Big news folks.

The world of Topspin is coming to a band near you.

Topspin will be offering their in-depth world of Direct to Fan marketing for every Tom, Dick, and Jane that is willing to part with 15% commission and some monthly or yearly cash.

You get to choose from 3 options:

1. $100 a year or $10 a month which will get you:

• Stores: Sell digital media, physical products, customize individual Buy Buttons, or create free-standing stores. Integrate that store with WordPress, and embed your store on other websites, Facebook,and  mobile apps with the Mobile Roadie.
• Tickets: Create your own tickets for concerts, bundle them and sell them directly to fans.  This is really sweet – fans can print their tickets at home, and you can scan them at the venue with the Ticket Scanner App.
• Widgets: Create widgets to grow your fan following via email, Facebook, or Twitter in exchange for free content.  Build streaming media players for music and video.  All the widgets are customizable and embedded or shared anywhere (blogs, Facebook, mobile browsers)
• Email: Send unlimited number of messages to up to 2,000 email addresses.  Segment your fan database by demographics and track email response rates and analyze campaign performance.
• Analytics: Topspin provides a wealth of data to help evaluate your campaigns, analyze your fan base, and monitor the health of your operation.  Monitor overall fan engagement with our integrated Next Big Sound widget.  See which widgets get the most views, clicks, and conversions.  Graph each campaign’s performance to spot trends in sales, streams, and shares.  Get a breakdown of your audience’s age, location, gender, interests, social-media influence, and other demographic traits.  Download detailed sales reports to keep a close eye on your bottom line.

2. $500 or $50 a month, which gets you:

• More Email: Send an unlimited number of messages to up to 20,000 email addresses.
• —Memberships—- This is big news. This tool allows you to create access-levels and use them to offer fan-club memberships, subscriptions, and access to members-only offers & content.  Create an unlimited number of access levels, set recurring billing, and bundle Memberships with any other product in your store. Fans can log in to their memberships through their pre-existing accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Google, or Yahoo. —This will be a huge deal in the near future.
• Pre Orders: Set up sophisticated pre-order offers that can include instant-gratification digital downloads and deferred delivery of digital and physical products.

3. $100 a month 1000 a year you get:  <—Good for labels, management, and phat bands—>

• Fancy Pants Accounting: Configure more than one payee for products and bundles in the Topspin system. This is especially important in cases where a label, merch company, and/or promoter need to be paid directly.
• Fancy Pants Reporting: Works directly with Topspin’s in house Soundscan (US) and Official Charts Company (UK) personnel to ensure items are set up and reporting in time for street date and beyond.
• More Email: Send email to an unlimited number of fans.

Soooooo this is going to change many things. The Topspin folks know what they’re doing and if they ask for 15% off the top of it all, then I’m willing to bet that musicians will be okay with that. This could effectively kill any reason to sign with a label if you have the right team behind you. I’m interested to see how this will play out.

Check out more here

Music Consciousness
Voyno