5 Steps to Building a Thriving Netlabel

Today we have a guest post from Casey Meehan, founder of MusicMarketingMavens.com. Casey runs an interesting and rapidly growing Netlabel, or Online Record Label. I asked him to talk about some of the things that make his business successful. Enjoy.

About 3 years ago, I was sitting at a diner in the middle of rural Illinois having an intense discussion with my good friend Matt DeWine. We were on our 9th cup of coffee and the tone of our conversation was beginning to scare wait-staff. I have been cut off by bar-tenders many times in the past, but this was the first time I was afraid I was going to be refused another refill of coffee!

It was an emotional debate to say the least, we were discussing how frustrating it was that our community of friends had created some pretty amazing music over the past 5 years and most of these albums were still living in cardboard boxes, in closets and under beds. DeWine is a producer at Pieholden Suite Sound where many these records were made and I had preformed on many of these “dead records”. While the music was great, it had not been connected with the audience it deserved.

“There must be a better way!” was the summary of that first discussion.

And there is.

Shortly after that discussion, I began contacting my entire list of musician friends and telling them about this website idea that I had. Some were very excited but most just mumbled something like “whatever man… you can do what you want with that record but I don’t think it will work.”

My attitude was, “Well, I am not sure if it will work but at least we will be trying something NEW…”

In the two years that RockProper.com has been live, we have launched 23 exclusive albums and received tens of thousands of full-album downloads, reaching nearly every country in the world.

I can say, without a doubt, that this was one of my best decisions ever. It has united my community of friends and offered a glimmer of hope in this broken music industry.

Many folks have asked me exactly how I did it, here are the basic 5 steps…

1. Build Your Roster

Without bands, you got no netlabel. The first step we took was to make a list (literally on the back of the diner placemat) of all the bands that had good music. We filtered out the ones that we thought would be hard to work with and we were left with a list of about 20 bands.

Each of these bands had a record that had been out for a few years and was not really selling anymore. I approached them with the initial idea of breathing new life into these records by offering a digital re-issue.

To further support this idea, I pushed the fact that if everybody did this at once, it would make a bigger splash than if they simply released their record for free on separate websites.

Most folks would not give and out right “No” but many would simply not get back to me. I kept hounding the folks that I really wanted and let the others slide.

Once I got 7 confirmed records, we were off to the races.

2. Decide On A Platform

We use an open source platform called June Code. It was created by a friend of ours and works well. (You can grab a copy for free here: junecode.com) Since we started, I have become much more comfortable with the WordPress format and would be comfortable recommending it as another great option.

I have heard decent things about Drupal and Joomla but have never used them, I am sure in the right hands they would work well.

In general, I think you want to stay away from the “cookie cutter” one-size-fits-all solutions that exist. These platforms can really prohibit future growth of the site. Sure, they are easy to setup, but if you ever want to do anything revolutionary, you are up a creek.

We are in the process of making some major changes to rockproper.com and if we had built it on a simplified platform, we’d have to start all over again.

So, go with Junecode or WordPress (wordpress.org) and take a little more time setting the site up. Trust me, it will be worth it in the long run.

3. Create Your Website

Now it’s time to dig in and get your hands dirty. If you have never built a website before, it is nice to have a web developer as a friend, but there are plenty of videos online to help you out.

If you don’t have a web developer as a friend (or are not a web developer yourself) I would recommend trying to find where they are hanging out.

Look at meetup.com to find some Web Dev groups. You can also post something on Craigslist.org. Say you are looking for a web developer to aid in your quest to revitalize your local music scene. (Maybe you can barter advice or coding for free concert tickets?)

If, in the end, you can’t find someone to help you code your site, it’s time to cozy up to YouTube.com and learn how to setup a custom WordPress site.

4. Promote Promote Promote

Once you go live you need to get the world talking about you. Twitter and Facebook are nice, but getting multiple mentions in local news / community radio can push you to the next level much faster.

I would recommend learning how to write and distribute a decent press release. Here’s a link that might help with that: http://www.ehow.com/how_8793_write-proper-press-release.html

Make sure to involve all the other bands at this point. Trust me, it is much easier to have 20 bands promoting something than one lonely dude. Make sure you explain to all of them why it is worth their time. If everybody helps out a little bit, then the whole group can stand to gain some great momentum.

Make sure to have a show to promote the launch of your site, give away t-shirts with your website logo on them, get the community to think of your site as a living breathing mix tape or compilation CD.

Trust me, this is such a new thing that it will be much easier to promote than your typical rock show.

5. Capture Email

Here is where I made my biggest mistakes. I didn’t try hard enough to capture the emails of all the folks downloading our music.

Make sure you have a system to capture these. Your email list is your most important asset. This is the way you can keep promoting to your visitors and turn them into loyal fans.

Think of it this way, it is next to impossible for a casual visitor to become a rabid fan with a single visit to the site. By encouraging them to enter their email (though some kind of freebie) you have the chance to let them know about record releases and shows for years to come.

Don’t skip this step!

I am not going to lie to you; a project like this is a considerable undertaking. But the upsides greatly outweigh the risks. If you are looking to unite your community, start a scene and rise to the next level, a solid netlabel can act as a hub for all of that activity.

Casey Meehan is the founder of MusicMarketingMavens.com. To learn more about how to get your music to a wider audience and begin earning a good income in a broken music industry, visit MusicMarketingMavens.com and sign up to learn the “7 Jedi Mind Tricks That Will Get Your Music Heard”.

Tags: casey meehan, guest post, Music Marketing