What’s the Value of a Concert to Your Audience?

One of the musicians I help on a frequent basis surprised me when he said that the band he’s been in for nearly three years, have recorded nearly every one of their live performances. Like the professionals they aspire to be, the band apparently reviews the recordings like they were game tapes, attempting to figure out what could be done to improve their performance and who screwed up where. While I had previously encouraged this band to post an open audio taping policy on their website, I’ve begun to consider something more sinister. (cue the notorious laughter)

While it’s great exposure for bands to get their live music heard by thousands, on free music torrent sites like DimeADozen.org (with their 100,000+ users (wow- I really downloaded nearly 2 terabytes of live audio & video?)) and TheTradersDen.com and etree’s live music archive (with over 3,300 bands), what if your band benefited from an open taping policy with one caveat?

Here’s the scenario;

You’re on stage in front of 600 screaming fans. You are 25 minutes into your set, in between songs, and the lead singer leans into the mic and announces, “Just so you know, we’re recording tonights show.  (Cheers)  If you want us to send you a link to download it free, put your address on the sheet by the t-shirt booth.”  That’s it.

The result? Depending on your performance, you’re likely to find a nice crowd of people surrounding your booth after the show.  Just drawing them to your booth is bound to help merch sales, because while waiting to put their name, email and zip code (ALWAYS get the zip/postal code!) down on your free concert recording list, they can’t help but stare at your cool t-shirts, CDs, 8-tracks, lunchboxes and what-have-you.  And how hard is it to create a printed form with a column for name, email and zip code?  Not hard, I just created one in 10 minutes (a PDF example is attached, but sign-up for my free SMMuG Email list off to the right and I’ll email you the Excel version so you can put in your own band logo). —> Make a dozen copies of your form, invest in a clipboard or two, and you are in business!

Now, the show is over, you dump your recording to the laptop, edit the tracks and compress to MP3.  Post the tracks up to your website using a unique path for each show; something like yourbandname.com/2009/pittsbrgmp3s/.  Email everyone on your new list, thank them for coming out, apologize for the exploding drummer and include the link to the mp3s.  You, my friend, have  just made a bunch of your people VERY happy!   And what do you have, beyond some great karma?  Well lookie there; you now have a list of fans/friends and followers who you can reach out to next time you’re coming to town! Or next time you’re releasing a new CD.  Or next time you’ve got a new t-shirt.  Or next time… You get the idea. Put that list in Excel, a database or better yet your favorite email campaign system, like MyEmma.  A few years from now you can send me a thank you card when you have 5,000 people in your system and can go just about anywhere and draw a crowd.

Now, how does this play with your taping recording policy that you’ve posted on your website? If you actually do tape all of your shows as my friend does, I would encourage the audio recording and free trading of your shows, but request a 30 day grace period before audience recorded live shows hit the trading networks.  This will increase the value for the people receiving the links to the bands mp3s since they will be the first recordings of that show available.  Not to mention that the band recordings will be from the soundboard and the other recordings are mostly audience mics. Keep in mind that tapers take their passion very seriously and it is not usual for them to get recordings from a live show up and available via bit torrents in the same day, which is why the 30 day grace period in critical to this process.    The other thing that this new process addresses are some venues who have strict policies against the audience carrying in mics, booms, laptops and harddrives to capture your show.

One last thing to consider, a lesson learned from prior Pearl Jam tours. Some of your audience members haven’t figured out how to download Mp3’s or use Torrents.  A few of your audience members haven’t figured out how to get music to their iPod. And some of your audience members would rather BUY a CD of the live show they attended, because of the convenience, or as a gift or because of the lossless quality of the music.  How easy would it be to offer that low price live CD option up to all of those who attended within the email notification to show goers? Easy. Easy money baby.

Let me now how it goes!

-pjc

I get emails from bands every week thanking me for the website and asking how they can contribute.  The best thing to do is post your comments, concerns, questions below and create a dialog with other bands and musicians.  Who knows, you might find a new collaboration amongst this little community!  Make sure your comment below has a link to your website or social media page (Myspace/Facebook/Twitter, etc.) otherwise it will not be approved.

From Independent Musician to Music Retailer – By The Numbers

Why is it that eyes start to gloss over when I mention the term “conversion ratio”?

Is it the word “ratio” that brings back ugly memories of grade school arithmetic? Are you trying to avoid being called upon because you don’t know the answer? It’s simple division! Whatever the reason, if you’re going to take your band website and music career more seriously, we need to talk conversions.  So let’s start with some basics;

• If the venue says you need to sell 30 tickets and you sold 10, your conversion ratio was 33%.
• If the venue holds 500 people and only 200 people show up,  simple division tells us that the conversion was 40%.
• If 200 people came to your last show and 10 bought t-shirts, your t-shirt conversion ration was 5%.

Now, if you received 1,000 visitors to your website last month and 10 people bought a CD, your conversion ratio was  1%.

The only question left to answer is that good or bad?  I’ll answer that shortly, but  if you don’t actually know how many unique visitors you had to your website last month;  that would be bad.  You need to learn about website analytics, but I’ll save that topic for another day, maybe.  Email me if you would like to see an introduction to band website analytics.

Now. Take a look at this story by Author Bryan Eisenberg, posted on grokdotcom.com, about the BEST online retailers and their conversion rates.  What you’ll quickly see is that the very BEST online retailers, like Amazon, LL Bean and Office Depot all see conversion ratios which average around the 20% mark – for December 2008 at least.  In plain terms, that means for every 100 visitors who come to those website, 20 visitors will actually make purchases.  While this is very helpful information, I would remind everyone that these companies are the cream of the collective crop, in the midst of prime shopping season, and most have been selling online for over 10 years. There are a lot of other details about average ticket prices, number of items, time online and page views, most of which we’ll ignore to keep this lesson simple.  If nothing else, the story above illustrates that Amazon is perfecting a way to turn visitors into buyers which directly benefits anyone attempting to sell their books, DVDs or MUSIC using that channel!

One more VERY, VERY, VERY important topic related to selling music on Amazon, or anywhere else for that matter:  This link will show you the top 100 selling mp3 albums for 2008 on Amazon.  Before You Click – care to guess who beat out Coldplay for the number one position?  I’ll give you a hint; It was an album that was also given away for free and it wasn’t Radiohead (they were #11 on the list).  Furthermore, it was a 36 track INSTRUMENTAL album… Congrats to Trent Reznor for continuing to lead by example, that you can do great things to reach your audience and still take home the $$ to keep the lights on at the studio. Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts I-IV was the number one SELLING digital album for Amazon during 2008. Giving away music is a way to increase your sales, but again, I digress…

So what does that “conversion rate” mean to you as an independent musician/band attempting to sell some of your merchandise, CDs or digital downloads through your website?  What’s a reasonable target for conversion. My straight answer; 10%.

If your website gets 500 unique visitors each month (just 17 visitors a day) and 10% of those 500 people converted  (bought something) and finished the process spending an average of $12 for each transaction, that total ($12 x 50 people) would equate to $600 in monthly revenue.  What did your website score in extra income last month?  Finally, are you pusing all of your social media traffic from Twitter, Facebook and MySpace back to your band website?  Using the same conversion target of 10% a band with a website getting 5,000 visitors per month would be pulling down $6,000 in sales.

I realize that selling music, tickets and merchandise is not everything that music is about. I get that.  But money does provide the fuel for further future creativity.  In other words, if your music isn’t selling now you probably will not have the money to fix the van or promote the shows or afford the postage for media press kits that will get you more airplay and interviews.

SOME money is necessary to keep the wheels going round and round, and that allows you to do what you love.

-pjc

Please contribute to this website by posting your comments, questions and real-world examples below. Comments without links back to your band/music website or social page will not be approved for publishing.  Spammers and sploggers should not waste their time either. “Move along people, nothing to see here.”

IndieFeeds Daily Dose of New Music for the Masses

Way back in 2004, during the earliest days of podcasting, before most people and trade associations like the RIAA knew what podcasts were, Chris MacDonald started the indiefeed podcast. The idea was simple; several times each week deliver one great music track with details about the artist and the song. Simple, but this idea would not have worked if it were not for the quality of music selected by Mr. MacDonald and his team based in Washington DC.

Indiefeed started out with a just handful of podcasts that could be subscribed to, according specific genres listeners could narrowcast themselves into. Regardless of your musical taste, the format remains the same; one good song with all the pertinent details that benefit the featured artist. As people became familiar with the idea of Podcast subscriptions, having great new music automatically downloaded to your iPod (or other audio device) established excitement and credibility, not just for indiefeed, but for all future podcasts as well. Today indiefeed provide six music genres, plus a few spoken word options that were rolled out in 2008.

According to the information Mr. MacDonald provided for this post, indiefeed averages more than 2.5 million downloads monthly, as confirmed by the Nielsen ratings service. When we break this down to unique programs each week, per musical genre, we are still left with averages that place subscriptions at roughly 20,000listeners  per genre, with nearly twice that going to the long running Alternative/Modern Rock stream (according to Chris). The current music genres, as of this posting, are:

* Alternative / Modern Rock
* Blues
* Dance
* Electronica
* Hip Hop
* Indie-Pop

With the popularity of podcasts continuing to build as people actually figure out how to use their iPods and iTunes, having your music considered for the indiefeed podcast should be a primary goal for most independent musicians. Mr. MacDonald and his staff are waiting and review every submission.  What follows is a quick preparation checklist for those of you ready for your four minutes of indiefeed fame:

1. Make sure your website is ready: Even if your track only intrigues 1% of 25,000 people who might listen to your song, make sure those 250 new visitors can take action and engage on your website. That means capturing email addresses (and zip/postal code!), providing future tour dates (not last years) and having merchandise/music available for purchase and download. Also keep in mind that while you can expect traffic to peak with early with the podcast release, do not be surprised if you continue to receive podcast traffic for a month or two following the release.

2. Make sure your music is ready: The submission form clearly states they do not want your Myspace links to music or links to download your entire album. Pick ONE track. If you need help with that, email me and I’ll find the one for you. Be sure that it is encoded to at least 128k which is what they use for their podcast (I would encourage 256kbps just to make sure your quality is at its best). I would also encourage you to make sure your mp3 file is properly tagged with all the right information (artist/album/url/etc.). Also, do not waste time with WMV, OGG or Flash file formats.

3. Make sure your background details are triple checked: On the indiefeed submission form you’ll need to provide a description of the track and a bio for your band. You’ll also need to provide artwork for your track (GIF or JPEG only), which should include both your band name and your URL (again avoid Myspace and Facebook to push traffic to your website).  Again, refrain from sending the staff to look through your flickr account and give them the ONE image they need that you want them to use, that has been triple checked for accuracy. Do not got overboard with the size – something 600 x 600 will likely cover the bases. Make your submission based on the expectation that you will be featured and if not, do not give up.  Try again in a few months with a new track.

My final strong suggestion (demand) is to actually subscribe to indiefeed.  If you’re uncertain about which genre your music would fit best with, subscribe to the feeds and listen for yourself.  Also keep in mind that many of listeners to indiefeed are musicians themselves, along with “industry types”.  If you get featured, don’t be surprised to be considered for additional interviews, tours or other possible deals.

And don’t forget who helped you!  Remember -being on your VIP guest list is all I’m asking for when you’re in NYC or Boston.

-pjc