Major League Affiliate Music Marketing

Posted on 08 October 2009 by gregrollett

A few weeks ago I sparked the conversation on Internet Music Marketing, or how musicians need to start thinking like the Internet Marketing crowd in order to really capture data and sell their music online. What sparked was a really cool conversation on promoting other people’s stuff via affiliate marketing. This is by no means the official guide, but a way to make some money by promoting offers to your fans via your mailing list or your blogs, Twitter accounts, etc.

As with all marketing, this is best used in a transparent mode (read the new FTC stuff by Frank Kern, who was sued for millions by them a few years back), and used in moderation. Just because a few people bought something from an affiliate link, doesn’t mean you need to star over stuffing your emails and blog posts with them.

The Major League Affiliate Networks

This post will feature 2 networks and I aim to continue to work with music companies to get their affiliate info. The overall data will be inside Label 2.0 (sorry, need to give preference to those that put food on my table). We will be looking into iTunes and Amazon and how you can use their expansive network and product catalog to make some extra change.

iTunes Affiliate Program

Sign up to becom an iTunes affilaite here. It is super easy and done through LinkShare (affiliate link), a reputable affiliate marketing company that is known for paying its affiliates on time and tracking your stats pretty aggressively. The notion of the iTunes affiliate program is that you can link to albums, singles, movies, ringtones and really anything else in their marketplace and make 5% on all transaction. This means if you sell an album for $9.99 you will generate about 50 cents. Not exactly retirement money, but get creative and grow your audience, and the residuals can add up. Signing up for the iTunes program may take a few days for approval.

Check out a FAQ here.

Amazon Affiliate Program

Amazon was one of the pioneers in online affiliate marketing and is essentially how they grew to the size they are. With their affiliate program, you can link to digital singles and albums, physical CD’s, books to guitars and musical instruments along with the millions of other products they offer. Amazon pays commissions directly and has a tiered commission structure, meaning the more you sell the higher your commission. You start at 4% and can easily work your way to 6% and higher by gaining a few sales. Again, this may not be the money to retire on, but in the following idea session part of the blog post, you may be able to get gas money for your next road trip.

Sign-up to be an affiliate on Amazon here (disclosure: Affiliate link)

How to Use These Affiliate Programs for Your Music

Now that you are signed up to the top 2 networks you need to start putting the links in your content, in a very usable and trustworthy way. In this tutorial we are going to use Amazon as they offer a wider range of products and the ideas can be structured for all of them.

Campaign Ideas

The first step is to generate an idea of what you want to promote. Some things off the top of the mind include:

Your gear – Talk about the guitars you use, why you use it, the sound it gives you, etc. At the end of the post say something like, if you want to try it out, here’s a link to grab one yourself.

Bands of a bill – This is the easiest and most efficient. When you have an upcoming show, do quick reviews on the bands you are playing with. Maybe a few sentences on why you are excited to play with them, some pics and maybe a YouTube video. Tell your fans that if they want to check out their music and start learning the lyrics before the show, grab a digital download here and thus link to their album on Amazon. This will get your fans excited about the show if the other bands are cool too and helps promote the other acts and they may return the favor.

Bands of a bill on Twitter - Fire out a Tweet or two saying something to the tune of: “Can’t wait to rock with XYZ Band this Friday – Insert Affiliate Link”

Sidebar links – If your band has a blog (Music Marketing 101) use the sidebar as a place to promote stuff you believe in, from music to gear to great books you read on a road trip. Your fans are interested in the stuff you do and these links can get a good amount of attention. The best part is that if they click on a link to buy something and end up buying something else during that visit, you get credit for that sale as well!

Emails – You always want to provide value when sending emails to your fans. One really cool thing we have done with some of our roster of bands is send emails telling fans to check out another really cool band. Something to the tune of,

“Hey guys – On our recent road trip we couldn’t stop listening to XYZ and we just had to share their music with you. Hopefully we can share a bill with them soon and the show will be super bad ass. Affiliate link.”

Getting Links and Banners

Now, let’s grab these links and banners from Amazon. After you login, you want to go to the links and banners page. From there I would click on the Product Links Tab to start searching for specific products to sell.

The next step is to choose a category, maybe music, DVD’s, books, music instruments or whatever else you are looking for. Then pick the keyword, from product name, to band name, album title or a general category. I do suggest having a product in mind before performing the search. Also remember that if the band is indie, they may not have their album within Amazon’s catalog yet.

Once you hit search it will look for the product. From this screen you need to hit “Get Link.” It is here that you get the code that you need to insert on your site, on Twitter or other places.

This next screen will tell you how to get the links, with either a text only, image only or text and image. You can add your own graphics and change things from here as long as you keep the link intact.

And below is a live affiliate product link for Caveman Theory’s album – The Stone Quarter. I do recommend their music for hip-hop heads, so please feel free to pick up the CD from the link below and you will buy me a beer or 3 when Amazon cuts me a check.

Amazon also has Mp3 widgets, that you can get to on the widget tab at the top. From here you can add whole albums, add select songs and make a “mixtape” to share with your fans or have singles that you think will be valuable to your fans. These will link back to Amazon and you will make commission on the sales.

Then you place the widget on your site, in your sidebar or within a post and get something like this:

Again, that is a live affiaite widget, where you can preview the artist’s music and then allow them to click and buy. The tracks are 30 second clips.

Closing Thoughts

This is powerful stuff and creates a new stream of income for your band and music. I do warn of abuse as when you stuff salesy stuff to your fans, they will start to ignore the ads and eventually ignore you. The goal is to provide value around what you are already offering and doing. Sprinkle links in blog posts you would have written anyway. We always advise against writing posts specifically for promoting affiliate links. It doesn’t come out naturally and your fans can call your bullshit.

This is not to say don’t monetize. Monetize the hell out of your music. Just do it in a way that you would want to be presented. You have something precious in your fans. Treat them like royalty and they will reward you.

Let’s talk in the comments!

-Greg Rollett

Is $30 Stopping Your Music Career?

Posted on 30 June 2009 by gregrollett

This week the music discovery site and online radio sensation Pandora released their new way to get music into their service. Some people are getting really hot and heated over the new submission requirements and indie bands are making an even bigger stink. First let’s get into the details:

  • Pandora is an Alexa top 500 website
  • Their iPhone app is constantly in the top 50 free apps in the iTunes App store (currently at #17)
  • Compete.com shows unique visitors at over 4 million
  • In December of ’08 Pandora had over 20 million registered users
  • They are a long tail music service, allowing their users to select the direction of the songs they play

With that said, here is direct from Pandora’s site, the new requirements for indie bands to submit their music to Pandora:

We’re very excited to announce a brand-new process to submit your music (or your band’s music) to Pandora.

You’ll need:
* a CD of your music
* a unique UPC code for that CD
* your CD to be available through Amazon (must be a physical CD, not just MP3s for download)
* the legal rights to your music
* MP3 files for two of the songs from your CD
* a free Pandora account, based on a valid email address, which can be associated with your music

Once you have all of these items ready to go, you can submit your music to Pandora here:
http://submitmusic.pandora.com/

To obtain your own UPC code at a low cost, click here. If you already have a UPC code through your record label, just use that one.

To make your CD available on Amazon (after you have a UPC code), you can sign up for the low-cost Amazon Advantage program (click here).

NOTE: We cannot accept music available only as downloads through the Amazon MP3 store; you must have a physical CD for sale.

NOTE: We display album art directly from Amazon, so be sure your album art and other information are correct on Amazon before submitting your music to Pandora! Even so, album art may not appear on Pandora until a few weeks after your music goes live. If you need assistance correcting your album art or information on Amazon, click here.

The Pandora Indie Submission process starts when we verify the UPC code for your CD through Amazon. Then you will upload your MP3 tracks, and we will review the music you’ve submitted for possible inclusion. After we’ve reviewed your music, you’ll be notified of the outcome either way. If your music is included in Pandora’s Music Genome Project, then we’ll ask you to send the CD to us, along with a form legally authorizing Pandora to play the music on your CD.

Please don’t write to check up on your submission, as that will just take away time we could be using to work on listening to submissions. You’ll definitely hear from us after we listen to your submission!

We hope the new process will be faster, easier and much more transparent for submitting musicians, with a definite outcome for each submission.

Thanks again for your interest in having your music on Pandora!

At the surface this look like a good amount of work to get on the service. What is driving many musicians and music industry people a little crazy is quoted from Bruce over at Hypebot:

In addition to art and packaging costs, Pandora explains that to comply with the new “available through Amazon” rule, indie artists should join the Amazon Advantage Program. Membership costs $29.95 each year plus Amazon takes 55% of the list price of every CD sold.

Established artists and labels already comply with Pandora’s new rules. But for an indie artist trying to win new fans with a little help from Pandora and to keep his hard earned cash by selling direct, the new threshold may shut off an important avenue for exposure.

Is $30 Really Stopping You From Submitting to Pandora?

If so, get out of the music business right now! You are more than willing to drop a few hundred on new recording software, effects pedals, recording, mastering and even manufacturing, but you refuse to put money into getting people to listen to your music? Are you kidding me?

Ok so Amazon takes 55% of any physical CD sales that are purchased from the WORLD’s largest eCommerce platform. What’s more, if you are smart and tag your album accordingly, your CD can be bundled in recommended products and with a few “internal family” purchases can be put into the “recent customers who bought this popular CD also bought this indie band’s crappy CD.” Not to mention all the SEO powers that come from being on the site, the recognition and the fact that you can have an affiliate link on your site to your Amazon CD to make back 3-5% through an affiliate commission that puts your take home in upwards of 60%. Try and get that from a major label.

Many major labels see 45-55% from a retailer like Amazon. If the artist is lucky and has a 50/50 split they are then entitled to 22-27% of a sale. Indie artists wins again. But you were pissed about shelling out $30 a year to be a part of that service…

Indie Bands Still Don’t Get Marketing

Many indie bands that we talk to and even work with are still not up to par with marketing and creating a marketing budget. And yes, radio is a part of your marketing budget. Getting spins on Pandora is marketing. When you song plays on Pandora the following things can happen:

  • A Thumbs Up – Fans that like the song give it a thumbs up and your songs will rotate into their mix more frequently
  • A Thumbs Down – No hard feelings, your music won’t be on a station of someone that has no interest in your music
  • Click on band name – Opens a new window and delivers your bio, a way to create a station for you with one click, view other fans that are listening to a station created with your band, comments for the band and similar artists.

  • Click on song name – Opens a new window that delivers lyrics, features and qualities of the song, related songs, instant station creation and links to buy your stuff on Amazon or iTunes.

  • Click on menu (in between thumbs up and thumbs down) – Fan can buy the track, bookmark it, see why it was played, move to another playlist (increasing your exposure) and don’t play this song for a month (ouch).

Marketing in NOT Always About Free

Most indie bands rely on free services and viral promotions to do the bulk of their marketing. Some get by just fine using Myspaces, Facebooks, Twitter, YouTube and ReverbNation. The ones that are truly successful use a combination of FREE and premium, including the above mentioned services coupled with an email provider, hosted WordPress, shopping carts, subscription services, paid video sites for extra privacy and exclusives, advertising on sites like Jango, Facebook, Grooveshark or StumbleUpon along with paid radio inclusions on sites like Pandora and Last.FM.

You are in the music business – start treating it like a business. The more exposure for your music, the more potential reach, the more fans in the funnel, the more people you can sell music to, merch to and tickets to.

Before you draw a conclusion about paying for services and changes remember that something is usually free for a reason. There are limitations that come with free. There are also people that have mouths to feed and rent to pay and thus have created an amazing service so that people will exchange currency to use it. That’s the real world and if you want to succeed you’ll get in.

Till next time Rock Stars!

-Greg Rollett