Hey everyone. I wanted to share the results of an experimental marketing campaign that I conducted over the last 3 days.
Reverbnation offers a lot of services for musicians including song hosting/sales, mailing list management, and apparently online advertising. Each campaign costs 25 to 50 bucks, and they advertise on your behalf on facebook, myspace, spotify, rhapsody...etc. You can even go so far as to pick 5 artists that you feel that you are similar to, and they will target the ads at fans of those artists! Pretty cool. I did a campaign this week just to see what would happen.
I started by picking 1 song as a free download, a couple of promo photos for the ads, and 5 artists who I feel we are similar to. I went with Sabbath, Zeppelin, STP, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden. Each of those bands has several million fans, so it's a large audience to advertise to! You can pick "local" or "global." I picked "global" for a worldwide campaign. I had a 25 dollar promo credit to reverbnation, so I selected a 25 dollar campaign. It's like a drug dealer....the first hit is free....lol.
Over the last 3 days, here are the results:
the ad was run 236,661 times targeted at fans of the bands that I picked
the ad was clicked on 104 times
47 people downloaded a song
our facebook likes went from 11 to 20
our reverbnation "band equity(combination of likes/plays/visits/etc) rating" went from 21 to 39
our "local rank" for rock bands in denver went from 979 to 735
our "global rank" for rock bands in the nation went from around 70,000 to 57,388
we were especially successful with fans of Sabbath, and STP, as we got the most activity from fans of those bands. Good to know.
I honestly thought that no one ever clicked on those little ads, but I guess I was wrong. A very small percentage of people do actually click on them. If I had the money, I would keep running these ads. I really like the idea of random people out there downloading and listening to our songs. That's why we do this! Some of these people even found and liked us on facebook. Cool stuff!
It just goes to show you that just like a decade ago, or 2 or 3 decades ago, you can get people to listen to your music if you have decent music and plenty of cash to throw around!
Well, if I have any more bright ideas I'll update again. I figure other musicians that follow this blog might find this information useful. Again, if you have any other ideas on how we can promote this music please email me.
Word to yo Mutha!
Saints At Sundown
Friday, September 7, 2012
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Rise of the Fenix
Like the Fenix, we RISE AGAIN! We just hope you haven't forgotten about us.
What a long and strange road it has been! Our record is finally done, and it was a true labor of love. I was starting to think the universe was against this record being made for some reason. It was a learning experience for sure, and I think it turned out well. At any rate, it is done and it's out there. If you haven't taken the time to listen, please do! Free downloads and free streams can be found on our facebook, reverbnation, or noisetrade pages. Links to follow.
The next part is figuring out how to get people to actually listen to it. I'm exploring several non traditional avenues of promotion to try and ink out a little following for what we do. I have a small list of e-mail addresses, but I just hate spamming my friends and family....lol. If you have any ideas, or want to help out please get in touch with me! The album will always be free, we just want people to hear it. The best method is word of mouth so spread the word to your cool rock and roll friends. I'll try and update occasionally to let you all know how it is going.
Free download link:
www.noisetrade.com/saintsatsundown
Thanks for listening, and be excellent to each other.
Jacob
www.reverbnation.com/saintsatsundown
www.facebook.com/saintsatsundown
What a long and strange road it has been! Our record is finally done, and it was a true labor of love. I was starting to think the universe was against this record being made for some reason. It was a learning experience for sure, and I think it turned out well. At any rate, it is done and it's out there. If you haven't taken the time to listen, please do! Free downloads and free streams can be found on our facebook, reverbnation, or noisetrade pages. Links to follow.
The next part is figuring out how to get people to actually listen to it. I'm exploring several non traditional avenues of promotion to try and ink out a little following for what we do. I have a small list of e-mail addresses, but I just hate spamming my friends and family....lol. If you have any ideas, or want to help out please get in touch with me! The album will always be free, we just want people to hear it. The best method is word of mouth so spread the word to your cool rock and roll friends. I'll try and update occasionally to let you all know how it is going.
Free download link:
www.noisetrade.com/saintsatsundown
Thanks for listening, and be excellent to each other.
Jacob
www.reverbnation.com/saintsatsundown
www.facebook.com/saintsatsundown
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
War stories: Flood Fail: The ballad of mold and mildew: The murder of our songs by pro tools.
Hey everyone! Read this blog and all of your wildest dreams will come true! OK, so things have been slow for saints at sundown for a few weeks. Basically, the record is "in the can" just waiting to be mixed. Well....it was in the can.
I will tell you a story. You will understand our struggle and send us boxes of money and a vial of your sympathy tears.
Last week, my good friend and sound engineer, Dave Sonner, and myself entered summit road recording studio to start mixing. Upon entering the studio we were greeted by about 2 inches of standing water, and a mildew-ey kind of gross smell to the air. YUCK!!! With wet feet and dashed hopes and dreams, we fired up the console and proceeded to do a little mixing work. There was a wierd hum in the monitors, but we did manage to mix 1 song quickly and get out of there without getting shocked. S.A.S.: 1, mother nature: 0. EPIC WIN! My theory is that the forces that make the world go round are afraid of what this record is going to do to our beautiful little planet. We are being "rock-blocked" by mother nature herself! BRING IT ON, LADY!!!!
Exactly 1 week later, I met Dave at his place before our 2nd mixing session. We fired up pro tools to find that my vocal tracks had been ERASED during an upgrade to pro tools!!!! WEAK SAUCE!!! Where the *blank* did they go? About 1/3 of my tracks were gone so we spent the morning re-tracking vocals. The good news is that I nailed killer takes that were as good or better than the first ones. The bad news is that these takes SOUND different from the first ones. It's a pretty noticeable difference. We used a different mic pre-amp, thinking it wouldn't matter. MISTAKE. SO, chances are I'll have to re-record the vocals again, for the 3rd time. YIKES, this is becoming tedious. I wonder what could have erased the tracks??? Aliens? Obama?
This week, with the studio all dried out, we did manage to make progress on the overall mix of the record. Let me tell you, it sounds pretty amazing! I'm really happy with how it is turning out. It's taken a couple of months longer than I hoped, but in the end the wait will be worth it!
With everything against us, we are at our strongest!
Love,
S.A.S.
I will tell you a story. You will understand our struggle and send us boxes of money and a vial of your sympathy tears.
Last week, my good friend and sound engineer, Dave Sonner, and myself entered summit road recording studio to start mixing. Upon entering the studio we were greeted by about 2 inches of standing water, and a mildew-ey kind of gross smell to the air. YUCK!!! With wet feet and dashed hopes and dreams, we fired up the console and proceeded to do a little mixing work. There was a wierd hum in the monitors, but we did manage to mix 1 song quickly and get out of there without getting shocked. S.A.S.: 1, mother nature: 0. EPIC WIN! My theory is that the forces that make the world go round are afraid of what this record is going to do to our beautiful little planet. We are being "rock-blocked" by mother nature herself! BRING IT ON, LADY!!!!
Exactly 1 week later, I met Dave at his place before our 2nd mixing session. We fired up pro tools to find that my vocal tracks had been ERASED during an upgrade to pro tools!!!! WEAK SAUCE!!! Where the *blank* did they go? About 1/3 of my tracks were gone so we spent the morning re-tracking vocals. The good news is that I nailed killer takes that were as good or better than the first ones. The bad news is that these takes SOUND different from the first ones. It's a pretty noticeable difference. We used a different mic pre-amp, thinking it wouldn't matter. MISTAKE. SO, chances are I'll have to re-record the vocals again, for the 3rd time. YIKES, this is becoming tedious. I wonder what could have erased the tracks??? Aliens? Obama?
This week, with the studio all dried out, we did manage to make progress on the overall mix of the record. Let me tell you, it sounds pretty amazing! I'm really happy with how it is turning out. It's taken a couple of months longer than I hoped, but in the end the wait will be worth it!
With everything against us, we are at our strongest!
Love,
S.A.S.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
We fluff the pillows with the air
Hey friends, it's been too long since I last posted so here goes! I'm bout to drop some knowledge bombs on y'alls brains! And on your minds.
News Updates: Things have progressed slower than expected. Sometimes life gets in the way of getting things done. That said, we are SO close. Most of the vocals are done, and the record is ALMOST ready for final mixing. Hopefully, the vox will be finished up next week, with mixing to begin soon after. You might be able to listen to this record while you blow up your neighbors mailbox with M80's on July 4th!
We are still working out artwork, websites...etc so expect to see something "official" on the web from us pretty soon.
To wrap it up, I'm just gonna leave you with this juicy nugget of rock to blow your minds:
Love,
Jacob and Will aka S.A.S.
News Updates: Things have progressed slower than expected. Sometimes life gets in the way of getting things done. That said, we are SO close. Most of the vocals are done, and the record is ALMOST ready for final mixing. Hopefully, the vox will be finished up next week, with mixing to begin soon after. You might be able to listen to this record while you blow up your neighbors mailbox with M80's on July 4th!
We are still working out artwork, websites...etc so expect to see something "official" on the web from us pretty soon.
To wrap it up, I'm just gonna leave you with this juicy nugget of rock to blow your minds:
Love,
Jacob and Will aka S.A.S.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
The waiting is the hardest part
It's been a couple of slow news weeks for SAS. I took a weekend off and spent the last week finishing up the last tidbits of guitar work, mainly acoustic guitar and slide guitar for one tune. The guitars, bass, drums are now 100% done and this week I am starting on vocals. I thought making the actual record would be the hard part, but I'm finding that the hardest work is yet to come.
It seems like releasing a small time record is easier than ever, but truthfully, it's next to impossible to get anyone to notice! Back in the day, you made a record, burned some copies, played shows, told people about it, and that was pretty much it. Now there are blogs(which we have obviously mastered), RSS feeds(not even real sure what these are), websites, facebook, myspace, bandmix, soundcloud, bandpage, .com addresses, internet radio, college radio, I-tunes, Cd baby, tunecore, album covers, cd layout, cd pressing, cd promotion, one sheets, press kits, EPK, photos, logos, branding....etc. The list goes on and on thanks to the internet. To help us out, I got this book, "The indie band survival guide," which is pretty great so far. It's making me realize how far behind the technology I am. I don't even own an I-pod. I still like to go to a store and buy a physical product, but I am wondering if we even need to press Cd's since everyone buys online anyway? Your thoughts and ideas would be appreciated here!
Well, that wraps up another exciting update. We are real close to having this thing "in the can," and we cannot wait to share it with all of you! This week starts vocals, and we are talking with a local artist about artwork...so yeah, it's getting there.
Waffle House,
S.A.S.
It seems like releasing a small time record is easier than ever, but truthfully, it's next to impossible to get anyone to notice! Back in the day, you made a record, burned some copies, played shows, told people about it, and that was pretty much it. Now there are blogs(which we have obviously mastered), RSS feeds(not even real sure what these are), websites, facebook, myspace, bandmix, soundcloud, bandpage, .com addresses, internet radio, college radio, I-tunes, Cd baby, tunecore, album covers, cd layout, cd pressing, cd promotion, one sheets, press kits, EPK, photos, logos, branding....etc. The list goes on and on thanks to the internet. To help us out, I got this book, "The indie band survival guide," which is pretty great so far. It's making me realize how far behind the technology I am. I don't even own an I-pod. I still like to go to a store and buy a physical product, but I am wondering if we even need to press Cd's since everyone buys online anyway? Your thoughts and ideas would be appreciated here!
Well, that wraps up another exciting update. We are real close to having this thing "in the can," and we cannot wait to share it with all of you! This week starts vocals, and we are talking with a local artist about artwork...so yeah, it's getting there.
Waffle House,
S.A.S.
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