With the past decade of decentralization in the music industry, there are plenty of opportunities for musicians to find and connect with fans on their own, provide products at varying price points to these fans, and pull off creative marketing campaigns to help existing fans tell your story to their friends. In many cases, established artists have had years of label support to help create a dedicated fanbase, which these artists can then continue to tap into directly, even if they are no longer affiliated with the label. For developing, unsigned artists, there can certainly be a bit of a "Catch 22" when it comes to funding the activities they need to engage in to find their core fanbase, engage with this fanbase, and ultimately monetize this fanbase. How does a developing artist fund the marketing initiatives necessary to generate a core fanbase, without having a fanbase to tap into? In this presentation, we'll discuss the various methods that musicians and music business entrepreneurs can use to fund their activities, from traditional opportunities to more cutting-edge options for generating funding.

1. Funding Your Music Project
Mike King: Instructor and Course Author, Berkleemusic
Berklee College of Music

2. How Music Works – David Byrne

3. Steal Like An Artist – Austin Kleon

4. Steal Like An Artist – Austin Kleon
―The Only Art I’ll Every Study Is Art I Can Steal From.‖ – David Bowie
•Nothing is Original
• You are the Sum of your Influences
• Your Job is to Collect Good Ideas
• Your Job is to School Yourself on
What Came Before

5. Steal Like An Artist – Austin Kleon
The Genealogy of Ideas: Every New Idea is a Remix of Previous Ideas
•This Idea is not new: Miles Davis was
a Disciple of George Russell
•Some of the Best Music Marketing
and Creative Funding Ideas Come
from Outside of the Music Business
•Hugh McLeod, Clay Shirky, Seth
Godin: All Massive Influencers for
Music Creators, None are Solely
Music Focused.

6. Steal Like An Artist – Austin Kleon
Creative Leaps Are Made Through Combination
Question:
What does this mean for
funding your own project?
Answer:
• Read, Learn, Stay Aware
• Iterate on existing ideas
• Karma: share your results

7. Introduction: The “Catch-22” of Funding
"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed. "It's the best there is.‖
• Established artists have had years of label support
to help create a dedicated fan base, which these
artists can then continue to tap into directly, even if
they are no longer affiliated with the label.
• How does a developing artist fund the marketing
initiatives necessary to generate a core fan base,
without having a fan base to tap into?

8. Part One: Building a Foundation
•Common Trait Associated with
Failed Campaigns: engaging in
funding activities prior to
developing a base.
•Awareness and Acquisition of
fans is a necessity prior to any
extensive funding activities.
•Key Channels for Discussion:
Web, Social, Email, PR, Touring.

9. Awareness: Your Own Web Site
•Two major ways to approach
Web optimization. #1: SEO.
• The search engines look at a
variety of factors in determining
how relevant your site is,
including the freshness of your
content, how many relevant sites
are pointing to you, and how
appropriate your messaging is in
terms of the search phrase.

10. Acquisition: Your Own Web Site
•Once you have captured the attention of potential fans via SEO,
next step is to acquire a permission based contact through the
release of free content.
• Email is still a very effective conversion tool if used properly.
•Topspin, Bandcamp, Official.fm, many more.

11. Awareness and Acquisition: Third Party Sites
• Ian Rogers: ―You never want
your fans to come up empty in
any online search.‖
• Acquisition example:
YouTube video with the option
of downloading the MP3 in
exchange for an email
address.
•No longer an issue to have
your music on all the major
online retail outlets for a low
cost from Tunecore of CD
Baby.

12. Awareness and Acquisition: Social
• Best way to acquire fans on
social outlets? Create amazing
content that your fan base will
want to share with their
friends, who in turn will provide
you with additional permission
based contacts.
• Facebook: Great content
rewarded via EdgeRank.
• Posting engaging content,
open communication, and
responding to fans posts
results in more visibility.

13. Best Practices: Email
•Provide Something of Value. Seth Godin
would call this the "prize inside." What can
you offer in your emails that is compelling?
• Frequency. Review open rates and click
through rates. All fans bases are different,
and determining how often your fans want to
hear from you is important.
•Creating Email Lists Organically. While it's
possible to purchase email lists, it is not
advisable. You want to be reaching out to folks
that want to hear from you, as opposed to
folks you have paid for.

14. Awareness and Acquisition: PR
•Acquisition through
online PR can also be an
effective way to build up
a permission-based
fanbase. Artists can ask
writers to include the
embed code for a
streaming player / email
for media player in their
review of a live show or
other outreach.

15. Awareness and Acquisition: Touring
•Don't be shy about
collecting email
addresses at live events.
Providing a reason for
fans to give their contact
info greatly increase
response rate.
• Ben Folds kills it.

16. Traditional Funding Options for Musicians
•Funding from a Label
•Traditional DIY
Approach to Funding
•Grants
•Sponsorships

17. Overview: Funding from a Label
•The labels are still powerhouses
in the recorded music world, and
still have the ability to fund A-
level projects in a very serious
way.
•Tour Support, Advances, Radio
Support, Video Support,
Marketing.
• With leverage, artists can get
more fair deals. Karmin, Arcade
Fire examples.

18. Overview: Traditional Approach to DIY Funding
•DIY funding is not new. Bands
have been funding their projects
on their own for years.
• Slow build. Start out making
$50 or $100 a show, and you just
save it. From there, keep costs
low, and tour, tour, tour.
• ―To me, a bands job is to go on
tour. From a financial standpoint,
it's crushing and devastating if a
band doesn't tour.‖ Syd Butler,
Les SavyFav

19. Overview: Grants
•There are governmental and
private grants available for many
artistic endeavors, including
dance, music, education, and
much more.
•Example: Canadian grants.
FACTOR provides grants up to
$40,000; Starmaker
Fundprovides up to $50,000 in
funding for digital marketing per Barr Brothers used Canadian Grants Extensively
release; MuchFACT covers up to
50 percent of the video
production budget to a maximum
of $25,000

20. Overview: Sponsorships
•Sponsorships are open to artists
of all levels. Key is to prove value
to potential sponsor.
• Press story is important:
Example: Stringbuilder and
Greyhound.
• Sponsorships vary greatly in
scope and detail, and could be
useful in everything from
providing free gear for your live
event, tour support, or other
financial needs.

21. New Funding Opportunities for Musicians
Fan Funding Developments: Options and Best Practices
•Growing trend within the music
industry: online fan funding or
crowd funding.
• Fan funding complements
existing forms of funding.
• Fan funding is not an either/or
situation. Online fan funding
options can certainly live along
side of grants, touring, and other
forms of funding for musicians.

22. Fan Funding Overview
•Fan funding is an extension of
the direct to fan approach to
marketing and sales.
• Successful campaigns focus on
providing fans with unique items
that are unavailable elsewhere.
• Successful campaigns also
speak to the artist’s personal Erin McKeown
interests. Erin McKeown is an
outspoken advocate for artist's
rights, and offered to sign over
her checks from Spotify for $11
pledge.

23. Fan Funding Industry Leaders
Over two dozen fan funding services currently exist
•Best in Breed: Kickstarter, Pledge
Music, Indiegogo.
Two Basic Models
•All or Nothing
o $ only collected from the
contributors if the fundraising
goal is met.
• Keep it All
o Whether the goal is met or not,
all of the funds collected (minus
commission) are handed over to
the artist.

24. Kickstarter: Overview
•Founded in 2008 by Perry Chen,
Yancey Strickler, and Charles Adler,
Kickstarter is currently the world's
largest funding platform for creative
projects
• Music projects are also
successfully funded at a high rate—
52 percent of music projects reach
their goals versus 44 percent of all
other projects.
• More than $42 million has been
pledged to Kickstarter music projects
by more than 600,000 people.

25. Kickstarter: Details
•There are no gates or middlemen
involved in determining whether or
not your project is "worthy" for a
Kickstarter release. Easy CMS.
• Currently U.S. and U.K. only.
•All or Nothing model. Kickstarter will
take five percent of the funds
raised. Amazon will also apply a
credit card processing fee of around
three to five percent of funds raised.

26. PledgeMusic: Overview
•PledgeMusic was founded in August of
2009 by Benji Rogers.
• Worldwide access.
• Unlike Kickstarter, all projects on
PledgeMusic have active involvement
from the PledgeMusic team.

27. PledgeMusic: Details
•Not all submissions are accepted by
PledgeMusic. PledgeMusic bases
their decision on the amount of
leverage and permission based
contacts an artist has.
• All or Nothing model. Over 80
percent of projects launched on the
site successfully reach their
fundraising target.
•Fee: PledgeMusic charge a flat, 15
percent commission on all money
raised, which covers all fees,
personalized assistance

28. PledgeMusic: Case Study
• Rachael Yamagata: PledgeMusic
user, Berkleemusic student.
―I’m a major label artist turned
independent with 11 years between
RCA and Warner Brothers. Averaging
4 years between releases - very
frustrating!! Led me to wanting a direct
approach to record and release music
that cut out the middleman of anyone
saying it couldn't be done.‖ – Rachael
Yamagata

29. PledgeMusic: Case Study / PROS
1. The Team. ―The team at Pledge 3. They Helped Promote my
and the fact that it all centered Campaign. ―Whether it was a
around music was my deciding feature on their home page or
point. The sheer energy and inclusion on their newsletter - it
enthusiasm of the 'team' got my widened my audience. The
attention.‖ mutual benefits of Pledge
talking about me, and me
2. The Technical Infrastructure. talking about Pledge, were
―The set up of their system great.‖
allowed me to be my own
distributer of digital and physical
goods in one place with all the
technical organization handled
on their end.‖

30. PledgeMusic: Case Study / Challenges
1. Time Commitment. ―It was like 3. Offers. ―I had 'handwritten
having a second full time job in lyric books' as a pledge. I
addition to making a record, offered them for $50 a piece.
touring, promoting it, structuring Little did I realize that 10 songs
the release as an independent = 10 pages = 500 total
artist - artwork, videos etc.‖ handwritten pages to complete
this one item. One of my songs
2. Shipping. ―I did everything myself is so wordy it took me over half
and it was insane. Investigate an hour for that page alone. I
shipping supplies in bulk and then hand bound them, signed
postage alternatives. Don't forget them etc. This was just one
international shipping. I filled out item.”
over 500 custom forms in
addition to addressing each
package with an address.‖

31. Indiegogo: Overview
•Founded by DanaeRingelmann,
Slava Rubin, and Eric Schell in 2008.
• Similar to Kickstarter, the service is
not focused solely on music. For
example, in February 2012, President
Barack Obama's Startup America
partnered with Indiegogo to offer
crowd funding to entrepreneurs in the
U.S.
•Indiegogo has helped to fund
projects across the creative
spectrum, including music, charity,
small business and film.

32. Indiegogo: Details
•International scope.
• Offers both the All or Nothing / Keep
It All Models.
•Indiegogo takes four percent of the
funds raised if you reach your funding
goals. If you are using All or Nothing
and you do not hit your goal, you are
charged nothing and the funds are
returned to the donors. However,
Keep it All campaigns that do not
meet their goal are able to keep the
amount raised, but are charged nine
percent.

33. THANK YOU
• Twitter: @atomzooey
•www.Berkleemusic.com: Online Music Marketing, Online
Music Marketing with Topspin, Music Marketing 101
•mikeking.berkleemusicblogs.com
•www.musicmarketingbook.com
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