A New Kind of Crowd Funding

A New Kind of Crowd Funding

Over the past couple of years, crowd-funding has been pretty well established as one of the best platforms for a musician to advance their career. The only drawback is that it doesn’t get musicians “all the way there”. While funding an album is arguably the steepest part of the climb, it is less than half of the battle. The next challenge is of course the recording process, which comes with the pressure of staying within budget. Then comes the time consuming task of marketing the album, promoting it through a tour and affording all related expenses, the possible need to hire a PR rep, and last but not least, the album has to sell. Even if everything goes according to plan, there is no guarantee that the artist will being able to support themselves well enough to quit their jobs, focus on their music and continue to grow their audience.

And by the way, this problem does not just apply to musicians, but just about any creative-type who seeks to turn their passion/talent into a career. You can think about it this way; if a writer receives an advance or an inventor receives a grant, they are not getting funds to print their manuscript or put their invention into production. The funds are allocated so that they can support themselves while they focus on completing their work.

A new type of crowd-funding platform called Rocket Fuel has emerged and addresses this problem precisely. The money donated does not (necessarily) go to a specific project but aims to support the artist has they hone and promote their craft. Donors who find an artist they truly believe in are encouraged to commit to monthly donations, bringing the artist closer to supporting themselves and devote as much time to their music as possible. An added benefit of gaining supporters through Rocket Fuel is that it creates a more intimate relationship between an artist and their fans, which brings with it assurances that they will be at all your shows, buy merch (although you probably want to offer some as a ‘thank you’), and best of all tell their friends about the awesome band that they are essentially underwriting.

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Make the Most of Streaming

Arguably the ultimate key to music marketing success is to study and apply the analytics of what you are already doing. This allows you to save time by casting aside ideas/components that simply aren’t getting results. It doesn’t matter what you think will work, what comes easiest to you, what worked for someone else, or what you want to work; all that matters is WHAT WORKS!

Part of launching a marketing strategy that works is knowing what will inspire the best results. Often times an artist’s favorite song from their catalog is not the most popular or even their best (see: any comment Paul McCartney has made about Wings).  Streaming service Pandora is now offering a way for artists to track which songs are being listened to by which demographic and where (geographically) they are listening to it. This can help you informed decisions on singles, set lists, tour itineraries and more. 

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Making More Of Indie

The “Indie” model for both labels and artists has recently been touted as the saving grace of the music industry from multiple perspectives. While independent labels are great for giving more and more bands the chance to have their records released, the labels and artists aren’t hitting hard enough when it comes to bridging exposure with listens and turning listens into sales.

Music fans are always hungry to hear new material whether or not they are actively seeking it. While most seem to have settled on the strategy of telling listeners that “dinner is ready”, what needs to start happening is that the labels, artists, or whoever is handling PR needs to artfully place the food right on their plate. This means imbedding YouTube videos and Spotify links wherever possible, and linking them together and with social media. It also means optimizing the presentation of the music. This means spending more time creating stellar playlists that put the songs in the best context possible and really get people excited about it. To return to the food analogy; even fans of asparagus are not likely to order a big plate of it at a restaurant unless you put it next to a steak.  

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What Lies Beyond Your Genre...

While it is important to understand and cater to your target market (i.e., the audience for your genre), it is also important to find ways around limiting yourself. There are plenty of serious music fans out there with somewhat eclectic taste. While many hipster primarily listen to indie-rock, they often dabble in IDM, EDM, and higher-brow hip-hop.

This principle goes both ways. When you are searching the web for advice and info on how to give your music career a boost, don’t discount an article just because it is geared towards hip-hop, or metal, or refers to an artist you hate in the title. These don’t necessarily have any bearing on how useful the information could be to you.

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Up Or Down Stream

The music industry’s latest solution to internet piracy has been streaming. Many argue that it is no solution at all because even though the listener doesn’t get to “keep” the music, mobile technology allows them to listen to it pretty much whenever they want. That level of access, coupled with the fact that the way artists are compensated is vague at best, negates any difference between streaming music and stealing it.

The key to making streaming an adequate solution is for the services to charge more so that they can fairly compensate the artists. It may also makes sense to start charging a small amount per-play after a certain number of plays for a particular song/album. Most users will put up with this because of the vast amount of material the service gives them access to. The worst-case scenario is that people go back to buying albums, which the streaming service can cash-in by offering the digital albums for sale. The best-case scenario is that the artist (and the service) get income from the plays and album sales. 

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