NARM 2009 State Of The Industry: Michael Masnick from NARM on Vimeo.
This video of Michael Masnick’s presentation at NARM 2009 was especially interesting to me at this juncture because I have recently started a business called Hospice Media that does just what he spoke of. We are working to get artists online, get connected with their fans, generate new fans, and release creative and interesting physical products.
The most interesting part of the video for me was how he broke down the best strategy into two different important parts CwF (Connect with Fans) and RtB (Reason to Buy). These are both things I’ve been thinking about with Hospice, but never specifically thought about them.
It is incredibly important for artists to have a meaningful and direct relationship with their fans. That could be through a website/blog, twitter, youtube videos, or even postcards sent through snail mail. And the Reason to Buy is what we actually founded the company on. My partner and I realized that CDs were a dead format and were now only used to transfer music from the store to the computer. It’s better to remove that step by having music downloadable, but then you lose that physical connection with the music. With every release with Hospice, there will be some sort of physical object to go along with it. It could be simply a poster or t-shirt, or something as elaborate as a sculpture or custom painted underwear (something we’re actually doing for one release).
It was a good video, and useful information. Please follow the site, and enjoy the music and other art!
