How bands can improve CD sales at shows: build a portable listening kiosk

Remember when you used to go to record stores, pick up a couple of CDs from the isles and have a listen in the store’s listening post? Well apparently letting your fans do that at shows can have a big impact on your sales in addition to creating good buzz. May seem kind of complicated and far fetched but it can be done rather easily. Here is a website explaining the step-by-step procedures to get your own listening kiosk up and running.

“One old briefcase, some extra road-case foam, and a few hours later, we had come up with a solution which not only stored and displayed all of our gear, but attracted people to our table asking, “What is that?.

We just returned from our first music festival. The verdict? Our CD sales were almost 500% above average! Clearly, this $120 “listening station” has already paid for itself several times over”.

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How some bands sell merchandise at shows

Merch sales are a must these days. Particularly if you can’t receive a guaranteed payment from the club. (ie percentage of the till and/or door)The merch sales can suppliment your payment from the club. And could very well be your ticket home.

First thing’s first. If you’re selling shirts, you need to do one of two things.

1) have one design that most people will want. Which can be tough.

2) have multiple designs.

We have one that says “F*ck I’m A God” and one that says “I Have Transformed From A Man To Machine”. Both are lines from our songs. Though the reason we did this is a marketing strategy.

As a person walks by your merch table, would you rather have them glance at your SHIRT and decide “do I want that?” or LOOK at your shirtS and decide “which one do I want?”

People like to make decisions. Give them options.

Also, a shirt with ‘F*UCK’ on it can go less places than a shirt with no vulgar language. So it’s definitely not a shirt for everyone.

Do we consider it a good investmen? Absolutely. First night we pulled out the merch – we made $xxx.xx in sales. That’s hundreds we wouldn’t have had otherwise…. And above all, it’s branding for the band that’s out on the streets and in the hands of fans – infecting others.

How many times do they say “head on” in that TV commercial? And now you know exactly what commercial I’m talking about. (if you’ve seen it once, you know…)

As for organizing the merch. For display, we’ve taken one of each shirt, and put them out for display. At the end of the night – those go into a bag marked DISPLAY. When we sell a shirt, we want that owner to take it home, smelling new. Not like the stench of stale cigarettes from the last 50 clubs we played before finally selling that particular shirt.

Make your merch pricing and options as visible as possible. Attach some to the wall whenever possible. This way your fans don’t have to walk right in front of your merch to see it. They can see it from a distance as they head to the bar to get their jag on.

And I can NOT stress that enough!!! Our last gig, they had us setup merch at the oppisite end of the building, in ANOTHER ROOM that wasn’t being used for ANYTHING but selling merch! If people didn’t go there for the sole purpose of buying merch, they NEVER saw it. And yes – our sales were down as expected.

Offer package deals. If someone buys a shirt and a CD, drop the price a few bucks. Make them feel good about the purchase because they “saved” money.

If you can afford to do so, give a CD or shirt away on stage. You hand something like that out to someone in the crowd, everybody looks. They take a peek at what you’re offering, even if they really didn’t want to. And they just might like what they see….

Dichotic www.sonicbids.com/dichotic

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How bands can market their merchandise at live shows

Selling merchandise: are bands barking up the wrong tree?

For bands that don’t have a steady fan-base, selling merchandise at gigs may seem presumptuous.”Who the hell wants to buy a t-shirt with the name of some random band that they’ve heard for the first time” is probably the reasoning that leads most bands to keep pushing off this activity. Add to that all the logistics (the cost of production, shipping and handling) and bands will wait until they “get bigger”. So are unestablished bands right to not jump head-first in the water? If they focus on portraying their name and logo above all they are. Fans are a picky (and often poor) crowd, but they WILL buy products that for some reason (either aesthetic or emotional) strike a chord in them – and that’s what indie bands should try to capitalize on. Focus on selling products that people will genuinely want, regardless of whether they are fans of your music or not.

Ways to present your merchandise

At the risk of sounding overly capitalistic, the goal here is to make money, and you shouldn’t be afraid to dissociate the products you are selling from your music – view the gig as an opportunity for you to make a sales-pitch to dozens of potential customers.

One way to do this without sounding desperate or like a salesperson is to present your merchandising efforts as a fund-raising activity, whether it be to record an album, go on tour, or pay for your doggie’s veterinary bill. People are more willing to spend money on a specific cause than on the band’s beer money, and will probably relate to your poor-musicians-that-need-to-make-some-extra-cash-to-pay-for-studio-time situation.

A good way to get people interested in your merchandise is to follow this band’s advice:

One of the best things we have done is to get one of our band mates hot girlfriends to work the merch table. Semi-buzzed guys can’t seem to say no to a babe asking him to buy a t-shirt. We also send that hottie out to get names on our mailing list…that stuff works great. If you don’t have a band mate with a killer looking girlfriend work it hard yourself. Be relentless and disciplined in working the mailing list. Make sure after every set either you or one of your band mates cruises around the club saying hi, talking to the patrons and asking them to sign the mailing list. While you are doing that, you tell the patrons to check out your merch table on the way out cause you have some really nice t-shirt designs and your CD is there as well. Make sure at least one of your band mates is parked at that Merch table. Merch is vital but that mailing list is key. I would say that 30 names on a mailing list is better than a $10 t-shirt because of the law of large numbers. Right now, we are averaging a consistent showing of about 5% of our mailing list at any given show. If I can make that a solid 5% of 20,000 names as opposed to 2,000 names, we win. We win because we can play in about any room we wish and it is there we get to sell more merch. So, sell your merch but more importantly sell yourself and your live show.
Cool Days End – www.myspace.com/CoolDaysEnd

Give them an incentive to visit the merchandise booth in the first place: have a hot charismatic bitch (calm down there, we’re doggies remember ?:) manning the booth, give out some guitar-picks with your logo on them, or set up a laptop and tell people with USB sticks to come and get MP3 versions of your songs for free. While they’re uploading your music they can check out the merch. Also, set up a few of the posters that you are selling around the venue, with an indication that they could be purchased at the merchandise booth – if they look cool, this will certainly attract people.

Sales at merchandise tables are an impulse buy, so the answer lies within this question:”What could make someone impulsive enough to buy merchandise at a show?“
A few factors come into play here:
1. Know your audience.
Does your audience spend money? Do they pay your cover charge and do they spend money at the bar?
This is important. If your guest list at each show contains more names than the phone book, you’re in trouble. By constantly guest-listing folks, they are going to expect freebies from you at every turn. Once you’ve established that your price is ZERO DOLLARS, you are never going to be able to raise your prices. Who would pay for something that they are getting for free?
2. Give your audience a reason to buy your merch.
To be blunt, be a good band. Write good songs. Play in tune. Sing in key. Have a drummer that plays for the song and not his own ego. This applies equally to guitar players, bassists, keyboard players….everyone in the band. Don’t be drunk or stoned when you play live. Practice, practice, practice and be tight when you play live. Make your audience want to buy your merchandise. Arcade Fire is a great example of this; hard work and good songs will sell your merch for you.
3. Be gracious with your fans. If they buy merch, they like you. Don’t disappoint them by acting like a douchebag rockstar simply because you’ve just played a show. Anybody can get a show. Thank them for their patronage and be genuine.Tim Van Den Ven – www.timvandeven.com

Of course none of this will bring in any money if the products you are selling are not hot.
Don’t forget that most items bought at shows are impulse purchases, and the more original, useful and/or trendy your item, the more fans will be willing to buy it and justify it through its souvenir value.
In our next post on merchandising we will suggest what to sell at shows.

Woof to the Mruff !

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Why it’s hard for bands to get fans to come back to their shows

“Because of a phenomenon in business called saturation of market. It happens the same way to the guy selling fish or oranges up and down the street. People in a small demographic area can only eat fish so often. The answer is multifaceted. Change or better still diversity must be instilled. Example: If you play country in the coffee shop, your fan base comes and becomes saturated. You rotate out of the demographic area by playing elsewhere or not playing at all and your friend who plays folk or rock plays that region / coffee shop. Street vendors have known since the dark ages to rotate goods or areas with other vendors. Seek out three or four other musicians of variety in your area whom are interested in doing a cooperative you might even use a magician or other form of entertainment. Work those small venues as a group. You may find you have more work than you can handle”.
(Noisy Kung-Fu – www.myspace.com/noisykungfu)

“Unless you have two or three hundred very close friends who are wild about you, you’re going to have these problems for a long time. Part of the problem is that the economy is bad, so people aren’t going out as much. ($3+/drink vs $3+/gal of gas…sheesh! While I only have a few drinks, I use a LOT of gas!) Add to that our current over-policing with an emphasis on “zero tolerance” for everything from DUI’s to people just trying to have a good time & gather together. Add to that the competition with karaoke & DJ’s.Top it off with bar owner apathy & refusal to advertise anywhere except their marquees (if they even HAVE a marquee).The end result is a huge problem for a band trying to get started. Stop playing bars. Go with venues where the audience is guaranteed, like town festivals, fairs, company picnics, weddings etc. You’ll sell more CD’s & T-shirts, & possibly get to the point that you DO have a loyal following who would like to see you in a bar sometime. You may have fewer gigs overall, but at least the people will be there. Or, you could find a really good manager &/or agent. Never tried that, myself, but I’ve heard it can give good results, with the right person/agency. Good luck. We’re all in the same boat on this issue”.
(Monkey Wench – www.bandmix.com/philbymon)

“I used to book our band for the door at clubs. I would then line up 2-3 other new bands to get on the bill with us and charge their fans and keep the money. Hopefully some of the bands fans will rub off and stay with you. It takes 2-3 years to build up a consistent fan base. Your group name has to get familiar. Our name did and we eventually were just payed to play to whoever showed up, which thankfully for a couple of years we did draw well. The only problem was that we started off original and then started adding our fans favorite cover songs to the sets, over time we became a cover band and thats all we were known for. If you cant keep people coming more than 1 or 2 times you might need to evaluate your material and maybe tweak it to suit the crowd. We used to come up with little contest to spice up the night, you know loudest (drunk) table, best(biggest hooters) looking gal, anything to get the audience involved in what you are doing. Somehow you have to make yourself an event that people just cant stand to miss. When we ran the door we would let unescorted women in free, this would in turn bring in more guys. Remember the customer is king and really doesn’t owe you anything, don’t piss them off in any way”.
(Jw123 – www.bandmix.com/jw123)

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Why bands could consider sponsorships with brands

Branding of the Bands

We previously posted a topic on why bands should consider music licensing as an alternative revenue model – here’s taking it a step further. Brands are starting to open up their doors to independent acts. We already had top shot mega stars in bed with brands (think Michael Jackson/Pepsi venture, 50 Cent and Jay-Z in a footwear deal with Reebok and even Axl Rose’s deal with Dr. Pepper for the release of his album ‘Chinese Democracy’ that has been in development for the last 17 years). What we are now seeing are lesser known artist hopping on the band-wagon. For instance, Apple, which had previously used U2 and Feist for iPod commercials, now chose a young unconsolidated singer Yael Naim for the release of their MacBook air commercial. In the experimental dance community, Groove Armada have just settled with Bacardi. The marketing deal encompasses recordings, touring and audiovisual content. A Barcardi representative cites:

“Essentially we are taking over the role of a record label, producing the music, promoting new music, and the artist is playing at our events.”

Brands thus can represent a good alternative to traditional record labels: they got money and they’re promotion gurus. Of course the branding will have to stay subtle enough so that the band’s image stays intact. Not many bands would agree to have a big Coca Cola sticker right on the bass drum, but hopefully brands won’t head that way. Here is an interesting article on the subject where a member of an indie bands muses:

“It’s as if we’ve suddenly become aware of the truth behind the smoke and mirrors of the record deal. Most artists now understand how the business works and who their fans are. That is always going to be valuable to a brand. It’s certainly a freer, more equal relationship. Record companies have to own everything, because their whole model is based on selling records – ‘Is it a hit, will it make us our money back?’ If brands do nothing other than free musicians from the tyranny of needing a radio-friendly smash to have a career, it has to be a positive.”

Brand your band !!

Also, consider literally branding your band. All bands do this to some extent but not all see it as something crucial for their commercial success. I mean making a good quality logo, putting up decent posters, gig swapping with appropriate bands, handing out not only flyers but business cards, perfecting your personal live sound. Everything you do to make your band go a step forward should help people remember you and you only. Branding is the art of association and the more things your fans associate you with what they relate to, the better. That’s why selling merchandise is so important. A t-shirt bought at a concert doesn’t only stand for something to wear with a cool design, more importantly it represents a souvenir, an impalpable sensation of a past well being that you made possible. Merch shouldn’t only be for the money and the promotion; it should help your fans identify their everyday lives with your music (when using or wearing your merchandise that is).

Here’s what Clif, who hosts the cool critical music blog Music in 2d has to say:

“The one thing that artists who hope to make any money via the web need to realize right now is that the people who will profit in this industry are those that monetize the attention that the artist generates. Companies desperately want to reach the people you reach. And the more people you can reach consistently, whether they buy your music or not, the more valuable you become. Whether that means revenue sharing, sponsorship, etc – or perhaps it enables you to sell something else – is up to the artist to decide.”

Mruff!

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Why bands should consider online music licensing (2)

Last week we went over 3 sites that allowed you to publish and license your music online. Today we’re going to discover quite a few others. There are lots out there to be honest, most of which are fairly new and up-coming, and we should be expecting more to appear as internet is slowly (well actually rather rapidly) transforming itself into the main platform for the music industry’s new business model.

These sites deliver what is called royalty-free music, meaning the buyer doesn’t have to pay royalties for any commercial use of the music. We also call this pre-cleared music because the provider of the music granted in advance the rights to use the master recording. Both pre-cleared and royalty-free go hand in hand. Most these sites all function with the same model: non-exclusive deals (exclusivity referring to not being able to place your tracks on another site), site takes 50% of earnings, site supposedly has contacts in all major media conglomerates and so on. For the sake of not making this post boring, I am just going to list the sites that are the most relevant to musicians:

• Audiosparx
• LicenseMusic
• eStockMusic
• AttackTrax
• Musync
• Dittybase

These site are made to sell music more then to promote the musicians but they can represent a an income stream. It’s browsing through such websites that one realizes the true competition out there. Here I only displayed those who allow you to upload your music, or who make it clear that this is possible. There are much more royalty-free ‘stores’ selling pre-cleared music out there but who have their own roster of composers. The music quality is good and the prices are going down due to competition. This is great for content creators and not so much for artists. Nonetheless, these sites represent opportunity to sell your music and get recognition, so even if it can’t guarantee results, going down the music licensing path is worth a shot.

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The way bands promote shows (2)

5 pointer method:

How to get people to keep coming to shows:

1) Post about your show on MySpace, Facebook, and any other site where you can post events for your band

2) Every time you are talking to someone, if they ask you what you are up to these days (and this comes up in almost every conversation I have!), mention your show and be very enthusiastic about it. Be sure to have business cards handy that sends them to a website (be it MySpace or a homepage) that gives all the details about the show they need!=

3) During a show, encourage the audience to come talk to you afterwards. Offer to take pictures, sign autographs on CD, whatever! Talk to everyone you can at the end of every show and thank them for supporting you. Show an interest in what they have to say and LISTEN to what they have to say carefully. Take an interest in the lives of people who support you. Remember people’s names! Or at least some things about them that you talked about at the end of a show. It will come in handy the next time they come to one of your shows.

4) Find fresh faces… whether it’s a local independent radio (colleges and universities are an awesome source for radio airplay if they have a station), or local publications, your local paper, wherever. FIND NEW PEOPLE and tell them what you do. Give them a business card. Be enthusiastic but not overbearing. Again, show an interest in what other people have to say, because it’s not all about you!

5) Practice, practice, practice!!!! Make your shows the best they can be by being well-rehearsed and make sure you sound awesome at every show!
Union of Lanterns www.myspace.com/unionoflanterns

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What else?

Nothing beats getting out there and chatting with people about your music.
www.myspace.com/sylvanlane

It’s good to build up a mailing list to tell people about shows, but you have to get out there and get to know people and be a part of what is going on. (Think about how many shows you go to based on emails you receive…).
World of Melon www.myspace.com/worldofmelon

The best advice I can give you (other than finding a super motivated indie booker type) is to go out and meet the club owners personally or use contacts you have in different locals to get into places. It’s all about relationships… the more you know, you know?
Tims Myth www.myspace.com/tmyth

Concert promotion: it is a mixture of everything! Spreading the “word”, local press, fans, radio… difficult to say. If they pick you up it goes quickly, if not it is tough, but keep on working! That’s all you can do! Forcing prople to love your music is only done in the commercial music, but that i often don’t like…… :-).
Chrysteraerts www.myspace.com/chrysteraerts

For more quotes on band promotion:

• The way bands promote shows (1)

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The way bands promote shows (1)

The Band’s tale:

Booking gigs is easy. It’s getting a person to come that’s hard. So here’s how it works:
You look around at coffee shops and little bars that no one goes to and the owners are thrilled to have you come and play. But they can’t afford to pay you. You go and tell everyone you know to come and bring friends. The first gig you play you get 50 people to come. Then you’re thinking “This is so sweet! I love playing for a packed little house! And I made three hundred bucks selling CDs!” So you book again.You get pumped for another show and another $300. This time 20 people come. It’s a little disappointing because you don’t have the feel of a packed house, but you put on a good show and have fun playing your tunes–knowing that the crowd loves you because these 20 people bought your CD at the last show. So you don’t sell anymore CDs but they love you give tips so you end up with $26 and you had fun.You book again but his time you advertise, put up posters in music stores, churches, colleges, and you’ve only spent $15 on the posters. Now you’re ready to make another $300 on CDs.You show up at your gig and the place is quiet. You talk with the owner of the place for a half hour and decide to start playing just to practice hoping that car-fulls our people will show up late to your 2-hour show. You know college students are never on time anyway. After you’ve played through a couple songs 2 cars enter in the parking lot and in walk one groupie from the first two shows and your parents.
Ry Edwards – www.myspace.com/ryedwardsmusic

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The AR’s Tale:

What I hear artists say is the hardest thing (about booking shows) is getting people to attend! Sometimes bands are great about getting fans or friends to one show… the trick is find those fans who like you enough to come to your next one AND bring someone who wasn’t at the first one. Then turn that new person into someone who brings someone to the next one. Tough. And you’re up against things like weather (just ask the members of Boston Molasses Disaster (www.sonicbids.com/bostonmolassesdisaster), whose last show was canceled due to a blizzard), time slot, etc. But concentrate on the people you know who like you so much they’re willing to bring someone new. Those folks are KEY!
Benjy Kantor, Artist Relations Manager at Sonicbids : www.sonicbids.com

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gigDoggy’s Tail:

Some bands get along fine just doing the usual flyers /posters / word to mouth routine, others promote actively through social networks. Lots do both. Many bands get in touch with the local media and press, radio stations, music associations, local promoters, booking agents and what not. All of these techniques are tools that a band can use to get some buzz. But in the end, the best promotion strategy for any type of band is to tour and the tools should serve that goal. Sharing and swapping gigs with other bands is indispensable because fans of each border will communicate and get the word-to-mouth going.
GigDoggy, http://www.myspace.com/gigdoggy

For more quotes on band promotion:

• The way bands promote shows (2)

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