Music Marketing

Fiverr Offers Cheap Outside The Box Marketing But Watch Your Step

Fiverr-logoFiverr is a crowdsourcing marketplace to get things done for as little as $5. Most coverage has focused on the opportunity for individuals all over the world to make money but I think it could be an interesting vehicle for publicizing one's music in unique ways on a limited budget. They recently received $15 million in funding so they should be around for awhile. However some of the marketing services on offer are not the kind of thing musicians should pursue.

Generally speaking, if you have a marketing budget that means it might be time to start building a relationship with a publicist or to utilize a paid web service as part of your ongoing music career building. But even if that's your plan, it's sometimes appropriate to explore other avenues especially if they haven't yet been saturated by music campaigns.

Fiverr offers a unique opportunity to create an outside the box campaign. But such a campaign should be taken seriously even if you're bundling together a bunch of goofy video testimonials.

Fiverr goes back to 2010 at the very least but has recently been advertising on various tech sites. And, yes, those ads worked to catch my attention leading to this post on Hypebot.

Somehow I missed quite a bit of media coverage back in May when Fiverr received $15 million in investments to take it to the next level. Somewhere along the line Fiverr also expanded beyond the concept of all services being available for $5 and now those offering their services who have established a track record can charge up to $150.

But it's the $5 services that offer a fun way to take a small marketing budget and see what happens when you spread it around to a bunch of different people who can create something amusing or useful for your benefit.

For example, if you check out the Advertising services, you'll find such possibilities as:

I will promote your company/logo/idea on my truck for 30 days for $5

I will take a picture of your product anywhere in Las Vegas for $5

I will advertise your company via a short video clip with my hand puppet for $5

But sticking to the advertising section would be a mistake. Then you'd miss out on this great idea in Fun & Bizarre:

I will make a funny video testimonial while l talk to my psychologist about your website or product for $5

There are two big opportunities I see here for marketing music. One is picking location-based services for such things as events. Though the directory isn't organized by location, you can search for a specific city such as San Francisco and seek out the higher visibility options.

Another approach is to look for interesting video makers that could create something to catch people by surprise, make them laugh and hopefully share the video. I'm digging the "talk to my psychologist" offering above but you could always have someone sing your message in OPERA for $5.

There is a Video section but I found the above video makers in other categories so don't limit your search to that one section.

I think there are some fun possiblities here but be careful. Some of the options I found struck me as sexist and racist, abusive and possibly illegal or spammy. I don't have a good example for the last one but I did briefly have a Twitter follower who was offering services on Fiverr to get you thousands of social media followers which means they are either fake accounts or other spammers.

That said, the few examples I'm finding that could be problematic should be easy to avoid and it looks like Fiverr has some quality control in place. It will be more an issue of sorting through options and having a focus for whatever campaign you generate. If you do pursue this approach to music marketing, let me know how it goes.

Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) blogs about business at Flux Research: Business Changes and about dance at All World Dance: News. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.

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4 Comments

  1. Some Fiverr sellers offer backlink packages of 5,000 or more links for your site. These aren’t just spammy; having those links created can get your site delisted from Google. This happened to many unsuspecting webmasters in the last Panda/Penguin update. No matter how tempted you might be, don’t buy them.

  2. For marketing your music, Maybe you should consult with a publicist first. Have them do a market analysis for your band and draw out your marketing plan. Then break your marketing plan into campaigns and use fiverr and sites like fiverr to execute your plan.

  3. I do musical gigs on fiverr!! studio quality music for any project you wont find a cheaper deal check out my feedback and samples on my page:) wwww.fiverr.com/matt_garry/record

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