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.


 

Are Musicians Ready for Mobile? The Annual Adva Mobile Survey

This is a simple survey to assess the mobile readiness of musicians as it applies to engaging fans on mobile devices.With more fans engaging their favorite bands on mobile devices, we're interested in learning whether Artists are thinking about  - or using - mobile technologies to connect with fans.

We'll run the survey through the month of December and publish the results in January. We are planning to conduct this survey annually to gauge trends and movement in mobile adoption.

If you enter your email address at the completion of the survey, we'll send you the results of the survey and also enter your email into a random contest to win a $25 iTunes gift card.

Take the Survey by going here.

Adva Mobile Helps Artists Target Fans via Text and Email Through Updated CRM Portal

Adva Mobile has added a set of new features to its Mobile Marketing Portal that helps Artists target fans more precisely with messages about concerts, tickets, new music, merchandise for sale and news.

Fan Filtering to the Nth Degree

The new Fan Filtering feature adds an entirely new dimension to targeted mobile marketing campaigns. The database of fans that have opted in to receive messages from Artists can be sorted and filtered by location, age, number of site visits, phone area code, email, name and a host of other criteria. The sorting engine provides common filtering tools including equal to, great than / less than, does not include, etc.

Once the flter is run, the results can be saved and used for a targeted SMS Text or email blast.

Simplifying SMS Campaigns

Artists access mobile marketing campaign creation through a new setup tool that walks the Artist through a simple four step process:

1. Choose whether to send a SMS Text or Email
2. Compose your message. Choose which mobile page (or none) you want to direct the fan to
3. Send to all fans, Fans within a city radius, or fans in a Filter you created
4. Schedule your message or send it now

Control over your SMS and EMAIL Message

Text and emails sent by Artists to fans can include a URL Link to one of your mobile web pages - Shows, News, or Store, for example. The new software also lets you include "No Link" so that artists can just send messages to fans, or include links to other Web locations, such as their iTunes Store page.

Mobile Marketing Services Help Musicians Engage Fans at the Moment of Inspiration

Adva Mobile provides the most complete Mobile Marketing service for Artists to help them acquire, engage, and sell to their Fans. The service includes incoming SMS shortcode and keyword (text bandname to 88704) to help acquire fans during shows at their moment of inspiration, and the new outgoing SMS Text and Email blast makes it easy to keep in touch with fans through a device that is always with them and personal to them - their mobile phone or tablet.

There's more info, including screen shots of most of the new pages, on Slideshare at http://www.slideshare.net/jackk911/adva-mobile-text-blasts-and-filters

November Newsletter

A new Tutorial on the Fan Blast and Filters features just released

Up now on Slideshare

http://www.slideshare.net/jackk911/adva-mobile-text-blasts-and-filters

and, for Artists on the Adva Mobile platform, on the Tutorials Pages of the Portal.

Enjoy!

You Cannot Devalue Music

This from Tim Quirk, Head of Global Content Programming at Google Play. It was the topic of a speech he gave at the Future of Music Summit last week in Washington D.C. The full speech can be accessed from Digital Music News here.

I was standing up and cheering when I read the speech. Tim was pointing out that, even in the good old days, music was worth different things to different people at different times. The online / digital revolution has only made that position glaringly obvious.

He really gets to a point I've been trying to push since we started this Adva Mobile business. Who are your super fans. Your "1,000 true fans", or whatever. There will always be more fans who don't care about your music than there are fans that care about your music. And, Artists will always start at the bottom of the pyramid. The goal for every Artist is to climb the pyramid, where you have fewer and fewer listeners but those that remain are happy to give you more and more money. These fans will bu anything - alternate versions, deluxe editions, every show, etc.

There's a lot more in the speech, it's really worth the read. And he closes with insight and advice that we here at Adva Mobile also want to promote:

"Capturing people’s attention and holding on to it is the fundamental challenge for artists and labels and their managers in the 21st Century. ....

But if you want to embrace the new ability to engage different types of fans in different ways, people like are here to help however we can."

Amen.

Fan Data - How much is enough?

We were recently re-reading an older (Jan 2012) blog by music marketer  Jem Bahaijoub,  the founder of Imaginepr, about mobile marketing strategy for musicians and the need for fan data. She wrote:

In order to get any mobile marketing campaign off the ground, you need to own fan data (email addresses, zip codes, cell numbers, etc.). How much fan data is enough I hear you ask? Well this depends on your goal and tactic. If you want to launch a simple SMS campaign to promote an upcoming tour where you need to pull 30-50 people at each venue, then ensure you have at least double this amount in cell numbers in each geographical area. If you still need to work on your database then start collecting now! You can incentivize your fans via your existing marketing platforms. For example, the Black Eyed Peas collected cell numbers on a recent tour by asking fans to text shout-outs during a concert which Will.i.am then incorporated into an improvised rap. Genius. Be clever and creative but always remember to respect your fans’ privacy, and follow the golden rule of opting-in.

Helping Artists collect and manage fan data is one of the cornerstones of what we do here at Adva Mobile. When a fan texts in to you from your show, we collect their phone number, mobile carrier, and other info about their mobile phone. When you offer them exclusive content, we capture their email address, zip code, gender and age. Our fan records all tell you when they signed up, how many times they visit your site, whether they downloaded content or bought anything, the last time they were on your site, and other useful information that will help you understand your fans and target for your next show, purchase pitch, or news.

Having fan data, and tools that help you slice and dice and use the data to your best advantage, is critical if you are going to manage and grow your fan base and ask therm to support your art and your music career.

The three part article set by Jem is really good reading about why and what an Artist needs to think about as you prepare to run a mobile campaign. You can check it out here.