StoryAmp Launches Enterprise Music PR Platform with GirlieAction and Toolshed
StoryAmp, a web platform that optimizes press kits and email blasts to journalists, has released a new enterprise feature set allowing music PR firms, booking agents, and record labels to power their branded websites and email blasts to the media. PR and marketing firm Girlie Action (with Lucius, My Morning Jacket, Meshell Ndegeocello, Pussy Riot, They Might Be Giants) and Dick Huey's Toolshed (Basia Bulat, Cat Power, and Wax Tailor) are StoryAmp’s first white label clients with both companies relaunching their sites using the StoryAmp platform.
“StoryAmp has provided us with a suite of features that are perfectly designed for marketing music and promoting artists,” said Vickie Starr, co-owner of Girlie Action. “We could not have asked for an easier, more cost-effective ‘plug and play’ solution for our website.”
Other PR and marketing firms about to launch StoryAmp-powered websites include world music specialists rock paper scissors and FlipSwitch PR. Dozens of additional diverse professionals across the industry are also using StoryAmp. Current users include booking agencies Paradigm Talent Agency and Skyline Music Agency; record labels Tommy Boy Entertainment, SideOneDummy Records, and MPress Records; management firm 12×12 Management; and PR firms Hearth Music, Sugar Mountain PR and Signalflow PR.
“We initially built StoryAmp to help artists connect with journalists, but it turned out there was a lot of value to top-level publicists and managers by combining web hosting with email sending,” explains StoryAmp founder and CEO Dmitri Vietze, a sixteen-year music publicity veteran himself. “Though personal outreach and relationships will continue to play a strong role in publicity, efficient and effective information flow gives top-notch publicists more time to spend on out-of-the-box research and deepening pitches.”
Feedback from the field indicates that it seems to be working. StoryAmp “helped me match a new artist with a Wall Street Journal stringer who wound up writing a huge print feature on the band – a huge get for us,” said Paradigm Talent Agency’s Andy Adelewitz. Meanwhile, Paul Crockford, manager for Mark Knopfler, reports “StoryAmp managed to get me nationwide coverage for an album only available on import at that time. Their service was top class, their results excellent.”
StoryAmp accounts start at $30 per month for a single artist and $100 per month for a professional plan. The 7000+ journalists that use StoryAmp never pay a fee to use it. StoryAmp’s journalist portal includes many features to help journalists to find, filter, queue, and absorb press pitches and media assets. Professional publicist/manager accounts include going out in daily digests to StoryAmp’s existing users and sending custom-scheduled emails to users’ own private press lists.
Vietze will be facilitating the SXSW panel “Today’s Best Practices in Music Publicity” March 13 at 2 pm in the Austin Convention Center (Room 10A) with panelists Andy Adelewitz, Paradigm Talent Agency; Rey Roldan, Another Reybee Production; and, Sarah Avrin, Girlie Action. StoryAmp will be releasing America’s first Music Publicist Directory for free while visiting Austin. Publicists who want to be listed in the free directory should tweet @StoryAmp for more information.To be the first to download the directory, pick up the URL at the panel.
