TOPSPIN TRAINING in Santa Monica

While on vacation in Los Angeles, I decided to squeeze in a little business and attend my second TOPSPIN training.

Topspin builds professional direct-to-fan marketing software. Their software has helped artists in the world of music and film (I didnt know about the film part – cool!) build awareness, connect with fans, and earn more revenue than traditional channels. Located in San Francisco (I hear that’s where all the nuts and bolts are)  with offices in Santa Monica (That’s where I was!), Nashville, New York (We did the Brooklyn training too) and London.
Founded by Peter Gotcher and Shamal Ranasinghe and helmed by Ian Rogers (Cool guy with skateboard in pic)

The first one we did was in Brooklyn with Duncan and Ants and we were all totally exhausted from no sleep and got lost on the way! Although it was a great training, we retained very little and came back wanting to get rockin’ with the platform but didn’t know where to begin. Months went by and the Topspin newsletter was just getting more and more exciting! New features, goodies out of beta and amazing new partnerships with music industry marketing intelligence, fulfillment partners and technology.

We decided, it’s time to go back and this time go close to their roots: sweet home California (a lot of the training has very confidential info like the accounting of well known artists, so you wont be seeing those pics) but we have a nice one of the cool new WordPress ready store front they have up and running. The example we looked at is 72musicians (Left to right, a cool retro bike by the ping pong table and neat posters like pop/rock geneology!)

Founded by Peter Gotcher,Shamal Ranasinghe and helmed by Ian Rogers, the Topspin team is a collective of technology and marketing professionals. “We’re passionate about the business of music, we’re musicians and DJs and we’re laser focused on building marketing tools for artists and their partners – tools we use ourselves.”

So what did I learn? Well a lot actually. I learned that the real value in any direct-to-fan campaign is in the number of fans and how you market to them. Grouping different fans by very specific marketing data is crucial. Why send the updates of your Chicago tour to everyone or market your most expensive limited edition double vinyl with signed poster to the new fan who just gave their email for 1 track a day ago… Knowing how to market and who to market to all while being time sensitive is key. Never talk to your fans more than monthly. I remember Peter mentioning that twice. Peter Brambl, by the way, was our awesome teacher for the day. He was not only really sharp and took time to answers questions, he directed us to the free pizza, coffee and fruits in the kitchen ;)

We took a look to see what METRIC, BEASTIE BOYS, TRENT REZNOR… had done for some of their album and tour launches. Stuff like hiding USB keys in various places like the venue’s washroom with secret content to unlock for the most die-hard fans. We also looked a little at DENGUE FEVER’S marketing because the singer’s wife was in the class, really nice woman – wish I remembered her name…

My favorite part was the social media integration of the widgets because at BandMark we do a lot of that. MySpace headers, Facebook tabs and micro sites. The fact that we can quickly make store ready micro sites for bands with a plug-and-play WordPress template is awesome! We’re too cool for school but considering the Berkeley training for the gang – seems like this platform isn’t going anywhere anytime soon – all aboard! Other cool cats we met at the training was this dude from Stereogum (blog) a nice local band member from The DollyRots, (who by the way rock.) Really poppy punchy punk. This guy from RED BULL studios, I think?

Best of all, looks like we are about to sign an amazingly talented band who is ready to spin on this crazy digital marketing machine…. cross your fingers and stay tuned!

Music Industry predictions for 2010!

O.k been reading up a ton on the music industry predictions for 2010 and have come up with a few, if I dare take a crack at this and by all means feel free to share your predictions or POV in the comments :) Thanks to the resources that have helped some of my research: Wired.com, Mashable.com, Headliner.fm, Alexa.com, Forrester.com

10 BandMark  Music Industry predictions for 2010:

``I see... me and David Bowie having sushi! but more importantly...``

``I see... me and David Bowie having sushi! but more importantly...``

1. Venture capitalists and big named brands will further finance musicians

As record labels merge and swallow up partners, (Warner+EMI? Like when Polygram merged with Universal in the 80`s) marketing budgets will be slashed once again so the once 100k budget which got cut int0 50k last year, will likely be cut again to 25k. This wont be as tragic as it seems because big named brands and the film industry will gladly spot these artists with some nice budgets for appearances and brand vanity and  smaller artists will opt for their own investors. This will force bands to be doing a lot of hands on marketing to stand out in what has become a huge sea of new music and very tough competition.

2. Fan clubs and street teams will come together as direct-to-fan platforms evolve

As a music fan, you can sign up to newsletters, fan-clubs, VIP offers, the record label store, Street teams, mobile alerts and the list goes on. Well with more and more artists selling directly to their fans, it is inevitable that a solution emerges that handles everything. Fan logs into the ultimate Direct-to-Fan club and specifies purchasing habits, street team activities, news alert delivery options etc… and everything after than is one cleverly marketed click away where fans interacts with band offerings, demand new versions and get rewarded with prime goodies like shout outs on stage for sharing content. I see the monthly and yearly subscription fee model popularize itself in these clubs as well as in on-line music stores.

3. Artists will make more music on demand

With more and more bonds being built via web 2.0 technologies, the artist and fan relationship will continue to grow and I predict that fans will start to create their own mini EPs by directing the artist to get re-mixed by producers they like, release acoustic and live versions and even integrate raw studio cuts and include tracks from talented fans  as well. A sort of Choose-Your-Own-Audio venture with all the emerging remix and interactive technologies at the forefront.  I`d like to see these mini EPs come in a digital bundle, return of the 45 vinyl and have basically 3 songs: fan made re-mix, fan demanded acoustic version and raw studio cut.

4. Music will be seen less on a CD rack and more in the clouds…

CD sales will continue their steady decline and the music population will turn into digital and vinyl heads for the most part.  Watch as vinyl reach out to the hardcore fans who want the immediacy of digital AND the physical fix. Subscription based streaming music stores like Grooveshark and Spotify will become a serious business model for labels to consider. Grooveshark`s traffic has a really healthy up-and-to-the-right metric line and really if you think about it – it`s the perfect compromise for the majority of the digital music community.  Faster than utorrent, cheaper than Itunes and trendier than Twilight, these subscription based stream stores are clearly making their mark in the music market place.

5. An artist`s database will turn into a fairly measurable currency with social metrics

The more time we spend on-line, the more valuable a musician`s database will become (users are expected to be spending EVEN more time in 2010).  All artists will experience an increase of virtual fans simply by putting themselves out there but also the clever musician, management and label will be harvesting and analyzing fan data with the new social metrics coming out.  The simple: enter email, tweet, share this for a track models will only amplify this virtual currency.

6. Interactive touch screens will start showing up at concerts

I don’t mean the kind you see at music festivals with SMS streams and the next band info with sponsors and ads. I mean a truly interactive experience where one can sign up to fan clubs,  shop,  join a contest request shout outs (I know I’m obsessed with shout outs and honestly think it’s the best way to reward and keep a fan loyal). In my perfect vision of the future, one that my inner geek truly adores, the interactive touch screens are so paper thin and huge and now after having seen AVATAR they are probably 3D as well!

7. MySpace will offer musicians a lot more options and will not go away

I was honestly laughing when respectable journalists were writing about “The Death of MySpace”  ”Facebook will take over MySpace”. Look, no matter how much you have a hate on for Tom and no matter how fk* irritating that damn CSS is to code around – MySpace is still the #1 place online that music fans go to check out an artist’s music. If you don’t care about all that and you are just looking at the numbers, well their actual traffic has been pretty stable for the past 3 months (Oct-o9 to Dec-09). So although things look promising, we`ll have to check the numbers again in the next 3 months…

“Indie musicians now have a new way to make money online by adding their songs directly to MySpace Music in exchange for sharing in the ad revenue with the service.” Original post by Elliot Van Buskirk @ Wired.com click MORE for further information.

8. Facebook will release a highly customizable new version

I have to say that I am not impressed with the rate in which Face book releases new versions or fixes bugs… the only reason why I use Facebook (and I likely speak for most)  is that everyone is on it and I really have little choice.  At least MySpace has an excuse for it’s bugginess - it was built in the dinosaur era with some lame programming language.  I am hoping that with a huge fan page community, Facebook steps up to the plate and actually pimps up the code a bit so that one can customize way more and turn their fan page into highly interactive music fan playgrounds of stuff to do, purchase and without error messages with apps not working. Recently, either the ilike app had a bug in it or the steps to add it to your fan page were totally convoluted cause almost every music client of mine was calling me about it!  So Crackbook, I’m unliking you a bit until you impress me with a new version…

9. More street stars like G-Funk RED will be discovered

I think after over a decade of really wimpy commercial rap, hip hop and urban beats it’s time to get back to the simple stories and sounds of the untrained street songs BEFORE the musician has someone else writing their rhymes and picking their outfits. Who says teenagers need cheesy synthesized effects and big studio sound to make them happy? O.K well they sort of do BUT unlike our grandparents, kids are growing up on decades of classical, blues, rock, electronic and are totally into experiencing new stuff – although there will always be at the perfect age for pop. I was lucky, I had an older brother making sure between Madonna and Wham I had Led Belly, Chet Baker, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bob Marley, Iggy Pop…  well tell u what, these kids have a realllly big brother called the internet allowing them to discover more music than ever before subjecting people like G-funk RED and others to get international exposure from sites like YouTube.

10. America will have a full year of discovering more oddities like Susan Boyle

It really doesn’t take a genius to figure out that after Susan Boyle, America’s Got Talent is going to experience both an increase in unusual auditions from older and oddball performers but will also be prioritizing them especially after seeing Susan`s popularity skyrocket and set new standards for discovery.