3 Bottlenecks Holding Direct-To-Fan Marketing Back - hypebot

By?Jason Spitz?(@jasonspitz), an e-commerce expert who helps bands, comedians, and other artists build direct-to-fan businesses.

1. Shopping Habits

One big bottleneck to reaching the full potential of direct-to-fan is the audience?s shopping habits. Music consumers have learned that iTunes and Amazon offer a smooth, seamless shopping experience with reliable fulfillment.?

"Artists who want to sell direct-to-fan must overcome this obstacle and convince their fans to shop via a method that is more cumbersome, takes longer, and is less reliable."

Those consumers also have pre-existing accounts with those services, so a purchase is as easy as a single mouse click, without having to type in a 16-digit credit card number. Artists who want to sell direct-to-fan must overcome this obstacle and convince their fans to shop via a method that is more cumbersome, takes longer, and is less reliable. But if the artist teaches fans to shop on their website, over time the fans? behavior will shift.

2. Work Ethic?

Another challenge to maximizing the potential of direct-to-fan is the inherent difficulty in doing it well.

"Running a good store is hard work. It takes a lot?
of?time, energy, and attention. Many bands do not
have the?work ethic, business savvy, or even the
time?to run a good, efficient D2F store."?

Running a good store is hard work. It takes a lot of time, energy, and attention. Many bands do not have the work ethic, business savvy, or even the time to run a good, efficient D2F store. Also, most bands can?t afford to hire someone to do it for them. I don?t hold out much hope for the general population of musicians to suddenly become sophisticated businessmen, so I foresee a future where some bands ?get it? and do D2F well, but most fail to use D2F tools to their maximum potential.

3. International Orders

The challenge and cost of fulfilling international orders is a crippling logistical bottleneck. The great thing about the internet is that bands can develop fan bases in faraway countries, and those fans can download music for the same price as fans in the band?s homeland. But those international super-fans may have to pay exorbitant shipping fees to obtain exclusive products through D2F stores. That deters orders and makes it hard for a band to truly maximize their audience?s D2F potential. Unfortunately, I don?t see a real solution to this problem anytime soon.

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Direct-To-Fan May Work Better In USABy Darren Hemmings | Founder of the ?digital marketing agency?Motive Unknown.

Something I think isn't covered enough is that these services may work better in the USA where you have one currency, language, and infrastructure. In Europe, you have a minefield of additional issues: language, currency rates, shipping, sales taxes, pan-European customer support ? the list is pretty long and presents a huge number of logistical problems.

For example, if I sell a product to someone in France, I may only be shipping from the UK, meaning huge postage costs that might turn the fan off. If they do go ahead and buy and that product is then faulty in any way, the consumer then needs to return it ? which also means huge shipping costs. The problems can really mount up, and ultimately led to conclusions from many that it simply wasn't worth it.

Another area I think doesn't get much coverage is how D2C factors into an artist's deal with their label (assuming they're signed of course). If the label are running your D2C operation, they'll want a cut, and often that means the artist isn't seeing much more (if anything) back on the sales than usual. Equally, the label may not either ? and hence for them this can start to look like a lot of extra effort without significant additional returns to make it worthwhile.

Some may respond to that referencing the value of CRM etc, I'd argue that all those marketing aspects can just as easily be handled without a D2C product involved. If people are super fans, they'll sign up anyway.

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This?is?Jason and Darren's response to sidewinder.fm's?question:

?Do you think that direct-to-fan marketing tools and services can reach their full-potential? What challenges or bottlenecks may have prevented these companies and their clients from getting there?

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Sidewinder.fm?is?founded and?edited by?Kyle Bylin?of?Live Nation Labs. If you would like to contribute a post to be featured on the site, please?reach out.

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Source: http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2013/05/3-bottlenecks-holding-direct-to-fan-marketing-back.html

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