Help delete irritating internet marketing tactics.

Last week, Hypebot asked me to contribute a brief post for their ‘Social Media Day’ feature. You can find it here. The exercise got me thinking, and I’ve decided to expand on the topic a bit here on Creative Deconstruction.

If I were to create a poll to find out the average internet user’s feelings toward internet marketers, how many people do you think would respond positively?

… And how many of that number would be internet marketers themselves?

Next to perhaps lawyers, the internet marketer probably has the worst reputation in Western business. In may cases, this reputation is largely deserved. Like the telemarketers of old, internet marketers make it their business to interrupt peoples’ days with unsolicited messages, brazen advertisements, and questionable ideals.

It doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to act like a tool to make money online.

Human Beings vs. Internet Marketers

The way I see it, there are two ways to approach business online. You can sell like a human, or you can sell like an internet marketer. The question is: which are you?

What is the difference between a human being and an Internet Marketing professional? I’ve taken the liberty of creating a handy list to help shed some light on the disparity:

1. Humans have real conversations. Internet Marketers have agendas.

2. Humans are interested in helping others. Internet Marketers are interested in monetizing each and every interaction.

3. Humans are passionate about creating interesting and valuable content. Internet Marketers are passionate about SEO.

4. Humans value connections with other humans. Internet marketers value leads. (Which do you think is more valuable?)

5. Humans develop mutually beneficial relationships. Internet Marketers develop human sales funnels.

The irony is that the human activities listed above have so much more potential with regard to building a valuable – yes, even revenue generating – network of connections, supporters, customers and fans. The other activities are shallow and transparent. Very few people are fooled by these tactics anymore anyway – so is it really worth trading in your personal credibility?

How Then Shall We Sell?

Selling like a human, to other humans, is not easy. Humans are notoriously unpredictable and difficult to please. That’s why so many turn to the soulless side of internet marketing. There’s a much lower threshold to entry. It also takes much less emotional energy to manage textbook marketing activities, than it does to truly seek to add value to human relationships – whether with customers, fans, clients or other connections.

The answers to selling like a human lie in what makes us human in the first place. Human beings need to connect with one another in meaningful ways. We need to belong to a diverse community of like-minded people. Sometimes we need others to help us, other times we need to share what we have with others. We need to learn, and even at times to be entertained.

If you can help meet these needs in other people, you will be successful in business – and life, for that matter. The other side of that coin is that if you can’t figure out how to contribute to at least one of these needs you will likely struggle.

What does this have to do with you?

Like the internet marketer, modern artists are often out there on there own.  There are precious few label deals to go around, and the ones going around may be a gamble, at best. So artists are left to promote themselves and their music lacking key resources and often without any kind of real training. So who do you turn to for direction?

When you’re out here on the internet, especially on social networks, pay attention to how you are going about your business. Are you interrupting peoples’ day with unsolicited messages, brazen advertisements and questionable ideals? (“Check out my MySpace page, fan me on Facebook and make sure you RETWEET!!” – What value does this add to the reader?) Or are you treating people like humans and helping to meet their needs?

People want good music, clearly, but I would even argue that people need good music. What we don’t need is to have artists trying to sell us that music by mimicking the tactics of shameless internet marketers.

Instead, take the time to think about your audience. Who are they? What do they want, and what do they need? How can you meet those needs and desires? Sometimes it’s as simple as giving them something to laugh about, or finding a way to connect like-minded people within your niche. That’s how you’re going to find an entry point into their day.

And that is how you are going to find new fans.

“That would never work in the real world.” You hear it all the time when you tell people about a fresh idea.

This real world sounds like an awfully depressing place to live. It’s a place where new ideas, unfamiliar approaches, and foreign concepts always lose. The only things that win are what people already know and do, even if those things are flawed and inefficient.

Scratch the surface and you’ll find that these “real world” inhabitants are filled with pessimism and despair. They expect fresh concepts to fail. They assume society isn’t ready for or capable of change.

Don’t believe them. That world may be real for them, but it doesn’t mean you have to live in it.

That’s an excerpt from the first chapter of Rework by the founders of 37signals. The message hits close to home for me right now, so I thought I’d share it with all of you.

I’m currently in the process of starting up a new business. In the real world, neither my partner nor I are in a great place to be risking it all on a new venture. Erik runs a music discovery service, and works as an internet marketer by day. I have two young kids, a full-time job as a headhunter and a music industry blog to generate quality content for each day. We’re busy, we’re already over-committed, and resources are scarce.

In the real world, we should both be heads-down at a cubicle somewhere trying to ‘focus on our careers.’ Instead, we’re seizing every spare minute to pour our time, energy and our best ideas into this project.

Why am I telling you this? Because I believe that my experiences starting a new business are not too far removed from many of your experiences starting a career in music. Our venture also  depends on many of the same factors that your careers depend on – namely that listeners and consumers will continue to value the music experience.

I’m going to try to blog the start up process from beginning to end, and well beyond. Everything I learn, you’ll learn. Every mistake I make will be one you won’t have to. My hope is that there will be something for everybody to take a way and apply to your own endeavors.

The first installment is simple: if you have a vision for your life and your career, don’t wait for permission. Get started now. Keep your day job, but make time to work towards your goal every single day. If I can do it in my situation – and I suppose only time will tell – anybody can do it.

Erik and I have the advantage of an idea that we truly believe in. We’ve discovered a real need in the music industry that no one is currently meeting with any kind of success, and we plan to fill it. We even have a few ideas on how we’re gong to do it.

But that’s outside the scope of this first post. For now, I’ll leave you with another short excerpt from Rework:

The real world isn’t a place, it’s an excuse. It’s a justification for not trying. It has nothing to do with you.

Does this resonate with any of you? Are any of you in a similar place? I’d love to get your feedback.

If you are an independent artist or record label I want to challenge you to try something different. The normal course of business for most artists is to spend months or years writing and recording an entire album’s worth of material. Once it’s finished, you hype it as best you can for a few more months, trying to build interest so it will launch with a bang and make you enough to recoup your costs and maybe pay for a new amp or enough gas money to get through the first half of your cross-country tour. You throw a big release party and hope the orders begin to pour in. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Either way, you’re left to ride that wave for the next months or years until your next album is ready to drop.

Here’s my challenge: do things differently next time. Take a look at the market and respond to the way people are actually consuming music. Create a release strategy that capitalizes on consumers’ preference for purchasing individual tracks rather than complete albums, and that engages fans more effectively than in the past.

Instead of releasing a complete album, release one track. Market the heck out of it, spread it around, give it away, whatever you need to do to get as many people listening to it as possible. Encourage people to interact with it, remix it, shoot videos for it. Let the track promote your live shows, where people can hear more of your material.

A few months later, drop track number 2. Same thing – promote it and let it promote your shows. Give the songs some continuity like series television – a story line, a repeating theme. Leave your listeners anticipating the next track with a good cliff-hanger.

Repeat this process until you’ve released an entire set of eight to ten songs and offer the whole set for sale in special edition packaging. Make it something that people will pay money for – even people who have already downloaded your individual tracks. Artwork, photos, liner notes, lyrics, etc. Release it in vinyl, or on a t-shirt like Mos Def – whatever your unique brand of fan wants.

The idea is to engage your fans by increasing the frequency at which you release new material. Give them a reason to check back in with you early and often to see what you have coming out next. Don’t let them think that you’re just like so many other bands releasing three quality tracks and a bunch of filler – there’s no room for filler if each track has to stand on its own.

There are so many things you could do with this approach. Pre-release one of your songs as un-mastered tracks and create a contest to find the best fan mix to be released along with your own finished version. Release your singles on 7” with an interesting b-side, or on a CD with a bonus acoustic version. Auction off an opportunity to sing backup on the next release, or to create the artwork, or to host the next release party at their house. Get people involved and hold their attention for longer. Get them invested in the process.

Is the album dead? No, I don’t believe it is. Yet as an artist trying to make a career in music you can’t ignore the current market realities. Individual track downloads, real-time culture, constant communication – these have been seen as enemies to the recording industry but you can turn them into an opportunity to build your fan base foster deep commitment.

Let me know if you’re planning on giving this a try. It doesn’t have to look quite like what I’ve outlined above – you’re an artist, be creative. I’ll even commit to doing a feature here on the site on the first band that gets back to me with a report.

UPDATE: Read the follow up to this article How a Subscription Model Can Enhance Your Release Strategy.

The founders of music streaming service Last.fm announced this morning that they will be leaving the company they helped create. “This is the latest stage in a long journey for us founders, which began in a living room in East London in 2002, and took us to the headquarters of one of the biggest media companies in the world.” The media company they are referring to is of course CBS, which acquired Last.fm about two years ago for $280 million. The announcement, which was posted this morning on the company’s blog, didn’t indicate why the team has chosen to leave, saying simply that, “After two years running Last.fm within CBS we feel the time is right to begin the process of handing over the reins.”

It is possible that it was CBS who informed  them it was time to leave – when a start-up is gobbled up by a larger entity, the founding leaders usually do not stick around for very long. Look at the recent ouster of MySpace co-creator and CEO Chris DeWolfe. The team may also have something new up their sleeve, although if they do nothing has leaked yet. Either way, they are leaving on something of a high note. According to founder Felix Miller, “Last.fm’s users have more than doubled in the last 12 months – we are now at an all-time high of 37.3M monthly unique visitors.” Yet, as Mashable notes in their coverage of the announcement, Last.fm has been under a lot of scrutiny lately related to their recent waffling over whether or not to charge international users, and accusations that they handed user data over to the RIAA.

It will be interested to see what will become of Last.fm now that CBS has full control. The presence of the original founders seemed to maintain a sense of independent thought and creativity – something that can be much more difficult for a behemoth like CBS. Yet that authenticity is valuable and a service like Last.fm wouldn’t be the same without it. That’s something CBS should definitely be thinking about right now – with the online streaming radio wars heating up recently this would not be a good time to toy with the trust of their users.

The cable industry’s annual trade convention is going on this week, and the big topic of discussion this year is the Internet. According to yesterday’s article in the Chicago Tribune, Cable has watched the Music and Newspaper industries struggle to adapt to the digital world, and there has been a lot of talk about how to avoid their mistakes.

“Cable TV companies will have to do something in between the approaches taken by the music industry — which ignored the threat of the Internet for too long — and the newspaper industry, which put its content online for free.”

Unfortunately, it sounds like they are already repeating the biggest mistake of all – regarding the Internet as a threat instead of an opportunity.

Let’s face it – traditional cable television is on its way out. Why would anyone want cable if they could have high-quality video programming online? With cable you are stuck at your house, forced to watch according to a schedule set by the channel. Online programming can be taken anywhere, and watched according to the individuals schedule. The Internet is superior to cable television in just about every way, and will only become more so as network speeds improve.

My proposal: Give customers everything in one place – online. Most (if not all) cable providers already offer broadband internet through the same cable as the TV content. So, why do households need both services? This would allow them to get rid of schedules and instead provide a kind of network hub where users can access whatever content they want. Combine cable TV content with web functionality and Viola! – a vastly improved user experience and a whole lot of happy customers.

The question becomes, how do we pay for all of this? Well, if you’ve read my previous posts you know my position on free as it relates to music. Cable TV is a little different, though, because it is has always been designed to be a premium service. Network TV is free for everyone, Cable TV requires a subscription. That’s the way it has always been, and I see no problem with this. If someone doesn’t want the extra content that Cable offers, they can stick with the free Network channels. The same could easily be true online.

Yet, even if the subscription model is retained, the Internet offers a unique opportunity to also offer free content. Let some content sit outside of the ‘walled garden’ (the name being used by some to describe the subscriber-only sections of the sites) so that casual viewers can get a taste for what Cable has to offer. This way, content can be used to promote the premium services.

None of these ideas are revolutionary, but if the Cable providers don’t do something soon someone else will do it first. If that happens, companies like Comcast and Time Warner will have a hard time recovering.

The Chicago Tribune ran an article a couple of days ago by music critic Greg Kot. In it Kot talks about the way that the ‘Darknet’ – closed networks where users engage in illegal file sharing – may cause the government to impose tyrannical restrictions on the Internet in order to protect copyrighted materials.

Kot paraphrases Rick Carnes, the president of the Songwriters Guild of America and one of the major proponents of this conspiracy theory:

“When the government starts putting the screws on rogue Internet traffickers, ‘You won’t be able to get on the network unless you have total identification,’ including finger-printing and complete background information.”

Sound a bit extreme? Kot does point out that the music industry has friends in some pretty high places, but Carnes’ picture of online doom and gloom is nevertheless more sensational that rational.

While the RIAA and other industry groups here in the US still appear to be taking a primarily legal and political approach to combating online file sharing, the fact that the four major labels back Google’s ad supported MP3 search  engine in China is a good indication that the recording industry has realized that they cannot stem the tide of free forever.

It’s a shame that by the time the music industry tires of lawsuits, crackdowns and threats enough to embrace the change that has already progressed so far without them, there may not be much of an industry left.

I have often heard people say that the Album has become an unintended casualty of the post-iTunes era. I have tended to agree. It used to be a sign of greatness when a band was able to craft a cohesive album that was more than a simple collection of songs.  Now, listeners pick and choose the songs they want and download them individually, removing them from the context of the tracks and rendering the album largely unappreciated. Many in the industry now advise bands to simply record and release a series of singles and forget the album all together.

Not everyone agrees that the album is dead, however. With their latest release, The Hazards of Love, the Decemberists have disregarded the ‘singles’ trend, and have returned to the Album in a big way. The Hazards of Love is part concept album, part opera, with characters and musical themes that repeat throughout. I’ve always been a fan of the Decemberists anyway, but what I love most about this release is the potential brilliance of their approach.

I have no way of knowing what the band’s motivations were in crafting this album, but I do know that in releasing an album where each song is so dependent on the one before it they have provided a powerful incentive to purchase it in it’s entirety. Fans and even many casual listeners who download a single track will likely want to hear the rest of the story, and will end up downloading the full album. It will be interesting to find out how well my theory holds up once the album has been out for a while, but the Decemberists may have stumbled upon a great way to encourage listeners to purchase an entire album while the rest of the industry has become convinced that singles are now the only way to go.

1. Diversify your product offerings -The value of recorded music now rests largely in its effectiveness in promoting a complete experience. What people want today is to experience their favorite artists’ music in a much fuller way than was previously available. To capitalize on this, find a way to package and monetize different elements of that experience. The wheel doesn’t need to be completely reinvented here: think music videos, creative merchandise, unreleased tracks, private and semi-private concerts, extended album artwork, unreleased copies of notebooks and practice tapes used during the songwriting process, etc.

2. Innovate – It is abundantly clear by now that business as usual is no longer working. It is time for you to clear your cache of models and practices that worked in the past and come up with something that will allow you to survive the future – or the present, for that matter. Take Canadian label Nettwerk for example. Nettwerk is probably the furthest ahead of the pack as far as innovation is concerned, and others would do well to pay attention. They have been coming up with some very creative ideas to add value to the music they release, including offering what they are calling ‘Pre-mixes.’ Before an album is even officially released, Nettwerk is releasing unfinished studio tracks for any and all to remix. The best of these will be compiled and released as a companion to the official version of the album. This is a great example of adding to the overall experience of a band or album in a way that engages listeners and can be easily monetized.

3. Stop the Greed – If you want to succeed, stop exploiting your rosters and start supporting them. As recording, promotion and distribution of music gets cheaper and cheaper you are beginning to lose the upper hand you once enjoyed. Artists don’t need you quite as much anymore, so you had better find away of increasing the value you can add to their careers. No more dropping bands the moment they appear to hit a rough patch. Treat you’re the acts in your roster more like partners and less like commodities or they will find ways to be successful – with or without your help.

4. Stop Suing Your Customers – If you treat your customers like criminals, they will spend their money elsewhere. The recording industry has apparently decided that instead of finding ways to offer value to their customers, they will simply use the legal system to bully them into paying for something that is being offered for free by just about everyone else. This is not a sustainable business model. Also – drop the ‘we’re just looking out for the artist’ rhetoric. Everyone knows that the interests you are protecting are just about exclusively your own.

5. Shake Up the Talent – I’m not talking about your rosters here – I’m talking about you. If you want to compete in the New industry it will mean shedding old ideas and coming up with new ones – and getting rid of anyone who is unwilling to do that. There was some promising news a while back that EMI hired Douglas Merrill, formerly VP of Engineering of Google as the head of EMI Digital. It appeared that EMI had realized that it needed someone with a fresh perspective to shake things up. Unfortunately, news broke recently that EMI and Merrill have already severed ties after only a year. The reasons are unclear, but it would seem that EMI was never fully committed to investing in Merrill’s ideas, or in embracing new ideas.
 
6. Embrace - Don’t Fear – Technology - Finding and listening to new music is easier than ever before thanks to online music streaming, MySpace, blogs, and a host of other technologies. So far, you have spent most of your time and energy trying to shut these new technologies and services down, rather than partnering or competing with them. Imagine if you had embraced Napster and used it to promote your artists! The exposure that file-sharing could have brought to those artists with the resources that you had available is almost limitless. Now the opportunity has passed because you were unwilling to let go of the status quo.

7. Give Rid of DRM – No one likes DRM. People want to be able to listen to their music wherever they want, whenever they want. Most households now have many different devices that they use to listen to music, and they don’t want to be limited as to how many of those devices they can upload their tracks. Just get rid of it.

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I talked previously about the way that declining record sales have hurt the major record labels, and how this presents an incredible opportunity for artists to strike out on their own. It’s a shame that it has taken the deconstruction of an entire industry to make this possible, but I suppose if it didn’t I’d be out of a job.

The fall of the old regime really is a great opportunity for bands. The only catch is that without the major labels raising cash for them, bands will now have to develop their business chops because they will have to be much more self-sustaining. Why can’t bands be run the same way small businesses are run? I’m oversimplifying a bit, but the process is not rocket science. Put together a business plan, develop your product, and go out and sell that product.

The product is of course the music, but it is also much more than that – it’s the experience, the band itself. Book as many performances as you can and put on a great show. Take time to connect with the audience before and after the show. Put the profits toward further gigging and producing a couple of songs that you can release on your band’s blog, MySpace page, Facebook page, Twitter, streaming radio services, etc.

If you have created a good product that people want, your music and reputation will spread over time. Use that momentum to play more shows and promote the socks of them. Develop more products that can come alongside your recorded music and add additional revenue streams such as t-shirts, posters, original artwork, videos, private gigs, ect. These things also add extra value to your brand. Use the profit to record a couple more songs and repeat the cycle.

That’s how a business works. You keep on doing the stuff and following the plan, making adjustments wherever necessary. If you are offering a product that is valuable people will pay for it – whether that means they will pay to download your music, purchase your merchandise or cough up the cover charge to see you perform live – and you will turn a profit. Of course, this post just covers the basics but there are many, many other options available to bands to help them be financially solvent.

The Music Industry is not dead, it is simply changing hands. Record Labels are being forced to turn over control to the artists they formerly profited so lucratively from. This is an incredible opportunity for artists everywhere, but in order to seize it those same artists will have to be smart and learn to operate like a real business.

Record labels have built their businesses on the profitability of recorded music, and until recently it was a pretty lucrative business to be in. Because artists couldn’t afford to produce their own recordings they were forced to be dependent on the major labels, and the Majors became the all-powerful gatekeepers of the Music Industry.

Now, with sales of recorded music falling sharply, the Majors are losing some of the clout they once had. Without all that money to throw around, the content creators – the bands and artists – are beginning to wonder why they had allowed themselves to be put in their pocket for so many years.

In case you aren’t familiar with how the process has worked for the past few decades, here is a typical example of the relationship between artist and label:

1. Band A has been playing out for a while and has developed a decent following.
2. Their fans want to take their music home with them so Band A puts up some cash to record a brief, usually crummy, demo to sell at their shows and shop around to record labels. This step can last years if the right person doesn’t hear the band at the right time and decide to give them a shot.
3. An A&R scout sees some potential in Band A and offers them a contract. The label will put up the money necessary for recording a full length album, and in exchange they will retain full ownership of tapes and masters. The band will be required to pay back whatever money the label loans them before they see a dime in royalties – pennies on the dollar.
4. When the album is finished, the label may decide to loan the band some money to go on tour (this will need to be paid back as well.)
5. Halfway through the tour, the label decides that Band A isn’t selling enough records to be worth supporting any longer, so they drop them.
6. Band A is left in the middle of a national tour with no money, no support, few contacts and no idea what to do next.

At least, that’s how it seems to go more often than not. It makes you wonder – what good did the label actually do for the band? Not much. They made it possible to record an album, but now they own the masters and aren’t willing to do anything to promote it. That doesn’t leave the band with too many options.

There is an option that artists have only begun to realize they have left: forget about record labels.

Truthfully, the whole system was never designed to work in the artists favor anyway. The major labels have held too much power for much too long and have used that power to exploit the content creators for their own gain. Now that their main product – recorded music – is not as profitable as it once was, artists are free to step out from under the labels’ shadow and do things their own way.