Crowdfunding - We're on to Something Big for Artists

When Adva Mobile undertook our Crowdfunding exercise, we knew we were testing a new idea. Raising money for a project by convincing a large group of friends, family, business partners and even total strangers to contribute a small amount of money wasn't a totally new idea, however past successful efforts were oriented towards cultural, philanthropic or creative projects. Crowdfunding for a commercial project was indeed testing a new idea.

Now we have the Crowdfunding Bill, part of the Jump-Start Our Business Start-Ups, or JOBS Act, through Congress and signed by the President. For those of you who haven’t been following the JOBS Act, it is a bill that will make it easier for startups and small businesses to raise funds, especially through online Crowdfunding.

The Crowdfunding exercise we underwent using IndieGoGo (like KickStarter) differs from those contemplated by the JOBS Act bill because, under the JOBS Act, we can now reward investors with equity. I believe Equity Based Crowdfunding  will fundamentally alter, in positive ways, small businesses, including those small businesses known as "Artists".

Touring Bands and Recording Artists should watch the early efforts of Artists who attempt Equity Based Crowdfunding projects very carefully. While fans may be willing  to donate small contributions for a nationwide tour, SXSW concert, or studio session, the significant money needed for large marketing campaigns, previously only available from large labels, may now be available to a much larger pool of Artists. Crowdfunding without equity through campaigns with KickStarter and IndieGoGo are still available to the Artist, so Equity Based Crowdfunding represents an alternative when more significant capital is needed.

The "crowd" also provides benefits beyond capital to Artist businesses. For example, a touring band that raises money via Crowdfunding may now have 150 new passionate fans as shareholders, who can serve as a great sounding board for new ideas and as brand evangelists -- a critical asset in Artist promotion.

Equity Crowdfunding will go a long way towards alleviating Artists' capital access needs, and benefit investors in the process. The capital markets have finally entered the 21st Century and the future for Artists looks bright.

Adva Mobile Artist Natalie Stovall Voted Entertainer of the Year

 We couldn't be more proud to announce that Natalie Stovall has won both Entertainer of the Year and Female Entertainer of the Year by Campus Activities Magazine®. We've seen her perform at campuses up here in Boston and the audiences love the flavor of country she brings to her performances. Campus Activities Magazine® echoed this sentiment when they wrote:
"Well, she's finally done it folks. After just a few short years in the campus market, Natalie Stovall has been named the Entertainer Of The Year by the voters of Campus Activities Magazine® in the Reader's Choice Awards. One of the most common comments about this performer is "I don't even like country, but I like this country. It almost didn't even seem like a country show." Put it this way, when she rips "The Devil Went Down To Georgia," it's in a medley with some Metallica. Her's is a show bred for wide audiences, and this year that mainstream popularity paid off with her winning the big one."

Natalie is a pioneer using mobile technology from Adva Mobile to reach and engage her fans, and hundreds connect with Natalie on their phones - she has iPhone App, Android App and Mobile Web to reach the largest audience. Download her Apps, or text GETFIDDLE to 88704 to check out Natalie on your phone and download some of her terrific music.

You can read a great article about Natalie and why she won the award at:
http://www.campusactivitiesmagazine.com/articles.php?articleID=227&button=Go

Congratulations Natalie! 

New SMS Text Rules from the Phone Companies that affect you

Many of you actively promote your mobile site to your fans on your desktop web sites or Facebook pages. We see callouts to Text GET(bandname) to 88704 all the time. That's great!

When you see this on TV - for example, when you see the instructions to text in to vote on American Idol - you might notice the small print under the text in the call-out. "Data and Message charges may apply" is the most common small print. We've received a notification that this language is now required whenever you put GET(bandname) to 88704 in print.

What happened was, one of the wireless carriers did an audit and found a band promoting their mobile site with their shortcode (88704) and keyword (GETbandname) without this required language. So they wrote to us and told us to fix it.

The carriers are pretty strict about these things. So, until it got fixed, we had to disable this band on our system. Because, if we're not compliant, they can shut down 88704, and that screws everybody.

Here's the new language you need to show if you promote your mobile site in print (on your website, Facebook Page, handouts, posters, etc.)

Text GET(bandname) to 88704 for a Free Download
Terms at http://www.advamobile.com/Terms.aspx
Privacy Policy at http://www.advamobile.com/Privacy.aspx
Max 4msg/mo. Text STOP to 88704 to Stop, Text HELP to 88704 for Help
Message and Data Rates may apply

The part in RED is optional, of course. It can say Text GET(bandname) to 88704 to join our mobile site, or anything else.

The band that got audited chose not to add the language. Instead, they told their fans to scan a QR code to get to their site. (We gave them the code. Get in touch if you want one.) Almost as good as Text - (we get phone numbers automatically for your fan database when they text in. We have to ask fans to enter this info when we use QR codes.) Either way works.

Hitting on 1,400

I love announcing milestones. We now have over 1,400 Artists using our service as of this week. Amazing since we do so little promotion. When our new portal launches in a few weks, we'll undertake a larger marketing effort. For now, it's all word of mouth from our existing Artists, and people who find us through search.

Some of the recent Artists that have joined are bigger names:

• Ariana Grande created the role of Cat Valentine in the American sitcom Victorious, which is still running on the Nickelodeon channel. Universal just signed her and we'll help her use mobile with her music launch
• Santa Leja is a British Electro-Pop Songstress playing out of Miami. You've probably heard her hit Let The Beat Don't Stop 
• Lauren Light’s style is like a mixture of Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson and Fiona Apple all stirred together.
• Jon Wolfe, country star from Austin, has a new single out I Don't Dance

Many more, of course, as more and more Artists discover that mobile is the best way for them to connect with their fans.

More than Stars in the Sky

Last year, over 4 trillion SMS text messages were sent.

There are 4 billion stars in the unverse.

So the next time you're wondering if SMS text messaging is a marketing tool that you should be using, look up to the sky. It's clear that SMS marketing works, and your fans are comfortable - excited, really - to get a text from you.

And, when the text leads them to a rich experience, so much better!

Adva Mobile Crowdfunding - The Last Week

Here is the first screenshot we took when the Adva Mobile Crowdfunding Campaign began, and here's one today. We started this 31 days ago and in that time 34 people (and counting!) have donated almost $5,000 - incredible! It's been a wonderful experience seeing our friends, family and business colleagues so thoughtful, helpful and interested in the success of Adva Mobile. Of course, thanks so much to everyone who contributed, and those of you who wanted to but couldn't.

There are four days left, so it's a big push this week to make our goal. We're at http://www.indiegogo.com/The-Adva-Mobile-Campaign so if you're inclined to help out, great! Every contribution helps.

We'll write more about he experience as we wrap up the Campaign, but overall, it's encouraging to see that Crowdfunding can be a financing tool for commercial enterprises such as Adva Mobile. The use of Crowdfunding for creative endeavors is well documented, so it was an experiment to see if it could be used to help small businesses. Really glad to see that it can.

Conversations with John Taglieri

John Taglieri has created a profitable livelihood with his music, playing 200 shows a year and getting ready to record his tenth studio album. He's local, so we had a chance to sit down over lunch and talk about making music, making money, and the role mobile can play in his career.

Tag loves making music, but he truly is a performer. He's making a very good living, and it's 95% from live shows and 5% from music sales. He thinks that, of all the Artists out there making music, only about 6 percent are able to make a living at it, so he's in rare company. He was able to create this lifestyle for himself because he was willing to do whatever his agent asked him to do, Play a show in Georgia on Friday night and Syracuse on Saturday night - he'd do it. His fans - we'll get to that - know that they are going to have a good time when they go to his shows.

Tag knows his fans. He likes Reverbnation for the fan details he gets from them, and he's active on Facebook. He believes he has 1,500 - 2,000 "True Fans" - fans that show up when he's in town, buy his tickets, music and merch. He's also a big fan of download cards - he goes through about 5,000 cards every 6 months. And they work for him - last year, he gave out about 11,000 cards and got 4,400 hits. We're going to promote his mobile site on the next run of download cards.

Tag runs his operation like a business. Each year, he starts with a plan. In 2012, he'll be in the studio in January recording his tenth CD, and release it in March. From April through August, he'll promote the new material with a well thought out plan to offer the CDS, singles, and various packages of current and past music, including "best of" and full catalog products. One product will be a 50 track compilation. He'll tour on his own - acoustic shows, with the Joe Bachman band, and with his band. It's all planned out.

We talked a lot about mobile. He thinks mobile is the future, and he's always looking ahead. He knows that it's better to get into mobile now, at the front, so he's "there" when his fans want to connect with him on mobile. We talked about how to get fans to connect with him on mobile and he thinks the Artist has to tell his his fans how to connect with him on mobile and guide them to use new technology. "It's like American Idol - they told viewers to vote, how to vote, this is how it's done. Now, 80 million people vote on American Idol." If you run it like a business, it looks like the science of selling. It takes 10 touches to make a sale, so you have to keep at it. Give your fans a good product (music) and good customer service and you'll make the sale.

It was a treat to talk to a music pro who understands the hard work neccessary to make a career out of music, a forward thinker who sees that new mobile technology can help him grow fan loyalty and grow his sales. We'll be working with Tag throughout 2012 to create mobile marketing campaigns that complement his marketing activities. All part of the plan. You can check out his mobile site on your phone at www.adva.us/tag, and by texting gettag to 88704 on your phone.

Adva Mobile Partners with The Orchard

The Orchard, a full service marketing and distribution company, has launched the Marketplace, a new service for its clients to access great third-party apps, including Adva Mobile. We're excited to be part of the Orchard Marketplace alongside other great companies building products that help it's clients connect with fans.

The Orchard launch is a global event, begun Monday in San Francisco, Tuesday in Los Angeles and continuing next week in New York, Nashville, Paris, London, Hamburg, Madrid and Barcelona. Adva Mobile will join the New York launch event on the 20th.

The Adva Mobile / Orchard partnership helps Adva Mobile expose our mobile marketing plaform to over 20,000 labels and distribution partners worldwide, companies very interested in taking advantage of the latest mobile technologies to help their artists acquire, engage and sell to their fans. We'll continue to improve the Orchard integration with new features and capabilities.

You can read the Orchard Marketplace Launch Press Release here.

Adva Mobile Reviewed in Let's Talk Digital

The on-demand segment for Mr. Shadeeds broadcast introducing the benefits of Adva Mobile on Let’s Talk Digital is now available for your viewing pleasure.


Adva Mobile enables an all-in-one mobile solution that enables direct-to-fan promotions, exclusive content giveaways, mobile pages and more.In this segment of Let's Talk Digital, Shadeed Eleazer discusses new direct-to-fan mobile platform, Adva Mobile, and its impact on the entertainment industry. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqEpPFv1rNg&feature=youtu.be
 
GO DIGITAL OR GO HOME, The Online Home of Shadeed Eleazer, is at http://www.mrshadeed.com/

People don't buy what you do they buy why you do it.

I'm watching this really insightful presentation by Simon Sinek (here) about how to motivate people to buy your product. It's especially interesting because here at Adva Mobile we do mobile marketing for musicians, with mobile web sites, Apps, storefronts, text campaigns, etc. We tell you that all the time. We tell you what we do. Hey, we're technologists.

We don't tell you why we do it. We believe that mobile can be the center of the universe for a new successful business model for music.  We think everything you do today to connect with fans, tell them where you're playing, how to buy tickets, how to find your music, buy your music, tell their friends about you, .... everything is better and easier on mobile. You thought you needed to be on MySpace? Where did that get you? Heck, PC's are going away. Mobile is not going away. Everything you are trying to do as a musician except make great music can be done on mobile better than any other service or system out there.

There is this cool concept called "The Law of Diffusion of Innovation." Here's what it looks like:

The key to this chart is that the "Early Majority", where innovative ideas (like Adva Mobile) take off, can't occur until you have attracted the Innovators and Early Adopters. And to get them (you) to try our innovation, we have to tell you why we're doing Adva Mobile, not what we do.

We really like the Innovators and Early Adopters. They want to be first. If you are the kind of person that believes mobile can create a whole new system for finding fans, sharing music, connecting with them and selling to them,  boy do we have a product for you.