Direct-to-Fan Head-to-Head Battle-to-the-Death Mega-Royale Gala-Fest
I figured something like this deserves a bigger title than just “Something I’m Gonna Try.” In my capacity as mild-mannered marketing consultant, I spend a fair amount of time at Nimbit. No surprises there, and honestly, I like the product and believe in its claim/capability. But there’s this other company in the direct-to-fan space that warrants attention: Topspin.
I’ve taken on the role of marketing guy for a local band with some cool assets and opportunities. Their name is Hollow Vixen, and they’re facing the same dilemma as countless artists/bands/musicians everywhere: How do you build a fanbase, get noticed, sell some stuff, book some gigs, AND not go broke in the process?
They came to me as a result of a guest lecture I gave at Berklee — centered around effective online presence — and the ball started to roll from there. Now then…
Disclaimer #1: While Berklee is (naturally) a superior college, it does not influence my opinion of Hollow Vixen. They could rock just as hard/suck as much wind if they went to any other college — or not.
Disclaimer #2: Yeah, I work with Nimbit. But I also know a couple of the folks at Topspin. I’m judging the usefulness and applicability of the tools, based not upon the personalities behind the companies, who pays me (or not…), or who can hook me up with free music ‘n’ gear. Although, free music ‘n’ gear is still welcome and encouraged.
Disclaimer #3: I have no idea what’s going to happen. Truly great music often remains unheard, while shiteous music can be unavoidable.
Disclaimer #4: This was my idea. No company, political party, or foreign power put me up to it.
That being said, heretofore, and as of May 25th, is the following info yielded for a baseline measure to gage future success and/or struggles:
Band: Hollow Vixen
Website: www.HollowVixen.com
Facebook Fans: 42
Twitter followers: 68 (@hollowvixen)
Money made from sales/gigging: $0.00
At the present time, there are 4 guys in the band with two of ‘em taking most of the “business” initiative. Beyond that, they’ve got a classmate/friend helping with some of the graphic design, and they’ve paid a developer to build the basics of their website. In my capacity, I’ve done a bit of web tweaking, and set up a few widgets and storefronts using both Topspin and Nimbit.
The band recently recorded their first EP, and it’s just finished mastering. Manufacturing is gonna start this week at Nimbit (no discounts given! ::sigh :: ), and we’ll be selling from there. More on that in another post. This is just an intro, and already it’s getting long-winded …
I am really looking forward to reading more posts Scott. Keep up the great work.
Looking forward to this comparison. I’m a Topspin user myself.
Glad to see someone finally taking the initiative on testing both services!
However, I feel like you’ve really got your work cut out for you with Hollow Vixen. After visiting the band’s site, I found the MEDIA page to be blank and the MUSIC page to be a pop-up window that my browser blocked. The only taste of the actual music itself was the video embed on the front page which I found it to be pretty cringe worthy. Not the best first impression for a band trying to generate new fans.
Taylor – I’m actually working on the website right now. We just got most of it handed off from the developer, so you’re witnessing a work in progress.
Even more “fun,” I just got the tracks from mastering at 11:30 last night! They’ll be more stuff as the day goes on, and I drink my coffee …
But thanks for the vote of confidence!
Excellent!
Hey Scott,
I’m looking forward to the progress as well. Just a couple things I noticed off the bat. I’m sure these are issues which are currently being addressed but I wanted to throw out my two cents.
1. When you’re at the homepage and try and click the music section, nothing happens. But if I go to any other page and click music, it pops up after I had to allow the pop up.
2. At least the only track currently for sale (I know there’s more coming and physical too) is fully streamable on the TS music pop up player, which is great. But on the store page (POP) there is only a snippet, which in my opinion, should all be fully streamable tracks just like when you would go to a CD store back in the day and you could listen to the entire CD before purchasing. Every band/artist store page (PO-effin-P!) should have fully streamable songs!!!
Anyways, just my two cents off the bat.
Joseph
Joseph –
Thanks for the feedback – much appreciated! As mentioned, I just got the final mastered versions back late last night, so I’m in the process of updating the sites now. It’s possible that the upload/update process is messing with stuff. Not sure.
And I’m not sure where you were shopping, but when I was cd shopping, you couldn’t listen to any disc – just the ones some label paid to have up in the listening stations!
More to come — very soon
Cool – look forward to following the results. But no RSS feed?
Mike – RSS feed here:
feed://www.scottfeldman.net/feed/
Afraid I’m not interested. Just saw the video clip and all I think is it’s an experiment with one of those classical bands that add nothing to music… some kind of indie rock, less than more related to so many known things… let’s say Smashing Pumpkins early years, or green day, or… whatever band with no originality… dedicated, maybe, to be a one day “major company” success… just before another one…
First of all sorry for the band…
I would be far more interested in seeing that experiment with a more personal, unusual band… Marketers nowadays talk about niches… when you belong to a niche it’s maybe far harder to use those tools, or maybe not, I don’t know… That’s what would interest me…
The good point is you’re starting from nothing… The bad one is you’re starting with “classical” music… Sorry for the rough and bad feeling about it…
This is a great idea!! Thanks for doing this and sharing the results.
Scott, Great idea. I’d suggest taking an established band in some city…with an established fan base, and track record, and try this with them. There are those of us lifers out there, that have given away more records than we’ve sold, and have yet made a living playing music (now I live in Mpls. which has a scene that actually pays musicians) See how both companies work for them. It would be another way to track the mojo of both outfits, while giving us a little insight into this Brave New World. Good luck. Paul M., Mpls. MN
Scott, as long at it’s an experiment and you’re early, I propose you add mobile into the mix. My company Adva Mobile provides a software platform for music Artists to market to, and sell to, their fans on mobile phones. We have a Freemium model (as do you guys) so the band can get in for free, and you can measure/contrast the growth of the fan base, and success selling, between web and mobile.
Hi Jack –
I’m fairly certain we’ve met before. I also work with the guys in The Hector Fund, and you were at the music 2.0 event in Cambridge last week, I think…
As for adding mobile, it’s an interesting idea that I’ll bring up to the guys. Somehow I’ve gone from baby steps to a full sprint in the last 24 hours …
Thanks for the comment!
Note from the Bloke…
Jack, great suggestion…
Scott, you should most definitely take Jack up on his offer. Mobile is blowing up right now and the opportunity to compare and contrast your Nimbit/Topspin results with the Adva Mobile platform results will give an in depth insight to both new and established artists as well as all labels.
Good luck… Looking forward to this…
Hi Scott,
As I said via email I don’t think this test is as valid as you do. I know you and you know I like you a ton personally, but Nimbit pays your bills and there’s just no way that makes this the right way for a test to be done. I don’t mind your doing it, of course, but I hope people appreciate this shouldn’t be done by a marketing person from either of our companies, or it should be done by both.
Unfortunately we don’t have a Director of Marketing. We don’t have anyone doing marketing for Topspin, actually. We probably should.
This summer we will be doing more outreach to a wider group of artists. Thanks for reminding me you expect to compete here. I’ll suit up for battle.
I do agree with the comments on the Hypebot article. It’s not about the tools, it’s about the campaign. ProTools doesn’t make a great album for you. A band and an engineer/producer make a great album. ProTools is just a tool that makes their job easier. What matters to me is if marketers find our tools easy to use and helpful in building awareness, acquiring fans, over-serving their fans, and making money. And when it doesn’t meet the needs of our marketers, I want to hear about it. We have a loooooooong list of features our customers are asking for which is why we have a product team which is as big as Nimbit’s entire team (15 people) and are releasing new versions of our software every Monday. Scott, please put your feature suggestions here:
http://getsatisfaction.com/topspin
and we’ll get them in the queue.
Enjoy and best of luck to the band. I’ll buy a copy!
ian
What’s that, Ian? You don’t have a Director of Marketing at Topspin? Hmm ….
I’m not saying that my test is valid — that’d require the boys at Price Waterhouse to be checking every mouseclick, IP address, and other techy type stuff.
What I will say is that my test is completely honest. I’ve stated who I am, what I’m doing, and what I hope to accomplish. Folks that know me (you included…) can’t really disagree here.
Obviously, as stated before, the campaign not the tools, make the difference. But I’m reaching for a chainsaw not a butter knife to cut down a tree. Gotta choose the tools wisely before starting the job.
And it makes for fun reading. Always a bonus…
As a side note – and to your “get satisfaction” option, that would definitely get me in trouble on the Nimbit side. I’m not offering product suggestions to a “competitor.” Gotta draw that line somewhere … just ask your director of marketing. Oh wait … err …. never mind
I’m putting you down for a copy of the disc upon release. Or you can currently buy a digital version on your choice of storefronts – Nimbit or Topspin
Scott, we do know each other, I was at the Music 2.0 event last week (and presented) and have built mobile sites for both Hector Fund and their Artists (and Microfundo and their Artists, which morphed out of Hector)
I agree it’s honest and good reading. I just don’t believe it’s possible for you to be as impartial as you’d like to be. The fact is Nimbit pays you money and Topspin doesn’t. You wrote all the marketing copy for the Nimbit Website and you’ve never dug as deep into Topspin’s product. When our politicians have conflicts of interest we call them on it. As a reader and someone with an undeniable bias (much of my personal capital is wrapped up in Topspin) I think it’s important to note.
In your next post you claim relative amateur status on both platforms. I’ll call bullshit on that in the next post’s comments as I have time today.
Personally I’m enjoying the read. I have only a cursory familiarity with the Nimbit platform and it’s great to see where we have differences and deficiencies. I have Topspin’s entire 25 person team following your experiment so we can be sure we crush any meaningful deficiency you find in one of our 50 yearly software updates. Thanks for the competitive intel!
You know I love you, Scott. Game on. I came to play, and to win, too.
ian
Aww, Ian, really … I do feel the love. I’m sure all of these juicy comments are meant to cover up for the lousy Hanukkah gift you got me.
But instead of touting the size of Topspin’s team (I’m guessing that CEOs, much like high school guys on prom night, always exaggerate their size…), let’s keep this discussion focused on what it’s supposed to be: how I (in my work with Hollow Vixen) experience using the Nimbit and Topspin platforms.
And you’re right to call “bullshit” on every single claim. You’re the Topspin CEO! Wouldn’t want you to let someone else tell your story, right?
And yeah, while I wrote all the (brilliant, persuasive, expert, and awe-inspiring) marketing copy for Nimbit, you’ve got to believe what everyone at Nimbit already knows — I’m by no means “the” expert on their platform. Spend a day in the office, and you’ll see the number of times I ask questions, and break things. Then watch me do it all over again the next day.
This discussion is a fair one because it’s tracing my experiences through the process, and I admit the flaws up front. Like any good marketer, I’ve paid a LOT of attention to your company, marketing deficit notwithstanding (
).
But again … in the interest of keeping things fair here’s what’s NOT going to happen. I reserve the right to un-publish comments that smack of corporate grandstanding. That doesn’t help ANYBODY. And they’re rarely good reading. And it’s my blog!!
Nor am I going to take the “side” of Nimbit in this forum. That defeats the stated promise of non-bias. Duh.
So again ….
1. I will be working with Hollow Vixen as they embark upon the journey of thousands of other bands: new material, new online presence, online sales/distribution, and the path to building a music career.
2. In that journey, I’ll use and evaluate two options for things: Nimbit and Topspin
3. I will publish what I find to be good/bad/interesting about these experiences.
4. While yes, I do the marketing for Nimbit, this is my independent assessment measured solely by the experience involved. I am not “supported” by Nimbit, Topspin, or any experts on either side in this endeavor. If / When I fuck up, it’s all my own glorious doing.
5. Obviously this isn’t a scientifically perfect study. But after building up years of professional capital in this industry, I’m pretty certain (as are most others, ska8erboi…) that I can be trusted to be fair, impartial, and damn handsome. Or at least 2 out of 3…
Hi Scott,
One question: how will you split the data from direct fans of the band from your Nimbit x Topspin game fans?
I’m more interest in the game than in the band…
Juliano – easier than you’d think. I’ve got baseline measurements, and I’ll be keeping additional lists (seperate by platform) from there.
As for Hollow Vixen, you should check out their music. They’re extremely talented guys. But then, in this case I’m biased
But you have to agree that your game already has a big part in the marketing strategy for the band. And Ian is helping a lot either! The real trick in the music marketing is the ability to create context and tell a history. And your game is doing that.
Cheers!
PS: I’m curious: how many clicks did you get from Hypebot?
Here’s the deal – Nimbit and Topspin are both two really great platforms that are tremendous assets for both emerging and established musicians. The bottom line is that there are certain things that a new band needs (especially us) that neither platform provides exclusively. So that led to our decision to use both platforms, and our team is deciding which works best. In all honesty, we kinda feel like one of those monkeys they do tests on. ; ) There’s a bunch of doctors/marketing people poking us with sticks and pretending to give us bananas. But we’re cool. We can handle it. You know, the life of a rockstar …
More specifics to follow soon. We sincerely appreciate everyone taking this journey with us and hope that our music connects with you in a meaningful way!
Juliano -
I’d be a lousy marketer if I didn’t admit that this entire experiment does help promote Hollow Vixen, but honestly, the Nimbit/Topspin debate is as much of a goal here if not more. Especially if Ian’s feeling verbose.
As for Hypebot traffic, they raised numbers in a solid way: Since posting the original article, Hypebot has accounted for 1/3 of traffic to this site (which is extrememly high and unusual), but no clickthroughs from Hypebot to http://www.HollowVixen.com.
Scott (& Ian),
I thought I should chime in here and register a comment on the fairness of the whole experiment. At face value, it’s difficult to say whether this is a ‘fair fight’, however I would argue that Nimbit is at the disadvantage, if anything.
If Nimbit ends up working out better for this campaign then people will question the validity of the result, simply because Scott is doing marketing work for Nimbit. Nothing we can do about it, even though this is something Scott is doing completely independent of his role with us. Believe me if we had known of this ahead of time we would have said no way, for many of the same reasons that Ian points out.
If Ian’s product ends up working better for this particular artist then people will likely say that is a valid result given that Scott has no apparent motivation to favor the other platform.
That all said, let the games begin. Like Ian said, “thanks for the competitive intel.” It works both ways in that regard and now that the veil is being pulled back from their platform, Nimbit can work just as quickly as they can, if not quicker, to erase any deficiency and accentuate the experience and value that we’ve been building into our platform for the past seven years.
In the end, it’s about delivering a better platform for doing real business in today’s music industry. Nimbit has always put our money where our mouth is when it comes to that.
Patrick Faucher
Founder & CTO
Nimbit, Inc.
Scott (& Ian) – I appreciate Scott’s spirit of experiment. What I’m hoping is that the surprise result will be that it ends up being less about “versus” and more about how to use each effectively.
I currently use both ReverbNation and TopSpin. While I’m no expert at either, I’ve learned enough to see they’re each effective in different ways for different situations. (TopSpin, for example, seems more customizable, whereas ReverbNation seems easier to navigate and integrate at this point). I can imagine continuing to use both — and Nimbit’s next on my list to investigate.
Scott’s experiment, which I look forward to, is a little like saying “let’s do an experiment about ketchup versus mustard” — what’s ‘best’ is not nearly so interesting as everything you’ll learn and reveal about both by comparing them.
I also understand Ian’s concerns – I know Topspin’s deep in the development phase, and that’s never a great time to feel up for comparison, especially by someone who, no matter how fair, lives in a rival camp.
So I say “Viva L’Experiment” but let’s keep in mind that both Nimbit and Topspin are being developed by real people who are creating platforms to empower us — real people in the music industry — to survive at the least and flourish at best in a very challenging environment.
(In other words … don’t kill the white mice!)
Deborah –
I almost never take a day off. But today, as I check my mail via iPhone from my seat at Fenway Park, I saw your comment. While trying to sound professional and cool, and not like some gushing fanboy……oh wow!!! I’m thrilled that you’ve commented. You’re an AMAZING musician, and I’m really flattered that you chose to comment.
Now then, the Red Sox are about to take the field….
Really cool idea here, Scott….but I think I’m going to have to agree with Ian from Topspin here….as impartial and honest you might like to be…no one will really 100% know except yourself.
I would actually be much more interested to hear the experiences from the band members’ point of view, and what they believe is working, and what isn’t.
Either way, I’ll be following the conversation! Thanks
Chris –
You’re totally on the mark. I expect lots of people to be skeptical here — everyone actually. But, the point is to create a channel where the entire experiment can be discussed, and that is being done openly. I’m definitely riding a fine line here…
The band is definitely involved in the decision making, actual product use, and they’re always invited to chime in whenever they want. Maybe with a little motivation/beer that’ll happen faster?