Social Media Marketing | BandMark - Social Media - Online Marketing

MADGE & MTL win Super Bowl Halftime!

The queen of pop was this year’s Halftime Show at the Annual SUPERBOWL and boy did she make the most her 12 minute slot! Set in a Gladiator chique high tech universe courtesy of Montreal based Moment Factory crew, she performed a nostalgic and catchy live remix style tour of some of her best hits including her latest track. Big shout out Cirque Du Soleil (also from Montreal!) for some of the key performers! The audio menu went as follows:

“Vogue” – Aperitif!
“Music” – Pre-dinner salad
“Give Me All Your Luvin” (Nicki Minaj and M.I.A) – Main course
“Like a Prayer” with Cee Lo Green – Dessert

Madonna may be golden but she is no dumb blonde. She kept the fancy footwork to a minimum in a no room for error show and was tastefully dressed for a 50 something pop star. I mean she’s still sexy so yeah she gets to show off a little leg. No one can truthfully say she doesn’t look good for her age. Even with the cosmetic work, make-up, etc – her body is still an incredibly well proportioned and coordinated machine.
Love her or hate her she climbed her way to fame faster than you can say 80′s as a singer, actress and occasionally model. She managed her career and juggled motherhood all while never having had 1 breakdown. Pardon the expression but that is called having your shit together. What a great performance MADONNA. You are still THE queen of pop and a seriously cool diva.

LUV Madonna! (Photo Courtesy of Hollywood-life.com)

“I do understand why so many people hate her… Frankly a woman who had her first kid with her trainer, runs her own business, is still considered a sex symbol after 50 years with bigger balls than most men- is a threat to the gender role.”
-Lisa Mac

Friendly Fires

Back on the road in North America, dance-punk band Friendly Fires is hot on the tour circuit promoting their sophomore album Pala.

The band’s self-titled first album was exciting and unique featuring strong vocals on top of upbeat cross-rhythms that quickly changed into commanding beats. The album went Gold and received praise from people all over the music world.

Three years late with Pala, the boys from St.Albans, England are revisiting and have improved on their signature sound with producer Paul Epworth (Florence & The Machine, Crystal Castles, U2, Bloc Party, Santogold, Muse).

Watch a “rave montage” video for the album’s colorful intro track “Live Those Days Tonight” and listen to new track “Blue Cassette” and “Skeleton Boy” from their first album.

Friendly Fires – Blue Cassette by UMPG

Friendly Fires – Skeleton Boy by Fanny Mai

Friendly Fires makes their first Canadian stop this Saturday, May 28th at Theatre Corona in Montreal!

YELLE, Je T’aime

Whether you speak French or not, there is something infectious about Parisian-based electropop band YELLE’s songs. And if you understand French, you know this sweet sounding girl has a very dirty mouth.

Singer Julie Budet (known now as Yelle) and producer GrandMarnier began making music together back in 2005 under the name “YEL” which stood for “You Enjoy Life”. The name was soon feminized to YELLE because a Belgian band already went by that name. That same year, they got lots of buzz on MySpace after they posted a song called ‘Short Dick Cuizi’ (which later became ‘Je Veux Te Voir’). The following year, YELLE began recording their debut album titled ‘Pop Up’ and brought producer Tepr into the mix. The French only album was released in 2007 and gained attention throughout the world.

YELLE released the first single of their sophomore album ‘Safari Disco Club’ (titled the same) for free on their website’s blog as a taster of what was to come two months prior to the release of the album. Being fans of the first album, this one does not disappoint.

Smack in the middle of YELLE’s North American tour with French Horn Rebellion is a stop in Montreal. Bandmark is giving away a pair of tickets to the show at Le National on Tuesday, May 3rd. Interested in going? Like BandMark’s Facebook page here and write on our wall “I want to see YELLE at Le National!” Good luck!

Check out ‘Safari Disco Club / Que veux-tu (exclusive full length edit)’ below on Vimeo and take a listen to a few more of their tracks below that!

Yelle – La Musique (Lorenz Rhode Remix) by LorenzRhode
A cause des garcons (Tepr remix) by YELLE

Qui est cette fille ? by YELLE

Internet Streaming Radio Dogfight!

This week’s mission: A beginner’s rundown of four major Internet music streaming services: LAST.FM, GROOVESHARK, SLACKER and PANDORA.

Without further ado…

1. LAST.FM

Going in, I was already a big fan of last.fm, and that’s because I scrobble. No, it’s not as filthy as it sounds. To scrobble means that you let the last.fm service track the music you play on your computer or portable device, linking you to others who do the same, with comparisons of your tastes and suggested artists to check out. It’s beautiful in its simplicity.

There are even (unofficial) ways to scrobble data to last.fm from other services like Slacker and Pandora, should you care to. Well-played, last.fm. Well-played.

While revealing of your true self in the same way a Facebook drunk picture can be (Do I really listen to Corey Hart that much? you’ll ask yourself), it’s the scrobbles that give last.fm its power. No other site can match last.fm’s ability to unite fans of the most obscure possible acts from all over the globe. It’s a treasure trove of the underground, the underrated, the undiscovered and the antiquated.

I’ve been a last.fm user for almost three years, in which time I’ve scrobbled about 50,000 tracks from about 2,000 different artists, many discovered through the site itself. But I never touched their subscription radio feature even once, until so recently. I suppose the prospect of making a decision based on thirty entire tracks just wasn’t worth the bother. Thirty tracks on last.fm represents a couple hours of listening, at best. Costco booths give you bigger free samples than that!

But for purposes of this article, I listened. And I was exposed to roughly thirty awesome artists I’d never heard of before. Impressive, but not surprising considering what I know of last.fm Unlike the ‘listen to related artists’ features of other sites — dictated from the top down, by genre marketeers — last.fm’s choices of related artists are generated by the scrobbles of other users. And other users aren’t DJs. They don’t care about flow. They can be eccentric and eclectic. And they can surprise you in the best way.

And… now I’m out of tracks. Luckily, last.fm’s subscription service is very cheap (as advertised, it’s only $3.00 a month). Of all the pay services listed here, last.fm’s is the one I’m most likely to embrace. Call it brand loyalty, but the price is right, the interface is a breeze, and the musical selection is so far off the scale that they’ll have to start measuring in parsecs.

A related note: Where clunky old Myspace claims to be the arbiter of undiscovered basement bands and quirky DIY auteurs, last.fm actually provides, and then some. Take note, unsigned musicians — if you’re not on Last.fm, you’re nowhere. Perhaps literally. Get your tracks up there and join the party.

BEST FEATURE: Every band you can think of. And more. Much more.
WORST FEATURE: If you don’t at least have an open mind about listening to dudes playing theremins in their basements, you may as well not bother.
IDEAL FOR: People so indie that their favourite bands only play clubs in New Crobuzon.

2. GROOVESHARK

I’m new to Grooveshark and have yet to plumb its depths, but let me tell you — this thing packs a punch. Once you get past an initially off-putting interface — it’s iTunes, but yellow — you’ll find yourself in a deep delicious ocean of sound.

One thing I like about Grooveshark? Make that a few things: No signups or registrations to deal with. No limited number of track skips. No mid-song buffering. Freedom of interaction is a big positive: You can skip tracks forward and back, scan back and forth in a song if you want to hear a certain refrain again (just as you could on your own mp3 player) and treat the place like a big musical sandbox.

I’m not sure what Grooveshark’s subscription-based VIP service entails. How can you get better than Grooveshark’s free service? At this rate, I’m figuring it involves swimming in a pool of Cristal and then a trip to the mile-high club aboard a private space shuttle made of diamonds.

To save favourites, save tracklists and access the custom radio stations, you’ll have to register. This is entirely optional, and you can get to the music without it. Playlist creation is a little finicky at first — it’s easy to delete or scramble a listing by accident — but it’s also very powerful, with the ability, much like iTunes, to select multiple tracks in the conventional way, with a shift-click. I didn’t expect such a high level of interaction and navigability from a Flash interface, and I must say I’m impressed.

Grooveshark is a new discovery for me, but I anticipate going back to it very soon. Actually, I’m already there. And how sweet it is.

BEST FEATURE: Depth, selection, interactivity, speed, etc.
WORST FEATURE: Design cribs from iTunes, and iTunes isn’t that great to begin with.
IDEAL FOR: People with functioning ears.

3. SLACKER RADIO

Oookay. Slacker. Slacker doesn’t let you navigate inside of a song. It gives you a limited number of song skips. It requires registration that expires after thirty days, and there are loud and obnoxious pre-recorded DJs in between songs. It requires you to disable any script-blocking software just so their interface will work and the songs will load.

Yeah.

Okay, for the two of you still reading this section… I hope you like Top 40. Because that’s what you’re gonna get.

Seriously. Unlike the other services mentioned in this article, Slacker is heavily biased towards the mainstream. If you let Slacker do the work for you in constructing a playlist, it’ll load you up with all kinds of major-label crap that you’ve heard hundreds of times before on the radio, and probably didn’t enjoy much then, either. Their ‘related artists’ system is a bit of a joke in this regard. In Slacker’s nightmarish, dystopian world, all roads lead to Godsmack. Even roads that started at ambient electronic. Internet research tells me that Slacker is owned and programmed by former satellite radio operators. In terms of musical selection, this may be its chief problem. They should rename themselves ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Clear Channel’.

There is an upside. Potentially a fantastic upside. If you have the time and patience to program your own playlists (a bit of a daunting affair, full of micromanagement) you may end up building a real work of art — a playlist crafted by both human and algorithmic hands to feed you new and awesome music every track. Your range of options in this regard is actually quite powerful and easy to administrate, with the ability to choose or ban songs, artists or genres at will.

But Slacker — paradoxically, considering its name — assumes you have the patience and willpower to do this. Not everyone will. Slacker advertises having over 2 million songs at their disposal, but if they’re just going to heap steaming piles of Nickelback upon you anyway, what’s the point?

Slacker’s subscription service apparently features ABC News bites and unlimited song skip ability. Well, sound the vuvuzelas, it’s party time. Or not. In the end, Slacker is for less discerning, more mainstream listeners, and it serves them very well. But I’m not one of them. And those pre-recorded DJs can suck a donkey.

BEST FEATURE: It’s just like the radio.
WORST FEATURE: It’s just like the radio.
IDEAL FOR: People whose radios have just broken and it’s too late at night to hit up Wal-Mart in their H2s while chugging Smirnoff Ice.

4. PANDORA

Most Internet music goons will tell you that Pandora is the greatest overall choice for a personalized ‘Net radio stream with depth and breadth. I hear raves from friends, from blogs, from a lot of corners. Yet I’m unable to decide for myself, because of the blurb that glares at me with cold legal contempt every time I visit the site:

“We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative. “

BEST FEATURE: They are deeply, deeply sorry. And sad.
WORST FEATURE: Due to licensing constraints, they can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S.
IDEAL FOR: Presumably, people inside of the U.S. But I can’t be sure.

Well, that’s a fine to-hell-with-you. But, ‘no alternatives’? I don’t think so. For instance, I think I hear Grooveshark singing to me in soft, ethereal tones. Time to go listen closer.

10 steps to publishing social media

10 steps to publishing social media

Share it!

When publishing social media, we must make sure that there are no errors in the text, that the text is not too shocking or irrelevant to your customers and that this piece of information is engaging. Posting about your crazy Vegas week-end or that you bought a new pen is not what your customers want to hear… Social media friends and followers wants micro-news, funny shares, tips, the inside story… think about what makes you say “hmm, this I SHOULD FORWARD”.

Step 1 to publishing social media -Don’t over clone!

As convenient as it is, to link up all your vehicles (facebook, Twitter, MySpace, youtube) this makes a very boring newsfeed for your database. Try not to connect more than 2 of these accounts which will have a duplicate status. (Myspace and Twitter we feel are most compatible as youtube tends to be more video-centric and Facebook allows you to post heavier content than Twitter.

Step 2 to publishing social media content – Track it!

Now that you have all your vehicles in mind and your news, you want to make sure if possible – you can track it. SocialTalk, Bit.ly and others social trackers permit you to track your every post and the success of it’s distribution. You don’t need to track each one, but it’s good to do a weekly track to see how the click-through is doing.

Let’s say you are trying to promote a video. You would paste the video link in your Facebook profile, page and group. Ideally, you would use a thumbnail choice from YouTube and post a little title before the video so people know what they are watching. We will use one of our client’s videos to demonstrate: the video in question is titled “Sexy Girl Undressing” clearly a catchy title We wouldn’t link our official website because one is better of doing this inside the YouTube description of the video itself. This is more discreet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8uo7V6W3aU This is what the complete link will look like. As you can see it’s pretty long – so for Twitter you may want to shorten it with Bit.ly a shorten-and-track app to: http://bit.ly/bQeO8x which will take up less room. This is also a good way to get people to click on a surprise if you only want them to see the content, once clicked like “Click here to get a sneak peak at our…”

(the actual video embed, should look similar… with title and thumbnail or in a hyperlink for emails)

Sexy Girl Undressing <—hyperlink and embed right below

You would post the video link or the shortened link in your MySpace status and your MySpace bulletin too (assuming those are active profiles). If you have any social bookmarking accounts like DIGG or de.licious, you would post there too. Really you will post anywhere you can. In your actual Youtube account, simply showcasing it in your channel, updating your subscribers with a little bulletin and favorite-ting (and thumbs up) in your account will drive organic traffic within your community outward. As for comments, only allow yourself 1 comment about your own video and it can’t be the first you can make as many replies as you want though by using @ just like in Twitter…

Step 4 to publishing social media content – A small reminder is not spamming

Then you will post to your members directly the next time you have a larger piece of news or a monthly newsletter. This post should be no more than a week away, more of a reminder post like “Hey, don’t forget we have our annual BBQ this Thursday and for those who haven’t see our latest video: “Sexy Girl Undressing...” here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8uo7V6W3aU

Step 5 to publishing social media content – The personal touch

This is key. Pick 1 very small number of friends like a dozen and email them directly in a small CC or BCC the link. Explain that you produced this video and how proud you are of it and that you thought they would find it interesting. You may think sending the email to you mom goes nowhere but what if she was in the mood to share it with a friend that day who shared it to her son, who has a crazy popular blog and will blog about it that day? You never know how far word of mouth can go so don’t be shy to share Sharing btw is not WALLING 100 0 people’s MySpace comments saying “Watch my video NOW” this is obviously not personal… the only spam you should be, if any, to your own news-feed… Picking out a few FB friends and putting on their wall “Hey Jenn, this is the vid I was telling you about is fine, if those friends don’t mind to be used a promo vehicle, because believe me, when you are in marketing everyone feels they are a vehicle to you.

Step 6 to publishing social media content - knowing when to post

Here’s a trick our buddy Marco shared with us. For Facebook, check to see when lots of people are on-line in your chat window (you can do this for MySpace too) this is a good indication of a popular on-line time. Do your posts then. It’s really not rocket science, just put yourself in your target market’s mind and try to think of how they want to be delivered content.

Step 7 to publishing social media content – when in doubt, do not SHOUT

this is out little motto at BandMark. If you are wondering weather re-posting is too soon or if your communication might be too aggressive, turn it down a notch. It is always better to quietly promote than scream.

Step 8 to publishing social media content -Sneak it in!

If you wish to make a third posting in 1 week and it is not a reminder post, your only choice is to sneak it into an engagement or existing thread. Adding inside a string of relevant comments, a forum post, blog reply can be the way to do that but do this sparingly and please don’t duplicate the content!

Step 9 to publishing social media content – YOUR company isn’t the only interesting thing out there!

There is brand awareness and there is brand overkill. Do not drown people in constant updates about your brand or band. 1/3 of your updates should be about non-work related stuff, current news, other people’s news, small talk. AGAIN, this doesn’t mean “Boy are we hung over from that VEGAS bender and woooo those strippers were fine” It means “Company name, had a blast at the Vegas conference, the mirror titled horse at the BELLAGIO hotel is pretty cool…” If you don’t have a creative bone in your body but you are nevertheless in charge of managing social media brand awareness, check out what is trending on Twitter, viralling on YouTube, MSN news highlights, Associated Press… Sign-up to some cool blog feeds in your industry and let other news inspire you.

Step 9 to publishing social media content – Pay it forward, 100% selfless promo for someone else

That’s right, share other people’s news, promotions, causes for no reason other than helping someone else out or showing appreciation for their little micro topics. First of all this kind of kindness can only make you friends, who may in turn re-post but even if they don’t – consider it good virtual karma What are the kind of things you can post?

Other people’s tweets in the form of a RT (Re-tweet) this helps you also on days where you are having a writer’s block…
A good cause you like. If you believe tax payers should force their government to be part of a public audit, post-it
Someone’s birthday like a good friend. That friend who sees you as a marketing shark sees a sweeter side today n’est-ce-pas?
Some really nice art you saw on-line and feel the artist could use some eye shots
An event you feel is worth everyone attending, even if it isn’t your event like “turn off your power for an hour day”

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...``

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.

Capture your fans at concerts

It’s no secret that the Internet is filled with music fans who are starting to figure out how to navigate in the wild waters of web 2.0 and social media. But what about off-line fans? Concert goers are actually your #1 BEST FANS for 2 reasons: They actually are willing to leave their house to enjoy your music AND they are willing to pay for your most expensive product -your live show.

It is almost a given that a majority of these people are your best buyers of everything else (physical, digital music and merch) yet a lot of people do very little to start conversations with these fans and reward them on the spot. Here are 3 EASY WAYS to capture fans at your concerts:

Merch tags

I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen this even being done yet so if you go forward with the idea, you would likely be one of the first. I proposed it to one of my fashion clients: GROGGY and then instantly realized how every band could benefit from this extremely inexpensive way to turn show attendees into a virtual fan base.

Chances are at every show you will have a little merch like T-shirts with your latest EP art or whatever. Well on those T-Shirts just add a little sticker or paper tag that has the directions for a free music download to get into the fan club. If you do not have a fan club, list your social media profiles like “Friend me, Follow me, Face me with the MySpace/Twitter/Facebook Page urls. Imagine, you are now keeping track of your MOST valuable fans, those who went to a show AND purchased band wear!

Mobile Fanclubs

With the rising popularity of smart phones, why not use mobile technology to communicate LIVE with your fans at a show. In some cases they will have to pay to receive the text message but they just paid to see your show, the 0.75 cent fee wont freak them out, plus you’ll be giving them a free song so it will more than balance out. You can do this in 2 ways: As part of your live visuals, you can have a message in between songs and the singer could actually let people know as well to send a text to a particular number in order to get a text back with the promo code or URL for the fan club or download.

There are mobile clubs like Broadtexter, which can set a lot of this up for free! If you are not able to integrate the graphics into the visuals or the band does not wish to push their own fan-club, you can have a small table (could be the merch table) set up with a few net-books where people can join the fan club on the spot. We have actually done this for clients like SOUNDCAGE at music festivals and it works very well. People are generally in a great mood, a little tipsy and are more than willing to give you their information. The conversion is great too – those people are typically up to 85% receptive to future communications.

Download cards given at the exit

Having the band toss out a limited number of cards is key to bring awareness with the singer mentioning that everyone will have a chance to get one when they leave. Not everyone will make it to the merch table, some people will not want to line up, others will prioritize all their money buying beer but everyone there is a fan. Therefore making sure to capture them all would be getting them on the way out. At some point, everyone of them will have to leave! Hiring a presentable young and dynamic person who looks very much like a fan of the band, to thank people for coming and handing out a download card is money well spent. He or she will cost you nothing (especially if they’re are part of your street team) and the download cards will not hurt your marketing budget either.

There are many services which provide this service, like FizzKicks but ideally you should have your own Fan club set up and get a cheap local printer to make you cards since really all they have to do is direct your fans to the free music download page. You don’t really have to get into promotional codes etc.. this will save you money in the long run.

Call us toll free: 1-866-936-2263

BandMark News

Contact Us Now!