Vertical Response recently put out their 10 Great Email and Social Media Marketing Resources PDF.  It's worth musicians taking a look at because there are several helpful tools that can aid your efforts to reach fans and maintain relationships with them.

This document is also a useful resource because, while social media is all anyone seems to be talking about in marketing, email is still a much needed and widely used piece of the marketing puzzle.

The trick is getting all of the pieces of your marketing approach to work together moving in the same direction.

One of my favorites from the Vertical Response list is the Subject Line Checker, what's yours?

Posted by:  Nick Venturella

A quote from Richard Branson’s book, Business Stripped Bare (Amazon affiliate):

“In an era of digital downloads and headphones that tune out the rest of the world, the live-music experience offers something different, authentic and communal.”

As indie musicians have no trouble these days distributing their music (via the internet, etc.) there’s still the issue of actually being heard amongst the enormous amount of new music now available.  So how do you stand out and differentiate yourself--being discovered by new fans while also being completely dedicated to your current loyal fans.

That quote gets at heart of what I think music, business and life are all about--people.  People being their authentic selves and creating relationships sometimes around a communal event or through various forms of communication.

Specifically related to music:  Creating unique experiences like those of a live concert help to create a feeling of involvement in something larger than yourself, an experience that you know is fleeting.  However, a shared fleeting experience creates long-lasting memories.  I also think when people know it will be a one-of-kind experience, meaning they know it is only here for a short while, people become more acutely aware of being present, in the moment.  That, ‘right here and now’ presence-of-mind creates electric energy shared amongst those gathered to experience whatever event it is. 

Those who continue to innovate to create that heightened sense of authentic, communal real-time awareness with their music and/or creative pursuits, both on- and off-line, are the ones who will likely have the most success.  They’re also the ones most likely to recognize that that formula is rooted in human relationships, which transcends any and all technological tools that merely help you more easily communicate your messages to be able to build those relationships.

Posted by:  Nick Venturella

I recently read Christine Kane’s latest blog post regarding 9 myths about finding your passion.  On her list, the myth that stood out most to me
was:

"Myth #7 – That everyone will be on board.
You can always try forwarding the previous post to your friends and family with themessage 'See?!'

But chances are, not everyone in your life will be thrilled when you start turning things upside down. (Mostly because you will be pushing the edges of their world-view and people never like that very much.)"


That last part giving reason as to why others may not be on board is really dead-on.  I know, I’ve experienced this in my life.  In fact, I still experience it, but you can’t control what others think.  Like Christine is suggesting, what you do or want to do with your life, is hard for others to comprehend because it may be very different from how they would approach pursuits in their own lives.  That’s not your fault. 

However, when family members don’t fully grasp what you want to do or where you’re trying to go, it’s often because they want to try and protect you from failure, should it happen.  Unfortunately, what they don’t always understand is that, for creative folks like you and I, it will be a bigger failure if we don’t even try.

Posted by:  Nick Venturella

Digital Music News recently published a blog with some statistical information from Pollstar about the average age of top touring musicians (for these purposes their talking about major label artists), which happens to be 46 years old. 

Some of the artists mentioned in the post were:  Simon & Garfunkel, U2, Metallica, Cher, No Doubt (into their 40s now), Bob Dylan, and Kiss.

It was an interesting post with some good data and additional related info like the fact that younger concertgoers (18 to 24 year olds) are dropping off, which makes sense if the majority of live shows being put on are by older artists clearly their fan-base is likely to be older too.

What this article got me thinking about--and this is sort of just me blogging thoughts out loud (so to speak)--is what would similar research look for indie artists?

I suspect the majority of indie artists (meaning not indie artists on quasi-indie labels owned by the majors or former major label artists that now run their own affairs) are touring more regionally than nationally, so taking that into consideration, what is the average age of top regionally touring indie artists?  Also what are their gross revenues?  And what are the average ticket prices a concertgoer of such a show pays (could be a cover charge)?

I don’t have these answers.  I’m not even quite sure where one would find them other than asking some of your regions top touring artist themselves, but if anyone has any ideas or thoughts on the subject I’d love to read your comments.

Posted by:  Nick Venturella

Learn about building your independent music career in
The Local Music Journey book. 

You can download a FREE excerpt here.