The best way to support Artists is to pay them directly

What if streaming doesn't work out for the Artist? If streaming services aren't the answer for the music business, what will be the model for creators moving forward? If it doesn't work out, will there ever be enough money for musicians to make a living?

Technology in this space has been all about making consumer friendly solutions, and streaming provides a solution consumers are looking for – a jukebox in the sky, large catalogs of music, on demand, any time, streamed to any speaker you own. Companies making consumer first products are driven to make the product as cheap as possible. They’re not creating creator-first companies. And so creators are struggling to make a living.

Fans, however, want to support Artists they love. If there are easy ways to let fans pay Artists directly, they will do so. Often they will pay more for music if offered the opportunity to do so.

If streaming services do not convince large masses of consumers to pay for their services, and the distribution of this subscription revenue is not passed to independent Artists, then these Artists will need creator driven technology that helps fans easily support Artists by paying them directly. Fans will step up to the plate, either through patronage, crowdfunding, tips or direct purchases.

Artists have a role here also. Most Artists don’t tell fans how they can support them, or take advantage of tools that make it easy for fans to support them. 

Music itself is not doomed, because we’ll always need it to free our souls. If streaming doesn’t work out and creators stop making music because they can’t make a living from their streaming royalties, fans will step up and support Artists by paying them directly to keep music alive.

  

Can you legally text your fans?

There are a number of high profile lawsuits from consumers annoyed with receiving unwanted texts. We often hear from Artists asking us whether they can legally text message their fans? Before we tell how and when you can text your fans, it’s a good idea to get a little background on the law that determines whether you can text message your fans legally or not.

There's a law about this. It’s actually a federal law, called the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which is governed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). While you may hear about CTIA or Mobile Marketing Association when researching best practices for SMS marketing, the TCPA is the only actual law when it comes to whether you can text message fans.

Since we're talking about fans that have expressed an interest in receiving texts from you (by texting your bandname to 444999, joining a contest, etc.) we're really interested in what the TCPA says about whether or not you can text messaging mobile phone numbers that you’ve already collected from your customers.

It’s actually pretty simple, if when you collected your customer’s mobile phone numbers, you disclosed the following two things to them in a  “clear and conspicuous” manner, you can text message those customers.

What does  “clear and conspicuous” mean? It means that the disclosures were displayed in close proximity to wherever you were asking customers for their mobile phone numbers. If you did not disclose the following two thing to customers when they gave you their mobile phone numbers, or you didn’t disclose these things in a “clear and conspicuous” manner, you cannot text message them.

Here are the two things you have to tell them:

• By participating, you consent to receive text messages sent by an automatic telephone dialing system.
• Consent to these terms is not a condition of purchase.

The great benefit of the Adva Mobile Service is that we comply with this law "for you", meaning that, when a fan first texts in, we send them a text telling them they can expect to receive additional texts from you. And we provide them a link to Terms, where the second requirement is met.

As you can imagine, most Artists, when they’ve collected their fan's mobile phone numbers in the past (through a sign up sheet at the merch table, for example) have either not disclosed the above two things, or haven’t done so in a “clear and conspicuous” manner. So we tell Artists to get fans to text in, and then everyone is compliant.

Who Owns The Fans?

Hi, At Adva Mobile, we want to help you make the most of your marketing efforts to connect with fans.  Part of that is showing the world more about who you are, your creative talents, and what you know by sharing ideas, starting conversations, and inspiring others with your creative work.  So, that raises a question: who owns all of the content you post on Adva Mobile? You do, and you always have. Whether it's music, a photo, a tour date, lyrics, videos, post, or anything else, we want to make it clear that you're in control of your content. Here are some highlights (you can read more in our blog post): You're in the driver's seat. * You decide when your content goes. If you delete something from our platform, we won't use it anymore. * Share wherever or whenever you'd like. We don't own or have exclusive rights to your content. It's yours, so feel free to repost it anywhere, however you want. What about fans? They're yours. We'll never offer advertisers or other Artists access to your fans. Only you can communicate through us to your fans. So they always know they are communicating directly to you.   We also want to give you even more control over your account so we're introducing some new tools:  * Now there's a single place to see all your fans and how often they are engaging you or your web App. You can upload fan data, either one by one or send us a spreadsheet - to add fans to your mobile marketing campaigns.   * The emails we send when you change your password now include info about the place where the action was taken, so you can rest assured your account is secure.  All of these changes are part of our commitment to put our members first.  With these updates, you can feel even more confident about who controls your content and personal data on Adva Mobile: you.  Thanks for being a member! The Adva Mobile Team

Thew New Shortcode 444999 - What it means

It was weeks of planning, hundreds of lines of new code, and an education for us (and we've been doing this for 6 years!) about the many ways different companies implement SMS Text technology. We were a bit late, but we're up and running successfully and a number of you have already run both incoming and outgoing campaigns on the new shortcode 444999.

The company we are now working with offers a number of attractive features that you will find useful. We're introducing the first of these today in the Adva Mobile Blog and our Artist newsletter - Custom, Flexible Keywords. 

This company has a number of impressive capabilities that are an advantage over our prior text provider (who we love!). Their reports engine is outstanding, and as we integrate our system with theirs, you'll see even more information that will help you understand your fans.

Coupons

Ever take a minute to stop and think about how ubiquitous coupons are in our lives? They're everywhere! I'm not a coupon guy, but even I can't ignore that, like advertising, they must work, because everyone is using them.

There's a really cool way to use coupons as part of your mobile marketing efforts with the Adva Mobile platform. A number of our Artists have discovered this and are promoting sales at the merch table with coupons that are part of an Adva Mobile marketing activity. Here's how:

First, create a simple coupon and save it as a jpeg image. Here's a simple example.

Second, many of the fan engagement features of the Adva Mobile platform including Exclusive Content, Voting, and Contests, include the ability to offer something to the fan as a thank you for participating. That can be your coupon. Here's a picture of where you set that up on the Voting & Contest setup pages.

Now, fans that participate in one of your marketing capaigns, especially at shows, can show the coupon they downloaded at your merch table. This promotes more sales.

This marketing tool is especially effective with Artists that are using the Contest feature during live shows. They run the contest, and the winning fan(s) get free merch for winning, and the other participants that didn't win get a discount coupon.

Get in touch with us here at Adva Mobile if you need any help setting up or executing a marketing campaign with coupons. 

Artist Insight - Driving Your Fans at Shows

Rock masterpieces from the White Album to Dark Side of the

Moon reinvigorated by electric strings, bass, drums and a touch of jazz improv. Founding member, composer, arranger, producer, multi-instrumentalist and father of 3 Will Taylor drives the band and promotes no boundaries - form doesn't matter as much as passion, fun and creativity.

Will Taylor & Strings Attached has been creating innovative music and supporting a music career since 1993, so he knows about the mix between creative and business in forming a musicians career. He's helpful and willing to share his insights with other Artists - there's an entire YouTube channel of helpful advice in the form of 5 minute tips you can find at his YT channel. 

When he joined Adva Mobile and we saw a rapid uptick in the number of fans opting in to receive mobile texts from him, we were curious as to how he was attracting fans. His solution: Sign Up Sheets distributed at every show to every audience member.  "I keep all of the sign-up sheets that my fans submit at shows." Says Will. "We have a very high success rate with guests  filling it out because we usually offer them a free bootleg CD in exchange." They include the request to be put on the text list,  their cell phone number and their wireless  provider. Will has been adding fans into his mobile database and, combined with the fans that join by texting in, over 300 fans are now part of his database in less than a month, with more added all the time. 

Will was also willing to share more info about how he's collecting fan info. Here's a link to a You tube video -  http://youtu.be/BAQpv7WcJvQ  (its about how he specifically captures fans with the form at shows, and here's a picture of the form he has fans fill out.  

Get Will's Free 5 Min Tips to Tame Creative Life so You Can Make More Art and Have a Life. Will's tips here are here: http://budurl.com/subscribew5mt

Sean Ardoin Update

Unusual for us to repeat a story about an Artist having success with the Adva Mobile platform, however Sean Ardoin' continued promotion of his mobile web app is producing some stunning results. In last month's newsletter, we showed this chart - his fan growth from February through May:  

Over 250 new fans in a little over 2 months. Here's today's chart:
 

Over 800 fans!

Most of this is from Facebook posts, telling fans they can get his new cover and video of Pharrell's Happy by texting getkool to 88704.
  

Sean Ardoin is killing it

Zydekool front man Sean Ardoin started using Adva Mobile in mid February, telling fans at shows, on Facebook, on Twitter, and on the streets of Lake Charles (and NOLA) to text GETKOOL to 88704 to connect with all things in the Kooliverse. Check this out:

He's over 250 new fans in a little over 2 months he can connect with now on mobile, through text, email, and social with new music, show dates, news, videos and merch. That's killing it.

Introducing LYRICS!

We've added lyrics to the Adva Mobile platform. Now your fans can access lyrics to all your songs from their mobile phone, on your mobile web app.


The Lyrics section is in Content, where fans also find your music, videos and photos. Keeping fans engaged on your site with new, interesting content is the best way to grow a loyal fan base that will support you, buy your music and merch and come to your shows.

You add lyrics from the portal also under the Content section. There's a new tab called Lyrics, it works just like the News feature. Enter your song name and the Lyrics in the Text editor. Alternatively, you can paste in the lyrics (probably easier) or enter a URL link to another web site, like Lyrics.com, that present your lyrics.

Digital music has long gone without the art, credits, and lyrics that accompany physical packaging. Integrating these features into an existing digital destination - your web app - is the best alternative to help fans understand your message and learn more about the myths that surround your songs.

Adva Mobile Infographic - You're CRAZY if you're not using Mobile Marketing

Make it Special With Text

We spend a lot of energy here at Adva Mobile thinking about the Artist - Fan relationship, and how we can improve the experience for both. Artists are uber- fans too, so the fan experience has to be great for the Artist to love it and want to use it.

  

That's where Text comes in. Text is so familiar to fans, and texts they receive are almost always personal. If you ever got a text from your favorite band, how would you feel? Great, right! Connected.

  

Text has been proven successful with large brands, and is just now making its way to small business - that's you! Check out some of these noteworthy campaigns:

• TAO Nightclub, a 10,000 square-foot nightclub located in Las Vegas, sent out an exclusive text message offer to their 2,000 mobile subscribers the day of an event in hopes of increasing attendance. The text message offer generated an 11% redemption rate, which resulted in 220 additional attendees, and $1,770 in additional admission fees. The 220 additional attendees also purchased on averaged 2 drinks at $10 per drink, which totaled $4,400 of additional income at the bar.
•  Dunkin' Donuts, a popular QSR (Quick Service Restaurant) ran a mobile marketing campaign in the Boston area, encouraging customers to opt-in to receive text message offers. The campaign was advertised on local radio and through mobile internet ads. This resulted in 7,500 consumers opting in to receive Dunkin' Donuts text message offers. After the first text message offer, 17% of recipients forwarded or showed the text message promotion to a friend, 35% considered themselves more likely to buy lattes and coffee from Dunkin' Donuts in the future, and Dunkin' Donuts restaurants in the Boston area experienced a 21% increase in store traffic.
• Provident Films, a unit of Sony Music Entertainment, launched a mobile marketing campaign as a way to engage fans on their mobile devices, in advance of the release of the movie "October Baby". Fans were encouraged to text "OCTOBER" to the SMS short code 68398 in order to receive text message updates about the movie, free passes, etc. In the opt-in text message, a short hyperlink was included, which gave fans a sneak peek of the October Baby movie trailer on their mobile devices. The mobile marketing campaign was promoted to a pre-existing email database of fans, through channel partners, and on social media profiles including Facebook and Twitter.
  Provident Films was able to build a mobile database of 50,000 fans before the opening weekend of the movie. They used this mobile database to drive increased attendance, resulting in a number eight spot at the box office on opening weekend, with the movie going on to become the number one limited-release movie of all time. The mobile campaign also generated an 11% click-through rate to watch the exclusive, mobile optimized version of the movie trailer. 

Next time you want to start an amazing relationship with your fans, send them a text. The Adva Mobile platforms helps you craft the message, send them to the right landing page, and focus your message by location, loyalty, ages, etc. Try it!

PS. These Case Studies were originally published by Tatango.

Using Contests to Build Your Fan Base

Adva Mobile Artist Tim Lee, a comedian from LA, is finding terrific success using the Contest Feature to build his fan base at shows.  He raffles off a T-shirt. It’s a different kind of “shout - out”. Here’s how he does it:

• His show starts at 8pm. He sets up a contest on the portal to start at 7pm or 8pm and end at 9pm.
• Early into his show, he tells fans they can win a T- Shirt, just text to 88704. 
• The fans text in, get to the contest page, we ask for their zip code there (the page is pre-populated with their phone number and carrier - we have that since they texted in), and they enter the contest.
• Just after 9pm, the contest ends, and our system sends a text message to everyone that joined the contest. The text has a URL - the fans click on the URL, they are brought to a page that tells them “You Won” or “You Didn’t Win”. The fan(s) that won receive a second text from us telling them they won. 
• The Fan brings their phone to the merch table after the show to pick up their T-Shirt.

He’s seeing about one third of the audience join the contest, which I think is a terrific number. If you want to put something like this in place, it's set up on the Contests page of the Portal. Or let us know and we can help set it up. 

New Store Feature lets you link to iTunes, Amazon and others

Selling music and merchandise on your mobile site continues to be a primary thrust for your mobile marketing efforts, so we’re always looking for ways to help you sell to your fans. Selling directly to fans on your mobile site remains your most attractive alternative:

·        You keep 100% of the sale price

·        You learn which fans are purchasing your items, and can specifically target them again with special items

·        You collect important contact information about them

However, it’s also true that fans may wish to buy from the popular stores like iTunes or Amazon, or you may, for administrative reasons, prefer fans to buy from CD Baby, Tunecore, your own store, or any of hundreds of others. Now fans can do that.

The new feature enhancements allows you to enter the URL to these external stores that bring fans directly to your page on these stores.

When you add a link, the bottom of your mobile Store page is automatically populated with the Store icon, which links directly to the Store.

We’re starting with the popular Stores but if there’s a Store Link you want to add, just let us know and we’ll put it up. Making it easy for you to direct fans to buy from you – wherever you want to sell them – it what’s behind this new feature.

Happy selling!

Real Time Marketing vs Campaign Based Marketing

Heading into 2013, David Meerman Scott predicted that marketing campaigns as they are typically known would change, but acknowledged that change is difficult. "The old model of marketing built on a company timeline doesn't work so well, but after decades of 'campaigns' planned way in advance, it's difficult for marketers to change a mindset based on speed." Planning out campaigns with a beginning and end, and then analysis of the effectiveness of the campaign, was no longer appropriate. It's simply not how consumers operate in today's economy based upon instant everything and millions of choices.

At dmexco 2013 - one of the largest digital marketing conferences of the year - MediaCom's EMEA CEO Nick Lawson admitted that, while interest in real time marketing continued to spike, universal adoption has been slow. Apparently, it's not easy to react in the moment as a marketer.

But, as Meerman Scott predicted, real time marketing did make huge strides in 2013. Remember the infamous Oreo cookie Tweet during the Super Bowl blackout? During the third quarter of Super Bowl XLVII when a power outage at the Superdome caused some of the lights to go out for 34 minutes, the sandwich cookie’s social media team jumped on the cultural moment, tweeting an ad that read “Power Out? No problem” with a starkly-lit image of a solitary Oreo and the caption, “You can still dunk in the dark.”

The message caught on almost immediately, getting nearly 15,000 retweets and more than 20,000 likes on Facebook – not quite Beyoncé halftime show numbers, but pretty impressive for a one-off joke made by a cookie. And IBM's Global Report on the state of marketing showed that half of all marketers used real-time tactics on social media.

Real time marketing hasn't usurped campaign based marketing, but it is definitely "in" and here to stay. This has important influences on Artists because we are uniquely positioned to market to fans in real time - at the moment. And since they have their phones with them, mobile is the perfect device to reach out to fans in their "moment of inspiration" to connect with fans and market to them.

Think about that during your 2014 shows.