the European Union. 
 
It requires that certain conditions be met when companies are handling data of any citizen of the European Union. In practise, this means that companies which reside outside of the EU, such as the USA or Australia, or perhaps in future, the UK, need to ensure their compliance with these regulations if they have customers from the EU whose data they hold.
 
The intention is to make sure that all of the EU follows the same regulations, simplifying the requirements for companies so that they have one set of guidelines to follow, instead of lots of fragmented requirements from different countries.
 
Companies who do not comply with the regulations can be fined up to 4% of annual global turnover or 20 million euros, whichever is higher.

 

When does the GDPR come into effect?
 
It becomes officially enforceable on May 25 2018, so now is the time to begin taking the required steps to ensure that your company is abiding by the regulation.
 
If you are an independent artist who is collecting the data of your fans (from email newsletters, or through other means), it is important that either you dedicate some time to understanding the regulations, or find a digital music marketing consultant to help you navigate them.

 

What kinds of data are covered?
 
The regulations apply to the personal data of EU citizens. This could be anything from:
– Name
– Address
– Email Address
– Computer IP Address
– Likes / Dislikes
– Photos
– Products they have purchased
– Social Networking Information

What are the GDPR requirements?
 
The regulations are designed to be ‘common sense’ and primarily consist of:
– Ensuring that any request for storing data is in plain and clear English
– That it is as easy for a person to give their consent to you storing their data as it is for them to withdraw that consent
– A person should be able to request that they view all data held on them, are provided with information on where it’s held and for what purpose
– A person should be able to request the deletion of any data held on them
– Parental consent is required to store data of any person under the age of 16
– Companies should take reasonable steps to protect the data they are holding
– Companies should report any breach in their database within 72 hours
– Companies who are organisations that engage in large scale data monitoring or processing should have a Data Protection Officer – a person who is the first point of contact for all things data
 
We recommend that you start with the above points as a checklist and then talk to a digital marketing specialist for a deeper understanding.

 

How will it impact Artists inside or outside the EU?
 
The easiest way to demonstrate how GDPR will impact artists is to look at an example. Let’s say you are a UK based band who currently collects only email addresses but is looking at ways to build their own fanbase 1st party data in future.
 
For your current scenario, you need to ensure that you are, in the first instance, taking reasonable steps to ensure that the users who are signing up for your mailing list are over 16 years old. You could do this via a confirmation check-box before the person is able to submit their details. You’ll need to ensure that it is as easy to unsubscribe from your mailing list as it was to sign up. A good way of doing this is to ensure all your EDMs contain an ‘unsubscribe’ link, and that nearby your Newsletter Sign-Up on your website you have a link to unsubscribe. You should have a clearly marked “Contact Us” page or information to allow visitors to contact you to request info on the data you are holding on them. 
 
For your future scenario, where you are using a data management or CRM platform to build out a detailed image of each of your customers, you should investigate the platforms own implementation of regulations with regards to GDPR as well as ensuring that it is easy to contact you for information and requests. 



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Digital Strategy, Music, Product Management

What will the lack of Net Neutrality mean for musicians and bands?

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January 17, 2018

- Digital Strategy, Music, Product Management

There has been a lot of noise in the past couple of months about the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) repeal of Net Neutrality. 
 
In this post we explore what it is, and what the potential impacts are on musicians – whether you have major label backing, are on an indie label or are self-funded.
 
Since the nature of the internet is global, this decision will have impact on many bands in many counties across the world who have fans in the USA – regardless of whether the band is USA based or not.
 
What Is Net Neutrality?

Net Neutrality rules were adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in 2015 in the United States, and were designed to keep a level playing field amongst all companies online. 
 
The basic idea is that the companies who are providing your internet service, such as Verizon, AT&T etc. (ISPs) were not allowed to show any preferential treatment to any particular kind of content, website or application. They had to provide access to all content on the internet at the same speed regardless of who had created the content. This meant that companies like YouTube for example, couldn’t pay to have their content more speedily available.
 
On December 14th 2017, the FCC voted on its Chairman’s plan to change the Net Neutrality protections. But what impact will this have on musicians?
 
Paying for the fast lane

One of the major concerns with this deregulation is that it will allow ISPs to charge companies money based on whether they want their content to be shown to end users at greater speeds. As an example, you might have a company like Alphabet / Google who own YouTube who pay a premium price in order to allow their website to be easily accessed. 
 
On one hand, this is less of a problem for the big companies who have a surplus of funds that they can lean against. However, for the musician who is just starting out, or the indie label who represents a small but talented roster of artists, they are likely to have less funds available to pay for access to the fast lane.  This makes it an uneven playing field for content creators across the board. 
 
The main online marketing aspect for an indie artist that could be impacted will be those assets that they control themselves – such as their website – rather than their YouTube channel which would have the backing of YouTube overall. 
 
Given it’s more important than ever that you have your own website, especially in the wake of Facebook making changes to its News Feed algorithm, net neutrality is an important thing to keep fighting for – ensuring that every artist is able to connect with their fans online at the same speed.
 
Where can I read more information?

To get more information on the repeal of Net Neutrality and what it may mean for you, you can visit the following websites:

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Digital Strategy, Digital Transformation, Music, Product Management

The Importance Of Developing Your Own Fanbase Data

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November 11, 2017

- Digital Strategy, Digital Transformation, Music, Product Management

Update 16 January 2018: Earlier this week, Facebook confirmed it will be rolling out changes to its news feed algorithm and is going to reduce the weighting that applies to Pages from brands (and bands) and increase the weighting applied to posts from your friends. This is likely to decrease Page engagement significantly, one article is suggesting that it may reduce reach, clicks and engagement by 80%. With that in mind, it’s now even more important to ensure you have your own space for engaging with your fans. Read on for our thoughts on how you can work to develop your own first party fan data.


Any digital marketing agency or digital marketing consultant will tell you that promoting your music online looks very different in 2017 to how it did in the year 2000. Where then, you had your own website, maybe a MySpace page (remember those?!) and had fans subscribe to a mailing list that actually sent cards through the post, now, it’s a little bit different.

Fast forward, and it’s likely that where you now interact most with your fans is through Twitter, Facebook or some other social media platform. These platforms are great, and you should continue to engage with fans there, but they come with their own set of risks.
 
Running the relationship with your fans through a 3rd party like Snapchat, YouTube or Twitter may seem like a good idea because you don’t have to worry about running the technology and they are ubiquitous platforms that most of the world is connected through, but you shouldn’t rely on them in isolation. 
 
Here’s why…
 
Using that 3rd party tool means that Facebook or Twitter (or Tumblr or whichever social network you are connecting through) are the ones who have all the control. They hold all the playing cards and all the leverage and they can make changes at any time and for any reason with no warning. They are the ones who ‘own’ the customer data and they use that to make money from advertisers. But what if they decided to make money from people who host brand Pages or accounts (like the ones that you setup for your artists) as well?
 
Just recently we’ve seen an example of how this might play out in a test that was run in Sri Lanka, Bolivia, Slovakia, Serbia, Guatemala, and Cambodia. Facebook made a change to their platform in these countries, separating out the posts in the news feed that come from brand Pages and moving them into a separate feed entirely. This didn’t bode well for those pages as they saw interactions on their posts fall significantly. 
 
There was speculation that Facebook planned to make the owners of the pages pay for the privilege of then getting back into the main news feed. The company has said they currently have no plans to do this en mass but that doesn’t stop them from making changes in future that impact whether your fans see your content.

So what’s the solution?
 
Diversify. Continue to talk with your fans through those platforms but simultaneously develop your own 1st party fan data.

Development of 1st party data is one of the main things concerning marketers from all industries at the moment – almost 3/4 of marketers surveyed have said that 1st party data provides the greatest insight into their customers and of those, 81% say they use 1st party data to get greater return on investment (ROI) from their customers.

Just what is 1st party data?

1st party data is information that you collect yourself from your fans. It typically would sit somewhere within your own technology stack, sometimes using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool. You can get pretty fancy with how you maintain and collect it, but essentially it boils down to being information that you collect and you own. Since you are collecting it yourself, direct from your fans, it is deemed to be the most accurate set of data.

You can do this via your own website, a property that you control and can update on your own terms. This allows you direct access to your fans, where you own the data and don’t have to rely on 3rd party platforms for feedback on what they think of your new music. Once you own that relationship, what you do with it and how you communicate with them is up to you (within the realms of the law of course).

In this way, you can continue to communicate with your fans via social networks but are also secure in the knowledge that if one day those platforms make a change that removes your ability to talk with your fans, you have an alternative means of engaging with them. It’s the technological equivalent of not putting all your eggs in one basket. 

The diagram below shows how you can collect your own 1st party data, collect 3rd party data from the social platforms you are already using, and generate a bigger picture of who your fans are and how you should communicate with them. For example, you may have a fan who likes you on Facebook, has signed up to your email newsletter but you can see has yet to purchase tickets to your next gig (using email address as the common identifier). This then would allow you to send an email to this person that is more effective than sending a blank “ticket sale” reminder email to your entire database.

Customer Management for Musicians
As a clever person once said, knowledge is power and the more you can talk to your fans, the more you know, and the better your relationship with them will be. So don’t be beholden to Facebook news feed changes and find yourself an alternative means of communicating with your fans.

Main photo credit: Photo by Jesse Darland on Unsplash
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ABOUT US

G67 is a consultancy firm which provides companies with outsourced digital product & marketing strategy services.

We can help you to prioritise the important changes you need to make to your online assets to connect with your customers and generate more revenue.

We're based in London, UK and work with companies all around the world.

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