20: Don’t Just Give it Away.... Get Their Email Addresses

Trade your content for an email address. Many fans aren’t willing to pay for your music. That’s okay. But get SOMETHING for it. An email is next best. Artists who exchange email address and permission to market for a song download grow their mailing list 600% faster than those who do not. ReverbNation has offered this feature (as simple as checking a box on a song you upload) for almost 2 years and it works.

- Jed Carlson

http://www.reverbnation.com

54: Use the Social Networks Properly: Build That List!

When people pass thru your social network profiles (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc.) get them to come back your own web site that YOU CONTROL. To do this, give songs away for free in return for email addresses. ReverbNation’s Fan Exclusive Widget will facilitate this. Offer fans something special that makes them feel like they are a real fan and you really care about them. Social networks are all good, but they should be treated as lead-generation sources. They are free billboards on the super highway of information. Be there, but have something that extracts value and move those listeners down the fan funnel to something valuable for you.

- Lou Plaia

63: Study Your Analytics – Google, ReverbNation, & Rockdex

 Use the data you can easily get from Google, ReverbNation, and Rockdex (among others) to learn more about your fans – who they are, where they are listening, what they are listening to, for how long, etc. The more you know about them, the easier it is to connect with them and market to them. You can also use this data to easily get sponsors. Brands want to know who your fans are, how many you have, how engaged you are with them, etc. They don’t care about “Friends”, they want to know about your real fans, your engagement with them and the size of your mailing list.

- Lou Plaia

http://www.reverbnation.com

Rockdex can see who is talking about you online and can track how many people are added to each of your social networks by searching blogs, micro-blogs, music sites and delivering you the hard results via reports with actual metrics on how many po- tential fans have visited your social networking sites. http://www.rockdex.com

- Christina Duren