Introduction
Incidi! is primarily a tool at your disposal through which you can sell your music to potentially thousands of people.
With Incidi!, your album has now entered the global music market of the Internet.
This market, however, is highly competitive: millions of albums and musicians in the world, at this very moment, are trying to capture the attention of people to be listend and purchased.
For instance, if you play pop / rock, now a fan of this genre can choose to spend his own money to buy your album or the new Coldplay's album: in fact, you're competing with Coldplay!
For this reason, if you hope to sell your music successfully, you must offer to the market a professional and interesting product (not only regarding the music, but also the visual elements, like the title, the cover and the packaging).
Also, the location where your product is shown (in this case, your album page on Incidi!) must be built in a professional and interesting way, because this will have a key role in attracting (or not) your potential buyers.
Finally, you must make yourself sure that your album is seen and heard by as many as possible of your potential buyers (your "target"). To accomplish this you must first identify your target audience, see where more likely you can find it, and "talk" with it in an appropriate way to persuade it to discover your own music.
If you have built and run your strategy in an optimal way, you will maximize the chances of selling your music.
With the analysis tools that Incidi! (via Google Analytics) makes available, you can have a feedback on what you are doing, and this will be very important to understand how your album and your promotion strategy are going, and possibly intervene to correct them.
In the next sections we will try to suggest you some ideas that might be useful to take advantage of Incidi!.
Short presentation, description and biography
With Incidi!, your album has now entered the global music market of the Internet.
This market, however, is highly competitive: millions of albums and musicians in the world, at this very moment, are trying to capture the attention of people to be listend and purchased.
For instance, if you play pop / rock, now a fan of this genre can choose to spend his own money to buy your album or the new Coldplay's album: in fact, you're competing with Coldplay!
For this reason, if you hope to sell your music successfully, you must offer to the market a professional and interesting product (not only regarding the music, but also the visual elements, like the title, the cover and the packaging).
Also, the location where your product is shown (in this case, your album page on Incidi!) must be built in a professional and interesting way, because this will have a key role in attracting (or not) your potential buyers.
Finally, you must make yourself sure that your album is seen and heard by as many as possible of your potential buyers (your "target"). To accomplish this you must first identify your target audience, see where more likely you can find it, and "talk" with it in an appropriate way to persuade it to discover your own music.
If you have built and run your strategy in an optimal way, you will maximize the chances of selling your music.
With the analysis tools that Incidi! (via Google Analytics) makes available, you can have a feedback on what you are doing, and this will be very important to understand how your album and your promotion strategy are going, and possibly intervene to correct them.
In the next sections we will try to suggest you some ideas that might be useful to take advantage of Incidi!.
The first things you must define in your album page are a short presentation, a description of your album and your artistic biography.
The role of the short presentation is to capture the attention of Incidi! users and to persuade them to click on your album.
This short presentation will also appear (along with the album title and cover) when your album page is shared on social networks using the button 'Share It!'.
A presentation really attractive to your target can be a key element of your promotion.
If, for example, you share your album page to a reggae group, fans of Bob Marley, on Facebook, your presentation (together with your album cover) will be the factor according to which each of your potential buyer will decide whether or not to click on your link.
The description of your music and your biography are equally important.
Not every visitor of your album page, in fact, will immediately want to listen to the songs; perhaps the first thing he will do is read the text on the page and, if not interested, he will not even give a chance to listen.
Try to put yourself in the shoes of an unknown visitor, who likes your genre, but still does not know you: what could persuade you to listen to the album? What you do not care at all?
Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby, has written interesting articles on how to call attention to your music . When you have time, give a read to it, it might help you.
On Incidi! you can modify your album presentation, description and biography directly from your account, clicking on the cover of the album, and then on 'Modify' button.
To write italic, add the tags <i> </i>. For example: <i>this sentence is in italic</i>.
A recommendation: do not write sentences in all capital letters or all italic, unless absolutely necessary, because they are perceived as an element of unprofessionalism.
Link and video
The role of the short presentation is to capture the attention of Incidi! users and to persuade them to click on your album.
This short presentation will also appear (along with the album title and cover) when your album page is shared on social networks using the button 'Share It!'.
A presentation really attractive to your target can be a key element of your promotion.
If, for example, you share your album page to a reggae group, fans of Bob Marley, on Facebook, your presentation (together with your album cover) will be the factor according to which each of your potential buyer will decide whether or not to click on your link.
The description of your music and your biography are equally important.
Not every visitor of your album page, in fact, will immediately want to listen to the songs; perhaps the first thing he will do is read the text on the page and, if not interested, he will not even give a chance to listen.
Try to put yourself in the shoes of an unknown visitor, who likes your genre, but still does not know you: what could persuade you to listen to the album? What you do not care at all?
Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby, has written interesting articles on how to call attention to your music . When you have time, give a read to it, it might help you.
On Incidi! you can modify your album presentation, description and biography directly from your account, clicking on the cover of the album, and then on 'Modify' button.
To write italic, add the tags <i> </i>. For example: <i>this sentence is in italic</i>.
A recommendation: do not write sentences in all capital letters or all italic, unless absolutely necessary, because they are perceived as an element of unprofessionalism.
In your album page you can place links to your websites and a video (which you must have first uploaded on YouTube).
Log into your account, and after clicking on the cover of the CD, click on the related 'Modify' button.
You can enter as many links as you want, separated by commas. For each link remove the part 'http://'.
For example www.mysite.com, www.myspace.com/mysite, www.youtube.com/mysite, etc..
To insert the video, go to the page of your video on YouTube, copy the URL field and paste it in the appropriate space in your account on Incidi!.
Remember to remove from here as part of the 'http://'.
For example www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI3qPvtYnv0
You can only enter one video.
Prices and discount
Log into your account, and after clicking on the cover of the CD, click on the related 'Modify' button.
You can enter as many links as you want, separated by commas. For each link remove the part 'http://'.
For example www.mysite.com, www.myspace.com/mysite, www.youtube.com/mysite, etc..
To insert the video, go to the page of your video on YouTube, copy the URL field and paste it in the appropriate space in your account on Incidi!.
Remember to remove from here as part of the 'http://'.
For example www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI3qPvtYnv0
You can only enter one video.
From your account, you can change the prices of your music (for each format on sale), and define a discount that we will use when we create our weekly special offers.
Remember that you can set a minimum price of € 2.00 for the album and € 0.60 for single tracks.
We try to put on offer, in rotation, all the albums that have a nonzero discount and whose discounted price is larger than minimum allowed price.
We are experimenting with various types of offers to try to understand what is most interesting for our users.
Our suggestion is to set a discount of € 2.00 or € 2.50.
We recommend checking every Monday (the update of the site is about before 11:00) if your album is inserted between the offers on the homepage.
Try to make the most of these offer periods by intensifying your promotion, because they can generate in your potential buyers an extra push to buy your album.
Album genre and similar artists
Remember that you can set a minimum price of € 2.00 for the album and € 0.60 for single tracks.
We try to put on offer, in rotation, all the albums that have a nonzero discount and whose discounted price is larger than minimum allowed price.
We are experimenting with various types of offers to try to understand what is most interesting for our users.
Our suggestion is to set a discount of € 2.00 or € 2.50.
We recommend checking every Monday (the update of the site is about before 11:00) if your album is inserted between the offers on the homepage.
Try to make the most of these offer periods by intensifying your promotion, because they can generate in your potential buyers an extra push to buy your album.
From your account you can set the genre of your album and what we call "similar artists".
As regards the genre, insert what best represents your music (e.g. melodic pop). We are working to add sub-categories, there is just some time to wait.
Regarding the "similar artists", you can put four names of famous artists who play a style similar to yours. Note that we use to make your album easy findable by the people who could appreciate it most.
Separate the four names with a comma (ex: John Smith, Flavio Bianchi,etc.)..
The first name you enter is the most important for the search engine in our site.
Banners and code to copy and paste
As regards the genre, insert what best represents your music (e.g. melodic pop). We are working to add sub-categories, there is just some time to wait.
Regarding the "similar artists", you can put four names of famous artists who play a style similar to yours. Note that we use to make your album easy findable by the people who could appreciate it most.
Separate the four names with a comma (ex: John Smith, Flavio Bianchi,etc.)..
The first name you enter is the most important for the search engine in our site.
In your account, clicking on the cover of your album, you will find some HTML code that you can use to create a banner linked to your album page.
You can copy and paste in all those sites that accept HTML (for example, your MySpace page). We are always working to create new and better ones.
The 'Share it!' button
You can copy and paste in all those sites that accept HTML (for example, your MySpace page). We are always working to create new and better ones.
In your album page, just below your album cover, you can find the 'Share It!' button.
This button allows you to share your album page on many social networks, together, in some cases (eg. when you share it on Facebook) with your short album presentation and your album cover.
We suggest you to regularly share your page in all the social network where you have an account and ask your friends to do the same thing.
For example, you can share your page on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, in your mailing list, on your blog...
Make yourself sure to have previously created an interesting and catchy short presentation of your album, to captures the attention of your target.
Read also the next paragraph 'Promotion of your album page'.
How to activate your Google Analytics reports
This button allows you to share your album page on many social networks, together, in some cases (eg. when you share it on Facebook) with your short album presentation and your album cover.
We suggest you to regularly share your page in all the social network where you have an account and ask your friends to do the same thing.
For example, you can share your page on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, in your mailing list, on your blog...
Make yourself sure to have previously created an interesting and catchy short presentation of your album, to captures the attention of your target.
Read also the next paragraph 'Promotion of your album page'.
With Incidi! You can view detailed statistics about access to your album page, including: how many unique visitors has had, how much time visitors have spent, what keywords they typed in search engines to find you, from which external sites did they come from, etc..
These data are collected by Google Analytics, a free tool made available by Google, which we normally use to monitor the activity of Incidi!.
You too can access this kind of statistics regarding your album page with a few simple steps:
1) If you haven't it already, open a Google account . It's free and it will take only a couple of minutes. In particular, you will be asked to provide Google with your email address.
2) Log into your account on Incidi!, click on your album cover and then on 'Google Analytics Account'. Enter the e-mail address previously specified to Google.
3) Go to your Google account and go to the main page . After some days of your e-mail insertion on your Incidi! account, you should see the tool 'Analytics'. Click it.
4) Click on 'View Report'.
You'll find all the statistics about your album page. Consider that it takes a few days from when you submit your e-mail to see meaningful data.
Please read the Google Help to understand how to read and interpret the data at best.
You can use this data as a feedback to understand how your album page and your promotional activity are going, and eventually improve them.
Promotion of your music
These data are collected by Google Analytics, a free tool made available by Google, which we normally use to monitor the activity of Incidi!.
You too can access this kind of statistics regarding your album page with a few simple steps:
1) If you haven't it already, open a Google account . It's free and it will take only a couple of minutes. In particular, you will be asked to provide Google with your email address.
2) Log into your account on Incidi!, click on your album cover and then on 'Google Analytics Account'. Enter the e-mail address previously specified to Google.
3) Go to your Google account and go to the main page . After some days of your e-mail insertion on your Incidi! account, you should see the tool 'Analytics'. Click it.
4) Click on 'View Report'.
You'll find all the statistics about your album page. Consider that it takes a few days from when you submit your e-mail to see meaningful data.
Please read the Google Help to understand how to read and interpret the data at best.
You can use this data as a feedback to understand how your album page and your promotional activity are going, and eventually improve them.
Here you can find some advices on how to promote your music.
First, you should try to identify the people to whom you will promote your music, in order to concentrate your efforts and resources on those who most likely will appreciate and buy your music (that is, your "target").
Who are your potential fans? What kind of music they listen to? What other artists they listen to? Where do they spend the most of their time, on the web?
When you have answered these questions, you should find the most efficient methods to reach as many targeted people as possible.
Are your potential fans attending certain social networks or forums? Are they reading certain blogs or online magazine? Are they watching certain videos? Start promoting your music there.
Finally, try to create a message that your potential fans might find it interesting, a message that convince them to listen to your music.
Try to put yourself in the shoes of who receives your message: if you are surfing the web and you see this message, does it encourage you to click on the link? Which expectations does the message generate in you? And does the page, where the link takes you, meet your expectations?
When you copy and paste the link to your album page on the web, include a short and meaningful description of your album. If possible, add video, promotional MP3s and your album cover.
Another tip: if you directly promote, for example with messages or comments on MySpace or Facebook, do not overdo it, don't spam, because otherwise it will produce negative results.
Facebook is an example of a virtual place where you can easily reach a wide audience selectable by interests. Besides Facebook, on the web there are many other popular sites where you can promote your music. Read the following paragraphs 'Facebook' and 'YouTube' for some more detailed tips.
In addition to direct messages (which may be inefficient), you may also use paid advertising services, such as those provided by Google AdWords or Facebook Ads.
These tools may result to be very effective, allowing you to reach many people quickly, keeping constantly under control the costs (because you set how much money you spend on your campaign).
With Incidi! you can use very well the potential of the web marketing, because, thanks to integration with the free tool Google Analytics, you can access detailed web statistics about your album page, and use them as a feedback to improve your promotional strategy in quasi real time.
If you play live, always distribute leaflets clearly indicating the link to your album page on Incidi!.
Comments and reviews
First, you should try to identify the people to whom you will promote your music, in order to concentrate your efforts and resources on those who most likely will appreciate and buy your music (that is, your "target").
Who are your potential fans? What kind of music they listen to? What other artists they listen to? Where do they spend the most of their time, on the web?
When you have answered these questions, you should find the most efficient methods to reach as many targeted people as possible.
Are your potential fans attending certain social networks or forums? Are they reading certain blogs or online magazine? Are they watching certain videos? Start promoting your music there.
Finally, try to create a message that your potential fans might find it interesting, a message that convince them to listen to your music.
Try to put yourself in the shoes of who receives your message: if you are surfing the web and you see this message, does it encourage you to click on the link? Which expectations does the message generate in you? And does the page, where the link takes you, meet your expectations?
When you copy and paste the link to your album page on the web, include a short and meaningful description of your album. If possible, add video, promotional MP3s and your album cover.
Another tip: if you directly promote, for example with messages or comments on MySpace or Facebook, do not overdo it, don't spam, because otherwise it will produce negative results.
Facebook is an example of a virtual place where you can easily reach a wide audience selectable by interests. Besides Facebook, on the web there are many other popular sites where you can promote your music. Read the following paragraphs 'Facebook' and 'YouTube' for some more detailed tips.
In addition to direct messages (which may be inefficient), you may also use paid advertising services, such as those provided by Google AdWords or Facebook Ads.
These tools may result to be very effective, allowing you to reach many people quickly, keeping constantly under control the costs (because you set how much money you spend on your campaign).
With Incidi! you can use very well the potential of the web marketing, because, thanks to integration with the free tool Google Analytics, you can access detailed web statistics about your album page, and use them as a feedback to improve your promotional strategy in quasi real time.
If you play live, always distribute leaflets clearly indicating the link to your album page on Incidi!.
Many people often decide whether or not to buy a product after reading the comments of those who have already purchased: the opinions of the other users can make the fortune (or misfortune) of a musical album too.
If you've noticed that your album is generally appreciated, you can use this idea to your advantage, and invite all your friends, listeners or buyers to review your music on Incidi!, and wherever your album is reviewable on the web, with a link to your album page on Incidi!.
Your album on eBay
If you've noticed that your album is generally appreciated, you can use this idea to your advantage, and invite all your friends, listeners or buyers to review your music on Incidi!, and wherever your album is reviewable on the web, with a link to your album page on Incidi!.
If you sell the physical CD with Incidi!, you may choose to include it, at no extra cost, even in our new shop on eBay.
Besides being a popular online auction site, eBay also offers opportunities to many shops to trade any kind of product to millions of users worldwide.
If you have not already done so, you can enable the sale of your physical CD on eBay directly from your account, clicking on the CD cover and then on the button 'Activate' (visible only if you sell the physical format).
We will notify you when your CD will be available for sale on eBay.
For more information, please also read how Incidi! works
Promote your music with Facebook
Besides being a popular online auction site, eBay also offers opportunities to many shops to trade any kind of product to millions of users worldwide.
If you have not already done so, you can enable the sale of your physical CD on eBay directly from your account, clicking on the CD cover and then on the button 'Activate' (visible only if you sell the physical format).
We will notify you when your CD will be available for sale on eBay.
For more information, please also read how Incidi! works
About Facebook we would like to spend some words more, because it can become an important promotional tool for your music.
There are already many methods that can be used to exploit its popularity, and many others are yet to be invented.
First of all, Facebook has a key feature: allows each user to easily share any news, video, or link to all persons known to him.
News, videos, music, and links on Facebook, can spread among hundreds of thousands of people with amazing rapidity. This characteristic can be exploited to genereate what marketers call the "viral marketing".
For this reason, we recommend that you regularly share your album page on Facebook, but also your pictures, your videos, the links to all your web pages, and ask your friends to do the same.
Concerning your album on Incidi!, you can easily do this by using the 'Share it' button in the right column of your album page, if you have a facebook account.
Moreover, try to include the link to your album page in every material you share: for example, put a link to your album page in your video on YouTube, then share it on Facebook. In addition, Facebook offers an effective and free way to communicate with your fans, promote your music, your videos and your concerts.
In particular, you can upload your recordings and make people listening to your songs, with a direct link to your album page on Incidi!.
If you want an example of how to use Facebook in this way, visit the U2 fan page .
Create a page like this is not difficult, but (at the time of writing) can be frustrating if you don't follow some precautions. Here are some tips on how to do it.
First, to create your page you must have a personal account on Facebook, that you can quickly create for free.
After creating your account, please log out and go back to the home page of Facebook.
From here, click on 'Create a Page for a celebrity, a band or a company'.
Choose 'artist, band or public figure' and select 'Music Band'.
It is important that you make this choice, because that way you will be able to add applications such as the MP3 music player and the discography.
To add the discography and the music player click on 'Edit page': you should find the appropriate buttons among the applications.
If you have problems adding the discography or the music player (eg. Clicking the buttons nothing happens, or you back to home page) try to repeat with another browser, for example Opera: many users who experience problems with Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox have resolved by installing and using Opera.
To upload music in the 'music player', Facebook will ask you to send a scan of your ID.
After a few days you submit it, the application 'music player' will be up and running.
To view the 'music player', or 'discography' in the left column of the homepage, click on the 'tabs', in the horizontal bar and choose to display it beside the wall.
Complete your page with photos, descriptions, links and anything that might be interesting for your fans.
Try to keep your page updated, and post interesting materials as much as you can.
Promote your music with YouTube
There are already many methods that can be used to exploit its popularity, and many others are yet to be invented.
First of all, Facebook has a key feature: allows each user to easily share any news, video, or link to all persons known to him.
News, videos, music, and links on Facebook, can spread among hundreds of thousands of people with amazing rapidity. This characteristic can be exploited to genereate what marketers call the "viral marketing".
For this reason, we recommend that you regularly share your album page on Facebook, but also your pictures, your videos, the links to all your web pages, and ask your friends to do the same.
Concerning your album on Incidi!, you can easily do this by using the 'Share it' button in the right column of your album page, if you have a facebook account.
Moreover, try to include the link to your album page in every material you share: for example, put a link to your album page in your video on YouTube, then share it on Facebook. In addition, Facebook offers an effective and free way to communicate with your fans, promote your music, your videos and your concerts.
In particular, you can upload your recordings and make people listening to your songs, with a direct link to your album page on Incidi!.
If you want an example of how to use Facebook in this way, visit the U2 fan page .
Create a page like this is not difficult, but (at the time of writing) can be frustrating if you don't follow some precautions. Here are some tips on how to do it.
First, to create your page you must have a personal account on Facebook, that you can quickly create for free.
After creating your account, please log out and go back to the home page of Facebook.
From here, click on 'Create a Page for a celebrity, a band or a company'.
Choose 'artist, band or public figure' and select 'Music Band'.
It is important that you make this choice, because that way you will be able to add applications such as the MP3 music player and the discography.
To add the discography and the music player click on 'Edit page': you should find the appropriate buttons among the applications.
If you have problems adding the discography or the music player (eg. Clicking the buttons nothing happens, or you back to home page) try to repeat with another browser, for example Opera: many users who experience problems with Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox have resolved by installing and using Opera.
To upload music in the 'music player', Facebook will ask you to send a scan of your ID.
After a few days you submit it, the application 'music player' will be up and running.
To view the 'music player', or 'discography' in the left column of the homepage, click on the 'tabs', in the horizontal bar and choose to display it beside the wall.
Complete your page with photos, descriptions, links and anything that might be interesting for your fans.
Try to keep your page updated, and post interesting materials as much as you can.
Like Facebook, also YouTube can be an effective promotional tool for your music. Here are some advices on how to exploit its popularity.
First, create as many videos of your songs as you can, and upload them to your YouTube account (if you do not have an account, you can create it easily and for free on the YouTube site).
You don't need to spend a lot of money to make the video, it is enough a cheap digital camera.
What is crucial, however, is finding an idea for the video that is curious and interesting for your target, and a bit of time and patience to achieve the best results with the tools you have.
We also recommend to add your best video to your album page on Incidi!.
Once uploaded the videos, add an annotation to each of them indicating where your fan can buy your music: www.incidi.net/youralbum; then share each of them in all channels you have available (on Facebook, MySpace, email, etc..).
Beside actively sharing your videos, you can also try to exploit the passive 'playlist' method.
A playlist is a sequence of videos that YouTube users can find by entering keywords, and then automatically play and possibly share with other users.
Many people use playlists to listen to music that do not know, and you can easily make your album easely findable by who is looking for music similar to yours.
Just add, in each playlist you create, 10-15 popular videos of music similar to yours, that your target may appreciate to listen to. In the playlist, include also one or two of your videos.
Add also keywords / tags that your potential audience might search in the YouTube search engine. For example, you can directly enter the name of your album genre, or the name of a famous artist who is part of the playlist, etc..
From your YouTube account you can also monitor how your videos are going, and correct your strategy based on data visualization.
Promote with Last FM
First, create as many videos of your songs as you can, and upload them to your YouTube account (if you do not have an account, you can create it easily and for free on the YouTube site).
You don't need to spend a lot of money to make the video, it is enough a cheap digital camera.
What is crucial, however, is finding an idea for the video that is curious and interesting for your target, and a bit of time and patience to achieve the best results with the tools you have.
We also recommend to add your best video to your album page on Incidi!.
Once uploaded the videos, add an annotation to each of them indicating where your fan can buy your music: www.incidi.net/youralbum; then share each of them in all channels you have available (on Facebook, MySpace, email, etc..).
Beside actively sharing your videos, you can also try to exploit the passive 'playlist' method.
A playlist is a sequence of videos that YouTube users can find by entering keywords, and then automatically play and possibly share with other users.
Many people use playlists to listen to music that do not know, and you can easily make your album easely findable by who is looking for music similar to yours.
Just add, in each playlist you create, 10-15 popular videos of music similar to yours, that your target may appreciate to listen to. In the playlist, include also one or two of your videos.
Add also keywords / tags that your potential audience might search in the YouTube search engine. For example, you can directly enter the name of your album genre, or the name of a famous artist who is part of the playlist, etc..
From your YouTube account you can also monitor how your videos are going, and correct your strategy based on data visualization.
Until some time ago we were much more enthusiastic than now about this web radio, today its popularity is getting a bit worse.
In any case, at the time of this writing, you can have your album on Last FM for free, and may still bring some benefit in terms of promotion.
Even with Last FM, choosing the right tags and similar artists, you will be able to make your album listened by your potential audience. For each album you can also insert the link to your album page on Incidi!.
Remember to add your photos, biography and interesting descriptions, but also keep listening to lots of music, commenting on the songs of the other artists and participating in forums and discussions, because this may help to generate visits to your Last FM profile, and in turn to your album page.
In any case, at the time of this writing, you can have your album on Last FM for free, and may still bring some benefit in terms of promotion.
Even with Last FM, choosing the right tags and similar artists, you will be able to make your album listened by your potential audience. For each album you can also insert the link to your album page on Incidi!.
Remember to add your photos, biography and interesting descriptions, but also keep listening to lots of music, commenting on the songs of the other artists and participating in forums and discussions, because this may help to generate visits to your Last FM profile, and in turn to your album page.
More information that you may find useful:
how Incidi! works, music promotion tutorial