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P. Diddy's STARMAKER set to premiere on MTV - August 16th
Promotions Game Is All About Numbers
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P. Diddy's STARMAKER set to premiere on MTV - August 16th

Posted: 21 Jul 2009 01:27 PM PDT

Hello!

Hope you are doing well!

I wanted to reach out regarding “P. Diddy’s STARMAKER” (also executive produced by Mark Burnett – their first collaboration), as Monet Monico (a Westlake Village, CA native) is a contestant competing on the show.

STARMAKER is set to premiere Sunday, August 16th, right after “America’s Best Dance Crew.” The show features Diddy along with music industry vets, Laurieann Gibson (choreographer to megastars like the Jonas Brothers, Mary J. Blige, Alicia Keys and Diddy), Tamara Conniff (former executive-in-chief at Billboard Magazine), Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins (Grammy-award winning songwriter/producer of superstars like Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Janet Jackson, Pussycat Dolls, Destiny's Child, Mary J. Blige, etc).

You can see and hear more about the upcoming show here:
http://www.transfermediagroup.com/MNR/starmaker/starmaker.html

Please let me know if you might have any interest in speaking with Monet Monico about competing on a show created by A-list executive producers P. Diddy and Mark Burnett!

Thank you!

Krysten Kabzenell
Publicity - Coordinator
Transfer Media Group
www.transfermediagroup.com
C: 818.640.2911

Promotions Game Is All About Numbers

Posted: 21 Jul 2009 11:28 AM PDT

I've run across a few situations recently where people have been limiting the amount of their music that can be heard online. So here's a few thoughts about free streaming music, and the business model involved:

Most of the research I've seen - as well as the conversations I've had - tell us that a reasonable percentage of people still buy CDs. They still want music on CD, and are going to buy the music they like.

Nothing that I've seen or heard tells me that music fans will pay money for a CD in order to hear music they're restricted from hearing online - just so they can find out if it's good or not - or that people who buy CDs are happy to sit and click 'play' over and over again on last.fm instead of buying music…

There are people who like music on CD, and there are people who like the digital version. Some people divide their listening into music that's 'good enough to buy' and music that's streamable but not worth parting with cash. There seems to be precious little evidence that people DON'T buy things because they've heard them, or do buy them because they haven't been allowed to hear the whole thing…

So, what's the business model?

Well, if a certain percentage of your audience will be CD buyers regardless of how they find out about you, and another chunk of them aren't going to buy your music, no matter what, the connection you want to make is to get as many people as possible listening to you, so that the percentage that are into buying stuff will get on and do it.

So it makes sense to make it available to hear as easily as possible. Whether or not you do free downloads is largely moot. The important thing is that at the point when someone hears about you, they can then hear you. Last.fm, Reverbnation, Myspace, facebook, Spotify, Napster, Rhapsody, iLike… all these are places where people find out about music. There's no guarantees that just by being on there, you're going to get an audience. But there is a guarantee that if you're not on there, your potential audience are going to be discovering someone else.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again and again until it becomes the norm: having an audience of 500,000 that aren't currently making you any money would be an INCREDIBLELY WONDERFUL problem to have to solve. I can't think of many puzzles I'd rather tackle. Having no audience, a cupboard full of CDs that nobody knows about and no plan for getting people to hear your music, talk about it and come and see you in concert is a bloody awful situation to be in. I'd hate to be there.

At the moment, I'm somewhere between the two. I've got an audience, enough of them are happy to pay for either CDs or higher-res downloads that my music career is well in the black. It's not 500,000, but neither do I have mountains of unheard CDs that are being considered for the recycle bin.

So, get heard! That's #1, #2 & #3 on your list. Once you've got people listening to you, excited about what you're doing, interested in the how, where and why of what you do, THEN they are are likely to provide you with the answer to how to make some money out of it, without you even struggling.

* T-shirts
* gig tickets
* house concerts
* premium web content
* super hi-res audio
* CDs and limited edition boxed sets
* posters
* key-rings
* or good ole fashioned generous donations from people grateful for your music -

there are TONNES of ways to 'monetize' your music. But finding an audience and making your music available to them used to cost a fortune and require you to be magazine and radio friendly. Now it's just a matter of telling your story and getting your friends and fans to do the same. Easy as pie. From www.stevelawson.net

Jay-Z Billboard Magazine Cover

Posted: 21 Jul 2009 11:25 AM PDT