Just heard about this site. It has a limited reach at this point, but it looks interesting.
GigMaven is currently available for NY, LA, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston and Ohio and are looking to expand further. For more information check out the GigMaven website
If you’re interested in the book Socialnomics you can buy it HERE at amazon.com
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One band I was in made a nice chunk of change by finding products that were inexpensive to make, and then sold them for a small fee. In my case it was sunglasses that cost $1.00 to make and we sold for $2. We sold over 500 pairs one summer. I found a new product that fits this criteria. The product is temporary tattoos. You can have 1000 tattoos created for $89. That means your cost is about .09 each. You could then sell these for $1 and if you sold 10 of these a show you would make $9.1 profit. Granted these are small 1.5″ X 1.5″ tattoos and you could get bigger sizes for more money. For example a 3″ X3″ has a #20 cost. You can still sell these for $1 and make over .60 in profit.
The best part of these is they are temporary. It’s a way for fanatic fans to show their support at the gig, and best of all they can do it again and again and again.
You could have your logo (and website) put on to the tatto0, and sell these on breaks. Don’t just think this could work for a punk band. You can use this for any band as they are temporary. For more information go to www.musicianscooler.com/temptattoo
UPDATE: Use the coupon code cooler5 to get 5% off your order (which adds to your profit margin).
I just heard about bandcamp from a future interviewee. I had not idea that this website had so many features. Here are just a few:
Name your price downloads
Real Time Statistics
Viral Distribution
Sell physical and digital products
Download Codes
Discount Codes
Bonus Download Items
Sell in just about any currency
Mailing List Tools
oh yeah… for now. It’s free.
Check it out at http://bandcamp.com/
For more resources check out http://www.musicianscooler.com/links
I got sucked into an informercial the other other for the yudu screen printing system.
It seems way cool (as all products do on and informercial) and I was really waiting and waiting to find out how much does the yudu cost?
Well I’m still wating. I sent an email to the comany (I haven’t heard anything yet), but as this advertisement shows you can use it for a month for $33 bucks. This is cool as you can create a lot of shirts ina month. My question is does anybody know how much this thing is to keep?
Obviously more and more people are expecting music to be free or $.99 a song, but nobody expects t-shirts, bags, hats, etc to be free. As a podcaster I would like to make some t-shirts for people who send in info to the podcast, or contests, etc.
If you know someone who actually has this system, please let me know.
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I just found out about a new FREE resource for musicians called Gig Donkey. Here are some of the features:
I’ve got a video at the bottom of the post. If you try it out come back and let us know what you think of it?
Dave’s Birthday Kindle
Dave turns 45 this month and the old man’s eye sight isn’t what it used to be. Chip in at www.musicianscooler.com/birthday and help him get a kindle (so he can read music business books and share the information right here). Rumor has it there are surprises for those who donate..
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Today we have the return of “multi-link Monday” We are talking
www.artistdata.com is a great tool that allows you to put your schedule in one place and have it posted all over the Internet like myspace, facebook, sonicbids, fanbridge, and more. Check it out at www.artistdata.com (free with a more advance version for a small free).
www.musformation.com is a website that is basically 11 websites crammed into one site. It’s update aroudn 20 times a day. If you want recording tips, marketing tips, music news, its all there.
www.bandmetrics.com is a great tool to see how much people are talking about you on the Internet
musicscout.com is NOT a great site. when I tried it on my droid phone, I get an error. Great first impression.
Music “one two three” by Artificial Intelligence in Texas
Everything is going to the phone in the future. I think a phone number for texting is just as important if not more important than an email address (I never delete a text message before reading it – not so much for e-mail).
With this in mind, you don’t have to pay some programmer a ton of cash to have your own iPhone application for your band. A company called Mobbase makes it easy and affordable. It’s free to set up. You don’t even have to enter a credit card number until you’ve designed your app and decided that you want to launch it for your fans. Then it’s 20 bucks to launch and $15 a month.
So what can you do with an iPhone app for your band? You can keep your schedule (along with directions) in their face, your music, add a store to sell your stuff, keep a blog, send your youtube clips right to their phone and more.
MobBase app is highly customizable and can have your unique image, look, and feel — you pick and choose the content you offer to fans, arrange the features however you like, upload background and button images, and select color themes. And, because MobBase is built on an advanced content management system, it’s easy to add, manage and update content and design in real-time, whenever the mood strikes.
For more information and to start making your app, click here (www.mobbase.com )
MobBase app is highly customizable and can have your unique image, look, and feel — you pick and choose the content you offer to fans, arrange the features however you like, upload background and button images, and select color themes. And, because MobBase is built on an advanced content management system, it’s easy to add, manage and update content and design in real-time, whenever the mood strikes.
For more information and to start making your app, click here www.mobbase.com
I wish this video had audio, but it doesn’t. None the less Reverbnation continues to add more useful functionality to your music marketing arsenal. The great thing is you can add these tools to your website and the customer never knows its coming from Reverbnation. When Reverbnation came out I thought, “These are great tools to get your music in front of people, but there were no tools to allow them to buy it once they heard it.” Now you will be able to sell everything from downloads, CDs, merch, ringtones, etc.
It is slotted to be released in October.
Reverb Store Walkthrough from Ferol Vernon on Vimeo.
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Today we start a conversation about what to look for when you see a site that wants you to list your music at their site.
This show originates from www.musicianscooler.com
Special tales from the road courtesy of Big Al and Mike at www.projectstudionetwork.com
There are so many sites that want you to list your music. They will give you music players, email, etc to just list your music on their site (and of course you’ll get “discovered”). Well here are some things to look into.
1. Are the “bonus” features a true bonus?
At www.gigleader.com they say you can use their classified website (www.bandmix.com which you can use for free), or their other service that helps you build your site (for $20 a month) which is completely over priced (check out www.marketingmusician.com for a site that shows you how to build your own site).
2. Who is it your dealing with?
At bandstock.com there no “About Us,” or contact information, and everything you do you needed to enter your e-mail address first. Also if there is a forum, go check it out. Often disgruntled customers will go in and launch flaming posts warning potential customers not to join (and if this site leaves them there, you know they are not manning their forums). IF there is contact information, contact them and see what kind of response you get.
3. Get a Spam Email Address
I talk about this in my book, but you should have an email that you put on your business cards (that typically ends in your band’s websites). Then you can get a free email from places like gmail, yahoo, or hotmail (I like gmail). This should be your band’s name “@ blah blah blah” so if your band was the free toys you should get freetoys@gmail.com. Use this email for any website that you feel may potentially spam you. You still need to check this email (as you may occasionally get a gig from a stie). Only give out the email from your website to a person. This way if something comes into that email you know its from someone you have personally met.
4. Can You Link Back To Your Website?
Look at the other band’s pages and see if you can link back to your band’s website.
5. Does the Technology Work?
Click on one of their players and make sure that the technology they are promoting actually works.
6. Can I export the email list?
Some websites will allow you to use a tool to build a mailing list . This is ok (I guess), but as your list is your most important tool, I would make sure you can export these contacts into your mater list (which should be hosted at your site).
7. Are there tons of Google Ads?
Many times these sites are not about discovering your music. Its about you getting your fans to come to the website so they website can earn cash on their advertising.
Our Stage
A few websites I have heard good things about is Our Stage which is a promotional site and a contest at the same time (and you will see where they have contact information at the bottom of the page).
Song Catalog
http://www.songcatalog.com/ is a place where you can list your music if it inTV shows, Movies, etc.
Jun 8th, 2009 | By David Jackson | Category: Podcast | Edit
Today’s music marketing lesson comes from the band Casting Crowns. I went to their concert (not knowing who they were), and ended up buying their latest (third) cd. I also received a free book written by the lead singer. Well its been a year, and today I cracked the book.
It has insanely personal stories about the singer’s life and how and where these songs came from. After reading story number one, I went to the CD to hear the song. The problem is the song isn’t on their latest CD, it’s on their first. “Brilliant,” I thought to myself as I fired up the Internet to purchase the CD from the Amazon MP3 store.
The stories were intimate, and fueled my NEED to hear the song. Then once I did hear the song, they moved me that much more knowing the behind the scenes look at the song.
Your band can do the same and release the “book” as an ebook, or use them as blog posts. At any rate, when done properly, stories can truly help sell more CDs.
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