Music Marketing Budgets Explained

Part Two - The Street Team

By: Jai Hutcherson

This series of articles have been written to help independent artists, musicians, and record labels prepare for the costs associated with marketing music regionally or nationally. This is not a marketing plan, rather an overview of what monies will be needed to market music through awareness campaigns, radio solicitation, retail marketing, publicity, internet promotion, and offline street team promotions.

Overview:
Street teams are a vital part of music marketing. They can drive fans to clubs/venues, internet promotions, radio stations to request songs, and beyond. They are the “face” of an effective music marketing plan. In many cases, a street team provides the first awareness of an emerging artist, group, or record label to potential fans. A street team is the eyes and ears of a record label, artist, or group on the streets, in clubs/venues, and at tastemaker hang outs and can see the trends of the music buying public in real time. If managed properly and funded to do the job the right way, a street team can drive fans to buy music, attend shows, and actively promote an artist within the community online and offline.

Setting a budget and funding a street team begins with setting goals. Goals are the foundation for planning, budgeting, and executing an effective music marketing campaign utilizing a street team. Without goals, there is no way to plan a campaign or budget what monies will be needed to successfully complete the campaign. Furthermore, without goals there is no way to track a street team’s efforts for future reference when planning additional street team campaigns.

The Set Up:
To better understand how budgeting a street team works I will use an example street team campaign through out this article. Here is the set-up:

Independent Record Label “Joe Blow Records” is about to send one of their artists on a promotional show in one city about 200 miles from home. They have elected to utilize a street team to do advance marketing on the streets for three days before the show and it will take a half day of driving each way to get to and from the destination city. The street team consists of three members. The team’s primary goal is to attract 250 people to the show, get at least 1 reporter from a local newspaper, magazine, or online press agency to attend the show to do a review, find a local promoter that knows the tastemakers and trendsetters in the market and get that person on board to help with promotions, and to get at least one radio DJ to come to the show and announce the group as they walk on stage.  

Budgeting

Travel Costs:
Looking at the above goals, we can see that the street team will be on the road for a total of four days with travel to and from the destination city. This is where the budgeting should begin. How much gas will be used, how many people can sleep in a hotel room, how much food money will be needed, will a rental car be used or a label/artist vehicle, will a map be needed, and how much money needs to be set aside for incidental costs like flat tires, new windshield wipers, and other things that pop up while on the road are all good questions to ask yourself.

Gas
Take the total miles to and from destination plus 250 miles for travel within city and multiply it by the current gas prices per gallon. Your street team will use a lot of gas traveling around the destination city visiting radio stations, press outlets, retail locations, and club/venues while doing their promotions. You can not forget to add “in city” gas usage.

Referencing the example street team campaign, you can see that to get to and from the destination city the team must travel 400 miles and they will drive about 250 miles while at the destination city. That is a total of 650 miles. A typical rental car get about 30 miles to the gallon. You need to divide 650 by 30 to find out how many gallons of gas your team will need to make the trip. (about 22 gallons) Now take that number and multiply it by the average cost of gas. (22 gallons x $2 price of gas = $44) This will give you how much money you need to budget for gas while your team is on the road.

Hotel
Use Hotel.com or other online discount booking website to save money. Waiting until you are on the road to find a hotel will eat your lunch and it will not allow you to budget your costs ahead of time. Typically you can get a good hotel room online for about $45 per night. If you wait you run the risk of hitting town the same night as NASCAR or other major event and inexpensive rooms may be unavailable forcing you to pay a higher cost than you could have. Most street teams can work with one hotel room for up to 4 people. You can get double beds or they can sleep rotate who is sleeping on the floor/couch. If your team has a mix of male and female members you might have to get two rooms.

In our example the street team is made up of four people. To keep it simple we will assume their is a mix of male and female team members but they have been working long enough that they can all share a single room with mutual respect for one another. If you book the rooms in advance online you will get a deal of about $40 per night times three nights. ($40 x 3 = $120)

Food/Beverage
You have to feed your team. A hungry street team does not do good work. Plan on at least two meals a day, lunch and dinner. You can go cheap for lunch utilizing fast food dollar menus. But dinner needs to be a decent supply of good “sit down” relaxation time and nourishment. For a three person street team you need to figure $20 for lunch and $40-$50 per dinner. Do not forget the travel day it takes to get to and from the destination city.

Assuming our example street team understands the need of trimming costs every chance they can, we will assume that for three people per day you will need $60. Multiply that by four days, remember, you do not have to have a hotel room for the travel day, but you will need to feed your team on the travel day. ($60 x 4 = $240)

Travel Vehicle
A rental car costs about $21 per day if you book online and in advance. The wear and tear a vehicle gets while on a promotional tour is extensive. Unless you have a “wrapped” or promotional vehicle I advise using a rental car company. You can save money by not going this route, but in the long run you will spend far more money on repairs than you spend on car rental. Make sure you rent a vehicle that has an unlimited miles package included. If you are renting a vehicle you can also get a GPS device so purchasing a map will not be necessary.

Our example street team will be renting a vehicle for the trip. So you will need to budget 4 days @ $21 per day for the use of a rental vehicle. ($21 x 4 = $84)

Incidental Costs
Stuff happens! It does not matter what you plan, how good your plan is, or how careful your street team is on the road. Stuff simply happens to the best of us and it really can not be planned. However, a budget can be set aside for incidental things like flat tires, windshield wiper blades, toll money, wrecker service, etc. I suggest you set aside $100 in your budget for unexpected travel costs.

Our example team will use the typical $100 set aside for incidentals.

Travel Cost Conclusion
Using the math from each of our travel sections we can budget that the street team will need $590 to be used for travel costs while executing the goals set up before considering costs. Remember, this is not a campaign in your home city. Street team promotions on the road do get costly.

Cost of Reaching Goals

Attracting 250 people to the Show
When a street team sets a goal of attracting 250 potential fans to a club or venue that number does not represent the total number of attendees at the show. The street team’s goal is to attract 250 additional people to the performance. The only way this is tracked is to contact the club owner/manager in advance and find out the average number of people that attend the club on the day the show takes place. In other words, if the club/venue normally has 500 people on Friday nights and your performance is on a Friday night then your team’s goal is to have 750 people show up for the performance.

The questions you have to ask yourself when determining a budget for attracting 250 potential fans would be: How many fliers must be passed out, how many “hot spots” are there to place flyers for people to see, how many posters will need to be hung, how much am I willing to pay a local promoter to utilize their text/email database to advertise the event, am I willing to do radio ads on local market radio, will I pay a local “trendsetter” to do a local social networking campaign, and am I willing to pay a DJ to host the event?

Common wisdom and statistics tell us that only 1% of people who receive a flyer or flat actually take action and attend a performance. This means you will need to pass out at least 2500 flyers to get 250 people to show up to your performance. But since You will be doing other promotional tricks than it is safe to figure you only need half the amount of flats. So using our example street team promotion you will need 1000 - 1200 flats. This will include the flats needed for Point of Purchase or POS flats that your team will place at retail locations, barber shops, rehearsal places, etc. PKGraphics.com prints 2 sided, color, UV coated flats for $99 per 5000. So you will need to budget $25 for Flats.

Your street team will need to hang posters at the club/venue, in music retail locations, and anywhere else in the city they feel they can “get away with.” Generally, 10 -15 posters will be needed by your street team to hang for effective coverage. (Remember, I am not going into actual marketing techniques of a street team in this article. We are talking budget.... That book is in the making!) National Tape and Disk in Ft. Worth Texas prints poster for $79 per 100. ($.79 cents each) So you will need to budget $7.90 for posters. But wait, there is more.... What about staples and tape to hang the posters? You will need to consider this into your budget. Yes, these items are bought in bulk and will be used over several campaigns, but a cost has got to be figured for budgeting purposes. I suggest $1 for each item.

Local promoters know the city better than anyone. They make their living making sure fans show up to the shows they promote. If you have a great, and I mean great street team then you will be able to get them to help you for free. I suggest offering a trade where they help you in their city and you help them in your city. It does work. But do not count on it. Typical promoters will charge $50 -$100 to help you out. We will assume your team is good and get the promoter to help out for $50. If your team is wise, they will find a local promoter that also does social networking within the city and get get a social networking blast along with a text/email blast combined for $75.

Radio advertisement and a Dj to host your show must be considered. This is not for everyone. It will cost on average about $300 for P2 or P3 station support. A good street team will find the local DJ that has the most pull and get them behind the project and help with radio advertising buys. If your team is real good they will be able to negotiate the station play your music for the three days leading up to the show, do an interview on the morning show the day of the show, and continue playing the music for at least a week after the show is over. Buying into marketing departments is the new payola. If you have the $300 in your budget then you need to plan to spend the money.

In total, considering every option, you will need $402 to attract 250 potential fans to your show. Street teams are not cheap!

Attract At Least One Press Reporter to Show
The only cost associated with attracting press is the cost of promotional kits. Your street team will physically go to every press outlet they can find in the city. So figure your cost of promotional package including CD, average $7 and multiply that by 10. If your street team does not find at least 10 outlets to drop off a pack and personally invite the press member to the show then you need to find another team leader! The total to budget for this promotion would be $70.

Other Goals
Attracting A radio Dj was covered earlier and finding a local promoter was covered earlier so these costs have already been calculated.

Final Budget:

Once you have determined your goals, planned how to reach your goals, and budgeted for them using the example campaign your grand total for your street team promotion would be $1062.00. This may not be for everyone. In fact, many emerging labels/artists/groups do their own street team promotions and are willing to eat cheap, sleep in cars, or what ever it takes to get the same results. One cost will not change and that is the cost of promotional material. You have to give people something in their hand to carry away with them. This could be a cd, T-shirt, or flat. It doesn’t really matter what it is, just that they get something to remember the event!

I have not covered every single detail of budgeting for a street team. Rather I gave you a single example to illustrate that you must plan down to the last detail or staple. If you are running an independent record label than budgeting and accounting for every dime you spend is very important as all these costs are recoupable costs due from sales of the artists music. If you are an artist or group than budgeting and accounting is very important as you will need to show these items and accounting when it comes tax time.

Budgeting may seem hard or time consuming. It is the first few times. But as you do it more you will find that it is actually pretty easy to keep up with and it will help you fully realize your goals in marketing. Budgeting and accounting is the best tracking mechanism you can utilize when trying to ensure your return on investment goals are being reached!

Next time we will discuss budgeting “Online Marketing and Promotions!”

Peace,
Jai
“Love the Music in Yourself, Not Yourself in the Music!”