Marketing Brainstorms, trickles and drizzles

Listening to today

The War on Drugs

Admanager 300 EA Sellnet

Listening to today

The Shaky Hands and Kings of Leon. I also think this is pretty cool

Listening to today

Dead Confederate and Land of Talk and Centro-matic. You're welcome for contributing to your coolness.

300 Admanager ADD Sellnet

Listening to this week

The Walk Ons http://www.thewalkons.com/The_Walk_Ons.html
Jason Anderson http://www.last.fm/music/Jason+Anderson
Miles Benjamen Anthony Robinson http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=74181773

Did ya miss me?

I've been gone. Yeah, I know - clearing my head but discovered a new band - Brothers and Sisters and caught up on a recent favorite - M83.

Listening

Today I'm listening to old releases from Lftr Pller and new releases from Port O'Brien and The War on Drugs

Context's the thing

I'm a little late to this party - meaning 1. I don't have an iphone and 2. This post is 2 days old already and I just read it.

Not sure where that puts me on the dork scale but I'm guessing pretty high. ANYWAY...there's another post on Techcrunch that's about the same thing - don't see the connection?

Umair has drawn the connection already, I'll just repeat it.

This is about letting in consumers to provide context to already good content. Google's search results? Good content. Music found at Pandora? Good content. Both take the next step critical to online media - draw in user-generated-comments/feedback/input in order to personalize/narrowcast the content or provide better context/rate-the-results.

Pandora solicits feedback from listeners to understand what they like/don't like - Google solicits votes/feedback from searchers to add context to the results of their search. Both can then probably add to the value of their service (music/search results) algorithms based on this context - which, in turn, provides more context - which, in turn ... well, you get the idea.

Listening to today

Heard them first on 3wk (www.3wk.com) but am listening to their entire music collection on Rhapsody today

http://www.theholdsteady.com/

Blame the Labels

Just got this forwarded to me...

Why Ad-Supported Music Won't Work: Blame The Labels

Does that interest you? Try here and here 

The labels are in the business of doing anything (rational and irrational) they can to protect their perceived assets. Its not really working.

One comment that caught my attention was
>>>>
But price is irrelevant by itself. Profit is a function of price, marginal costs, and volume. In the recording industry, marginal cost is close to zero, and fixed costs like studio time don’t go up with volume, so the basic equation is: price*volume.
<<<<

Yes, and price tends towards the marginal cost of delivery - which means music should be FREE! for consumers - licensed for use in movies, ads, shows, games, where ever - and as a way to get people into see the REAL scarce resource - a live performance by the band.

Rabidity in animals and people

In a not so previous life (more like a current one that is rapidly changing), I'm in the Internet radio (aka music on demand) business. Why? Because music on demand as an Internet service represents Internet media distilled to its most concentrated state. Or should I say CAN REPRESENT. Internet media distilled because music fans can find wildly narrow music interests, combine and control them in very personal ways and share those combinations with their social network of friends (and "friends online"). Internet media distilled because bands can connect with and sell to fans in an almost frictionless way. Not everyone who is in the (old) company knows this.

What does a band/artist need from Internet Radio or Music on Demand?
Fans, preferably rapid ones, that buy their music/attend their shows/market by telling friends. Music sites provide additional value for bands/artists by bringing fans to the band pages. And, combined with someone like ReverbNation (www.reverbnation.com), music sites help the band capture the names/emails/addresses of their fans and help fans market the bands on their own profile pages using widgets containing the band's music.

I don't think this connection between bands and fans uses a blanket approach. Band uploads their music; its played for 5 million people and then HOPE there is a match. No, a much more targeted approach can simply utilize fans voting on music. For example, as a band receives votes look to see what other music those people who voted also like. If John likes a Band X song and a Juanes song, then maybe someone who likes Juanes will also like Band X - and sending people suggestions about listening to Band X if they vote positively about that Juanes song.

This begins to introduce likely potential fans to unsigned/small bands they may like. You can also make it easy to be added to that band's email list.  This can also drive music sales for Band X's music (if they've uploaded it) and ticket sales for Band X's shows (if they've uploaded the schedule). A fan like John may also be able to place a widget of Band X's music on his social network profile page. By making this simple connection between Bands and Fans, sites can generate real value to bands, encouraging them to keep their uploaded information fresh.

Why should anyone do this?
Ignoring the potential for creating a more engaginig experience for consumers, converting more of them to Music (Radio) listeners, there are two real revenue opportunities that result.

1. Local Advertising. Many advertisers have local advertising budgets - some examples include McD's local franchisees, Ford's local dealers and Pepsi's bottlers/distributors. Tapping into this budget is more than just "geo-targeting" their advertising to local markets; many advertisers are interested in a good context for their ad message. Creating a "Local Music Site" centered on the performances of local bands in major urban markets could be such a context.

2. Record Company. The future of the music business has always been tied to the ability of record labels to identify and nurture music talent that can sell a lot of records. Every label has a stable of established artists combined with bands that "have yet to break." Identifying which bands should be signed - the A and R process - and then "breaking" them are two different tasks. The first is done by people scouring local clubs and listening to "demo tapes"; the second is mostly marketing - getting pr coverage, getting airplay on radio, marketing online, making personal appearances and touring. Separate from their business model, labels are continually scouting for new talent to fill their pipeline and trying to market that new talent to break them.

If a musit site creates a relationship with local and regional bands who are not signed to a label or are signed to small, local label that helps them find fans also gives us early and unique insight to bands that have an audience - with specific insight as to how well a local band may perform nationally. A new kind of record company can take an "equity stake" in these bands, sharing in the proceeds of revenue they generate at shows, in music sales, in licensing and in merchandising in return for helping to "break" them by giving them broader exposure on other media channels (online, magazine and events); by providing research to radio programmers showing how a band's songs score against their existing playlist; and by introducing advertisers to their music to be used within their advertising. You could also organize and own music tours featuring these bands. Some of this may be done in partnership with a major label and some may be done alone.

Alright, if you got this far, you're probably wondering why this post is even here; mostly its because I LOVE to talk about the music business! Even incoherently. But, also, its because creating a (new) company that helps you find your best customers means understanding that, just like a band's core following (rabid fans) drives the band's economic success, you have to find your rabid fans.