Direct-to-Fan: Gimme yo’ email address!
Yesterday I laid the groundwork for this little experiment: I’m working with the guys of Hollow Vixen and using both Nimbit and Topspin platforms to see which works better for launching a new release and establishing a band’s online presence. High priority was to start building up a mailing list for the band. So I dove into both platforms to see what I could come up with. Here’s a brief recap:
Topspin: Tweet for Media
Pretty simple concept: Retweet the band’s message, and you get a free track download. Personally, I think this is a really cool and simple way to gain some exposure without having to make any crazy effort. That being said, creating the tweet and making the campaign work took far longer than anticipated. The Topspin platform makes it easy to create the promotion, but it makes it quite difficult to do it correctly. For example, you create a search phrase that signals the system to send a DM to the person who uses it in their Tweet. But that phrase has to be entered in EXACTLY as it’s written. Otherwise, the whole thing doesn’t work — and you have no way to know! It took me about 5 minutes to set the initial campaign up, but about 7 tries (and a trip to their help area) before I got it working. And, when it worked, it took a half hour to get the track DM’ed to me after I retweeted the message!
Having done this, I then realized that I wasn’t going to collect any email addresses, and felt sort of silly for spending this much time on it.
Nimbit: Track for Email
Nimbit doesn’t offer the Tweet for Media solution, so I tried using Track for Email instead. Pretty simple and clear cut: sign up for the mailing list, get a track. In the Nimbit dashboard, you click on “track for email” and up pops 2 choices: ”Require Opt In” and “No Opt In Needed.” The difference being that you provide the track before a user officially opts into your mailing list, or dangle the musical carrot and wait for that opt in. There are advantages and disadvantages to both choices, but they’re not readily explained here. For me, I know the difference, but I wish that the pros/cons were explained there to help the “average” artist make an informed choice.
That being said, the process worked smoothy and instantly. Choose the track, embed the code somewhere, and you’re off to the races. The forms are left (intentionally) plain so that users can customize to fit their site/location/color scheme. Again, that’s a cool advantage, but only if you know how to do that. A little more explanation (or an easier way to customize) would be cool here. Topspin offers a similar option, but offers more choices for customization and the option to create email for any kind of media (not just a track). Screenshots of both below:
(T: Nimbit, B: Topspin)
The verdict: Nimbit makes it super simple and fast to get stuff working. But Topspin, while a bit more confusing, offers more flexibility once you get it right. So it all depends on who you’ve got working with/for you. Also, it could be me, but the black background with the gray typeface, gets a little hard to read. Reading that back, I sound far older than I am. Yikes.
P.S. Sorry if you wanted me to say which one is (“obviously”) better. Again, I’m being all Switzerland here … the products are judged based on their merits alone.
A few comments from Topspin’s CEO:
– I’m surprised you compared a feature Topspin has which Nimbit doesn’t to a Nimbit feature Topspin also has without mentioning the Topspin feature in depth as well. This is what makes me feel this isn’t as unbiased as you’d like it to be, either intentionally or unintentionally. By being Nimbit’s Director of Marketing I assume you know Nimbit’s feature set very well and I’m assuming your knowledge of Topspin’s feature set is more cursory.
– Yes, the way the Tweet 4 Media campaign works is to search Tweets for a particular phrase and then take an action when it finds a match. Sorry if this wasn’t clear. What was your expectation? That it only need match the hash tag? We didn’t limit it to only the has phrase to be more powerful.
– The time it takes to receive the DM or @ reply varies and is highly dependent on the Twitter API. We both have code to keep our use of the API within their legal limits as well as simply are dependent on their API working in a timely manner, which it doesn’t always do. I think we’re all familiar with how Twitter’s growth has presented us the fail whale from time to time. I’m afraid Tweet 4 Media will experience some of those same issues.
– I wish you’d have compared Nimbit’s Email 4 Media to Topspin’s more fully. As you mention we have far more simple customization features, allow you to give away not just tracks but movies, packages of files, PDFs, etc and a full API at http://dev.topspin.net to allow you to build deep, custom E4M integrations like this one at Hype Machine: http://hypem.com/#/artist/metric We are also TrustE compliant and allow you to adhere to the US’s COPPA laws if you need to.
ian
Ian – My expectation with Tweet for Media was that I could use it to both share music and collect email addresses upon receiving the track. When I realized that wasn’t really the case, I admitted my own mistake, and moved on to the Nimbit option for Email for Track.
The delays (whether caused by Topspin, Twitter, or the Interwebs…) are just disconcerting. Again, it’s just an observation, not a condemnation.
Working with Nimbit, I know what the tools are, with a limit. In my capacity, it’s my job to know their press releases, blog posts, features, and content –and to analyze it– but I’m not a user of the service as deeply as a client would be. It helps to be a bit outside the box so that my observations (not just in this forum) are worthwhile. Gotta see the forest -and- the trees.
That’s essentially where I am with the Topspin service. As a marketer, I study what/how you present, but I’m as skilled as any other musician/marketer on the actual tools. My mistakes, I like to think, are the same ones that anyone else would make. They’re not unique to me based upon what desk I sit at when I make ‘em.
Again, I readily admit my own amateurish-ness on both platforms. But, I’m learning a LOT every day. It’s the side benefit.
Our Twitter and Facebook functionality are meant to help build fan connections in those channels, Twitter and Facebook. We’ve found Twitter and Facebook to be great permission marketing channels, just like email. Email still drives the most revenue (30% on most campaigns) while Twitter and Facebook are usually in the single digits, but we have seen Twitter be 20%+ in some cases. MySpace is still an important channel, too, but less so on the permission marketing front, more so as an important homestead destination and driver of sales.
Understood on the timing of the Twitter DMs and @replies, I wish it was better, too! We’re in contact with our friends at Twitter on the problem and will keep working on it. Thanks for the feedback.
As for being an amateur on both platforms I get where you’re coming from, you’re the marketer not the user, but come on, it’s absurd to think your knowledge here doesn’t color your viewpoint. You *wrote all the marketing text* on the site, the list of features, the words that tout Nimbit’s value vs. the competition. It’s clear in your posts so far you don’t know the capabilities of the Topspin platform nearly as well as Nimbit’s, and there’s no question this will affect your use. Also, since we are in public beta we haven’t gone into detail on our features anywhere on our site, so unless you come by our office for a training (which I’d be happy to offer you with our compliments — we do them in LA twice, Nashville, London, and NYC once a month) we unfortunately don’t have a good place for you to get the details apart from the knowledge base: https://docs.topspin.net/ . It’s all good, but when I’m reading your posts thus far I definitely hear someone who knows the features of Nimbit inside/out and doesn’t know exactly what the Topspin features are meant to do (Tweet 4 Track, uploading WAVs instead of Apple Lossless, etc). I really don’t mind, tho, it’s helpful — I’ve already asked the team to upload the docs a bit based on your feedback. Keep it coming!
Happy long weekend,
ian
Ian –
Facebook? Who’s talking about Facebook? And why are you advertising Topspin demos? Keep it up, and soon you’ll be offering free Ginsu knives with every Topspin signup.
Please keep squarely to the discussion at hand, and we’ll all benefit from it.
And if you continue to believe that my knowledge of the Nimbit tools is that rock solid, please pass that along to the rest of the folks at Nimbit who are currently shaking their heads in disbelief / rolling on the floors laughing.
If you want to keep promoting the fact that I write amazing marketing content (for Nimbit, etc.) please feel free. I’m sure your endorsement of my skills as a marketer can only build value for me.
BUT …. we’re talking about Hollow Vixen and my experiences on Nimbit’s and your platforms. That’s it. Nothing else. Keep to the topics at hand!
Hi Scott,
Apologies for being off-topic. I actually didn’t mean to stray or to sound like an infomercial. From my perspective both were on-topic:
a) We built the Twitter and Facebook functionality at the same time for the same purpose, which is why we usually refer to them and often implement them together.
b) Again I’m sure you’re not an expert music marketer with the Nimbit tools but you do have a deeper knowledge of the feature set than with the Topspin tools. I was simply suggesting one of our east coast trainings to level the playing field. If you’d like maybe we could just spend an hour on the phone going over the features instead.
ian
Ian –
Apology accepted. Facebook use/options is for another time and topic, but we’ll be getting there as all of Hollow Vixen actively uses Facebook as do their fans.
As for the rest, let’s just say I’m an expert marketer — regardless of tool set. That allows my fragile ego to stay relatively unscathed
Since the guys in the band took the Berklee/Topspin class, I’m thinking that a private one-hour demo session with you might possibly be a bit more than the average user/marketer would get. That being said, I think the guys might do well to take part with me as long as I can schedule something similar in scope with Nimbit.
I’d like to do it via Skype (easier to see/talk/show), . While I want to avoid all bias, learning and understanding is what this whole thing is supposed to be about so this could be a good opportunity for everyone.
–Scott
Well, trying to inject my company Adva Mobile in this mix, unless you mind, to provide the mobile marketing angle…..
We tell the band to put up a song for free download on the mobile web home page. One additional feature of our mobile marketing is “Exclusive Content”, where the band can put up a song that can only be downloaded after the fan provides their email address (required) and gender, zip code and age (optional). This info is kept in the same database as the phone number and wireless carrier info.
While our outreach program is primarily text based, the platform, where you set up the text blast message, will let the band send out the text blast through SMS, email, to their Twitter account, or any combination.