Your Visuals Need To Be Remarkable

Creating album art?  Thinking about advertising your band?  Over the last year, I have been working within the intersection of behavioral targeting, the music industry and ad design.  I can tell you that artists everywhere submit images for inclusion in banner ad campaigns that are less appealing, more boring and exceedingly less mysterious than the image above.

I have news for you: nobody clicks on images that feature four unknown dudes from Worcester, Massachusetts.  And why would they?  Four shaggy haired boys wearing skinny jeans in a band called 'yowhatever'…exists in every town in America.  Alert: you're not truly unique and you're not that cute, and nobody will click your banner ad if you feature your unknown self(s).  The same advice applies to pretty girls leaning against shady trees with acoustic guitars slung over their backs.  Attractive faces hitched to guitars are everywhere.

There are a million artists out there.  Humans on the Internet are bombarded with ten thousand images a day.  Your visuals need to be remarkable, arresting and compelling if you want people to click on your advertisements.

Consider featuring an stunning/halting (stock) image that tells the story of your song instead of the unremarkable picture of yourself.  Be mysterious.  Tell a story.  Draw people in.  Animate your ad.  But most of all, save the picture of yourself for the yearbook.

Artists Can't Solely Rely on Social Media

This post demonstrates why it's essential to use advertising and strategic PR to 'bridge' potential fan groups that have overlapping music preference profiles but remain entirely disconnected from each other on the Internet.

Fictitious Artist X - One Year Ago

One year ago, fans connected with artist X (liked, followed, or subscribed to) for a variety of reasons.  Some liked X as a person or a performer; some liked artist X's live shows; some liked song A, or song B, or song C; and some simply liked the drummer (it happens).  All this 'liking' happened along a spectrum, and none of it had to be mutually exclusive, as there were some fans that liked everything they saw and heard.

Fictitious Artist X Releases a New Song

Consider what happens one year later when artist X releases a new single through Facebook, Twitter and via his or her email list, and be mindful that we now live in a world where singles dominate the attention of fans.

The new song from artist X has a sonic, emotional and lyrical profile that is very similar to song A which was released one year prior.  However, the new song doesn't really resonate with those that liked songs B and C in the past; only those that previously liked song A are willing to move the 'new song' message forward to their friends and followers.

The Social Journey of a Song

The song, with it's own sonic, emotional and lyrical profile, continues to travel down social pathways along routes where the song profile intersects with the music preference profiles of interconnected fans and their friends. Finally the song ceases to travel further when it runs out of the combination of people that are both interconnected and receptive to the song.  You should also note that the time lag between obtaining, test driving, adopting and proclaiming affection for a song can often take months.

Bridging Song Roadblocks

However that doesn't mean that the song has nowhere else to go!  What's needed next are bridges that jump over roadblocks to new pathways where the song's profile keys into the music preferences profiles of other potential new fans.

All forms of advertising, including Facebook advertising, as well as strategic PR, serve as bridges to disconnected groups of people. 

Successful Bridging

The keys to successful 'bridging' for effective song promotion are:

1) Commit to running numerous short, inexpensive test campaigns where you precisely target various music fan segments with a mix of messages, creatives, and propositions.  Don't run large campaigns until you are sure you have the right mix.

2) Consider absorption rates.  Dropping different songs and propositions onto different segments are going to result in a variety of absorption rates.  For example, it may be many months before a free song download proposition results in a social mention or in a ticket sale.  Results will vary.

3) Make thoughtful and incremental campaign adjustments based upon the song engagement analytics provided by your advertising platform or PR service provider. 

Songs, Magnetism, and Business

How do you tell a businessperson that success in the music business…has nothing to do with business?

On the internet, you’ll find an overwhelming amount of advice on social media practices, fan engagement and conversion strategies, business planning, artist management, music marketing, music technology and enough similar sounding posts to make your head spin.  One might even be misled into believing that the equation: decent artist + solid business support = success.  However this formula is about as a sound as building a table that only has...one leg. 

If you are ever thinking about financially backing or supporting an artist, you should know that there are two other legs of the table that are of equal or greater importance.  In fact, if these first two legs are solid, the third leg, the business leg, almost organically grows itself.

Songs are the first leg of the table.
On the surface, the first leg of the table seems rather obvious.  If your artist doesn’t have fantastic, phenomenal, groundbreaking (non-trite, non-cliche, non-average) songs then the venture is beginning from a place that is already underwater.  The challenges here are:  one million songs a year are being uploaded to the Internet; to most people, many of these songs sound almost great; the average music fan can’t separate the value of a live performance experience from the value of great songwriting; nobody can consistently pick hits, as record labels repeatedly fail at trying (but they do know what average sounds like); and the process of song adoption and falling in love with songs is a complex journey that often takes far more time than standard market research testing accounts for. 

If you really dig your artists and you love his or her songs, then my advice here is to seek out at least ten people that each have ten years of solid music industry / music making experience and then challenge each music industry professional to point out, describe and contrast similar songs.  Judgments aside, similar song/artist analysis - produced by people that regularly traffic in music - is going to give you the essential, comparative marketplace information you need to make an informed investment decision. 

Magnetism is the second leg of the table.
The voyage your artist must take to obtain niche popularity is going to take at least three to five years, and your time and money cannot be glue that holds the raft together.  If your solo artist or band can’t attract, captivate and inspire fans, dedicated band members, experienced industry pros and a passionate support team without the use of your money, then think twice prior to investing.  No amount of money can buy enduring success in the music industry, and signing to a record label does not create an exception.  Instead, songs and magnetism are the keys to lasting success. 
 
In my opinion, magnetism is the sum of a dozen or more overlapping qualities.  To attract, captivate and inspire fans look for excellent songwriting, an alluring presence, unrivalled musicianship and the ability to deliver an arresting performance.  To find magnetism within a band and between band members look for the mutual dedication to excellent musicianship, generosity, genuine friendships, a natural leader and non-conflicting goals.  Personally, I prefer to find a notable industry veteran with twenty years of experience already attracted and attached (magnetized) to the project/artist/band; this may indicate songwriting chops, publishing knowhow, the wisdom to navigate within the entertainment industry, but most of all it indicates (to me) that someone that has seen a lot…also sees something that is rare and exceptional.  As for attracting a passionate support team - that includes levelheaded business people – this is one indicator that the artist(s) involved are 1) not fucked up, and 2) demonstrate remarkable character. 

If your artist is less than magnetic, and if you think you can pave over magnetic deficiencies with money, than I have two words for you…good luck.

Business is the third leg of the table.
If the song and magnetism legs are solid, the third business leg is simply there for balance.  All the business bullshit and music technology plumbing are nice-to-haves, mild accelerants, and/or revenue enhancers.  However if legs one and two are rock solid, everything else is trivial in comparison.  You can make numerous business mistakes and naïve technology decisions, but if your artist can’t write or obtain the best songs in the world, or if he or she is a selfish, lazy, drug abusing dullard then forget about obtaining enduring success.  The business leg is the easiest leg to change; the other two legs are often (permanently) carved into the table.

Promotion Less to Popular

One Billion True Fans - It Won’t Happen.
Even with overlap, at one thousand fans per artist, one million artists cannot acquire one billion true fans.  All the music lovers in the world are never going to accept and process billions of artist-initiated emails, status updates and text messages.  Pushy self-promotion doesn’t scale.  If everyone is doing it, nobody is going to do it effectively; the same applies to fundraising; fans are going to tune these messages out.  Collectively, artists and their managers are running the risk of appearing like financial planners at a cookout…occasionally invited, but often avoided.  Moreover, the sum of all the effort and capital invested in music promotion generates such a negative return, that it makes investing heavily in time travel machines appear outright attractive.  Perhaps it’s time to consider jumping off of, or avoiding altogether, the self-promotion bandwagon.

In this post I am going to argue that given the career economics of the music industry, a Promotionless To Popular Strategy (theory) is a strategy that artists are compelled to pursue prior to attempting to climb the mass-exposure / fan-acquisition pyramid.

First, some history: back in the day, to record an album in a top residential recording studio with the help of a gold-record producer and his tuned team of unkempt engineers and star-struck interns, it was commonplace to spend a small fortune to make an album.  To afford a major-label dream team and a big-studio experience, you had to have an illegal drug business, a shaky investor, or a record deal.  The ticket price to recording in an expensive studio on somebody else’s dime was to have long, long lines outside and crazed fans at all of your live shows.  If you ask me, you should set the same bar for yourself when it comes to investing in self-promotion.  Unless lines are forming out the door, down the street and around the corner, consider improving your songs and your live performances prior to doing anything else.  Given the economics of the industry and what I am about to describe below, artists really don’t have many other options.

A weak online pulse equals an anemic act.
For the first time in history, if fans are impressed, you should be able to find, analyze and measure fan-generated content that features you on YouTube, on Flickr, within an expanding list of Google search results, within numerous Twitter tweets, on blogs, on file sharing networks, on music social networks, and all over Facebook.  If fans are not rating, mentioning and featuring you or your songs, if the pulse of your online buzz is weak, then the very real possibility exists that your songs and/or your performances are just not good enough yet.  (I do acknowledge that the behavior exhibited by fans will vary (today) from genre to genre.)

The online landscape is far different today than it was twenty-four months ago.  As I stated in my last post, 500,000,000 music fans have recently acquired the unprecedented capacity to capture, edit, annotate and promote for you.  The creative and promotional work done by fans will be, or already is, powerful enough to build a solid fanbase upon.

Fan-based ad creation and social promotion is already occurring across a broad spectrum of consumer products.  There isn’t a smart consumer-facing company today that is not motivating ‘fans’ (crowds) to assist in message creation and/or promotion.  Given the 24/7 news cycle, fierce competition and shrinking margins, reliance upon ‘fans’ is more than a passing fad, it’s becoming necessary to compete and survive within numerous industries.

The Promotionless To Popular Strategy (theory)
Theoretically speaking, if you are brave (promotion consultants will say foolish) and remarkable, you don’t really have do anything today but continually improve and consistently (weekly or monthly) show up at the same place(s) and play.  Fans can almost do everything else.  Give them permission and a way to capture a clean recording of your live performances, and there’s not much you can do…that fans can’t do faster, wider and better, and this includes motivating new fans (prospects) to attend your shows.

Even if you are semi-famous, operating at the lowest cost structure possible has never been more important.

The economics of a Promotionless To Popular Strategy
The cost to create studio-quality recordings has plummeted; the cost to distribute music is negligible; music is nearly free; and now the cost of promotion (including effort) is rapidly approaching zero.  Going forward, you will practice and improve; you will be paid for live performances; you will sell physical merchandise and digital stuff; the need for middlemen will continue to fall off; fans will play an integral part in your rise (more so than ever); and the rewards for reaching the apex of the industry will continue to be substantial.  A Promotionless To Popular Strategy is really the only promotion strategy that any unknown artist can economically justify now.

When to conclude a Promotionless To Popular Strategy
There’s a point where it makes strategic sense to invest in capitalizing on the momentum that fans have created for you; this timing would also coincide with the point where you have probably become…remarkable.  I would argue that this milestone (milestone one) has been reached when the amount of online touch points, mentions and impressions has climbed into the high hundreds of thousands to low millions. This is when it makes (more) sense to seek mass-exposure placements (radio, television, film, ads, large festivals etc.); prior to this point, you are just one of the many millions (soon to be tens of millions) seeking fame and fortune via the submit-to-the-lottery-and-pray model, combined with the who-you-know-and-take-out-to-dinner method.  Good luck.

Moving forward, once an artist has obtained 50,000,000 impressions (multiply listeners by spins to get impressions), it makes sense to me to invest in a support organization and the offline/online effort to capitalize on 1) your efforts to date, 2) the momentum fans have already generated, and 3) the risk mitigation that has resulted from mass-exposure placement(s).  Obtaining anything less than 50,000,000 impressions diminishes your organization’s chances at achieving sustainable profits.

Note: there are plenty of people, including labels that gamble on investing in artists prior to achieving either of the milestones just covered above.  However, artist investing is a business that nearly has a 100% failure rate.  My advice is to never invest in expensive album recording projects, and to never invest in paid advertising, paid placement, or paid promotion until an artist has achieved milestone one.

Building a team for a Promotionless To Popular Strategy
Different times call for new thinking when it comes to ringing up obligations (paying cash or sharing percentages) to the people that work with you.  Think about the YouTube videos that fans will create; the compelling images people will post on Facebook; and generally about what will be mentioned on the Internet.  Strategies such as running a great party (consider a professional event planner), ensuring that your live sound quality is dialed in (use an experienced sound engineer), and seeking proven professionals to work on a single song, are more important than traditional management, Internet interns, and radio promotion consultants.  You can’t afford (time and money) to keep attempting to promote yourself forward.  Surround yourself with people that can help you create an unforgettable song, stage an arresting party, and deliver a stunning performance; these are the things will make your online pulse strong. 

Promotionless To Popular does not equate to doing nothing!  Make it easy for fans to promote you, but don’t get worked up about investing time and money into promoting yourself. 

Question:  My live shows are packed and I am really good, but there’s very little measurable, fan-generated activity.  How come?
Response:  You are just not good enough, your niche is paper thin, or you have confined yourself to a sparsely populated area.  The Internet is packed with competing alternatives.  Try harder and/or move to a bigger city.

Question:  I have songs that would be great on a movie soundtrack.  Do I really need all those touch points, mentions and impressions to obtain a placement?
Response:  If I had a dime for every time an artist said they have great soundtrack songs…I would be rich.  No, perhaps you don’t need all those touch points and impressions, but they prove that your song is remarkable, and more and more song and talent buyers are using ‘remarkable’ filters to find songs and artists.  Good luck.

Question:  I can name artists that are doing it differently, and artists that are building businesses on top of aggressive promotion.  What do you say to that?
Response:  There are exceptions to everything.  It seems like some random artist dreams up a press-worthy promotion stunt every month.  Good luck with that.  Aggressive promotion costs time and money.  Are these promotion-heavy artists truly generating consistent, family-supporting incomes?

Question:  Does fan-generated content/messages have the same reach as artist-generated content/messages?
Response:  Consider the sea of friend-networks on Facebook, the ocean of hourly tweets on Twitter, billions of text/picture messages a day, fan videos, and remixes.  For any random artist, which entity generates more views, clicks, rates, mentions and re-mentions - the artist, or the sum total of his or her fans?

Question:  What about the 1,000 True Fans model?
Response:  Depending upon how you execute it (passively or aggressively), the 1,000 True Fans model is a subset of this model.  Nobody wants to artificially stop at 1,000 fans.  Keep going.  If you are really starting to ‘hear’ your online buzz, leaning on 1,000 true fans to propagate your message is a great next step.