Indie Artist X Project Wrap Up

This guest post comes from David Rose who created the Indie Artist X experiment. David Rose is also the Managing Editor at KnowTheMusicBiz.com and a Partner at The PlazaBridge Group.

Background:

About.com Music Careers, Artists House Music, KnowTheMusicBiz.com, MusicianWages.com, Revolution Number 3 and Hypebot banded together to create a basic, actionable music marketing plan designed around simple strategy, prioritization of tactics, easy to use tools, and a reasonable budget.  It’s our hope that any hard working, talented musician can utilize this plan to grow their fan base and help lay the foundation for a sustainable career in music.

Our group worked with one anonymous artist to design this music marketing plan then track and report the actual results over a four month period (July – October 2009). The group members were allowed to offer suggestions, advice and guidance to the artist but were not permitted to do any actual work on the artist’s behalf. During the project the artist had no record label, manager or booking agent support and was solely responsible for doing all the work to implement and maintain the marketing plan.

The Artist:

Austin Collins from Austin Collins and the Rainbirds is the artist who anonymously participated in the Indie Artist X Project. Austin regularly demonstrates many of the traits required to succeed as a modern indie artist. Austin not only has the ability to write great songs and personally connect with fans but he is also tech savvy, business smart and has an undeniable work ethic.

As the IAXP was preparing to kick off Austin won the 2009 AirPlay Direct “All Things Americana” artist contest. Austin is using the $35,000 contest prize package to self release his third studio record, due out in February 2010.

To learn how Austin originally got involved with in the Indie Artist X Project check out this blog post.

The Statistics:

Below are a few of the statistics that were tracked during the 4 month project.

	July	August	September	October
Total Website Visitors	628	1189	1187	1134
Fan List	739	760	774	786
BandMetrics Score	183	233	241	244

To see the complete project statistics check out the “Stats Summary” tab of the publically available IAXP music marketing plan document.

A Few IAXP Observations:

Like many experiments this one was far from perfect. For example, we were not able to successfully measure Austin’s distribution or direct sales. His previous label only provides semi-annual reporting on distribution sales and failed to provide the art files needed to setup direct CD or merchandise sales for Austin’s new website store.

Touring really makes a difference. Austin seems to have the ability to connect with fans when he plays live. His email fan list and website traffic both see positive, incremental growth when he tours. The flip side of this trend is that Austin spent much of September and October writing and recording his new record and less time playing live. The stats growth in both of those months slowed measurably.

Digital royalties are anemic at best. Even though Austin writes his own songs, owns the copyrights to his songs and has had thousands of plays on Last.FM, Pandora, Imeem, etc. he has never had royalties reported or paid through Soundexchange. He has only received two checks in the last four years from BMI. If there is ever going to be a musician middle class digital royalties must be paid on a per play basis.

A music marketing plan is no silver bullet. A solid music marketing plan is certainly helpful but there is no single tool or approach that can guarantee a successful career in music. Building a sustainable career in music these days takes a considerable amount of time, an extraordinary amount of talent and hard work, a “build one fan at a time” mentality and infinite patience.

Wrap Up:

Watching the many small successes and setbacks of a hard working indie artist from the front row has certainly been a great learning experience for everyone involved. Many thanks to Bruce @Hypebot,  Andrew @Artistshouse, Cameron @MusicianWages, Heather @About.com MusicCareers , Martin Atkins, Katie and Joanna @RevolutionNumber3 and @AustinCollins for all their hard work to pull the Indie Artist X Project together. - David Rose