Funding Your Music Project

Mike King: Instructor and Course Author, Berkleemusic Berklee College of Music

How Music Works – David Byrne

Steal Like An Artist – Austin Kleon

• Nothing is Original• You are the Sum of your Influences• Your Job is to Collect Good Ideas• Your Job is to School Yourself on What Came Before

Steal Like An Artist – Austin Kleon

“The Only Art I’ll Every Study Is Art I Can Steal From.” – David Bowie

•This Idea is not new: Miles Davis was a Disciple of George Russell•Some of the Best Music Marketing and Creative Funding Ideas Come from Outside of the Music Business•Hugh McLeod, Clay Shirky, Seth Godin: All Massive Influencers for Music Creators, None are Solely Music Focused.

Steal Like An Artist – Austin Kleon

The Genealogy of Ideas: Every New Idea is a Remix of Previous Ideas

Question: What does this mean for funding your own project?

Answer: • Read, Learn, Stay Aware• Iterate on existing ideas• Karma: share your results

Steal Like An Artist – Austin Kleon

Creative Leaps Are Made Through Combination

Introduction: The “Catch-22” of Funding

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed. "It's the best there is.”

• Established artists have had years of label support to help create a dedicated fan base, which these artists can then continue to tap into directly, even if they are no longer affiliated with the label.

• How does a developing artist fund the marketing initiatives necessary to generate a core fan base, without having a fan base to tap into?

Part One: Building a Foundation

• Common Trait Associated with Failed Campaigns: engaging in funding activities prior to developing a base.

• Awareness and Acquisition of fans is a necessity prior to any extensive funding activities.

• Key Channels for Discussion: Web, Social, Email, PR, Touring.

Awareness: Your Own Web Site

• Two major ways to approach Web optimization. #1: SEO.

• The search engines look at a variety of factors in determining how relevant your site is, including the freshness of your content, how many relevant sites are pointing to you, and how appropriate your messaging is in terms of the search phrase.

Acquisition: Your Own Web Site

• Once you have captured the attention of potential fans via SEO, next step is to acquire a permission based contact through the release of free content.

• Email is still a very effective conversion tool if used properly.

• Topspin, Bandcamp, Official.fm, many more.

Awareness and Acquisition: Third Party Sites

• Ian Rogers: “You never want your fans to come up empty in any online search.”

• Acquisition example: YouTube video with the option of downloading the MP3 in exchange for an email address.

• No longer an issue to have your music on all the major online retail outlets for a low cost from Tunecore of CD Baby.

Awareness and Acquisition: Social

• Best way to acquire fans on social outlets? Create amazing content that your fan base will want to share with their friends, who in turn will provide you with additional permission based contacts.

• Facebook: Great content rewarded via EdgeRank.

• Posting engaging content, open communication, and responding to fans posts results in more visibility.

Best Practices: Email

• Provide Something of Value. Seth Godin would call this the "prize inside." What can you offer in your emails that is compelling?

• Frequency. Review open rates and click through rates. All fans bases are different, and determining how often your fans want to hear from you is important.

• Creating Email Lists Organically. While it's possible to purchase email lists, it is not advisable. You want to be reaching out to folks that want to hear from you, as opposed to folks you have paid for.

Awareness and Acquisition: PR

• Acquisition through online PR can also be an effective way to build up a permission-based fanbase. Artists can ask writers to include the embed code for a streaming player / email for media player in their review of a live show or other outreach.

Awareness and Acquisition: Touring

• Don't be shy about collecting email addresses at live events. Providing a reason for fans to give their contact info greatly increase response rate.

• Ben Folds kills it.

Traditional Funding Options for Musicians

• Funding from a Label

• Traditional DIY Approach to Funding

• Grants

• Sponsorships

Overview: Funding from a Label

• The labels are still powerhouses in the recorded music world, and still have the ability to fund A-level projects in a very serious way.

• Tour Support, Advances, Radio Support, Video Support, Marketing.

• With leverage, artists can get more fair deals. Karmin, Arcade Fire examples.

Overview: Traditional Approach to DIY Funding

• DIY funding is not new. Bands have been funding their projects on their own for years.

• Slow build. Start out making $50 or $100 a show, and you just save it. From there, keep costs low, and tour, tour, tour.

• “To me, a bands job is to go on tour. From a financial standpoint, it's crushing and devastating if a band doesn't tour.” Syd Butler, Les Savy Fav

Overview: Grants

• There are governmental and private grants available for many artistic endeavors, including dance, music, education, and much more.

• Example: Canadian grants. FACTOR provides grants up to $40,000; Starmaker Fund provides up to $50,000 in funding for digital marketing per release; MuchFACT covers up to 50 percent of the video production budget to a maximum of $25,000

Barr Brothers used Canadian Grants Extensively

Overview: Sponsorships

• Sponsorships are open to artists of all levels. Key is to prove value to potential sponsor.

• Press story is important: Example: Stringbuilder and Greyhound.

• Sponsorships vary greatly in scope and detail, and could be useful in everything from providing free gear for your live event, tour support, or other financial needs.

New Funding Opportunities for Musicians

• Growing trend within the music industry: online fan funding or crowd funding.

• Fan funding complements existing forms of funding.

• Fan funding is not an either/or situation. Online fan funding options can certainly live along side of grants, touring, and other forms of funding for musicians.

Fan Funding Developments: Options and Best Practices

Fan Funding Overview

• Fan funding is an extension of the direct to fan approach to marketing and sales.

• Successful campaigns focus on providing fans with unique items that are unavailable elsewhere.

• Successful campaigns also speak to the artist’s personal interests. Erin McKeown is an outspoken advocate for artist's rights, and offered to sign over her checks from Spotify for $11 pledge.

Erin McKeown

Fan Funding Industry Leaders

• Best in Breed: Kickstarter, Pledge Music, Indiegogo.

Two Basic Models• All or Nothing

o $ only collected from the contributors if the fundraising goal is met.

• Keep it All o Whether the goal is met or not,

all of the funds collected (minus commission) are handed over to the artist.

Over two dozen fan funding services currently exist

Kickstarter: Overview• Founded in 2008 by Perry Chen,

Yancey Strickler, and Charles Adler, Kickstarter is currently the world's largest funding platform for creative projects

• Music projects are also successfully funded at a high rate—52 percent of music projects reach their goals versus 44 percent of all other projects.

• More than $42 million has been pledged to Kickstarter music projects by more than 600,000 people.

Kickstarter: Details

• There are no gates or middlemen involved in determining whether or not your project is "worthy" for a Kickstarter release. Easy CMS.

• Currently U.S. and U.K. only.

• All or Nothing model. Kickstarter will take five percent of the funds raised. Amazon will also apply a credit card processing fee of around three to five percent of funds raised.

PledgeMusic: Overview

• PledgeMusic was founded in August of 2009 by Benji Rogers.

• Worldwide access.

• Unlike Kickstarter, all projects on PledgeMusic have active involvement from the PledgeMusic team.

PledgeMusic: Details

• Not all submissions are accepted by PledgeMusic. PledgeMusic bases their decision on the amount of leverage and permission based contacts an artist has.

• All or Nothing model. Over 80 percent of projects launched on the site successfully reach their fundraising target.

• Fee: PledgeMusic charge a flat, 15 percent commission on all money raised, which covers all fees, personalized assistance

PledgeMusic: Case Study

• Rachael Yamagata: PledgeMusic user, Berkleemusic student.

“I’m a major label artist turned independent with 11 years between RCA and Warner Brothers. Averaging 4 years between releases - very frustrating!! Led me to wanting a direct approach to record and release music that cut out the middleman of anyone saying it couldn't be done.” – Rachael Yamagata

PledgeMusic: Case Study / PROS

1. The Team. “The team at Pledge and the fact that it all centered around music was my deciding point. The sheer energy and enthusiasm of the 'team' got my attention.”

2. The Technical Infrastructure. “The set up of their system allowed me to be my own distributer of digital and physical goods in one place with all the technical organization handled on their end.”

3. They Helped Promote my Campaign. “Whether it was a feature on their home page or inclusion on their newsletter - it widened my audience. The mutual benefits of Pledge talking about me, and me talking about Pledge, were great.”

PledgeMusic: Case Study / Challenges

1. Time Commitment. “It was like having a second full time job in addition to making a record, touring, promoting it, structuring the release as an independent artist - artwork, videos etc.”

2. Shipping. “I did everything myself and it was insane. Investigate shipping supplies in bulk and postage alternatives. Don't forget international shipping. I filled out over 500 custom forms in addition to addressing each package with an address.”

3. Offers. “I had 'handwritten lyric books' as a pledge. I offered them for $50 a piece. Little did I realize that 10 songs = 10 pages = 500 total handwritten pages to complete this one item. One of my songs is so wordy it took me over half an hour for that page alone. I then hand bound them, signed them etc. This was just one item.”

Indiegogo: Overview

• Founded by Danae Ringelmann, Slava Rubin, and Eric Schell in 2008.

• Similar to Kickstarter, the service is not focused solely on music. For example, in February 2012, President Barack Obama's Startup America partnered with Indiegogo to offer crowd funding to entrepreneurs in the U.S.

• Indiegogo has helped to fund projects across the creative spectrum, including music, charity, small business and film.

Indiegogo: Details

• International scope.

• Offers both the All or Nothing / Keep It All Models.

• Indiegogo takes four percent of the funds raised if you reach your funding goals. If you are using All or Nothing and you do not hit your goal, you are charged nothing and the funds are returned to the donors. However, Keep it All campaigns that do not meet their goal are able to keep the amount raised, but are charged nine percent.

• Twitter: @atomzooey

• www.Berkleemusic.com: Online Music Marketing, Online Music Marketing with Topspin, Music Marketing 101

• mikeking.berkleemusicblogs.com

• www.musicmarketingbook.com

THANK YOU

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