Since the release of RouteNotes’ Premium option we have seen great growth! RouteNote is already the largest independent digital music distributor in the UK.
When we first launched our Premium platform we ran a one off promotion that allowed artists to upload their albums for a one time fee and keep 100% of the revenues. Now we are about to head into the Christmas season, so we thought we would offer the promotion again!
The Offer:
Artists pay a Flat ONE TIME fee and keep 100% of the revenues.
$10 single, $20 EP, $30 album and $45 ext. album.
The Christmas promotion will last until the 1st of December so you must hurry!
All you need to do is signup and choose our Premium service. No codes required. Artists will receive all of RouteNote’s great partners, as well as free UPC and ISRC codes, and keep all 100% of their revenues! This promotion is only available for new content added to RouteNote.
It seems like Weezer focused on calling their new album Hurley to have a better chance at branding products around the album. Weezer has teamed up with Nike-owned surf and skateboard clothing label Hurley on a promotional collaboration that ties in directly with the title of the band’s upcoming album, Hurley.
This clothing collection will be limited edition and is scheduled to be available in PacSun stores in the US tomorrow.
We thought that all RouteNote artists might be interested in a new free service from Amazon, called Artist Central.
Artist Central allows artists to add their own content to Amazon.com Artist Stores. This helps music fans on amazon.com discover artists and their work more easily, and leads to greater sales.
Users can upload photos, a bio, videos, and audio for promotional streaming, as well as utilize new features like a Twitter widget and customizable banners to create a robust, customized Artist Store on Amazon.com, ultimately helping customers discover artists and their work more easily. Check out the artist store for Band of Horses (www.amazon.com/bandofhorses) to see these features in action.
Artist Central is completely free to anyone selling their music on Amazon.com. Getting started is easy and only takes a few minutes. Just go to Artist Central (http://artistcentral.amazon.com) and sign in with your Amazon account to claim your artist. (If there is currently no artist store for your artist, you can click “Create a new Artist Store”.) Claims are usually approved within 1-2 days.
Once you have been approved, you can then add your photos, video, banners and more. Please review the Artist Page Banner Creation Tips and Guidelines when creating a banner for your artist store. The Guidelines can be downloaded from the banner upload tool on the Artist Central site.
Ok Go has been receiving a huge amount of press over the last three months and this week is no different. OK Go won a Webby award for their online videos and now they are running a Facebook competition with their fans. Their fans are being encouraged to share one of their videos and whoever gets the most comments on their wall wins an engraved iPad.
Its great to see OK Go coming up with some interesting promotional ideas and trying to get the fans to help them promote their music.
Yesterday at the San Francisco MusicTech Summit a new company called Headliner.fm launched. Headliner.fm is a service that allows artists to cross promote music they like on their social networks and streams.
There are a lot of artists who want to know how to use iTunes to increase their sales on iTunes. Here at RouteNote we have a lot of artists who do amazingly well from their sales on iTunes, and a top seller has provided the musicthinktank with some amazing tips on how to sell more on iTunes.
With iTunes you really need to promote yourself within the walls of iTunes, and this goes a long way to help you sell and grow your fan based across other sites.
Here is a step by step process on how to promote yourself within iTunes. Please remember that this does take a lot of time, but overall can really get some great results.
Step 1 – Sign up to iTunes and Buy Some Music
The first thing you should do is signup and buy some music (your and your friends), this gets you familiar with the process of buying, plus this will come in handy when you ask your fans to buy your tracks later.
Step 2 – Create at Least 5 profile accounts
Did you know that with each credit card that you register with iTunes you get 5 separate accounts? iTunes designed it this way so families in one household can all use one card.
All profiles are kept completely seperate and not interconnected. One of the profiles will be use by you as your main account, but you can use the other 4 accounts to help promote yourself.
TIP: While you are creating these profiles: Think about your target audience – who are they? Older dudes that like prog rock, or teenagers that like Britney Spears? Create profiles that would fit the types of people who like your music. Choose a name for each profile so they each have an individual personality. Give them distinct personalities and even imagine where they might be from.
Step 3 – Review Other Artists
With each profile – individually begin to review other people’s music. You definitely want to review three or four other artists that have nothing to do with you or your genre so choose some of the artists that have influenced you or artists that you like and create some reviews.
Step 4 – Create iMixes
You will need to create 2 categories of iMixes:
1: iMixes that have nothing to do with you and your music
Examples:
Best of Madonna
Great local bands from your hometown
Best of Bob Marley
Best of the 1970’s
2. iMixes that INCLUDE YOUR OWN MUSIC
Create mixes that include your own tracks with other complimentary tracks (artists you get compared to and who you are influenced by that sound good when played next to your songs). When you create iMixes think of yourself as a DJ or a curator and piece together thoughtful lists.
TIP: Add some of the top sellers from each week in your genre and style as buyers will already be looking for the top sellers when they come to iTunes.
TIP: You should create an iMix at least one time per week per account.
Step 5 – Vote for iMixes
Make sure you vote on as many iMixes as possible. Vote for your own iMixes using all of your profiles.
COOL: iMixes that begin to pick up votes rise to the top where other buyers will begin to respond to them and purchase your iMixes.
A Note about iMix voting: People who are key users who are also heavily promoting their own music sometimes can be competitive. They may try to vote your iMixes down so that the iMixes that they have created rise to the top.
What my friend says about this: Being malicious on iTunes is awful. Don’t give other people bad reviews. Stay away from this type of negative behavior. Just focus on your own voting and contributions.
Step 6 – Master iMix Sandwiching
When you create an iMix, you want to sandwich yourself between hot chart-toppers in your genre, and add artists that already have five-star reviews.
For each iMix, make it at least 20 songs, but you can go to 40 or 50 songs. To stay on top of the charts for your iMix, you must get the most votes and the most stars.
TIP: Don’t forget to vote for other people’s iMixes so it looks like you are well-rounded.
This is where registering different credit cards and different personalities so you can actually log in and vote for yourself comes in handy.
Step 7 – Remove Unpopular iMixes & Update Them
If your iMix fals below three stars you should take your iMix down from iTunes, add some new tracks to it, and then add it again as an updated iMix.
It will take a few hours for your updated iMix to show back up into the iTunes profiles, but you don’t want to have a poorly rated iMix sitting in the iTunes system with your music in it.
How To Update an iMix: In order to update an I-Mix: Click on the arrow on iTunes. Then click on “update,” and add some new tracks,
TIP: Don’t rename your iMix
iMixes are good for a whole year, so you want to make sure that you start voting, when it goes back up. It takes between 6 to 12 hours for a newly edited or a new iMix to show up.
Here’s The Wrap Up:
For each profile you create: Their iMixes to match their personality:
1. Create then wait for your iMix to show up.
2. Log in as each of your different reviewers and users.
3. Vote five stars from each of the profiles you have created.
4. Start watching your music sell
5. Go in two times per week and create new iMixes.
6. After a while to stay in the most recent, you must continue to make new iMixes. Vote, vote and vote.
7. Remember, you must log in and submit votes for each of the iMixes with each of your separate accounts and many sepearte times. This is the most time consuming part of the process, but if you do this, the rewards and the sales will pay off deeply
8. Log in and vote for: Was this review helpful? And click yes per account. This will help your iMix move up the charts.
9. When you make an iMix, don’t only include the chart toppers, but also include what appeals to you as a listener and what the fans of this iMix might actually like.
10. Remember, you are creating a useful contribution to the iTunes community. The key is make iMixes on Mondays because on Tuesdays the new release schedule will kick in and that’s when your iMixes will show up
Coke first previewed a new album during Midem in January which collaborates members from Gnarls Barkley, Fall Out Boy, Panic At The Disco and Gym Class Heroes. Now Coke has properly debuted tracks in TV ads, while also being heavily promoted online and sold through iTunes.
You might have noticed RouteNote has now added a new tools section. Artists can see this tools section once they log into their account and the tools tab can be found in the headerbar. The aim of the tools page is to provide RouteNote artists with tools and options that will help them promote and market themselves on the ever growing internet.
The tools page will offer options in the following categories, Offers and Deals, Banners, Self Promotion eBooks, Widgets, Link and Linkmaker, and Online Advertising.
There are a lot of artists who want to know how to use iTunes to increase their sales on iTunes. Here at RouteNote we have a lot of artists who do amazingly well from their sales on iTunes, and a top seller has provided the 