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of those artists. So that’s one of the basic ways. Another way—and this is kind of a thing that a lot of musicians don’t think about—is to think about the benefit that your music delivers. And all music does deliver a benefit, and it’s not the same. Punk rock pumps you up. It raises your blood pressure and pumps you up for the big game or the big meeting. The new age artist in Idaho, his music most likely soothes people and relaxes them. You think about the benefit instead of the genre. Where do people who need to relax go? Who are those people? It could be massage therapists, people who do yoga, people who meditate. So that’s another way to target your fans. Where are people who enjoy meditation or yoga? Where are the massage therapists hanging out? There’s got to be an association that’s already formed where you can go search on Google and find these people and interact with

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Debra: I completely agree. But I also think that it
depends on what format you’re using. What you do in a newsletter is going to be different from what you do on your blog, which should be different from what you do on MySpace. So, agreed, I never put a newsletter out that doesn’t actually have a way for you to buy from me. That would be silly. So it depends on the format. Talking about how we find our audience… And, Debra, if we could stay with you on this… What’s important in terms of my audience is? Is it the number of people that I can reach? Debra: Oh, no, it’s quality over quantity. Absolutely, it has to be quality over quantity. And, you know, you go on Twitter and you’ll see these people advertising, “You can get a thousand followers a day.” Yes, you can, but they won’t care about you; they’re not really your fans. But I think one of the cool things that Twitter has over really any of the other tools is that you can really data-mine it. LinkedIn, you can do a lot of data-mining as well, but Twitter you can data-mine using Twellow or TweepSearch.com. Let’s say you’ve got a gig in Michigan and you’ve never been to Michigan before, and your music sounds like Jewel. You can search for the people who are talking about Jewel who live in Michigan and then start following them, and a certain percentage of them are going to follow you back. And then, as you’re creating a relationship with these new followers, you can mention, “Oh, by the way, I’m going to be in Michigan.” See how this works. You can really target the people you think are gonna be interested in what you have to offer, and then create and deepen a relationship with them.

business side. If you go to your yoga studio and you ask them to put five discs up on the counter, you may actually sell some product and sell some music. We have an artist who plays new age harp music—a duo—and they have sold thousands of CDs by getting their product into these new age stores—just little mom-and-pop stores—just finding out on the Internet what they are, where they are, and just using elbow grease—calling, e-mailing, getting them a sample and then just selling product there on consignment. So think about ways that you can do that. That’s a way to actually move some product in a niche market, of course, without having to gig live or hit the road.

“When you talk to a musician about the business side, their eyes glaze over. But, if you really think about it, you can be just a creative on the business side.” – Tony van Veen
their communities. Again, you’re not targeting and communicating with everyone, just the people who would most likely benefit from the type of music that you create.

TAXI CEO, Michael Laskow was on a Discmakers/CDBaby Online Marketing panel with Ariel Hyatt, Bob Baker, Brian Mazzaferri, and Tony van Veen at the 2010 NAMM show. Below are Michael’s notes for that panel. What are the top 3 things artists do wrong on their own website? Most artists try to make their website look creative and artistic, but forget basic marketing principles like focusing on one or two things on the homepage and making them very prevalent. It’s all about easy navigation and asking and directing your visitors to do what you want them to do. Many people who build or own websites focus on what they think is important, not what the consumer might think is important—ie; tell me in a short phrase what I can expect this artist to sound like… what genre, reference…another artist to make it easy for them. Show testimonials from happy fans and customers!!!!!!!!!! What are the top 3 things artists do wrong when marketing themselves in general? They don’t take the time to learn anything about marketing PERIOD—read a book or five. They often think the Internet is the answer to everything, but if they applied good foundational marketing techniques TO the Internet, they’d get a much better result. Learn how to communicate effectively by learning how to write great marketing copy, especially headlines! How would you recommend that artists use video online? Capture emotion whenever possible. Emotion sells music. Fill the frame as often as you can with close ups as most people will see the video on a small, YouTube or mobile size screen. Make sure to market your CD or downloads by Continued on page 45

Ariel: Just to add to that—and this goes back to
being a contribution to your community—if you are playing new age music, or music that’s relaxing and calming, and you are in that community, you are probably reading blogs about it and you’re probably hip to the best yoga studio in your town, and then you start sharing information on Twitter about it. “Oh, I just read this wonderful article about relaxation,” or “Here’s my favorite yoga class,” or “My favorite yogi is coming to the United States and here’s a link to the tour.” Now, all of sudden, you’re being a useful person who’s sharing information that could be useful to people in that community. And, if they’re searching on Twitter, they will also find you. “Oh, here’s someone who’s talking about things that I’m hip to as well.” Then, when you plug your own music, you already have their eyes and ears. So this goes back to being a contribution within your little area. So, if you just can Twitter about what interests you—and that’s very, very critical, because, again, back to the mirror conversation—if you can connect to what other people want to connect with, they’re gonna resonate with your music just as much as they’re gonna resonate with what it is you’re talking about.

Bob: Couple of things, though, about some basic
ways to target your audience. Because, again, just on Facebook alone now there are like 300 million people, which is like the population of the United States. It’s like its own country now, so it’s overwhelming. It’s like, “Should I be on Facebook?” Yeah, you should be on Facebook, but you need to be communicating with those communities within Facebook that consist of people who are predisposed to like the kind of music that you like. You want to go exactly where those people are. Debra already touched on it—similar artists. If you have a list of five or more artists who are very similar to your style of music, find out where their fans are already congregating. There are fan pages on Facebook, there are profiles on MySpace, there are mailing lists, and so on, where these people are already communicating with each other. So join the community, not just to hock your CD, but to join in the conversation there and subtly, slowly but surely, make these people aware that you have something similar, that you create music and you’re also a fan

Tony: You have to approach the business side with
the same type of creativity that you approach songwriting. When you talk to a musician about the business side, their eyes glaze over. But, if you really think about it, you can be just a creative on the

http://www.TweepSearch.com

Recording - September 2010

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