Why doesn't anyone customize the experience?

I've (Jack) recently been giving some thought to why music artists don't offer up merchandise to their fans that is truly unique, limited quantity, and customized. I'm intrigued with two dynamics that seem to make this a no-brainer. First, the cost difference between a limited run item and the unlimited run is inconsequential and easily covered by the fan. For example, a simple T-shirt on one website at $12.95 for one is $10.36 each for 50 and $8.40 each for 250. The $1.96 cost difference between a limited quantity of 50 (and therefore rare and collectible) and unlimited run T-shirts seems small and, to me at least, is a minor risk set by the likelihood that your true fans will want the limited run T-shirt, likely in addition to other T-shirts they buy there also special, rare, and one-of-a-kind.

Second, of course, is that your fans would much rather have something from you that was unique and personal to them, even something that they had to "work at" to obtain. These simple dynamics drive fan loyalty and also can significantly increase revenues for the artists, who can charge more for special run, rare items.

Artists that are selling merchandise on their mobile fan clubs through the Adva Mobile service are increasingly putting personalized, rare, one-of-a-kind items up for sale. Fans appreciate the personal connection they have with their favorite artists through these unique products, and the artist has a virtually unlimited supply of personal relationship building and fan connecting experiences to offer the fan.

To learn more about selling merch, click here.

Tweet, Post or Share?

You may have noticed that recently the footer on your mobile website has changed. Specifically, we've removed 'Share' and 'Post' and replaced those by 'Tweet'.

'Share' meant that fans can tell their friends about your mobile website. It was a tweet that went on their account and carried your friendly name (preceeded by a hash sign) and a link to your site.

'Post' meant sort of a message board where fans would ramble about the band, music or whatever.

Since both of them were really about sharing the experience, and both end up on Twitter (in addition to the mobile website), we've figured it's best and less confusing to merge them into 'Tweet'. Those tweets would go on the fans' Twitter account, tagged with your friendly name and contain a link to your mobile website. When fans come on the mobile 'Tweet' page, we'll present them the Twitter search result on your friendly name.

BTW, if you wanted to substitue the hash mark that preceeds your friendly name with your actual Twitter user ID and '@', you can do that on the 'Fan Posts' page on the artist portal.

Weekly Update 5/14/2009

It's been a great week for us at Adva.

The response for the newsletter last week was overwhelming (>70% of the recepients read the newsletter and many had clicked through to the articles on this blog) mainly due to a new level of quality articles this time.

Even more exciting was the ArtistData partnership announcement, that helps bands leverage their assets (gigs, news and blog posts) from ArtistData to their mobile fan club. And then we announced the partnership with CPN, who are using mobile fan clubs for their musicians (see Joyce Sims' club) and sport entertainers.

There have been quite a few features we introduced this week, some of which we didn't even blog about:

• Uploading exclusive content to grab fans' email addresses and zipcodes (read);
• We've introduced a fix that helped iPhone users to view pages w/o the iPhone hanging on them (read)
• We've also introduced a way for you to create a customised automated email that will get sent to fans who purchased merchandise from you (read)

We had nice media coverage this week from Mobile Entertainment, which was exciting.

There's a lot going on, getting ready to be launched or announced...keep with us: it's gonna get interesting around here =)

Send a custom confirmation email to fans who bought merch from you

Following up when fans buy your merch is important, because it gives the fans confidence that this new mobile system really works. The money is going where it should go (that's you, the musicians) for your merch, and the merch ends up with the fan. It also motivates your fans to buy from you again, as you give them personal attention while you're trying to "deliver the goods". Simply put, it's all about good service.

We've introduced a new feature on the artist portal that allows you to define a custom email that will automatically be sent to the fan once they bought merch from you. You can specify the subject, 'From', content of the email in rich text format, and add an attachment.

You can create a different email for every merch item that is sold, or, you can define an email that will serve as 'master' for all the items sold.

This new feature comes in addition to the email you get (the musician) once an item was sold, which also contains the fans' email address to coordinate the delivery of the goods.

To setup this email, when you add or edit a new merchandise item, see the new blue line at the bottom of the page titled "Confirmation Email".

Hope this all make sense and is helpful, we're open for your feedback!

Now's the time to sell merch on your fans mobile phones! Go sell!

Give your fans exclusive content, in return for their email++

A common misconception is that you need to deliver your fans only the best mastered content. If you think about it, though, try to remember what you did when you discovered an artist you really liked? That's right, you went and bought a bunch of their music. And then you did some research on the web, to know who they are etc.

You fans aren't different, they want to be "in the know" about you, get early access to your mastered music as well as your interviews, basement gigs etc. And they'd be happy to tell you about themselves in exchange.

Why would you care about that? because if you find that you have many fans in NY, vs. Boston, for example, perhaps you want to focus your shows there a bit more. Or, if your fans are the college crowd, perhaps you should plan for more college shows to take off.

So this was a long introduction for a new feature we've launched this week: Exclusive content. This is content your fans can download to their phones after they entered their email (so you can add them to your mailing list, in addition to the mobile fan club), their zip code, and optionally, their age and gender.

Setup is really simple: 

1. On the artist portal, go to the 'Web Pages' section and underneath it choose 'Exclusive content'. Here you can upload new exclusive content (images, music, YouTube videos etc) or control existing stuff.
   
2. You want to set a promotion message for the exclusive content so your fans know about it, like: "Get 'Love to run' new release exclusively here". We will place that message on your mobile home page, with a link to the exclusive content page.
3. (Optional) you may want to send an SMS blast to your fans with a direct link to grab the new content.

Here's how fans will experience it:

1. They'll see your promotion message on your mobile home page, or they get the SMS blast you sent them, and click on the link.
2. If this is the first time they're here, we'll ask them for their email and zipcode, and optionally their age and gender.
3. Once they got through the form once, they never have to go through it again, they go straight to view the exclusive content items, sorted by the date you uploaded them.

And once they do that, we'll send you an email with the fans' email address so you can add them to your mailing list.

Pretty neat huh? If you have any comments, suggestions or questions, always feel free to write to us at advamobile.uservoice.com.

Why don't you get started, upload some exclusive content now! 

 

Paging brings relief to iPhone users, hopefully

Hi everyone,

We had some reports of iphones hanging when viewing large-(er?) mobile webpages, where there's many gigs, posts or items on sale.

We've introduced a number of optimizations to resolve this, reduce the wait time for pages to download, but specifically we want to highlight the paging we've introduced:

currently the page size is 10 items (whatever the context is), and you'll see prev/next links at the bottom. Simple and easy for you and your fans.

Keep telling us how to improve our service, we love your feedback!

Bang! ArtistData - Adva Mobile integration in action!

Check it out! After a few launch hurdles, the integration with ArtistData is now working smoothly, thanks to the giants over at ArtistData, lead by Brenden.

Are you on ArtistData and want a mobile fan club, get your gigs, blogs and news mobile automatically every morning? check out the Adva Mobile activation button on ArtistData.

Bands, since we originally took gigs from your MySpace page, you may have some duplications now. You can delete duplications on your gigs page on Adva Mobile.

As always, let us know what you think, if you're having any trouble etc.

Have a great weekend all!

Santigold
Genre: New Wave / Dub / Psychobilly
Hometown: BROOKLYN, NY
Fans on Mobile Club:9 (in 2 weeks!)
Keyword: Text Santigold to GETME (43863)


Lizard King Records has been actively taking advantage of Santigold's mobile fan club. Concert dates, news, free music tracks and a YouTube video are posted. And Santigold CDs can be purchased straight from the phone.

Mark Reynolds, GM and head of digital at LKR, says that more mobile-based promotions are on the way. "I am always looking for solutions that engage our artists' fans and keep them coming back for more. The visionary Adva Mobile team not only provides an exciting mobile platform but a depth of knowledge and experience that adds value to everything we do."

Band to Fan Relationships Drive New Music Business Models

Lots of us have been intrigued by Kevin Kelly’s (no relation!) dissertation on 1,000 True Fans and his premise that you can make a decent living by cultivating 1,000 true fans who will pay you for your craft much easier than trying to make music that satisfies the craving of 6 billion people. These 1000 true fans will buy everything you produce and drive hundreds of miles to see your concerts. But in the digital world, you need to find new things to sell them besides T-shirts and concert tickets to make this work. That's where leveraging the relationship that fans want with you comes into play, and a number of artists, including some using our mobile fan club service, are inventing innovative, relationship-based “products” that provide real value to their true fans.

UK Folk Legend Linda Thompson recognizes the unique bond between her creativity and her audience desire for closer relations. Together with Artist Funding Agents The Hector Fund, she has recently begun a campaign to raise $50K to finance her new album direct from her fans and has partnered with Adva to take it mobile. Fans can donate anywhere between $10 and $100K, and at the higher levels, some really unique access to a music icon. Below is an example of her $20K offering:

$20,000 Magna Carta Level: The album, the limited poster, the visit to the studio, the Executive Producer credit, the VIP invite, the dinner with me and Teddy and a song written specifically for you or that special someone and recorded and performed by myself, Teddy, my daughter Kami and grandson Zak (soon to be heard of) Hobbs.

Josh Freese, ex Nine Inch Nails drummer, has a new album you can download for $7. But for $10,000, you get:

* Signed CD/DVD and digital download
* T-shirt
* Signed DW snare drum from A Perfect Circle’s 2003 tour
* Josh gives you a private drum lesson OR his and hers foot/back massage (couples welcome, discreet parking)
* Twiggy from Marilyn Manson’s band and Josh take you and a guest to Roscoe’s Chicken ‘n’ Waffles in Long Beach for dinner
* Josh takes you and a guest to Club 33 (the super-duper exclusive and private restaurant at Disneyland located above Pirates of the Caribbean) and then hit a couple rides afterward (preferably the Tiki Room, the Haunted Mansion and Tower of Terror)
* At the end of the day at Disneyland, drive away in Josh’s Volvo station wagon. It’s all yours … take it. Just drop him off on your way home, though, please

Some of it tongue-in-cheek, maybe, but there's a limit of one of these prizes, and so some fan will have a unique experience with Josh that presumably no one else will have.

There’s a terrific opportunity to tie fans desire for digital goods (which can be duplicated ad infinitum) to scarce goods (merch, collector’s items, signed items, etc) to engage their favorite bands and to choose how much they’re willing to spend and get unique relationship with the artist for their money. Mobile can help, but it’s the concept that has me spinning.

To experiment with adding merchandise to your mobile fan club click here.

Jack Kelly, CEO

Mobilize your gigs, blogs and news from ArtistData automatically, no sweat!

We're excited to announce our new partnership with ArtistData, enabling you to mobilize information you enter on their portal, to show up on your mobile website, automatically!
ArtistData believes that musicians should only enter data once. Tirelessly working to give musicians more time to be creative, they are building solutions to automate the monotonous updating of artist websites, social network profiles, concert databases, Twitter, official news feeds etc.

To set it up, log into your Adva Mobile account. Go to the "Integrations with other music sites" page under "Profile".

Here you'll find a table, that shows your identifier for MySpace and for Artist Data, and various check boxes for your gigs, news, blogs and buzz. Let's explain:

• The MySpace ID is simply the MySpace URL you gave us when you first joined. If you haven't and want to add it now, send us an email and let us know.
• The ArtistData ID is an ID we (Adva Mobile) give you. Copy it and later we'll show you what to do with it.
• Gigs: You can choose to automatically update your gigs on your mobile fan club from MySpace or from ArtistData (not both). Check the option you want. You can also leave both unchecked. Remember, you can always add, edit and delete gigs manually on the Adva Mobile portal.
• News and Blogs: You can enable automatic import of your news and blogs from ArtistData to your mobile blogs and news pages. Check those boxes if you're interested. Here again, you can always manually create, edit and delete blogs, news and buzz on Adva Mobile's artist portal.

Here's a picture that shows what it looks like:

To activate ArtistData, you need to have an acocunt with them. If you have one, you'll find Adva Mobile's logo on their portal. All you need to do is to paste the code you copied (see earlier) onto this page, and that's it!

Here's a mobile page that's created automatically from a post we made on ArtistData. Pertty cool!

To give it a run or learn more, log into your account on Adva Mobile

Expert Insight: The value of a Mobile Promotion Component

Effective music promotion used to be a costly campaign that was best left to be handled by the major labels. Now, with the emergence of social networking websites, text and voicemail messaging along with mobile websites, music promotion is easier and more effective than ever. Internet and mobile promotions gives unsigned artists, independent artists and musicians the ability to achieve a level of success that has not been seen in the past decades without the help of major labels. A “Record Deal”, may no longer be necessary to experience the success of having a large fan base to purchase music, tickets or merchandise. The self-promoted artist and independent label now have an avenue where they can promote and sell their music on a global scale.

One of the greatest tools to come available to the independent and self-promoted artist and musicians is mobile media. With the cell phone transforming into the multimedia personal communication device, thanks to the third generation (3G) and now the fourth generation (4G) handsets, it is easier to reach and keep your fan based informed and up-to-date. Mobile web access is a platform that is growing in popularity on a daily basis. Giving your fans the ability to access a mobile website via their Blackberry, iPhone, Sidekick or other handheld device to stay updated on your tour schedule, new recordings and blogs is an incredible tool for promoting you the artist or band. Utilizing Mobile media gives the artist the opportunity to take advantage of proximity marketing. Picture this, as an independent artist, you are at a gig playing to a packed house. Proximity marketing gives you the ability to send every fan with a cell phone, or multimedia device, a text message that gives them a link to your mobile website. Once they access the mobile website, they can click on a link for a free download of the song you just played, or a special offer or some kind of promotion specially designed for those fans in attendance. This, of course, is only if the customer or fan has the equipment needed to receive and has agreed to accept marketing messages. This type of promotions is not only relevant and interactive it also entertains and advertises.

For artists who want to be ahead of the game, creating a mobile (“mobi”) website may increase marketing success with a small investment as well as generate sales and expand your fan base. Artists and musicians can send a message to fans that drives them to the artist’s mobile site where fans can buy music, check out the new dates added to the tour schedule or even enter contests. Every artist that we sign to our management company, VIP Entertainment Group, will definitely have a mobile website as we feel that it is a vital part to their marketing and promotions campaign as well as keeping their fan base connected.

Rodney Lambert 
Owner/ Artist Manager 
VIP Entertainment Group 
www.vipentertainment.biz

About VIP Entertainment Group 

VIP Entertainment Group is a personal management company based out of Southern California. As personal managers, we make sure to represent our clients with honesty, integrity and professionalism. It is our goal to treat every artist that signs on with us like a V.I.P. 
 
As personal managers, we are responsible for every part of the artist’s career. It involves making decisions we and our artist can live with and developing a trusting relationship. A relationship that matures over time and grows out of mutual respect. It's understanding that the artist’s opinion is an integral part of the decision making process and growth of his or her career.

Founded by Rodney Lambert and Ray Anderson, VIP Entertainment Group manages independent and unsigned artists from various career stages. We specialize in preparing artist packages and presenting them to the industry. We effectively implement marketing strategies and online campaigns to build the artist fan base and create the much needed buzz.