Music Marketing

Ian Rogers On Artist Marketing: Do Something Small Weekly, Something Big Monthly

Ian Rogers spends is days and nights advising artists and their teams navigate the confusing and often overwhelming new music marketing landscape both as the CEO of Topspin and as the manager of Get Busy Committee.

Gone are the days when an artist can release an album every two or three years and ramp up a marketing effort to support it. Modern attention spans are simply too short and fan choices are virtually unlimited," Roger's writes on his Fistfulayen blog.

  • image from img.sxsw.com"Media 1.0 was a world of limited distribution (there were only so many channels on the dial, only so many choices on FM) and therefore attention abundance. (CBS was not scared to lose us as customers 25 years ago.)"
  • Media 2.0 is a world of unlimited distribution and therefore attention scarcity (our kids will not know about watching golf on sundays because “it’s the only thing on”.)

"At a certain point you get diminishing returns spending more $$ on
marketing, and what matters is relevance." says Rogers. "If something is liked by many
it can have success regardless of how much money was or wasn’t spent
marketing it."

A Campaign That Looks Like A Snowball

"Now that achieving mass marketing is hard and getting harder and technology allows direct (permission-based) relationships between artists and fans, a campaign which looks more like a snowball has a much better chance at showing a return on investment," says Rogers. He describes the process simply as:

  • Goal: Have more fans tomorrow than you had yesterday.
  • Measure: Grow fan connections as well as dollars. Every day should mean more email address, Twitter followers, Facebook fans, and MySpace friends (and whatever other way comes along tomorrow that fans can connect with artists and say “please talk to me”) and of course dollars (via direct sales, iTunes, Amazon, etc).
  • Action: Do something small weekly, something big monthly.

What actions cuts through the clutter and keep fans interested? Rogers shares a wonderfully simple and powerful slogan: Do something small weekly. Do something big monthly

Examples of small weekly actions? "Here are photos of us in studio working on the new album."  "New tour dates announced." "It's the bass player's birthday!"  Larger monthly action might include the album release, a new video, a remix or something more guerrilla like Josh Freese having lunch and going to Disneyland with a bunch of his fans.

The possibilities are only limited by the imagination. "If you, your bandmates, and your manager can’t come up with something creative on a monthly basis you might be in the wrong line of work," concludes Rogers.

Read more on Ian Roger's Fistfulayen blog and check out Get Busy Committee.  Here's their new video (aka this month's something big):

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9 Comments

  1. “Now that achieving mass marketing is hard and getting harder and technology allows direct (permission-based) relationships between artists and fans, a campaign which looks more like a snowball has a much better chance at showing a return on investment,” says Rogers.
    That sounds like the textbook definition of good-old artist development to me. Mass marketing a new artist was always hard (unless you threw tons of money at it.) That’s why labels focused on instore play, college airplay, got the artist out touring the country, making fans and friends one at a time. You sent out promos, did instores, on air appearances, meet and greets, phoners, interviews, guitar clinics, etc.
    “If you, your bandmates, and your manager can’t come up with something creative on a monthly basis you might be in the wrong line of work,” concludes Rogers.
    In the old days, labels sent out tsotchkes, a keychain with the album name on it, a coffee mug or t-shirt, or perhaps a promo only live EP. anything to keep the band or release on people’s minds. There was a plan behind a release, with waves of promotion behind each new single, or tour, or video.
    With respect to Ian, nothing that he is suggesting is new thought, it’s all Record Business 101. The only unfortunate twist is that, in the old days, the record label put all this stuff together, conceptualized promo items, the “something creative” he refers to. In 20 years working for labels, it was a very rare thing to see an act involved in promotional concepts or strategies, it was always a Product Manager and/or the Artist Development people pitching ideas to management (or informing them about them).
    I think Ian’s is giving managers way too much credit, and probably the acts themselves too. The skillset required for writing and performing is not the same as that required to market effectively. And most of the managers I’ve met were very good at recognizing good ideas and opportunities versus bad ones (because really, that’s what a manager is supposed to do for an act), but again, I rarely saw a manager come up with a great promotional idea.
    There’s an opportunity here for a new type of product manager or label, that helps the acts do these things, because frankly it’s a lot harder that Ian is suggesting. Perhaps his experience with the Beastie Boys, an act that was always highly creative and involved, made him believe that every act is, or should be that way. But it’s not reality. Anybody who has worked with a variety of artists and managers knows that. Artists need help marketing and promoting so they can focus on their art.

  2. Really good advice Ian & Co.
    I really LOVE the do something small weekly/big monthly concept. I picked up a similar concept from Bob Baker a few years ago and it worked really well for me.
    Old Record Guy – I’m kind of with you on all of the “New Marketing” stuff. A lot of people are coming out of the woodwork touting new tactics – when a lot of it is rehashed/repackaged stuff that we or others have been doing all along.
    That said, I really agree with the steady stream of new creative content approach…
    I think what it all boils down to these days with Web 2.0/3.0 is that WE ARE THE BROADCASTERS now. We are the tastemakers.
    @davemhuffman
    TheIndieLaunchPad.com

  3. Great advice. The hardest thing these days is how to manage all the time it takes to manage all of your social networking sites and being effective. This breaks an otherwise overwhelming task into little bits that can then be effective.
    TheJazzLawyer.com

  4. I agree with Ian, some, and with Old Record guy more. I think I appreciate more infrequent communication of good ideas rather than weekly dispatches that are created to meet a goal. The communication coming from, say, The White Stripes, or Radiohead, seems more valuable to me than the communication coming from a Twitterhead like John Mayer. Obviously people have to care about you, and your message, first but don’t underestimate the value of creating mystery and intrigue.

  5. “Manager” is a word/position that has, and always will have, a variety of practical implications in the music industry. To expect any one person or company to come up with all of the “great ideas” is a general waste of time and just plain lazy. Don’t expect anything. Don’t assume anything. Do something. Just get something done already. Stop trying to come up with an all inclusive name for the person/company that is “supposed to” or “used to” come up with all the good ideas and make things happen. Most “things” in this game are the same, it’s just the light of day that has diminished, so every “thing” appears different. Many of us have been blinded by it. Simply put, make music that move you, create a sensible budget and establish a timeframe and get to work. If at first you don’t succeed, stop whining about it and pointing fingers and try something different.

  6. Well written Ian. Thanks for sharing. Interestingly there was an NPR feature on yesterday’s Soundcheck discussing the dying art of A&R and how audiences/blogs etc. are now dictating where the industry should be looking for new talent. I think it ties in well to your article. You can listen here: http://bit.ly/crJtF2

  7. Brian Epstein, Kit Lambert, or Ringo and Keith. Who would you want doing to manage your band’s marketing efforts? I’d wager what works for one doesn’t work for all, and verse vice 🙂
    I still like bands for their music, I don’t care what spam they blast me with while they are on tour or cutting their toe nails in the studio. Three of the last Cds/MP3 albums I bought were awesome bands, I have not a single idea where they are from, or who is even in the band. Their music rocks though. If they have a story, whatever, that’s cool, maybe I”ll listen to that, but I really want their music to be good, not their T-Shirts or clever emails, or acid trips on Hollywood Blvd.
    Sure, we haven’t solved how to get kids to “pay for the music”, or some have (U2 seems to be loaded and I have never bought one of their T-shirts, a plastic made in china USB drive, or gotten a single email from Bono, but have 12 of their CDs)
    I don’t know the answer, but have always wondered if there ios a point where all of this mass “individual” marketing breaks down? My feeling is it will. 1 million facebook “friends”, 1 million twitter followers. What is that? Is that really working? Sure I guess any sale in that channel is profit since all those mediums are FREE to use 😉
    Mutual, dynamic interaction between fans and artists that works together for that particular situation, to get fans to contribute to that “artistic effort” feels like the non-formula formula. It’s no different than communities working together. You need involvement from all parties. Bands just spamming fans that they just bought a new pair of socks today, and oh, here is a new Poster, you can get it with a mp3 on my online store full of merch (and some music). Add the complexity of more dynamic music programming available on the web, and there is less of a need to “own” music. A real paradox.
    There is no magic formula. Wait, is that a sound bite 😉
    If the Artists music is good, if it touches a large enough group of people, it finds a way. For some, that’s easy. For others it’s hard. And others, they get totally screwed over by “the system”. Every bands goals are different. I’d say one thing though: if a band doesn’t have a “goal”, before they do anything else, they should set a goal.
    Obviously like any business, they can fuck it up, hire the wrong leadership chain, get the wrong “investors”, sign a stupid contract, puke on their own vomit, and walk way with nothing. That is life, in ANY industry. How many Founders versus VCs really make out as good as the investors in software startups?
    Same. Same. But now, as Ian said there are MANY more channels to distribute, so the big Cats in the Music 101 can’t just control the flow of goods through fixed channels. That’s the good thing. I personally just don’t think there is “one formula” for using these new channels, that direct to fan is the 100% complete answer, and I know Ian isn’t saying that and a 2 paragraph article doesn’t give him justice for his innovative ideas. But to me, the “discovery” is not complete and that something right now actually works so well it’s time to bake it into a process and business plan for everyone.
    It’s still a conversation worth having.
    American Idol mentality is out there in large groups.

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