The Music Industry Cookbook by Orsi Muntyan

CON TEN TS

1. INTRODUCTION

2. INDUSTRY CONTEXT

3. DEFINING GOALS AND SUCCESS

4. TOOL KIT METHODS

NEWSLETTERS

BANDCAMP

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

MUSIC WEBSITES & BLOGS

5. CASE STUDIES

CONTRIBUTORS

FURTHER READING

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1. INTRODUCTION THE MIC Welcome to The Music Industry Cookbook (MIC), a tool kit for small music businesses to help them develop their online activity.

the aim of trying to identify how to better measure the success of a release/project online, when compared to its offline counterpart.

The long-term goal is to have the MIC as an evolving piece of work, with content being changed and added over time, in line with how the music industry and it’s circumstances are changing. This also includes revising existing content based on feedback from industry professionals.

2. Interviews with similar record labels to Jazzman Records, as well as relevant music businesses in order to get a better understanding of how they use the internet, social media and digital music platforms to promote and distribute their releases, and how they define and measure the success of those campaigns.

The research that has been the base for all material found on the MIC website and tool kit has been gathered in three stages over a period of 14 months and they have consisted of:

3. Secondary research to discover business, consumer and market trends within the industry, in order to compare them to the findings of the Jazzman Records online activity and the interviews.

1. Primary research based on activities of Jazzman Records that has included:

The full scope of the findings from all these areas can be found on the MIC website under the different categories, whilst only specific information has been highlighted in this tool kit.

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Collecting statistics and data from the labels website and online shop through Google analytics, as well as data from: Bandcamp based on the overall output of the label on the platform, as well as a select number of new Jazzman Records releases Newsletter promotion using Mailchimp, focusing only on the Mailouts that included the selected releases from Bandcamp Activities on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, all with

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Both materials include industry context of the project, a discussion about goals and success and why they should be defined and different methods on how to measure the performance of online activities and reach different goals. By sharing the findings of this project with a broader audience, it will hopefully help similar businesses who might be keen on adding digital to their overall business strategy but 2

don’t feel like they might have the right tools to do so. As for the name – the approach taken whilst creating the actual MIC tool kit has been similar to when putting together a recipe or a cookbook: • •

An introduction that describes what you’re about to make (i.e. what the goal is) A guide on how to make it (i.e. how to reach your goal)

It might be worth keeping in mind that nothing in the tool kit is definite and just like with cooking – it might not be successful the first time around. But the more you do it, hopefully, the better results you’ll get!

WHO IS THE MUSIC INDUSTRY COOKBOOK AIMED AT? The Music Industry Cookbook (MIC) is mainly aimed at smaller music businesses and professionals, who feel that they might be lacking either the manpower, skills, time, or funding to fully integrate digital as part of their overall business strategy, but who are still keen on developing their online activity. Whether you are new to the industry or have an extensive background in it – there is A LOT of information out there and sometimes it can be easier to have the most useful tips in one place – that is where the MIC comes in. The industry professionals that were consulted for the MIC represent independent music businesses. This was a deliberate choice because these smaller businesses represent a section of the music industry that mainly gets it’s revenue from the long-tail - which means that their opinions and day-to-day business realities differ from many of the major companies and some of the music industry statistics that can be found in various reports. In other words: if you have a marketing team or department, then the MIC tool kit is probably not for you.

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2. INDUSTRY CONTEXT GLOBAL CONTEXT There has been a great shift towards digital in the music industry in the last five to ten years. An increasing amount of businesses in the industry are embracing new technology and new ways of creating, distributing, and promoting music, and there has been a great increase of customers embracing new ways of discovering and consuming music.

as well as stable income from download sales in most markets.2 Revenues from music subscription services — including free toconsumer and paid-for tiers — grew by 51.3% in 2013, exceeding US$1 billion for the first time.3 “Digital revenue breakdown by format 2008 vs 2013!

The IFPI reported that in 2013, physical formats accounted for 51.4% of all global revenues, compared to 56.1% in 2012. Even though physical sales declined globally by 11.7%, major markets like Germany, Italy, the UK and the US saw a slow-down in the rate of physical decline, whilst France actually saw an increase by 0.8%, fuelled by homegrown talent.1 Furthermore, they also reported that global digital revenues grew by 4.3% to US$5.9 billion, meaning that digital now accounts for 39% of total industry global revenues and digital channels account for the majority of revenues in three of the world’s top 10 markets. Both revenue and user numbers for subscription services had a steep growth curve in 2013 and there was continued revenue growth from ad-supported services, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1

IFPI, (2014), IFPI Digital Music Report 2014: Lighting Up New Markets, Available at: IFPI Resources & Reports pages. <http://www.ifpi.org/digital-music-report.php> (Latest access May 2014), p. 7

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Source: IFPI Digital Music Report 2014: Lighting Up New Markets In the last five years, subscription and adsupported streaming services have globally grown from 9% to 27% of digital revenues.4 Overall, total global music revenues were down 3.9% to an estimated US$15 billion.5

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IFPI, p. 6 IFPI, p. 7 4 IFPI, p. 9 5 IFPI, p. 6 3

UK CONTEXT

2018, which is a 37.5% increase on 2013’s figure.11

Looking at the UK specifically, the BPI reports that market was driven by an 11.9% rise in digital revenues from strong digital album sales and a surge in streaming, and the overall UK music industry total haul stood at £730.4 million in 2013 – up from £716.8 million generated in 2012. The UK record industry also hit a significant milestone in 2013, with digital revenues accounting for 50% of total trade revenues.6 The rise in the singles market has been phenomenal in recent year and it’s now 99.6% digital (based, for now, on paid downloads). It has gone from 32.3m in 2004 to more than 183m in 20127, to slightly down in 2013 at 175.6m, according to Official Charts Company data.8 Four out of five people in the UK have heard of at least one of the leading audio streaming services, with the model worth close to £50m to labels, accounting for 15.2% of their digital income.9 The streaming service Spotify now has 20m active global users, 5m of those are paying subscribers. Since it launched it has paid out over $500m to rightsholders.10 Overall, Mintel is forecasting that music revenue will return to growth in 2014, as income from digital sources offsets losses from falling physical media sales. They predict a music market value of £1,430 million in !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 6

INGHAM, T. (2014), UK record industry income returns to growth in 2013, Available at: Music Week Website. < !""#$%%&&&'()*+,&--.',/(%0-&*%1-23%).41-,/13-industry-incomereturns-to-growth/057685> (Updated February 2014, latest accessed May 2014) 7 THE BRITISH RECORDED MUSIC INDUSTRY (BPI), (2013), Digital Music Nation 2013’, Available at: BPI Digital Music Reports pages. < http://www.bpi.co.uk/digital-music-reports.aspx> (Latest access May 2014), pp.17 8 BPI and the Official Charts Company, (2014), SURGE IN STREAMING GIVES FURTHER IMPETUS TO DIGITAL MUSIC GROWTH IN 2013, Available at: BPI News pages. < http://www.bpi.co.uk/home/surge-in-streaming-gives-furtherimpetus-to-digital-music-growth-in-2013.aspx> (Latest access May 2014) 9 THE BRITISH RECORDED MUSIC INDUSTRY (BPI), (2013), Digital Music Nation 2013’, Available at: BPI Digital Music Reports pages. <http://www.bpi.co.uk/digital-music-reports.aspx> (Latest access May 2014), pp. 20 10 THE BRITISH RECORDED MUSIC INDUSTRY (BPI), (2013), Digital Music Nation 2013’, Available at: BPI Digital Music Reports pages. <http://www.bpi.co.uk/digital-music-reports.aspx> (Latest access May 2014) , pp. 20

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HOW DOES THIS AFFECT INDIVIDUAL MUSIC BUSINESSES? It can be argued that the music industry has seen this increase in digital sales and revenue because there’s more legal digital music services available now than there was 10 years ago. That in turn means that consumers have more choice of how to legally consume music online, and as the different digital services increase their catalogues and develop their recommendation and discovery elements, consumers are able to access a much bigger variety of music from a bigger artist/label base. Furthermore, due to the increase of such online services and the ease of both using them and getting music on there, the barriers to enter the market have radically diminished and made it easier and cheaper for independent labels and artists to create, distribute and promote their music and potentially reach a global audience at the same time. While these arguments appear to hold true across the industry as a whole, there are exceptions. For example, looking at a smaller niche business such as Jazzman Records, the majority of the company’s customers are DJs and/or record collectors that prefer physical formats, and the format plays a key role in making the business a success. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 11

MINTEL, Music and Video Purchasing – UK – , August 2013

Based on this fact, the majority of the businesses monetary investment, attention and effort is given to physic formats, which means that possible business opportunities such as digital downloads, streaming services and digital marketing have been neglected or not utilised to its full potential. As a result, it could be argued that the business has ended up lacking a certain competitive advantage against similar record labels in the digital marketplace who might better or more efficiently incorporate digital into their overall business strategy. So how can digital be integrated into the business strategy of a business where there’s potentially a lack of manpower, funds, skill or time? Furthermore, how can you develop the progress of such activities and measure the progress? These are all things that the MIC tool kit is aiming to help with.

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3. DEFINING GOALS AND SUCCESS The Oxford English Dictionary defines success as “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose”. If you put that into a business perspective, it means that you can’t be successful without having a specific purpose or goal.

Because there are so many more factors beyond sales figures that can determine the success of a project, it is important to set clear and realistic goals for projects, and have some goals that are not sales/profit driven (even if sales are the overall long-term goal).

Setting business goals can seem pretty straight forward, especially with physical products. The majority of the professionals that were interviewed for this tool kit set their goals based on the sales of a product.

When it comes to online activities and measuring the impact they have on a project, it is as equally important to understand the underlying principles of the platforms that are being used for the promotional activities, as having good content to promote on them. If there is a lack of time or manpower, then there’s most likely no worth in trying to use every single platform and tool available. Instead, try to understand what platforms your audiences are using and focus on becoming better at using those avenues of communication.

In many cases, this would potentially involve a profit and loss account and a balance sheet, making sure that the company recoups the money they have invested (breaking even) and hopefully being successful by earning some money on top of that – i.e. making a profit. Before the advent of the internet, measuring the success of a project was pretty straight forward because businesses only had to take into account the physical products and how they had performed sales wise. Today however, it could be argued that it’s not just the sales of a physical and digital project that can determine whether or not a project is successful. Instead, it can depend on other factors such as streaming, synchronization, licensing, as well as different types of online promotion that might not be directly linked to sales, but they might still enhance the reputation of the brand or label. The Music Industry Cookbook – www.themusicindustrycookbook.com

“You need to understand the respective values of each platform and how best to use them. A Facebook page with 30 likes isn’t going to see your sales soar, but if you are in this predicament, then you need to learn how to boost those numbers. It’s an organic process, but with the right knowledge and practices, it will grow quickly.” - Gavin Handley, Resonate Media The same goes with content. It can be difficult at first to get your head around the fact that your audience might be interested in more than just the end product of your project. 7

! However, thanks to different digital tools, it is now easier than ever so share interactive content such as photos and videos in real time with a large audience, as well as sharing audio and video to only a selected group of people. Whatever you choose to do, whether it is sharing content throughout a project or only at the end of it, the success can very much depend on the quality of the content that you are sharing – the better it is, the more people will most likely be interested. “Content is king! You can’t make people talk about something they don’t care about – when it’s an interesting / relevant / unique product, then it’s easy. Our Record Store Day release was a case in point – we barely promoted it, yet got blog coverage on every site we could wish for and have over 4000 views on our video within a week. That’s because it was a good story and people were interested naturally – you can’t make them do anything they don’t want to.” - Aly Gillani, First Word Records ! So keeping this in mind, even though the "#"! ultimate long-term goal might be to increase sales and potentially make a profit, there are reasons to set short-term goals for certain activities that are not directly linked to sales. These reasons include, but are not limited to • Increasing your audience on certain platforms • Increasing the awareness of your brand or project • Increasing customer loyalty These reasons are not sales based, but as online activities increase and more customers start using social media and digital music services, they could lead to more physical and digital sales over time.

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TOOL KIT METHOD: NEWSLETTERS

4.1 NEWSLETTERS INTRODUCTION Newsletters are a very efficient way of directly connecting with your audience and promoting content to a customer base that is genuinely interested in what you have to offer. All labels that were interviewed for this tool kit used newsletters as a digital tool to communicate with their audience and to promote different types of content. There are certain industry standards and guidelines that have been set by various professionals and service providers within the digital industries when it comes to using newsletters as marketing tools.

The following sections will explore and explain how to better use newsletters as a marketing tool, as well as show how to track progress and set goals for the future. They will mainly be based around outcomes and findings from the service provider Mail chimp, purely because primary research was carried out through that platform. However, there are plenty of other providers out there, like Mad Mimi and YMLP that offer free accounts for smaller amount of subscribers, and more high-end services such as Benchmark and Campaign Monitor that focus on large amount of subscribers and charge a minimum amount of 9-10 dollars per month to set up an account.

These guidelines relate to: •

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Gathering email addresses and making sure you have the permission to send newsletters to your mailing list Designing newsletter templates and making sure they are not too big in size Creating content for the newsletters and making sure that spam filters don’t catch them

When it comes to frequency of newsletters, a lot of labels interviewed tried to keep the newsletters to minimum due to the fear of putting people off by emailing too frequently. There are no real rules as to what is “too frequently”, and it largely depends on your customer base and their preferences.

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CREATING CONTENT GOAL: To understand how to create relevant newsletter content Remember that CONTENT IS KING. No matter what you are trying to promote, if the content isn’t good then people will most likely lose interest in what you have to say. Therefore, focus on the reason for why your fans have signed up to a specific mailing list 10

and try to deliver content that is aimed to satisfy those reasons. If they have signed up to a labels mailing list, chances are they will be interested in things like: • • • • • • •

Latest releases from the label and where they can listen/buy them Previews of upcoming releases General news about the label like upcoming events Latest radio shows and mixes Media features Competitions Special offers and/or exclusive content

If they have signed up to a specific artists mailing list, then they are most likely only interested in information about that artist such as: • • • • • •

New releases from that specific artist and where to buy/listen to them Previews of upcoming releases from the artist Multimedia content such as new music videos and photos Live show dates and other events Media features on different websites, newspapers, radio or television Special content or perks that are exclusive to newsletter subscribers

It is handy to keep an outline like the ones above for your newsletters, especially if you have more than one mailing list. That way you can plan your general outline for the content that you are sharing, and personalise it depending on which mailing list you are targeting. You might not always have content for each of these sections, but if you keep notes under each one of what relevant content you have created for other platforms over a period of time, it will be much easier and quicker to create the copy for the newsletter when the time has come. Hopefully, when the time has come to write the newsletter, your outline will look something like this: •

Latest releases from the label and where people can listen/buy them

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! Young Jessie - New LP / CD, buy & listen from Bandcamp ! The Topics - New LP / CD, buy & listen from Bandcamp •

Previews of upcoming releases ! Add link to private Bandcamp page to stream new Spiritual Jazz Comp

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General news about the label like upcoming events ! Jazzman Gerald DJing at roundhouse alongside Mr Scruff 31st May

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Latest radio shows and mixes ! New radio show available on Mixcloud

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Media features Competitions ! You have a chance to win a pair of glow in the dark slipmats

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Special offers and/or exclusive content ! 10% off all records on Jazzman website for the next 48 hours

When you’re putting together the copy for the newsletter, keep it as short and to the point as possible. It might seem harsh, but most people simply do not have the time to read very long and dragged out emails. Try to be authentic and personal in your tone of voice as you want to be encouraging the reader to engage with the content you’ve written and that won’t happen if the content is boring or reads like an automated sales person. As for the frequency of your newsletters – there are no right or wrong ways of determining that. Some send newsletters once a week, others once a month – it really does depend on you and your audience. However, a good way of doing it is by sending out a newsletter every other week – if after a couple of months you feel that you don’t have enough relevant content to make an interesting newsletter every other week, then maybe cut down the frequency to once every month. Whilst if you feel like you have too 11

much to say, try sending them every week OR try cutting down on the content that you include. Lastly, make sure that you reward your subscribers from time to time as a thank you for showing interest. This shows that you care about them and value the fact that they take the time to show interest in what you have to say. It doesn’t have to be something expensive or complicated, it might be by: • • •

Sharing exclusive content that nobody else has seen or heard before Giving away a small gift like a free download of a track Letting them preview a new track, album or video by streaming it

Anything that shows that you appreciate their support, as well as giving them an extra reason to continue to open and read your newsletter.

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clicked on specific links in a particular newsletter campaign. Soft Bounce: This is a measurement of inboxes or recipients that were temporarily unavailable when sending a particular newsletter. Hard Bounce: This is a measurement of email addresses that failed to receive a particular newsletter. Abuse reports: This refers to the complaints that happen when recipients click “This is spam” in their email programs

Now that you understand what they mean, how are you meant to know what to aim for? According to Mailchimp, these are the various industry benchmarks that might be relevant to take into consideration:

A newsletter that covers all these points in a great way is the one that the record label OneHanded Music sends out. These can be good guidelines but don’t see it as a make or break benchmark, as many businesses don’t simply fit into one of these categories, but actually a combination of two or three.

NEWSLETTER REPORTS GOAL: How to better understand reports and use them to have more successful newsletters To understand what your reports mean, you need to understand some of the terms that are used in your report. Here is a quick guide to some terminology that you should be familiar with to better understand your newsletter results: •

•

Open rate: This is a measurement of how many people on a mailing list opened (or view) a particular newsletter campaign. Click rate: This is a measurement of how many people on a mailing list

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However, if your results for open and click rates are significantly lower than these, and hard bounce, abuse and unsubscribers significantly higher, you might want to reconsider your newsletters, the way you create them and what content you feature in them. Other useful statistics to look at in newsletter reports include: •

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Successful deliveries: You might have a large mailing list, but if your successful deliveries are significantly lower than your actual mailing list figure, your list must be very outdated or spam filters might be catching your newsletters before they even reach an inbox. Total opens: This will tell you how 12

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many people out of your entire mailing list opened the newsletter Total clicks: This will tell you how many people out of your entire mailing list clicked on a link in the newsletter Forwarded: This will tell you how many people forwarded your newsletter to somebody else. The more forwards you have, the more shareable/interesting your newsletter/content is 24-hour performance: This will give you an idea of what time of the day your subscribers opened your newsletter and what time they clicked on lists. Usually the majority of subscribers will open and click close to the time period when the newsletter was sent out. But if you see a spike at any other time during the day, it might be an indication that you should change the time when you send newsletters out. Top links clicked: This will give you an idea of what links are the most popular in your newsletter, or alternatively, what content your subscribers find most interesting. A lot of people tend to skim through long newsletters, and most of the time, links at the top are more popular than links at the bottom. Therefore, you might want to have your most important content at the top.) Subscribers with most opens: This feature allows you to see what subscribers opened your newsletter the most times. If you are thinking of rewarding your subscribers for supporting you, this feature can really help target the most loyal and frequent fans. Social performance: This refers to how many times your newsletter has been shared on social media through the social media share functionality of the newsletter. Encourage your subscribers to use that functionality if your aim it to have a high social performance. Top locations by opens: This tells you the location of your subscribers,

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which can be very handy if you are going on tour, have events planned, or are in two minds about making certain content available in different territories. Some easy ways of improving your newsletter statistics are, but are not limited to: •

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Make sure your mailing lists are kept up to date. If you are having issues with a lot of hard bounces, it might be that the lists you are using are out of date. Subject lines that tell the subscriber what’s inside the newsletter, without trying to use “sales talk”. It might sound boring but it is the best way to get those open rates up and avoiding spam filters. Try to avoid using ALL CAPS, a lot of exclamation marks and a spammy keywords and phrases such as “Buy now”, “Visit Our Website”, “This Is Not Spam” and so on. Be consistent with your frequency and don’t leave it more than 3-4 months before you send out another newsletter as people forget who you are and why and when they signed up to your mailing list to begin with, which can result in spam abuse reports.

TOOL KIT METHOD: BANDCAMP

4.2 BANDCAMP INTRODUCTION Bandcamp is an ad-free platform, with no middlemen, that enables labels and independent artists to sell their music and related physical products – be it records or tshirts or tickets to a show – directly to their fans.

There are also pro accounts available for as little as 10 dollars a month, which give you: • • • • • •

More in-depth statistics The choice of batch uploading files The ability to offer private streams Own domain Google analytics integration Optional streaming for certain tracks

The platform also enables labels and artists to set their own product prices for both digital and physical goods, and they can even ask fans to pay whatever they want to pay for their products.

Beyond this, Bandcamp also offers a very easy to use platform from a consumer’s point of view with a homepage filled with different ways of discovering new and exciting music that is relevant to their tastes.

It gives labels and artists the ability to track traffic, streaming, downloading and purchasing data in real-time for their various releases with useful reports. It is also has a very straightforward way to export sales reports, as well as exporting mailing lists.

The weekly Bandcamp show highlights some of the best releases from the platform, whilst the new and notable section points out daily notable selections. There is a features section that is linked to the Bandcamp blog that is usually editorial lead, as well as various discovery methods based on genres, various recommendation, formats and time.

Bandcamp’s accounts also have the ability to give the fulfilment rights to third parties, which means that users don’t have to personally fulfil all the orders for physical products or give out sensitive information about their account(s) to third parties. It is easy to control the design of the pages, and labels can decide to show off multiple releases on one label page rather than individual releases.

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Fans also have their own section of the homepage where they can recommend and share their recent favourite releases, and this includes “ordinary Joe” fans, as well as “famous” fans like Gilles Peterson. Equally, labels and artists able to are see who has supported what release and what they said about it on their own pages, which can be a great thing if you ever want to personally thank your fans supporting your work.

BANDCAMP AS A PROMOTIONAL TOOL

Therefore, it makes sense to engage with these fans, and occasionally reward them for supporting you.

GOAL: To better understand how to use Bandcamp as a promotional tool

This can be done by: • •

1. Use the embeddable players to your advantage All Bandcamp pages come with an embeddable player that has built-in buy buttons. This means that outside users can embed and share releases on their own blogs or websites. A way of encouraging users to embed your releases on their own sites is to have great content. Of course, if it is your release, you may think that the content is already great – but why not go the extra mile by creating either interesting formats to go with it, or giving users reasons to visit your page such as Bandcamp exclusives or giving away music for free.

•

4. Get your release featured on the Bandcamp homepage This might be easier said than done – but statistics show that releases that have been featured on the weekly show or in the new and notable section perform on average, double to triple as well as the releases who are just on the platform but not promoted extensively. There are no magic tricks to get featured, but you stand a much better chance if:

Or why not include some bonus tracks on the Bandcamp version of a release and only make them available when users purchase the entire release?

• •

2. Use the Facebook app

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There is now a Bandcamp Facebook app that allows labels and artists to sell their releases directly from their Facebook pages. This means that if you have a very popular Facebook page, you can easily do exclusive pre-sales or special giveaways through Bandcamp, and encourage fans on your Facebook page to buy or download the release directly through there. Not only is this a useful feature but it might also encourage more people to like your Facebook page in return. 3. Interact and reward your fans According to Andrew Jervis, Chief Curator at Bandcamp, fan profiles drive massive amounts of sales on the platform and are very impactful.

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Following them back on the platform Sending them a personal thank you message Using the mailing list functionality to send a newsletter out with exclusive content that is only available to the fans who have purchased releases on Bandcamp

You make good music! Have a well designed page that is complete with photos of the artist, credits, lyrics and biography Have complete release information including photos of the actual physical goods being sold.

BANDCAMP REPORTS GOAL: How to better understand Bandcamp reports Bandcamp statistics helps you track the progress and performance of releases based on: • • • •

Plays Buzz Sales/Downloads Map (for PRO users only) 16

All these areas can in turn assist you in different ways in order to understand how to better promote and share certain content. 1. Plays As the word suggest, plays relate to users who have listened to your releases. The statistics show you total plays for all your individual tracks on a certain Bandcamp page, as well as dividing the individual tracks into: •

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Complete / partial / skip: A feature that allows you to very clearly see what tracks have not just been played the most, but to what extent. For example, if you are using Bandcamp to preview certain releases, it makes sense to see a high partial or skip rate for those. However, if your aim is to have as many complete plays as possible, it might be worth re-thinking the feature track on a specific release page or how you build a tracklist for a release. Also keep in mind that statistics will vary depending on the type of release you have. If it is a single with only two tracks (A and B side) chances are that the A side will have more plays than the B side. Whilst with an album, the tracks that are best known would be expected to be played the most, and if you see that a specific track has been very popular without being a single, it might be worth doing something with it or make a note that that specific sound is something that attracts a lot of plays. In Bandcamp / from embeds: A feature that shows you where users have been listening to your releases. This is useful since it gives an indication of how many users discover and plays your release through Bandcamp, compared to other websites or blogs who might have embedded your release on their sites. If your promotional aim is to have a lot of websites and blogs sharing you Bandcamp releases on their sites and these statistics are relatively low, it might be worth rethinking your goals or the content that you might be sending these curators to share.

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2. Buzz The buzz around a Bandcamp page relates to traffic to that site. It allows you to track where users have come to your page from and on what days. These visits can include: •

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Direct visits, which means people have come directly to your page by manually putting in the URL in their browsers or being linked to the page through bookmarks, instant messages and so on. Through the Bandcamp homepage. If these numbers are very high on a particular day or days, it most likely means that your release has been featured in either the weekly show or in some other sections of the homepage. Through Bandcamp artists. If you have a label Bandcamp page as well as separate artist pages, you can easily track how many visits the label page is generating to your artist page, or vice versa. Through Bandcamp fans. See which fans have supported and promoted your releases on the platform. It can be worth investigating ones that generated a lot of traffic as they might have blogs or websites with a large following as well. Through Bandcamp Discover. Here you can see what Bandcamp Discover sections generated the most traffic. These can relate to best sellers, staff picks, new arrivals, artistrecommended, formats and genres. Through Bandcamp tags. This shows what tags have generated the most visits. If you use a lot of tags but only see visits through a selected few, it might be worth using those and scrapping the rest for more focused and targeted tag descriptions. Through Bandcamp search. Get an idea of which search terms on the Bandcamp site generated the most traffic. Through Google search. The stats do not always show what words or phrases have been search, if the user hasn’t protected that information, you 17

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will be able to see the search terms as well as which Google search engine they have used based on location. Through Facebook and Twitter. If your aim is to generate traffic from your social media avenues, these stats are very useful to see if your promotion is effective or not. Since you can set what time period you want to see the stats from, it is easy to distinguish if your visits through social media were a result of your promotion or other users sharing content.

4. Location If you have a Pro account Bandcamp also shows you your worldwide sales based on city location. This information can be a very helpful tool as it gives you an insight into potential touring destinations, as well as where you could implement regional promotion efforts.

The Buzz page also shows you which websites have embedded and played your releases. This is a very useful tool since you can use it for your online promotion plan as it allows you to cater directly to those content curators that are generating a lot of plays through embedding your releases on their sites. 3. Sales/Downloads This section pretty much does what it says on the tin – it shows you your sales and download statistics, including how much revenue was generated, how much shipping costs were involved and how much was taxes for each release and track on your specific Bandcamp page. It breaks down this data based on your releases and tracks, which means that you can easily distinguish which formats and which tracks have been the most popular. It also gives you an idea of if users are cherry picking songs by mainly downloading individual tracks, or if they purchasing the release in its entire format. Furthermore, the tools section of Bandcamp allows you to export your sales reports based on a specific time period with a detailed breakdown of each transaction. If you have a Pro account, these reports will also tell you the location of your paying fans down to the city, and lets you see the source of each sale. This means that you can track purchases that came from different platforms outside of Bandcamp and refine your promotional promotional activities accordingly. The Music Industry Cookbook – www.themusicindustrycookbook.com

TOOL KIT METHOD: FACEBOOK

4.3 FACEBOOK INTRODUCTION

page, as well as liking content and commenting on it.

Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms used by all businesses and professionals that were consulted and interviewed for this tool kit.

Facebook is an important digital tool because it allowed labels and artists to directly communicate with their fans, which can have very positive results when done in good way, and negative results when done in a poor way.

Whether Facebook is being used on behalf of a label or an artist, it is important to understand how to use it in an appropriate way. The platform gives fans the opportunity to like a page, and the administrator of that page can share photos, videos, audio, events, links and a whole bunch of other content. “I would almost say that web shop aside, our Facebook page is more important than the front page of our website!” - Miles Cleret, Soundway Records ! Facebook also have different apps that can be install on the various fan pages and be integrated with third party websites. For example, if a label or artist has a Mixcloud profile, it can easily be connect it with a Facebook page to more easily share and cross promote content hat is uploaded to Mixcloud on Facebook.

FACEBOOK PROMOTION GOAL: To better understand how to promote certain content on Facebook Facebook allows you to share loads of different types of content on your page – so try to be as varied in your types for posts as you are with your content.

“By no means should you use an auto poster that automatically sends your Tweets to Facebook or your Facebook posts to Twitter. People see right through that, and if they’re on your Facebook page and can see that a message came via Twitter, they wont feel like you are genuinely engaging with them and they will ignore you.” - Gavin Handley, Resonate Media !

Furthermore, fans of the Facebook page can also share content on the wall of that specific The Music Industry Cookbook – www.themusicindustrycookbook.com

1. Picture and Video content With so many mobile phones having decent quality cameras these days, it is easy to take pictures and directly sharing them on social media. This doesn’t mean that you should bombard your audience with random images, but it is a quick way to share “behind the scenes” images and give your fans a personal insight to what its like working at your label or being an artist. Some things that gets done on an everyday basis might seem trivial, but keep in mind that your audience most likely have very different everyday lives, and would be interested in seeing what people you met, what test pressings arrived, the look of your record collection and so on. There is also the ability to have picture albums on Facebook, so why not have a poll based on the amounts of likes for each picture to decide the look of the next album or single cover, or upload some images of some funny album covers and let your fans decide which one is the funniest. It is equally as easy to record and share video content these days. It doesn’t have to be professionally filmed, neither does it have to be very long. The point is to have as much relevant and varied content as possible to keep your fans interested. This of course extends to interesting video content, or any sort of content at all, that might not have anything to do with you or your business as such, but that your fans would appreciate. The more you encourage your fans to interact with your content, the more likely it is that they will share it with their friends, who then might share it with their friends and so on. 2. Audio content There are different ways of sharing audio through Facebook. You can do it via various apps or you can simply posts external links to a post. Which ever you choose to do, try to have a call to action with it. This might be something simple as “Here is a preview of a new release, tell us what you think” – to “Here is a preview, help us get 1000 likes and we will share the entire track”. The Music Industry Cookbook – www.themusicindustrycookbook.com

It’s not just releases that can be featured either, you can share radio shows and mixes and encourage people to tune in, you can create playlists on platforms such as Spotify and share them, you can add releases on presale on Bandcamp and let people order it – the possibilities are almost endless! The better you incorporate calls to actions in your posts, hopefully the more people interact with them, which means that they will have a much larger organic reach. However, you shouldn’t use the same call to action every time you share some type of audio on Facebook, as people might get bored of seeing the same message over and over again. 3. Different features from around the web Facebook is definitely a place where you should share all types of media features from around the web, as it is content that should interest your fans. However, when you do so: •

•

Make sure you upload an appropriate thumbnail image to go with the post (instead of using a preselected one that might not be related to your feature at all) Edit the preview text so it gives an accurate description of what the feature is about If you can, “@” in the Facebook page of the place or person that has featured you so your post about the feature shows up on their Facebook wall as well

4. Boosting posts Facebook allows administrators to pay money in order to boost post – which means they will reach an increased amount of people on Facebook. The administrator can choose between what audience to reach, so either people who like your page and their friends or people you choose through targeting, and what budget to spend. Depending on the budget, boosted post can reach up a maximum estimated amount of 21

people and can be a small investment for a great return.

result, it should boost the engagement and overall performance of your Page.

However, it is not something that should be done for every Facebook post or it can become a very expensive tool. Only really boost content that deserves a much bigger audience than what your total Facebook following can offer.

1. Overall performance of a page

“We had a little feature on the Guardian on Record Store Day and they named us as one of the top 10 labels so I paid 20 quid or so to boost it [...] and it more or less tripled in likes [...] going from around 5000 people seeing the post to around 18.500 people seeing the post. [...] But I do think that you have to pick your times and content since if you do it all the time you’re going to end up spending a lot of money. But if you got something that you should really shout about [...] then I think it is money well spent.”

Example of Facebook overview data There are three metrics that will help you assess the size and overall engagement of your audience on your page. These Include: •

- Miles Cleret, Soundway Records ! •

FACEBOOK INSIGHTS GOAL: To better understand Facebook insights in order to improve the overall performance of a specific Facebook page Facebook insights can be a very useful tool since it helps you understand how your fans are engaging with your page and the content you shar on it. Page insights allows you to: • • •

Track the performance of your page Distinguish which posts appeal to your fans Optimize the way you share you content in order to reach more people

This means that you can distinguish which Facebook posts had the most the most likes, comments and shares, and use this information to create content that is more targeted to your fans on the platform. As a

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•

Page likes, which are broken down into: ! Total page likes – the number of unique people who like your page. ! New page likes – the number of new likes your page received during the last 7 days, compared with the previous 7-day period. Post reach, which can be broken down into: ! Total reach - the number of unique people who have seen any content associated with your Page (including any ads) during the last 7 days. ! Overall post reach – the total number of unique people who have seen your page posts. Engagement which includes ! People Engaged – the number of unique people who have clicked on, liked, commented on or shared your posts during the last 7 days. ! Likes, comments, shares and post clicks show the totals for these actions during the last 7 days.

2. Specific post performance Facebook insights also makes it easy track specific post you have published, showing you statistics relating to: 22

• • •

How many people your post reached How many people clicked it How many people liked, commented or shared it.

fans are interested in seeing and engaging with, and what they don’t like. This in turn helps you tweak your content production and promotional activities on the platform, and as a result, organically increase the overall performance of the page as well.

Example of Facebook Post Reach The overall post reach is based on the number of unique people who saw your post, that includes when it’s shown in a user’s news feed. Don’t get this mixed up with the total reach of your page that includes all posts and engagements through your page. Your post reach will depend on the amount of people that like your page. Ideally, your reach with each post will increase organically, in line with the size of your growing page likes. If this is not the case, you might want to evaluate what sort of content you are sharing and at what times. The reach and engagement (which includes likes, comments and shares) will also very much depend on the content that you share. The more your fans are engaging with your posts, the wider the reach will be.

Example of Facebook Post Engagements Facebook insights relating to posts makes it easy for you to track the performance (reach and engagement) of different kinds of posts, which means that you can easily distinguish between what types of posts and content your

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TOOL KIT METHOD: TWITTER

4.4 TWITTER INTRODUCTION

tweets from those platforms pushed to your account depending on your activity on them.

Twitter is a great social media platform that enables you to have conversational engagement with fans in real-time, if that is what you are aiming to use it for. It is important to establish the purpose of your Twitter account, ideally before you start using it, so your fans know what to expect from your presence on the platform. Will it be use purely for announcements and information purposes, or will it be used to enable interaction between you and your fans? Once you have made that choice, try to stick to it and share content accordingly. Because the platform only allows posts of 140 characters, it means that you have to keep your tweets short and to the point. Try to avoid using automated tweets, especially ones that directly cross-promote your Facebook posts, if you are aiming to engage with your followers. People very quickly see through such things and lose interest as they notice that you don’t genuinely care about the content that you are posting on the platform. Having that said, feel free to connect your account to other digital platforms that you are genuinely active on. These can include platforms such as Instagram, Tumblr, WordPress, Mixcloud, Vimeo and many more. What you want to avoid is having automated The Music Industry Cookbook – www.themusicindustrycookbook.com

TWITTER PROMOTION GOAL: To understand the different ways you can use twitter as a promotional tool 1. Real time engagement Twitter is great if you’re looking for real-time engagement from your fans. It can be a very useful tool when doing live radio or TV shows (web or terrestrial) or if you are doing a Q&A session of some sorts. It is also very handy in terms of giving customer service and support, and a lot of larger businesses do use it for that. 2. Hashtags Using personalised hashtags are a great way of categorising tweets. Since hashtags are searchable, you can set one up for a specific purpose and then use the search to find tweets from other users relating to it. For example, you can host a competition and ask your followers to use a hashtag when tweeting their answer to be able to easier find them. 25

Or why not have a hashtag for a certain event or release, and ask followers to tweet in pictures or videos from that event or of that release and tag it with the hashtags.

TWITTER REPORTS

Furthermore, you don’t even have to complicate things that much. By just adding relevant hashtags to your tweets, you can reach millions of Twitter users who are searching for those specific topics.

An easy and straight forward way to track your Twitter activities is to set up a Twitter Ads account which is done by linking the service to an existing Twitter account.

The possibilities are almost endless, just make sure you choose a hashtag that isn’t already used if it is for your own use and don’t tag your every tweet with a hashtag unless it is for a very specific purpose as that will just put your followers off. 3. Twitter ads Just like Facebook, Twitter has a paid for service that helps you boost your tweets in order to reach more people with your content.

GOAL: To better understand Twitter statistics with the help of Twitter Ads

It is free to do so, all you need to do is add some further information about you or your company and submit payment details. PLEASE NOTE: Entering your details doesn’t mean you will get charged to access your twitter data information, it just enables the service supplier to charge you based on your paid for activities which you have control over. 1. Analytics

In order to do this, you need to set up a Twitter Ads profile and once that is done, you can start creating Twitter campaigns based on if you want to gain more followers or reach more people with your tweets. You only to pay for what you get – so if you set up a campaign and nothing happens at all, you don’t need to pay for it. One good thing about setting up a Twitter ads profile is that it offers analytics for you Twitter account, which you don’t get with a normal account. However, went it comes to boosting tweets, the same rule of thumb applies to twitter as it does to Facebook – if you have special content that you feel should reach a wider audience, then pay to boost it. But do not make it a habit or it can become an expensive one. Overall, the more active you are, the more you engage with your followers and the more interesting content you share, the faster you will gain followers organically.

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Example of tweet performance data The analytics section of Twitter ads helps you track the performance of: • •

Your tweet activities based on favourites, retweets, replies and clicks Your followers over time, as well as information about them including: ! Gender ! Location based on country and city ! Top unique interests ! Top overall interests ! Top Twitter profiles that they follow besides your account

You can set a time frame of how long you want the campaign to run, as well as setting daily or overall budgets of how much you are willing to pay for the promoted activities.

Example of Twitter followers data You can export your tweet activities as a CSV and by ranking the top tweets that reach the various goals you have set, you will be able to determine what kind of content your followers respond to, as well as the tone of voice that you should be using to get the best engagement.

It should be noted that if you are using the platform correctly and only really share content that is aimed directly at your followers, your account will organically grow over time. The more active you are on the platform within appropriate means, the more your profile will grow. Running campaigns for all of your content can become an expensive affair and it should be used with caution and only if there is a purpose and goal to do so.

By having access to follower demographics, you are able to tailor your content even more, not just by interest but also by regional promotion, which can help if you have artists touring or performing in certain territories. 2. Campaigns Twitter ads also allows you to create paid for campaigns that are aimed to either: •

•

Reach potential new followers by promoting specific tweets and getting those messages to people who are not yet following your account. You are only charged when users engage with your content. That includes clicking on a tweet, retweeting, replying, favouriting, and following you. Gain more followers by promoting your account. This feature is not based on a single tweet, and simply recommends people to follow you. It is an efficient was of growing your followers if you have a time constraint and need a quick turn-around. You wont get charged unless new followers add you via your promoted account (rather than organically seeing you on the platform and following you.)

You can track the performance of your campaign in real time and the payment is based around how well your promoted content or account performs. The Music Industry Cookbook – www.themusicindustrycookbook.com

TOOL KIT METHOD: MUSIC WEBSITES & BLOGS

4.5 MUSIC WEBSITES AND BLOGS INTRODUCTION Whether it is your own blog or other editorial lead music websites and blogs, it is always good to try to promote your projects through these various avenues online. When it comes to your own blog – as an artist or as business – see it as an exclusive hub where you and your fans can interact and engage with each other. A place where they can find out about the latest news, hear the latest releases, preview upcoming projects, as well as reading about more personal thoughts and opinions that goes beyond “work”. A blog is a great way for smaller businesses to show that there are real people behind the name/brand. Furthermore, a blog is also useful to share content that might be too long or too much for social media platforms and newsletters. By making it a place that your audience is interested in and wants to engage with and share content from, it can end up generating a lot of direct traffic to your website, as well as referrals through different platforms online. As for editorial lead music websites and blogs, they are platforms that can sometimes make a project very successful for a minimum cost. Many of them act as discovery platforms, where either trusted tastemakers share their opinions on certain products or where they simply aim to be the first to discover and share a specific project.

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These platforms have fan bases of their own which means that they can extend your audience reach much wider and potentially allow you reach new fans on a larger scale. With the ease of sharing content on social media networks, the content they produce is not confined to their own websites or blogs, which means that it can wider the reach even further.

PROMOTION VIA WEBSITES AND BLOGS GOAL: To understand how to use your own blog as a promotional tool and how to target other music websites & blogs to promote your content 1. Personal blog Just like with the newsletters, it is much easier to get into the habit of posting relevant blog posts more frequently if you have a general outline of topics to cover. However, due to the nature of blogs, your audience doesn’t necessarily expect you to only post announcements and information on it. This means that you can get a bit more creative and personal with your content, as well as bridging the gap with content found 29

on your other platforms online. This shows a red thread throughout your activities and content, which also means that people will find it more genuine rather than automated and spam like. To take examples from the previous tool kit methods and expanding them: •

•

Newsletters: Most newsletter services offer web versions of the newsletters you create. Why not keep an archive of them on the blog so your fans can go back and look at previous issues? Bandcamp: Use the embeddable players to share exclusive previews and pre-sales of upcoming content, to share free downloads, to share existing releases, or maybe promote other good and relevant content that you have found on the platform and make it into a monthly list where you recommend good music your fans might like but have potentially missed. Facebook: If you have shared interesting videos or pictures on your Facebook page, why not give a bit more extensive information about them on the blog? Of if you are asking for people opinions on a release, why not feature the top 5 or 10 people and their opinions on the blog? By incorporating your fans into the content you are creating and sharing means that they will feel involved and hopefully show more interest because they feel like you care and value their support. Twitter: If you have used twitter for an event or to promote a special project with a hashtag, share some of the tweets and/or content on the blog and try to get more people involved. For example, if you have tweeted a picture of a horrible album cover and used a hashtag to mark that topic, then your followers have replied with their contributions to that hashtag, make it into a monthly show and tell where you showcase the 10 most horrible album covers owned by your fans.

The possibilities are more or less endless and the sky is the limit, but it will most likely be more successful if you have: • •

A rough outline for various content types A plan and a purpose for the different types of content

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A schedule for when to share what and where

•

Don’t limit yourself to the blog and instead try to incorporate activities from other platforms as well. 2. Music websites and blogs First of all, you need to remember that content is (still!) king. So if the content you are trying to have promoted is poorly presented and put together, chances are that you will struggle to get it featured (with some exceptions of course). Once the content is sorted, make sure you have done your research properly and have a goal of what places you would like your content to be featured. Only target places that are relevant to your project and what the goals that you are trying to achieve. This means that if your content is aimed at people who might be interested in heavy metal music, you probably wasting your time trying to it featured on a Jazz blog. Might seem very straight forward, yet people still send content to the most irrelevant places. If there are websites and blogs where you get your information and daily dose of music from, why not try those first, and then try to see who they might be linking to, and have a look if those platforms suit. If you are still struggling, then this very rough guideline from Gavin Handley at Resonate Media might help: “There are of course particular big hitters that write about a broad variety of music, such as Pitchfork – they tend to be the number one site that people aim to get featured on, and that’s not always an easy task either. For electronic music, Fact Magazine and XLR8R are highly regarded, and for hip-hop and r’n’b Okayplayer is a good shout. Wax Poetics hold a certain seal of approval for funk and jazz too.” ! However, beyond these very popular places, you can also find relevant places by looking at your website and (if you have it) Bandcamp 30

statistics. What are the websites and blogs that link to you? How big is their following? Are they worth reaching out to? Don’t neglect online forums and message boards – they might not be seen as “conventional” websites or blogs as such, but a large number of people are still active on them and they are usually very niche, so it’s a great way to engage with your core demographic. For example, if your content is about collectable items such as rare or limited edition vinyl within specific genres, then places such as Very Good Plus, and Soul Source can be great platforms to share that content on.

TRACKING MUSIC WEBSITES AND BLOGS GOAL: To understand how to use certain analytical tools to track what websites and blogs promote your content Using analytical tools to understand where your traffic is coming from is essential in order to be able to create more targeted promotional plans and activities. Various websites and blogs can really help a project become successful and catering to their content needs is a small investment that can have a great return. 1. Establishing what websites and blogs to contact to drive traffic

If you are keen to do online promotion but don’t know what platforms to use and what places to contact, looking at your existing referral links is an efficient way of directly targeting websites and blogs that already have an interest in what you are doing.

Example of landing page data Furthermore, by seeing what landing pages are the most popular, you can get an idea of what sort of content engages and increases interest and aim to provide those websites or blogs with similar content. 2. Understanding if you are targeting the right websites and blogs with your promotion If in your promotional plan you have targeted specific websites and blogs for a certain release, with the aim of driving traffic to your website, you can set the time period in analytics to only show referral data relevant to that promotional period. You can look through all the referral links for that period, and depending on your goals, you will quickly see if these sites you have targeted with your promotion have been able to successfully drive traffic to your site or not. If the aim was to drive traffic to a specific page on your site, you can easily see what landing page was the most popular. If none of the websites or blogs generated any traffic within that time period, or if they underperformed to your set goal, it probably means that they either didn’t feature you or that your promotional content wasn’t engaging enough to drive referral traffic.

Example of referral traffic data The Music Industry Cookbook – www.themusicindustrycookbook.com

5. CASE STUDIES SOUNDWAY RECORDS USE FACEBOOK TO CONNECT WITH DIFFERENT FAN BASES It can sometimes be difficult for smaller labels to cater to different fan bases of the same artist, especially when there is a potential barrier to communication like language. With their artist Ondatropica, Soundway Records managed to not only avoid such a barrier in their communication with fans, but they also managed to get the different fan bases to connect with each other.

Example 1: Ondatropica Artist Facebook Fan Page

Being predominately a Latin American band, Ondatropica have a large Spanish speaking fan base. However, working with the British artist Will Holland, being signed to the British label Soundway Records, and doing a project with the British Council, there was a potential to accidentally freeze out a large part of their fan base due to not communicating with them in an appropriate way. This was however avoided by cross promoting and interacting with fans via two separate social media channels. The band set up their own Facebook page where they predominately communicate in Spanish, and as a result, more Spanish speaking fans follow and interact on that page. The Music Industry Cookbook – www.themusicindustrycookbook.com

Example 2: Soundway Label Facebook Fan Page Whilst the label cross promotes and communicates the bands messages on their own Facebook page, which is dominated by English speaking fans.

! However, due to nature of the content they have been promoting, the two Facebook pages also helped to connect the two fan bases with each other. So the fans of the band discovered the label and potentially their other artists through them and vice versa. “There was an Ondatropica website and Facebook page set up, as well as our own [website and Facebook pages] that we continually linked to – one in Spanish and one in English, which helped a lot and it really helped to connect those audiences together. So that really made a big difference.” - Miles Cleret, Soundway Records ! This is a great example of how a label have catered to their audience wants and expectations by delivering a successful project that at the heart of it is centred around the fans and how to better communicate engaging content to those different fan bases.

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5. CASE STUDIES JAZZMAN RECORDS USES BLOG POSTS TO GENERATE MORE WEBSITE TRAFFIC Interesting content that is targeted to your fan base can be extremely useful in order to generate traffic to your website or any other place online that you want your audience to visit. One way of tracking this sort traffic is by looking at referral links in analytical website tool such as Google Analytics. When looking at the social referral links for this project, it was clear that Blogger was the second most popular referral to the Jazzman website during the time period when primary data was collected, most likely due to the owner of the label, Gerald Short, having a personal blog on the platform.

Mr Short uses the blog to share relevant content that his, and the labels, fans are interested in. This includes, but is not limited to, • • • • • • •

Preview of upcoming releases Videos and pictures of record digging and other activities Information about upcoming DJ events Media features Links to Jazzman mixes and radio shows Pictures of Jazzman HQ and his personal record collection Links to other websites, blogs and forums that fans might find interesting

“We try to have [conversational] engagement with our customers and we do encourage them to communicate with us with anything they’d like to talk about. As a small and independent company, we should and we do strive for personal service; 1) because we can, and 2) because people like it, and 3) because our larger competitors can’t and don’t.” - Gerald Short, Jazzman Records

Example 1: Jazzman Gerald’s private blog The Music Industry Cookbook – www.themusicindustrycookbook.com

! Most of the content found on his own blog is written and created by him, which gives it a sign of authenticity, as well as giving fans a chance to potentially directly interact with him, or at least giving them the feeling that they 34

are. Also, since he is directly involved with all aspects of the label, the content that he shares on his own blog usually ends up being an exclusive article, and in turn, that potentially gives his readers a VIP feeling as they get to find out about news and release before the majority of consumers.

Example 2: Jazzman Records website blog The content shared on the labels blog also helps generate traffic to the website and is usually pretty popular content to share on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, as well as in newsletters. One of the most popular posts that generated the most traffic from social media platforms in one day during the research period was the announcement of the well-known Scottish DJ Keb Darge guesting the Jazzman Records radio show.

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5. CASE STUDIES FIRST WORD RECORDS INTEGRATES THEIR WEBSHOP WITH BANDCAMP

is easy to use. It has the look and feel of being part of the overall website, whilst actually working in a few different ways.

When trying to integrate digital into the overall business strategy, it can be difficult to find enough funds to build a website that has an integrated shop where you can sell your own products.

By incorporating artist Bandcamp pages with their own label page in their shop, they can more efficiently track traffic, streams, purchases and downloads relating to specific artists and projects, rather than having everything on one account.

Example 1: First Word Bandcamp Page on their own website Furthermore, even if the funds are there, it might be too costly to integrate all the features you might want the shop to have, including tools like reporting, downloads, streaming and so on. First Word Records have solved this issue by integrating Bandcamp with their personal website to create a shop that looks clean and The Music Industry Cookbook – www.themusicindustrycookbook.com

The label have separated their own Bandcamp label page with the ones of their artists, which means that they can more easily do reporting, as well as managing newsletter subscribers.

Example 2: First Word Artist Bandcamp Page on Bandcamp It also gives the artist more control of their releases if they would want it because their account is not dependent on the label as such. Furthermore, it is clearer for the fans as well, since they can see that they are directly contributing to the success of an artist by 36

supporting them on their own Bandcamp page, than rather than having to go through the label. It results in a more personal experience and gives fans the opportunity to explore the artists back catalogue as well from the same page. We’d previously made our own online shop, which was a little bit clunky. Bandcamp is very easy to integrate into your own website and you could tell from the off that they were serious about what they were doing – some very talented people are involved. They also love getting feedback and have even introduced features that we suggested to them. The analytics are useful – it’s very easy to export accounts too which helps. - Aly Gillani, First Word Records !

The Music Industry Cookbook – www.themusicindustrycookbook.com

5. CASE STUDIES FIRST WORD RECORDS GIVES MUSIC AWAY FOR FREE ON BANDCAMP TO INCREASE NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERS

First Word Records, one of the labels that were interviewed for this tool kit, seem to have mastered this concept very well.

There is a divided opinion in the music industry to whether or not it is good to give away music for free. However, when talking to PR and Marketing professional Gavin Handley from the London based company Resonate Media, he expressed that he personally thought it was a good thing to do, if it was done sparingly and with a specific purpose. “You can use this concept to collect email addresses, which is very handy. You just need to ascertain what your goal is. Many artists and labels decide to do this just because they can, but you don’t want to end up in a situation where your fan base expects everything you do to be free. Rather, I think you should use the concept sparingly; are you trying to break a new act or are you wanting to collect email addresses, for example. Do it, but just do it with a purpose in mind.” - Gavin Handley, Resonate Media

Example: First Word Records free compilation They put together a free, bi-annual, compilation that they offer on their Bandcamp page in return for email addresses. The compilation only includes artists from their own roster, and seems to have great promotional value beyond acquiring email addresses. •

It gives music enthusiasts and writers a special reason beyond the music to feature it on their websites as it’s free

•

It helps to introduce newly signed artists to a new audience and potentially turning them into fans without the consumer having to take a risk when acquiring the music (since it’s free)

•

It can also help promoting back catalogue and help those artists reach

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a wider audience that might not have heard of the older releases “We do bi-annual comps through our Bandcamp page, in return for customer email addresses. These are a great way to introduce new artists to our fans and we couldn’t achieve the reach we do with these without digital.” - Aly Gillani, First Word Records ! Bandcamp is a great tool for this exact purpose, and it also enables the label to see real-time statistics with relation to what tracks were streamed or downloaded the most, where the visits to the compilation page came from, what fans have supported it over time and so on.

The Music Industry Cookbook – www.themusicindustrycookbook.com

CON TRIBUTORS It would not have been possible to create the Music Industry Cookbook without the advice, help, encouragement, guidance and patience of all the contributors. I would like to thank each and every person who contributed to this project in one way or another, I appreciate you taking the time to help me. In alphabetical order: Ace Records – Dean Rudland Bandcamp – Andrew Jervis First Word Records – Aly Gillani INgrooves Music Group - Sharon Matheson Kudos Records – Luke Owen Now-Again Records – Eothen (Egon) Alapatt Peoples Potential Unlimited – Andrew Morgan Resonate Media – Gavin Handley Timmion Records – Jukka Sarapaa Ubiquity Records – Michael McFadin Special thanks to: Jazzman Records – Gerald Short: For letting me base all of my primary research on this amazing label. Soundway Records – Miles Cleret: For being patient and kind enough to have long Skype interviews. Additional thanks to: Andrew Dubber: For always being so relaxed and making me believe in myself. Sam Butler: For your patience and guidance in designing and producing this tool kit. If you would like to contribute to the MIC, please get in touch through the website. www.themusicindustrycookbook.com

The Music Industry Cookbook – www.themusicindustrycookbook.com

FURTHER READIN G If you are interested in knowing more about the literature and reports related to this project, have a look at the following books, journals and reports. ANDERSON, C. (2004), The Long Tail. Available at: Wired website. <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail_pr.html> (updated 2004, latest accessed 11th December 2011). BRITISH RECORDED MUSIC INDUSTRY (BPI), (2013), Digital Music Nation 2013’, Available at: BPI Digital Music Reports pages. < http://www.bpi.co.uk/digital-music-reports.aspx> (Latest access May 2014) DREW, R. (2005), Mixed Blessings: The Commercial Mix and the Future of Music Aggregation, Popular Music and Society ELBERSE, A. (2008), Should You Invest in the Long Tail?. Available at: Harvard Business Review website. <http://hbr.org/2008/07/should-you-invest-in-the-long-tail/ar/1> (updated 2008, latest accessed 11th December 2011). FRITH, S. (1988), Why Do Songs Have Words? in Music For Pleasure, Cambridge, Polity Press GANDER, J., RIEPLE, A. (2002), Inter-organisational Relationships in the Worldwide Popular Recorded Music Industry, Creativity and Innovation Management HESMONDHALG, D. (1998), The British Dance Music Industry: a case study of independent cultural production In: BENNETT, A., SHANK, B. and TOYNBEE, J. (eds.) The Popular Music Studies Reader, Oxon, Routledge HOMAN, S. (2010), Dancing without Music: Copyright and Australian Nightclubs, Popular Music and Society IFPI, (2014), IFPI Digital Music Report 2014: Lighting Up New Markets, Available at: IFPI Resources & Reports pages. <http://www.ifpi.org/digital-music-report.php> (Latest access May 2014) KATZ, M. (2004), Capturing Sound, London, University of California Press KONG, L. (1999), The Invention of Heritage: Popular Music In Singapore, (mss. but published in Asian Studies Review LEONARD, M. (2010), Exhibiting Popular Music: Museum Audiences, Inclusion and History. Journal of New Music Research, 39 (2), London, Routledge MINTEL, Music and Video Purchasing - UK - , August 2013 NEGUS, K. (1992), Producing Pop, Kent, Edward Arnold NEGUS, K. (1993), Plugging and Programming: Pop Radio and Record Promotion in Britain and the United States, Popular Music

The Music Industry Cookbook – www.themusicindustrycookbook.com

NEGUS, K. (1999), Music Genres and Corporate Structure, London, Routledge POWER, D., HALLENCREUTZ, D. (2002), Profiting from creativity? The music industry in Stockholm, Sweden and Kingston, Jamaica ROTHENBUHLER, E. W., MCCOURT, T. (2004), Burnishing the Brand: Todd Storz and the total station sound, Radio Journal - International Studies in Broadcast and Audio Media WALL, T (2010) Studying Popular Music Culture WALL, T. (2005), The political economy of internet music radio,The Radio Journal WALL, T. (2006), Out on the floor: the politics of dancing on the Northern Soul scene, Popular Music WALL, T., LONG, P. (2010), Jazz Britannia: mediating the story of British jazz on television, in Jazz Research Journal 3/2, Equinox WIKSTRÖM, P. (2009), The Music Industry, Cambridge, Polity Press

The Music Industry Cookbook – www.themusicindustrycookbook.com