MusicToday.com For Independent Musicians

June 22, 2007 by Jo Minor 


Question: Where can an independent artist go for one-stop merchandising and event management solutions?

Answer: www.MusicToday.com

Quote from FastCompany.com:

Founded by Coran Capshaw, the storied but reticent manager of the Dave Matthews Band, Musictoday works behind the scenes to fashion an online identity for artists, then connects them with fans–and drives commerce. It feeds the sort of passion, or obsession, that turns a $20 teddy bear in a Dylan shirt or a $45 Red Hot Chili Peppers messenger bag into a necessity. It fulfills fantasies: owning Carlos Santana’s black fedora, say, or playing blackjack and softball with the Backstreet Boys, or sitting in on a soundcheck with John Mayer. Musictoday can even help fans become part of the music itself, as when Christina Aguilera incorporated their voice-mail messages into “Thank You,” a song on Back to Basics, her most recent release. “This is all about taking your fans behind the velvet rope,” says Matt Blum, Musictoday’s fan-club manager.

While the big money is still in touring, Musictoday rechannels revenue streams–merchandise margins and ticket fees that traditionally padded someone else’s pocket–in the talent’s direction. For new or lesser-known bands, that money could mean the difference between touring and trading in that Stratocaster for a busboy tray. “Somebody you’ve never heard of will sell $10 million in merchandise in two years,” says Jim Kingdon, executive vice president. And for megabands like Dave Matthews, which has more than 80,000 fans paying $35 a year for fan-club membership alone, the money can snowball.

MusicToday.com offers a host of convenient (to say the least) services for the independent musician:

  1. Artist Stores - You’ll have the ability to offer CD pre-order campaigns. These campaigns build an artist’s direct sale of music, while also bundling those sales with other merchandise items and driving additional sales. Musictoday® pioneered this functionality, and apparently their clients have found CD pre-orders to be a significant revenue stream.
  2. Digital Downloads - This service allows fans to come to an artist’s site to buy music or video in digital format directly from the artist, in an environment branded to match the artist’s existing Web site. The artist need only provide Musictoday with the content, price, the file format and file security desired.
  3. Web Ticketing - You can process the ticket orders, print tickets, and provide ticket buyers with telephone and email customer service. You can also get access to on-line sales reports with respect to their ticket sales.
  4. Online fan clubs - The standard fan club services include exclusive content pages, message boards, chat rooms, fan-specific areas, access to prime tickets and opportunities to buy limited edition merchandise.
  5. CD Replication Service - Full-service compact disc replication services. You give tem the master copy, they replicate the CDs
  6. Email List Management - Host and administer official e-mail lists, as well as gather opt-ins through our store, fan-ticketing, public Web site and fan club products. Code is available to clients for integration into their existing Web sites, allowing consolidation of their mailing lists into Musictoday’s system.
  7. Web Hosting Solution - Get the physical environment necessary to keep our client sites up and running with 24/7 system monitoring. You may already have a web host, but these guys will probably be on a more reliable, dedicated server.
  8. Wholesale Fulfillment - You get online inventory management tools, which allows you to generate detailed reports (stock levels, open purchase orders, total unit sales, etc.) and submit orders online in both Excel and XML. With access to 1,000,000 square feet of available warehouse space, they can easily handle your storage needs.

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