A few weeks ago I was sifting through Twitter and found a cool little company from Chicago, IL that is a huge supporter of indie music. They have developed a community for these indie musicians to promote their music and sell it through their platform, without all the major label nonsense. It’s called Plugola.
When I was thinking about you guys and how I wanted to cover their site, Plugola, I saw an interesting aspect of their business, an affiliate program for fans. Yes, other sites offer this feature too, but few actually promote it to their users and see any traction, or large affiliate pay outs.
Check out the chat below with Plugo.la’s founder Erik as he chats about the challenges of being another Digital Music Marketplace and Network, fans and affiliate programs and where their site and business are headed. Enjoy Rock Stars!
GYRS: First, where did the idea for Plugo.la come from, and talk a little about the history behind the name?
Erik: I really wish I had some amazing story that led to the birth of Plugola. The truth is, I was talking with a few guys at a dog park about music and where they go to get their mp3s. The conversation turned to how tough it was to find non-commercial music at most digital stores. Not only that, but discovering fresh, new music wasn’t all that easy either. We began to discuss how great it would if there was one place on the web where you could go to find independent-only music. Please keep in mind that this all happened in the summer of 2007. At the time, it wasn’t as easy as it is now for artists to have their music on iTunes, Amazon mp3 didn’t exist yet and there were nowhere near as many music web sites as there are today.
It was a no-brainer for me. At one time, for almost 10 years, I had been a struggling musician, myself. I also ran a small indie label for a brief period and I had been making a living as an Internet marketer since 2000. I was also looking for a new challenge at the time, so I was in the perfect place. I wanted to develop a new, digital community reminiscent of the days when indie record shops still existed. A place where artists can freely present their music to people that crave the newest, indie releases; and discuss and share them with friends.
The name, “Plugola” was partly based on availability, but when we finally found the name, it fit this project perfectly. Plugola is actually a real word used mainly in broadcasting to indicate some sort of free promotion for a business in the exchange for goods, and is considered illegal in most cases. Our version of “Plugola” is not illegal. The site was developed with the idea of “plugging” your band or your favorite music. With all that plugging going on, we couldn’t see ourselves calling it anything BUT Plugola (or Plugo.la).
GYRS: How have artists reacted to the site and how are you adjusting to their feedback?
Erik: For the most part, artists and other industry types have been giving us very positive feedback about the site. As much as I love hearing those compliments, I’m really hoping we get more constructive criticism so we can make the site better. What seems to be most important to artists as a whole seems to be control and distribution options, judging by feedback we have received so far. One the other side of the coin, industry pundits have been rather lackadaisical, categorizing us as “just another indie music site”. Although it’s true that there are a lot of similar web sites out there, I think if they looked around the site a bit they would see that we have a lot to offer.
GYRS: I love the idea of fan affiliate marketing. The hard part is not getting the fans excited, but actually explaining how they can help and also be rewarded. How are you seeing the progression of the affiliate program?
Erik: The idea behind the affiliate feature is to get hardcore fans excited enough to spread the word and music of their favorite artists to their friends; a digital “street team”, if you will. We’re trying to encourage fans to continue sharing music with their friends, but in an environment somewhat controlled by the artist. By default, fans are granted a 5% commission for all sales, however artists can set this commission to whatever they wish. Artists must approve fans requesting to “plug” their music and can remove any and all tracks from affiliation at any time. We wanted to make sure artists have the freedom to experiment with affiliate marketing in order to find what works best for them. Unfortunately, none of our artists have really taken advantage of this feature as of yet, which tells me we must show them how to do it and how to get their fans involved. Currently, we are working on some demonstration videos and some extra tools to make it easier for fans to promote their favorite music.
GYRS: If possible, can you let us know who some of your top artists are, and what they are doing to get there and generate income for themselves and Plugo.la?
Erik: So far, most artists on Plugola have been using their embeddable store widgets on their other profiles or web sites. Again, none of our artists have really taken advantage of the tools made available to them, but we hope to change that very soon. We purposely left a lot of room for artists to be creative with their marketing. I think we just need to show them some of the cool things they can do. As an example, I recently did a blog post about how artists can use Plugola’s download codes and Twitter Coupons to effectively promote their music to their Twitter followers.
If you would like to see the post: http://plugolablog.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-plug-your-music-on-twitter.html
GYRS: Do you have any advertising models for artists looking to gain visibility on your site? How do you see that playing a role in your community’s development?
Erik: We purposely developed Plugola with built-in incentives for artists to gain maximum exposure. In other words, the site is completely community driven and ranked based on activity (plays, downloads, ratings, etc.). What’s great about this method is, the more the artist puts into it, the more they will get in return from fresh surfers and/or fans. Plus, we wanted to create an atmosphere where our members are truly in control without any outside influence from record labels, etc. I’m a firm believer that organic rankings will result in higher quality surfers and ultimately fans. One of our features that’s not visible unless a member is that, once logged into the network, artists in a member’s selected genre will be displayed. This will filter out genres that are not of interest to individual members. Of course, we will be able to narrow these results as the community grows.
GYRS: How are you guys getting the word out to grow your community? It’s stiff competition in the online music world, where do you see yourself making a niche for yourself?
Erik: You’re not kidding it’s stiff competition out there! When we first began Plugola, in 2007, there was very little competition. Evidently, we weren’t the only ones seeing ways for indie artists to distribute their music, because all of the sudden there were a bunch that all popped-up around the same time. That’s ok, though. Plugola artists are free to use any other distribution service they wish. Plus, I noticed that all similar web sites/services offer something a little different. So, it can’t hurt an artist to sample what’s available to them until they find what works best for them. As far as, in what niche we see ourselves, it’s a little too soon to be able to see where it’s heading. However, from the beginning, our focus has been to present both artists and the fans with high quality. We don’t want music fans having to dig through a bunch of music they don’t care about before they find something they really enjoy. And, instead of artists having 1,000 friends that never visit their profile, part of Plugola’s objective is to drive, say 50, hardcore fans of the genre that will more than likely return for more in the future.
So far, our promotions have been mainly a grassroots effort. We began by hitting the local music clubs and talking to artists face-to-face about Plugola, and contacting indie record labels describing what we have to offer. Of course, we have also been online increasing our visibility through social media avenues, as well. Within the next couple of weeks, we will be updating the site with additional social tools; including the ability to share/embed single tracks and videos among other upgrades.
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It is easy to see where Erik and his crew are going to hit some roadblocks, and also where they have an opening. Their aggressiveness in going after niche indie communities may be a test to how quickly they grow.
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This conversation also leads me back down the affiliate marketing path for both indie musicians and music fans. Look for more ideas on that topic in the next week or so. Hope you are enjoying all the SXSW chatter going on within Twitter, blogs and other online resources, here’s a great post from Hypebot on how to be there,by not being there: How To Pretend you’re At SXSW
Till next time Rock Stars!
-Greg Rollett
