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.

The 500 Club Celebration: We will match your $50!

We are excited to announce we now have 500 artists with mobile fan clubs.

In November (2009), we are offering a $50 match to the first 10 artists to sell their tickets and/or merchandise, and make $50 or more (not including shipping charges)
All you have to do is to setup tickets and/or merchandise up for sale on the artist portal, promote it to your fans, and let us know (if we don't contact you first) that you hit $50!

The only rule we make is that your $50 of sales need to be from 2 (or more) different transactions for different fans. For example, one completed sale of one item that costs $50 doesn't count, because we want you to try to promote it to many of your fans.

If you likes the experience, blog about it, tell your friends. If something didn't work for you, or can be improved, tell us.

If you have any questions, or comments, remember to tune into our interview on Tuesday Nov 3rd 7PM EST followed by a live Q&A session.

Celebrating 500 Artist on Adva Mobile Portal, With You!

Wow, it seems like only yesterday we've announced our 300^th artist to join, and here we are, celebrating our 500th artist to get their own free Mobile Fan Club, with Daphne Willis being the most recent artist to join!

It's been 10 months since we've launched our service, and we're humbled to have realized that through social media channels, like our Twitter feed, Facebook page, MySpace Page, this blog and your recommendations to one another, we've achieved this huge milestone, far sooner than we anticipated. We're thankful for positive reviews we received from the media and artists, as well as constructive feedback that helps us better our service to you daily.

Once again, we'd like to share with you one of our learnings from analyzing how you use our service: We've found that many of you see the value in promoting yourselves on your fans' mobile phones. There are certainly more shoutouts, the widget is posted and used more often and more fans are SMS'ing your keyword in. Perhaps the new behavior we're seeing recently is that some artists have started to make money with their Mobile Fan Club, which is very encouraging. Whether it is ticket sales or merchandise sales, the setup process is a breeze, the service charge is nowhere nearly comparable to other services, and the fan experience is optimal. Fans report that the checkout process is simple and they were happy with the experience.

One worthwhile lesson some artists shared with us is how to leverage the immediacy associated with the fans using their mobile phones to increase your sales: Make your offer seem attractive and time-bound, then send off an SMS-blast to your fans, or shoutout from stage. See, if you tell your fans there are limited amount T-Shirts available for 10% less during the next two hours, whether at or before the show, they are much more likely to purchase those. Once done, they recieve an SMS with the purchase details, they can walk over to the merch table, present the SMS, and walk away with the T-Shirt they just bought. Artists claim they got much better sales than putting up merch on their web properties, where it can stay forever.

From all of us at Adva Mobile, a big THANK YOU to everyone! If you're happy with us, share it with your friends, and if not, let us know!

Mobilize your gigs from JamBase on Your Mobile Fan Club

Hi Everyone,
We're excited to reveal the next partner in our integration strategy, JamBase. Artists on JamBase portal who sign up for our free Mobile Fan Club service can now automatically import their gigs from JamBase into their Mobile Fan Club daily.
This is another milestone in our strategic effort to reduce the effort required by the artist to manage their promotion channels. Artists should not need to enter their profile, show and merchandise information for every service they sign up for. Similarly, social services like Twitter, Facebook and others share information between them to the benefit of their constituents.
JamBase is a website for fans of live music. By providing the largest database of show listings and ticket information, authoritative content, community, and personalization tools for fans, JamBase connects music fans with the music they love and empowers them to go see live music.
JamBase launched their own iPhone app, delivering Music Fans Mobile Access to Its 70,000 Live Music Show Listings, clearly identifying the potential of reaching fans on their mobile phones.

The integration with JamBase follows after our initial integration with MySpace and ArtistData. We at Adva Mobile are motivated to provide a superior and simple experience for entertainers, and we're already working with the next partner!

How to mobilize your JamBase gigs

1. If you haven't signed up for your own FREE Mobile Fan Club, do it here.
2. On the artist portal, visit the 'Integrations' page.
3. In the 'Gigs' column, check the "JamBase" check box.
4. Click 'Update'

You're done!

Microfundo - Microfunding - Ask your fans to fund your next project!

Here's a great idea! Have your fans support you and your projects (touring, recording, etc.) in exchange for VIP Access and Exclusive Perks. Microfundo is an organization that applies the microfinance model to music in order to support independent musicians struggling to make it in the developing world. Your fans lend you money to finance your project. Microfundo collects the funds and then passes them along to you once you have reached your goal. Over time you should be able to repay the loan via sales of digital downloads of your music that is distributed through Microfundo's media partners at National Geographic and Mondomix.

Microfundo plans to use mobile marketing services from Adva Mobile to collect money for Artists Projects right at concert events, where the Artist - Fan connection is strongest. And, Microfundo plans to help fans discover emerging artists on their mobile phones by promoting artists geographically, through the Microfundo Mobile Fan Club. Text microfundo to 43863 - GETME - to check out their mobile page. They're also at www.microfundo.com and our joint press release is here.

Adva Mobile Partners with AC Entertainment / Concertwire, promoters of Bonnaroo

We're pleased to announce a partnership with AC Entertainment / Concertwire, one of the country's premier promoters of music and entertainment. Specializing in the production and promotion of concerts and music festivals throughout the southeast, including the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival ( 125 acts this year, and 75,000+ fans), fans will now be able to access information about music and entertainment events as well as purchase tickets to the events through their mobile devices. This new relationship with Adva Mobile will also allow AC Entertainment to build mobile fan clubs that provide fans a unique interactive experience, including mobile messaging and mobile-optimized web sites that offer search and event information. Interconnected Venue and Artist sites will provide news, music and video downloads, interviews, ticket and merchandise sales, recommendations about other artists and influences, contests, voting, raffles, backstage passes, text to screen, etc. This new mobile platform augments AC Entertainment’s existing Web based event listing and music discovery site CONCERTWIRE.com.

Read more about this exciting new partnership here and here.

Even better, visit Concertwire mobile site: m.concertwire.com

Brimstone Radio and Adva Mobile Announce Mobile Marketing and Internet Radio Collaboration

We're very excited to announce our partnership with Brimstone, an artist promotion company and internet radio station. Brimstone Radio will offer mobile marketing services from Adva Mobile to promote Artists featured on Brimstone Radio.

From the press release:

"Fans of Brimstone Radio can now find this Internet Radio pioneer on their mobile

phones, where they can discover new music, learn about Brimstone Radio sponsored

events, watch videos, download content, purchase merchandise and interact socially

with other Brimstone Radio fans. Their services are provided through powerful mobile

marketing software developed by Adva Mobile.

In addition, music artists featured on Brimstone Radio can offer their own mobile

marketing service to their fans, including mobile messaging and mobile-optimized web

sites that offer a variety of content and activities such as news, music and video

downloads, interviews, ticket and merchandise sales, recommendations about other

artists and influences, contests, voting, raffles, backstage passes, text to screen, and

more. Brimstone Radio and their musicians sites are linked together to enable easy

discovery of new music and musicians on the sites."

"Brad Simmons, Founder, Brimstone Radio: “Setting your

band apart is paramount in this “New Age” of indie music

and partnering with Adva Mobile is a huge step in that

process. Adding mobile interaction to their arsenal will

certainly enable our family of artists to build a strong and

interactive fan base.”"

Check out their mobile site by texting "Brimstone" to 43863 or clicking here.

Read more here.

We're now part of MHT's "5 startups to follow"

We're very proud to join MHT's list of "Startup Watch: Five you should follow". It's a big deal for us and we hope to earn more titles like this in the near future.
Read more here.

Announcing our new partnership with Microfundo!

We're very excited to announce new partnership with a very important and innovative player in the music space, Microfundo.

Microfundo will use mobile marketing services from Adva Mobile to enable mobile

microfinancing for International Music Artists. From the press release:

...thanks to a new Boston-based business collaboration between Microfundo and

Adva Mobile, aspiring musicians are getting a helping hand - from fans using their

mobile phones.

The idea is simple: Fans lend money via their mobile phone to support music projects of their favorite musicians. Fans are then repaid via revenue from future download sales of the artist’s music.

Musicians create their own mobile site that displays their microfunding campaign.

Musicians make direct appeals to fans at a concert or live event. Fans can respond and

contribute - in the moment – using their phones.

Microfundo CEO and co-founder Brad Powell got the idea bringing microfunding to the

music industry while working for Calabash Music, the online world-music company that

he also founded. “All of the artists I came into contact with faced the same financial

hurdle,” Powell says. “They needed capital. Most international artists in particular are

ignored by the mainstream music industry, creating a significant hurdle.”

Powell found a solution in one word: microfinance. He studied how international

microfinancing organizations like kiva.org arranged for investors to provide funds and

services to small businesses typically shunned by banks. He concluded it would not be

too hard to start something similar to support musicians.

“If this is working well for people who are funding what are basically complete strangers

in a foreign land,” he said, “why wouldn’t it work for music fans to fund artists whose

music they actually know and like.”

This is very exciting to us, specifically because we, too, believe that researching and finding new ways for artists to stay creative is vital for us to enjoy their creation.

So please, visit Microfundo's mobile website, check out their artists and help them bring you great music!

Announcing Concertwire partnership

We're very excited to announce one of the most important partnerships to date, with Concertwire. The Concertwire mobile fan club is essentially a promoter account for us. We're promoting over 100 shows in the next 3 months, including direct access to the artist information and tickets for each of the shows. Over time, as more Concertwire artists get their own mobile fan club, the link from the show will link directly to their mobile fan club page.

This announcement is important because of two reasons:

• First, we're revealing a new set of promoter-oriented features (check it out):
  
  
  
  • Promotion of a series of shows controlled by Concertwire.
    
  
  
  • Direct access to extended show information, including location, time and description.
    
  
  
  • Direct access to artist information as well as tickets information.
    
  
  
  • Quick show discovery function by date, artist, venue and city.
    
  
  


• Second, Concertwire is a great partner to launch with. They understand the value in strond fan relationships and how mobile is a great and effective new medium to access the fans and give them an optimal experience.
  

To read more about the announcement, read here.

And, if you're interested in your own promoter account, write to us!

Celebrating the 300th band to join!

In the world of entrepreneurship, every small reason for celebration counts. This one is a big reason for celebration: We've passed the 300 bands mark this weekend with Vertigo, Wonder Bars and others to join our service. We now have little over 600 fans, with an uneven distribution between bands that have hundreds of fans, and some that have less.

In the months since launching, we've been privileged with increasing attention from the bands who joined, specifically with suggestions for improvement, new features and picking on the bugs we've managed to produce along the way. For everyone who emailed us with comments, suggestions, and frustrated bug issues, a BIG THANK YOU!

One learning that's worth sharing, was that sometimes, things just have their natural course of action, specifically, timing. When we started, musicians barely signed up for the service and that was it. Since then, musicians have been adding videos and downloads to their home page, adding exclusive content for download, added gigs, blogs, have taken advantage of our Artist Data integrations, and more recently, have started SMS-blasting their fans with news and alerts.
It's all happening!

The next step for musicians, we hope, is to discover how simple and effective it is to sell tickets and merchandise to fans right on their mobile phone (perhaps at the show), using our PayPal integration.

But we're not settling down...We've been hard at work on new features that allow you to better promote your mobile fan club to your fans, sell tickets and merchandise and much more. We'll share it all in the coming days!

Until then...thank-you, from the Adva Mobile team!

Announcing Spring-Summer 2009 Band Contest!

Hi Everyone!
With the spring and summer coming, a bunch of new features and new bands that joined, we've decided it's time to have some FUN!!!!

We're announcing Adva Mobile's

Spring-Summer 2009 Band Contest!

Every band signed up is eligible to participate. The more & better you use your Mobile Fan Club the bigger your chances to win!
Every two weeks we will raffle a cool prize: Semi-annual Sonicbids standard EPK account and more!

Read more about our contest here or get going by SIGNING UP!

How to make even more $ and drive buzz about your band

Does 'selling to fans' end at tickets for you? For many bands, selling means selling merchandise!
How about selling merch to your fans, right on their phone, before, after or maybe right at the show?
This week we're announcing a Mobile Fan Club upgrade that will allow you to setup items on sale that your fans can find on your "Buy" page. Checkout is easy and simple with Paypal. Your fans will receive an SMS as proof of purchase and you will be notified that the purchase was complete. You only have to coordinate shipping or pickup of the merch with your fan.
Check out the "Selling Merch" tutorial here.

Another upgrade is that from now on, any post your fans make on your "Post" page (similar to Facebook "wall") will generate Twitter buzz about your band!
The way it works, we've created an Adva Mobile Fans Twitter account. Depending on your preference, Every fan post will create an update to that Twitter account, plus a marker for your band, or we could update your Twitter account, if you gave us your credentials.
Now, not only we can power our little "Post" page with comment, you and your fans can see all comments made in real time also on Twitter.

To finish off with our new features announcements, here's a SMS shortcut you can use:
Let's say your fans want to go straight to one of your pages, let's say, your gigs page. All they need to do, is text "gigs" after your keyword, to GetMe (43863). They'll receive back an SMS that contains a link to your gigs page.
Similarly, if they text "Buy" or "Post", they'll be linked to the right pages!
For example, if you text "Positive Buy" to GetMe, you'll recieve an SMS link to Michael Bernier's mobile "buy" page!

New Artist Portal for Mobile Fan Clubs

We are very excited to announce the new artist portal from Adva Mobile. We've launched it today and hope many artists will find it useful in your efforts to market their music to fans.

Here's a summary of the main features. The best way to experience the new portal and features is to try them out!

The new portal enables the artist to have great control over your mobile fan club. Here are some of the new features:

• Upload new content and change your mobile web pages: You can now change the content on your pages, your images, the track you're giving away etc.
• Campaigns: You can now schedule an SMS blast to your fans, telling them about new content, gigs, tickets etc. To learn more, click here.
• Gigs and tickets: The new portal provides better control over your gigs as they are presented to your fans. You can edit, add or delete gigs. You can also sell tickets for directly to your fans. To learn more, click here.
• Reports: We've added new reports about your fans, page hits, gigs and tickets, tickets sales etc.
• New promotional tools: In addition to the keyword, shortcode and the widget, you can now promote a branded URL that your fans can view on their phone. That URL is Adva.us/(your keyword). For example: adva.us/McAlister. If your fans visit this page from their computer, they will see your widget, otherwise they'll get to your mobile site.
  

We hope you like the new features, while we work to bring you more! If you have feedback and ideas about your mobile fan club, we'd love to hear from you.

In the meantime, promote your mobile fan club to your fans, and tell your friends in other bands about us!