A common misconception of direct-to-fan strategies is that they are somehow reserved for under-the-radar bands with less-visible results. Not so. Done correctly, direct-to-fan campaigns can be just as effective-if not more so-as a major label release. 

Take the English ska band Madness. Their 7th studio album - “Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da” - debuted at No. 10 on the UK Albums Chart on 4 November 2012. That’s a top-ten charting album, released on their own, on the back of a campaign done entirely direct-to-fan using the Topspin platform. And it’s a typical example of how artists who are willing to take control and work on their own behalf and their fans can reap notable rewards. Madness is not unfamiliar with the concept of control. They founded two record labels-Zarjazz Records and Lucky 7 Records-and even ran their own studio back in 1985, so using the Topspin platform to self-manage their album release campaign wasn’t a big step. But artists don’t need to have this same level of experience to follow in their footsteps. Here’s how they did it:

1. Shortly after the announcement of their new album, but before its release, the band offered a free download of the song “Death of a  Rude Boy” from the upcoming album. They placed a Topspin Labs HTML5 widget on their blog that allowed fans to submit their email in exchange for the free download.
2. This widget was prominently featured on their website, an important component for anyone pursuing this strategy, and as a result garnered over 10,000 email signups.
3. They followed up with exclusive content. Fans could pre-order special edition 4-disc version of the album directly from the band’s website. The special edition is packed with exclusive content, including a first ever live performance DVD and Oui Oui Ouija board game artwork.

Direct-to-fan doesn’t have to be hard. In fact, at Topspin our goal is to make it easy. It just required smart planning, focused execution, and genuine passion. Combined, it can be the foundation of an artist’s career, one that opens up new possibilities for fan communication, commerce and creative freedom.

Madness Website
Madness Twitter
Topspin HTML E4M Widget

Headed to Austin for SXSW? We want to buy you brunch. Take a break from playing music and learn how to get paid for it! Sip the best bloody mary’s in Austin and shake hands with the music heads from MTV, CMT, VH1 and Topspin.

OPEN TO ALL ARTISTS! First come, first served!

When: Wednesday, March 13 from 11:00am - 2:00pm
Where: Rio Rita, 1308 East 6th St

Great deals for your spring releases!

Getting ready to release a new project? We’re offering a special on three months of Topspin, during which time you’ll have top priority in our support queue and get live chat support during business hours. On top of that, we’ll send you one of our fancy new Topspin “Making Real Money For Artists Since 2007” T-shirts.

Buy Now!

See y’all in Austin!

Wanna meet up? Connect with the team on the ground in Austin via Twitter and we’ll hang. Be the first person on the street to say “Hi!” to each of the Topspin staff (see who will be there) and you’ll get a Topspin T-shirt and a $500 comp card good for a free year of Topspin Plus!

Contact Us!

Last Friday Dawes released the first single from their upcoming record. “From A Window Seat” is ever true to their folk-rock roots and tells a refreshing story with a familiar sound, authentically captured by the cover art. Listen to the track below.

The new record drops on April 9th and the best place to pick it up is right from their site at dawestheband.com. Aside from the standard vinyl, CD and T-shirt offer, the band is releasing a hardbound autographed book. It contains over 40 never-before-seen photos of the band’s recording process and has been hand-signed by the band. 

Stories Don’t End marks the band’s 3rd record (and the 2nd album that has been sold on Topspin). Their music continues invoke feeling of old storytelling traditions that one may associate with a modern day troubadour, and just as the old minstrels literally went directly to their audiences to play music, Dawes has gone direct-to-fan with their newest pre-order. For the initiated this record is a definite must-have. For the rest, this is a great time to sit down and hear what Dawes has to say. 

by @nic_hsc

Dawes Website
Dawes Twitter

I first heard Trifonic’s music in 2008 through Ourstage, a site which facilities an internet-wide battle of the bands. I had my own music up there at the time (please don’t look for it), and while browsing through the various genres I stumbled on Trifonic’s Parks on Fire. It really caught my ear, so much so that high school me recorded the track from their Myspace onto a cassette via a 3.5mm cable (I ended up buying the track on iTunes). 

Some background on the group: Trifonic is a duo made up of the two brothers, Brian and Lawrence Trifon. The indie electronic act is based out of San Francisco, and have had their music featured in TV shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS) and 90210 (CW). Trifonic has been on Topspin since 2008, and in November of 2012 they released their 2nd LP, Ninth Wave. I spoke to Lawrence and he was excited to share the story behind the release. Below are his words:

“For the release of Ninth Wave, we decide to offer the typical assortment of direct-to-fan packages on our website via Topspin: A standard digital download ($6), a physical CD ($11), t-shirts ($20), and hoodies ($50).

Additionally, we wanted to offer a “Producer’s Edition” of the album which, along with the album tracks, included downloads of full audio stems for each track (for creating remixes), video tutorials about how each song was made, and virtual instrument sample kits (for fans to use in their own tracks). We priced the Producer’s Edition at $30 for digital only and $35 including a CD.

Problem

The Producer’s Edition bonus content ended up being over 10GB worth of files, which is way too large to offer as one download file. Therefore, we couldn’t just create a standard Topspin Digital Package for the Producer’s Edition. We needed to figure out a way to deliver the Producer’s Edition content in multiple segments. 

Topspin Solution

David Widaman of the Topspin Support Team helped us figure out a great solution for our unique challenge.

First, we found this technical workaround for delivering large download files in segments, which involves splitting your download into separate pieces and configuring the Offer as if it were a pre-order. The only problem with this technique was that we could only split the download into a max of 3 segments. We needed to split our Producer’s Edition content into at least 10 segments to make the download manageable for purchasers.

When we emailed David about our challenge, he had a brilliant, simple solution: Make the 3rd segment a PDF file containing a list of Download Links for the rest of the content! That’s exactly what we did. We delivered the Producer’s Edition offer in the following segments:

• Segment 1: Album tracks
• Segment 2: Virtual instrument kits
• Segment 3: A PDF containing download links for the tutorial videos (split into 2 zip files) and track audio stems (1 zip file for each track)

Results

The extra work we put in to deliver the Producer’s Edition has certainly paid off:

• 35% of Ninth Wave purchases have been for the Producer’s Edition.
  
• Average revenue per transaction has been just over $17, which is 2-3x greater than we’d expect from just selling standard digital downloads and CDs.
• On a revenue basis, the Producer’s Edition has accounted for over 60% of Ninth Wave sales.

Any way you look at it, the Producer’s Edition has been a great success for Trifonic. The flexibility of Topspin’s platform allowed us to deliver a unique premium offer to our fans that ultimately drove the financial success of our direct-to-fan campaign. I’m not sure how we would have delivered the Producer’s Edition without Topspin - it certainly would have required a lot more time, work, and cost to find an alternative solution.” - @ltrifon

by @nic_hsc
Trifonic Website
Trifonic Twitter

“Amanda Palmer raised a record-breaking $1,192,793 on Kickstarter from 24,883 fans — an average of nearly $50 per person — to fund her album “Theatre is Evil” last May. A few months later, presale tickets for her worldwide tour sold out for every city in hours, and her album debuted on the Billboard Top 10. [1]”

Amanda Palmer and the team that worked to generate that level of success will be speaking at SXSW Music on Wednesday, March 13. More details can be found here.

Nicole St. Jean from Topspin(that’s us!) will be presenting at the event along side Amanda Palmer. The talk is called “The Anatomy of Amanda Fucking Palmer: An Inside Look,” and judging from Amanda Palmer’s liner art and onstage antics it’s a story she has been trying to tell for a long time (warning nsfw). We ran Amanda’s pre-sale ticketing campaign, so Nicole will present a unique insider’s perspective on the marketing and ticketing process.

To see the schedule please visit SXSW.

@nic_hsc

[1]http://schedule.sxsw.com/2013/events/event_MP7424

Lil Wayne’s Young Money is giving away the track “Bitches Love Me (ft. Drake, Future)” in exchange for email addresses using a Topspin Email for Media widget and the Labs Bleach tool. See the widget below, and visit youngmoney.com to see it in context. 

Check Out…
Topspin Labs
Learn more about Bleach
Youngmoney.com

@briantmoore