Online Music Marketing: 43 Metrics & 7 Tools To Measure ROI

By Dexter Bryant Jr.

Using the Internet to market and promote your music is one of the most affordable ways to establish and build a following. The abundance of free tools and music-based social networks has made music marketing more accessible than ever for musicians around the globe. Rather than investing boatloads of cash into advertising, PR, and radio promotion, instead musicians invest their time. Through social networking and direct-to-fan engagement musicians can achieve remarkable results with online marketing.

The question that often comes up is how do you know if your online marketing is working? Also, how do you know where your marketing is the most effective?

ROI (“return on investment”) is a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments. In the case of music marketing online, your time is your main investment. Tracking the results of your music marketing efforts online is crucial to figuring out where your time is being wasted and where it is best spent so that you can amend your actions accordingly.

Below I have listed 43 metrics for measuring ROI and 7 tools to measure with.

Metrics:

1. Number of subscribers on your mailing list
2. Twitter followers
3. Friends/fans on TheSixtyOne.com
4. YouTube channel subscribers
5. YouTube plays
6. YouTube uploads of your songs by other users
7. We Are Hunted chart positions of your songs
8. Blog mentions or reviews of your music
9. Backlinks (blogs and websites linking to your website or blog)
10. Mixtape/album downloads
11. Individual track downloads
12. P2P downloads and sharing of your music
13. BitTorrent downloads, seeds, and sharing of your music
14. Last.fm plays
15. Last.fm friends
16. PureVolume friends
17. PureVolume plays
18. Facebook fans
19. Twitter plays through twiturm.com or twt.fm
20. Plays and listeners on blip.fm
21. Plays on podcasts
22. Plays on Internet radio stations
23. Use of your music by DJs in podcasts, online radio, & in night clubs
24. Your songs featured on digital mixtapes by well-known DJs
25. Online plays streamed longer than 30 seconds (on various music social networks)
26. International audience: number of countries where people are engaging with your content (plays, downloads, reads, shares, subscriptions, etc)
27. ReTweets of your content (songs, mixtapes, articles)
28. 100+ concentration of fans in a specific region (touring becomes viable in that region)
29. Eventful.com Demand stats
30. Digital singles sales
31. Album sales
32. Remixes of your music
33. Attendance figures for live concerts broadcast on ustream.TV or similar networks
34. Attendance figures for concerts offline
35. Number of credible professionals in entertainment, journalism, marketing, and other related industries who support your music (maintain a collection of quotes from these individuals)
36. Customer and client testimonials
37. Comments about your music on multiple social networks (positive or negative)
38. Myspace plays, profile views, and friends
39. Plays, reviews, and fans on http://www.jamendo.com
40. Fans, plays, and chart positions on Soundclick.com
via Brian Hazard:
41. Your website’s Alexa ranking
42. Monthly unique visitors to your website
43. Number of subscribers to your site’s RSS feed

Use these web 2.0 tools to measure social engagement, identify fans, find hot markets, and gauge your band’s online presence and popularity:

1. Music Xray - http://www.musicxray.com/
2. Band Metrics - http://bandmetrics.com/
3. Next Big Sound – http://nextbigsound.com/
4. RockDex – http://rockdex.com/
5. Topsy – http://topsy.com/
6. Backtype – http://www.backtype.com/
7. Trendrr – http://www.trendrr.com/

About the author:

Dexter Bryant Jr [d.BRYJ] is the hippie tribe's chief record producer & songwriter of nintendo crunk & nintendo punk music. As a digital branding consultant Dexter helps brands & bands strategically plan and manage their web 2.0 presence. Dexter blogs about music & business @ http://hitmusicacademy.wordpress.com/

http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/online+music+marketing+38+metrics+and+7+tools+to+measure+roi

http://www.knowthemusicbiz.com/index.php/D.I.Y.-Tips/Digital-Solutions/Online-Music-Marketing-38-Metrics-and-7-Tools-To-Measure-ROI.html

http://www.scribd.com/doc/25347523/Online-Music-Marketing-38-Metrics-and-7-Tools-To-Measure-ROI

http://hitmusicacademy.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/online-music-marketing-measure-roi/

http://www.musicthinktank.com/mtt-open/online-music-marketing-38-metrics-and-7-tools-to-measure-roi.html

Posted by Dexter Bryant Jr.
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Digital Branding With Music Apps

By Dexter Bryant Jr.

Music-based mobile apps are one of the most powerful tools in a musician’s digital marketing arsenal. Apps are a hot commodity with customers, especially the gen-Y market. Beyond that, apps provide an avenue for deeper engagement with your audience.

In order to maximize your potential for connecting with audiences, your app must be user-friendly and addictive. You do that by providing value to users. Make it simple to use and allow opt-in subscriptions for your podcast(s). Subscribers get new podcast episodes forwarded directly to their phone.

Your mobile app should also include additional features that are engaging and addictive for users. These features will add entertainment value to your app if executed properly. Make some app features default and others opt-in so users can customize their experience and dictate their level of engagement with your app.

Ideas for app features:

1. Music biz news feed (RSS)
2. Twitter feed
3. Blog/website feed (RSS)
4. A rhythm game like Tap Tap Revenge that showcases your music
5. A search engine for streaming your music
6. Video feeds for web concerts (on ustream.TV and other digital networks), video blog updates, behind-the-scenes footage, music videos, and anime mini-series
7. MP3 feed of your latest songs and mixtapes

Allow users to comment on your app content from their phone via Twitter. Facilitate sharing (and comments) to your social media pages (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc). Invite users to live chats with your band members through Skype and other networks.

Don’t stop there though. Give users access to your entire multimedia library of original content. Let them search and download your mp3s, e-books, and other content directly to their phone. But please DO NOT skip over optimizing all content for mobile phone use, otherwise your files will be too large and the user experience will be poor. Get the user experience wrong and people will use your app once and never return.

Free vs Premium
Marketing through mobile apps takes you direct-to-fan and connects you with your audience. It’s your choice whether to sell your app but keep in mind that more users with your app means more people with access to your music. I personally recommend offering a free app in addition to a premium version with value-added features and content.

Even when downloaded there’s no guarantee that your app will be used or your music listened to. But if your app provides value and is engaging for your users, there’s a good chance that your music will get heard.

More tips on creating awesome music mobile apps:
5 Ways To Create An Engaging Artist/Musician iPhone App
Ten Most Popular Artist/Musician iPhone App Strategies Reviewed

About the author:

Dexter Bryant Jr [d.BRYJ] is the hippie tribe's chief record producer & songwriter of nintendo crunk & nintendo punk music. As a digital branding consultant Dexter helps brands & bands strategically plan and manage their web 2.0 presence. Dexter blogs about music & business @ http://hitmusicacademy.wordpress.com/

http://blog.discmakers.com/2010/03/digital-branding-with-music-mobile-apps/

http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/digital+branding+with+music+mobile+apps

http://www.knowthemusicbiz.com/index.php/D.I.Y.-Tips/Digital-Solutions/Digital-Branding-With-Music-&-Mobile-Apps.html

Posted by Dexter Bryant Jr.
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Another Study Vindicates File Sharing

By Jerry Del Colliano

Steve Meyer, who as I have often said is the smartest observer of the record industry, knocked my eyes out in a recent issue of his publicationDisc & DAT (Digital Audio Technology).

Yet another study that exonerates filesharing as the culprit in today’s music industry.

It’s a lack of innovation -- not filesharing – that’s the conclusion.

I’m sure that doesn’t come as a surprise to you, but it may be to the record labels who are acting like it is 1999.

Professor Nico van Eijk of the University of Amsterdam conducted the latest study and his conclusion speaks volumes:

"The entertainment industry will have to work actively towards innovation on all fronts. New models worth developing, for example, are those that seek to achieve commercial diversification or that match supply and end-user needs more closely. In such a context, criminalizing large parts of the population makes no sense. Enforcement should focus on large scale and/or commercial upload activities. . . Introducing new protective measures does not seem the right way to go..."

In other words, filesharers are consuming all media especially concerts, films and games – not just copyrighted music.

I've linked to the 55-page report here.

Let me comment on a few of the findings my friend Steve Meyer highlighted:

“The study concludes (among other things) there "isn't a clear relationship" between the decline in sales and file sharing, while also finding that fear of evolution prevented the recording industry from adequately adapting their business models to the broadband age. While the recording industry is having problems, argues van Eijk, it has less to do with file sharing, and more to do with the fact they've been "abstaining from innovation" -- as the study phrases it”.

Think about it.

The labels could have bought Napster, not annihilated it, thus avoiding creation of the Napster vacuum that was promptly filled by bit torrent sites, etc.

The labels could have innovated along with Steve Jobs when the Apple CEO caught them off guard with his offer to help stop piracy. That offer was the iPod and iTunes store. He played to their fears. They allowed him to become the de facto Big Kahuna of the Record Industry.

They could have laid off streamers and come up with an easy to swallow royalty payment schedule that would have grown music consumption instead of dampened it.

Could have launched its own cloud.

Could have done Pandora itself as an industry consortium – that is, if they could have gotten along together for a minute. Bet Steve Jobs would have loved to own Pandora. Bet he still does.

More from the report:

"Turnover in the recorded music industry is in decline, but only part of this decline can be attributed to file sharing. Conversely, only a small fraction of the content exchanged through file sharing networks comes at the expense of industry turnover. This renders the overall welfare effects of file sharing robustly positive."

Innovation scares the record industry.

God forbid, they had a new idea other than CDs.

If record labels had to run the space program, they would find themselves doing a soft landing in Camden, New Jersey instead of the moon because they cannot figure out which way is up.

Now, record labels really need to know which way is out.

Because Steve Jobs is running their show.

Setting the rates, making the new age “record players” if you will. For all practical purposes, he’s eliminated the album (although you wouldn’t know that by Lady Gaga).

Apple is about ready to launch cloud-based instant access to iPods, iPads and iPhones – while record labels can brag about instant access to – well, suing people. And, by the way, the labels are opposing Apple's iTunes "cloud", too as witnessed by this recent article in The Wall Street Journal.

So expect the RIAA to raise a commotion and argue the latest study that looks at filesharing as the lesser of evils.

The worst being – a lack of music industry innovation.

As Meyer pointed out in his piece, Steve Jobs says "Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations."

That’s a great quote -- not that Jobs ever admits a mistake (like in the current version of Apple TV).

Still wisdom of the quote is right on.

And Steve Meyer wrote this in 2003 when he launched his newsletter:

"Any software programmer will tell you the hard core (ugly) truth is this: anything that can be encoded digitally can be decoded and replicated with a little work. It's time the labels recognize this fact, accept it, and now spend time brainstorming on how new revenue streams can be created within the framework of all the technology at hand."

Okay, so don’t admit to past mistakes. We understand.

But, wake up and look around.

My USC students used to be split about whether filesharing was stealing. They had many excuses – some good (“I use it to preview what to buy”) and some bad (“the money never gets to the artists anyway”). I’ve often wondered about these rationalizations.

But there is no denying that one could also look at filesharing as today’s radio.

A source of music discovery.

And now we have yet another carefully considered report that explains the phenomenon if not the unfortunate response of the record industry.

http://insidemusicmedia.blogspot.com/2010/05/another-study-vindicates-filesharing.html

Written by Jerry Del Colliano for Inside Music Media

Posted by Dexter Bryant Jr.
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