Why A Musician Should Have A Website

Today we discuss: 

• Making a connection and being available to your fans
• Using the website as a revenue stream
• Using your email list and data to your advantage

Christian: [00:00:17] Hey,how's it going, guys? Thank you for tuning in, and today we're talking aboutwhy musicians or artists need to have a website. Some things that we're goingto cover are revenue stream, email list, and we're going to talk about whyhaving a website is important to get them to listen to more music or learn moreabout you.

Aaron: [00:00:40] Verygood. So this is really important actually because I've been doing this a lotlately trying to find new music or going back to old music and like say, forexample, Eminem, completely forgot about him, and I was just checking hiswebsite and finding out more about him. And if he didn't have a website, youknow, I would just be searching on SoundCloud or the podcast or I mean Spotifyrather. So really important.

Christian: [00:01:09] Yeah.So I mean, the first thing is, you know, having the website so that you canhave all your information in one place. I feel like lately, you know, I've beentrying to look for- I don't remember the artist, but they didn't really have awebsite. And it was a combination of Wikipedia and their social media and thensome other, you know, obscure websites to try and find out where his concertswere, you know, or even find out more information about how they started.

Aaron: [00:01:44] Iactually spoke to a musician a couple of- I guess it's been a couple of monthsago, and he told us that- He told Brianna and I said that he didn't want awebsite because all of his audience is already on Facebook. So why would hehave a website? And that's what I told him, well, you were at a concert. Igoogled you to try to find your website because that's usually the first thingthat pops up, and then the band name is like Casper something. I don't know.They're local up here in McKinney. A really good band, but their Facebook pagewas like on the second page. So I couldn't find them. Barely got a hold ofthem, and I actually hooked them up with a gig for a ribbon cutting to givethem some business. And it was a tough sell because the other company was like arethey reputable? Like you know, they have a Facebook page, and they have 300followers. Are they one, good, or two like, you know, are they like legitimate?

Christian: [00:02:39] Yeah.Yeah. And that's that's a really good point to add to this is that, you know,having a website really takes your artistry and your professionalism to thenext level. You're not just doing this as a hobby and, you know, uploadingthings to SoundCloud and YouTube. You actually have a legitimate website withyour band or your artist name as a URL. So gives you a sense of, you know,professionalism of like okay, this guy is a little bit more next level. Youknow, he has all his stuff together in one place.

Aaron: [00:03:12] Right.He didn't start in the garage last week and is trying to book stuff.

Christian: [00:03:16] Exactly.Another great thing about why musicians need to have a website is that, youknow, you can use this as another revenue stream, and the first thing thatcomes to my mind is selling merchandise, selling T-shirts, mugs, pencils. Idon't know what artists, you know, sell nowadays. I feel like T-shirts is themain driver.

Aaron: [00:03:38] Right.That's the only thing I buy.

Christian: [00:03:40] Andhats. Maybe hats.

Aaron: [00:03:41] Yeah,really cool, like, trucker hats or something, or you do, depending on theindustry or genre, sweatbands are very big for punk bands. So you know, theycould sell those, but I don't know about, you know, classic rock or something.Maybe classic rock headbands.

Christian: [00:03:58] Well,let's say apparel. A lot of it has to do with apparel because I was thinkingjust like bandanas are a huge thing.

Aaron: [00:04:06] Sunglasses.

Christian: [00:04:07] Sunglasses.Yeah. So let's just go with apparel. So having the website will allow you toset up your store and sell more stuff and, you know, get another revenue streamin there, and also another tidbit is also you can set up- What is it? GoogleAdSense or Google AdWorks on your website. So you can get more revenue byhaving ads on your website, and another thing that you could do is you canpromote other artists. So if you already have a huge following and you'reseeing other artists that are up and coming and you want to promote them onyour website and, you know, they have to pay a little fee in there. Boom.That's another way to earn more money.

Aaron: [00:04:50] Right,and you actually put books on here which I mean, I consider that kind of like-it's not apparel, but the reason I say that's important is that I know Coheedand Cambria - it's just a band for those who don't know - all their music isactually from comic books. So the lead singer Claudio Sanchez, he wrote allthese books in the past and then make music from it, and so now those books arevery valuable. And so he sells the books online too. So it's kind of like areverse of that which is pretty cool, and I actually thought about it. I didn'tdo it, but I thought about purchasing the book online. Yeah, that's where youcan make some more money.

Christian: [00:05:28] Yeah.I mean and you can argue that, you know, if you have a book or something likethat you can go directly to Amazon, but then you've got to think about, youknow, Amazon obviously is going to take their cut and leave you with lessmoney. And I think usually fans appreciate artists who are more independent andare trying to, you know, do things differently. So if you're out there tryingto hustle and, you know, you're trying to put all your stuff on your website,your fans are most likely going to go to your website and, you know, purchasedirectly from you to make you more money in the end.

Aaron: [00:06:03] Right.All right, and so this next one is probably the most important here. It's thatyou own the data. SoundCloud, you don't own anything. ReverbNation, you don'town anything. With your website, you know how many people visit it. You knowhow many people you've collected on your email address. On your analytics asfar as like where people are shopping at, how many purchases you have, you ownall that data, and so it's not like you're in a shared community at that point.You own your own house, and you can use that to really leverage whether not- Orhow you grow. So for example, if you sell 100 T-shirts a year and that's very profitablefor you, how can you sell 200 T-shirts a year? And just kind of, you know, youwouldn't know that otherwise on your website or how to like really growexponentially without having the numbers or the data.

Christian: [00:06:57] Yeah.So speaking of data and email analytics, I think the keyword here is the emaillist. Your website and your e-mail list go hand-in-hand, and just like yourwebsite, you know, you own that email list, those fans. And with social mediaand, you know, SoundCloud, YouTube, Facebook, and all that stuff, I mean, tohave all that is great, but things can change like in a blink of an eye withall those industries. We see it everyday with Facebook and Instagram changingthe algorithms. So I mean, if you're posting, you know, your stuff on Facebookand Instagram and your fans are following you, yes, there's a chance that theymight see it and there's a huge chance of that they might not see it. So havingeverything on your website categorized and posting and having that email list.So I mean, every time you come up with a new song or you come up with a newalbum and you blast them with the e-mail, that's a way better way to, you know,get a hold of your fans than through social media.

Aaron: [00:08:04] Right.And I think one example we had on here is something everybody remembers fromlike 2005 which is you had your own music station and your own music videos andstuff like that that you could have on MySpace, and we see now that in 2017MySpace is really not relevant. So if you didn't have a website back then andyou put all of your eggs on to MySpace, you really do not have a customer base.It could have put you out of business. It could really have hurt you. So that'sjust a prime example. I don't think Facebook's going away anytime soon, butwhether or not you reach your audience, that's going to be the biggest factorthere.

Christian: [00:08:42] Yeah.Yeah, I'm just thinking right now like I can't imagine, you know, someone whohad their MySpace, and they were 100 percent invested in MySpace, and nowthat's basically completely gone. You know, if they didn't have a website, thenyou're starting from scratch. I mean, you're starting from zero.

Aaron: [00:08:57] Right.And one thing that we didn't touch on is the website kind of gives you thatpersonal touch. I know whenever I go to a website, one of the biggest thingsthat I look at is the about page. So like what's your story, and who's incharge of it? Like you know, do you put the owner's face on there? Do you putthe head musicians faces on there? You know, what's a- You know, if you're aband, you can be pretty creative with, you know, hey, Jimmy started thiscompany because he loved tacos and ended up moving to Austin, Texas, learnedhow to play guitar, and now he started this really successful band. And now Ican get behind that story and really have a connection with them because I'mlike oh, I live in Texas, and I love tacos too. So, and the music's good. Sohaving the about page and a website there really helps I guess- What did Iwrite here? I said like personify the brand or like really just a personalconnection that you can't really have on SoundCloud.

Christian: [00:10:00] Yeah.That's very true, and then something that's interesting. I feel like, you know,if someone who doesn't have a website right now and I want to find out moreabout them, I would have to rely on a combination of Wikipedia, try to look forinterviews on YouTube or Vimeo, maybe try to find them on Facebook, see iftheir about section on Facebook is filled out. And a lot of times whenever youdo that, and I've done this before, you get different information here andthere or you don't get complete stuff or you still have more questions. Soyeah, having the website and having a really good about section, and the otherthing is having a really good concert and make sure that you know the upcomingvenues. I do remember looking for someone recently, and there's a lot ofwebsites out there that, you know, do that. But to see it directly from your artistson their website, you know that's the real official list of upcoming shows. Youdon't have to rely on six different websites to try and figure out okay, whichones are the legitimate ones?

Aaron: [00:11:03] Right.And I think that that's one of the things that we, I guess as a shopper Iguess, we want all of that information in one spot, and one thing we kind ofleft out here is the music videos. And I like watching- I used to not. I usedto watch a bunch of music videos. Then I didn't, and now it's like oh, I'llcheck them out again if they're good. But you have your music videos, you havesongs all about it, you have concert venues, you have merchandise, all in onespot. Somebody doesn't have to go to all those new places, and if you're tryingto acquire a new fan, that's asking a lot of them. They'd have to be reallyloving your music for them to go check out all those different sources tofollow you. So I think it's also intangible that you're going to keep yourcustomers longer.

Christian:[00:11:52] Allright. So thank you for listening. If you're a musician or artist, please sharethis podcast with another musician or an artist, or if you're not a musicianand artist, then share with someone who is a musician or artist and don't havea website or maybe they're adamant about getting a website or they don't knowthe benefits of getting a website. This is the podcast to share with them, andagain if you're on your cell phone, you can do that very easily, clicking onthose bottom corner three little dots and click on share this episode.