Note – Well, When I first wrote this back in 2008, it appeared completely plausible that this could indeed occur. Then, however, I began doing research for the Griffin Lake project and realized that the economic model may not alone allow for the creation of this sort of strategy. And yet, I’ve decided to re-post based on the idea that someone may find it of some educational use. Good Times!

I was going through the forums at AcaNetwork [Great network, email me to get in], and a topic piqued my interest. There was/is a discussion centering around whether there could ever be a millionaire artist originating in the church of Christ. Well, my first thought was of course, what about Brandy? Okay, seriously, my thought was, there is always that possibility, and then, my immediate thought led me to research [that's just what we do here].

Well, first a quick lesson in Marketing:

The first thing you’re taught in business school, or even high school marketing classes for that matter is the Marketing Mix; Product, Price, Place & Promotion. Now, for the purposes of this article, we’re going to just assume that all things are equal here, that being, the artist is of magnificent quality, that the overall market can bare another music artist, and that there is indeed an audience for said artist.

I previously brought up the idea of the Marketing Mix because there is an inherent lacking in one area that would prohibit the millionaire artist idea; Place. Place, that is, the proper distribution channels necessary to accommodate demand for the product being offered. Once a clear barrier for any artist outside of the industry model, now not so much. But, once again, for the purposes of this posting, I’ll assume that this could be worked out.

So, you want to be a millionaire Christian acappella music artist? Well, let’s play with some semantic ideals first. Let’s assume:

1. This entire journey is going to take place as a mechanism for one album – We’re not counting cumulative success, nor are we looking at the basis of longevity.
2. The Million Dollars is Gross – I think it gets confusing when we start looking at the US Tax Code, or if we look at post expense net capital functions [see, that already sounds drawn out]
3. We’re looking at a single artist – Groups are great, but a little research will uncover the fact that in gospel music the biggest acts are solo artists who generally hire local nightly talent while touring.

There are so many that assume that the road to a million dollars is going to come by selling a million albums. Not Gonna Happen. The reality is that the road to building a million is going to begin with an immaculately planned strategic ground game, meaning, there is going to have to be, somewhere in your organization, an immensely talented marketing strategist working in the background along with a worldclass support team.

Alright, let’s get to it.

Album Sales

More realistic is thinking plan first. There are fifty states in the continental United states, but we’re only going to work with 40 of them. Any 40, you pick. Now, in each state we’re going to concentrate on selling 1000 albums which is going to give us a total sold of 40,000 albums sold. Now, if we look at the going rate in the church of Christ of $15.00, the, let’s look at the numbers:

40,000 albums sold x $15.00 = $600,000.00

Well, we’re already 60% of the way there. This is all assuming that you hit your maximum amount sold in every state. In every state you would have had to have sold 1000 cd’s.

$1,000,000 – $600,000= $400,000 remaining

Gate Revenue

Now, this is where the real work begins. Remember, we’re looking to build this million with this one album campaign, so, we need to create supplemental income around the album. The most likely route is the touring route. The idea here is to be proactive and plan the concerts yourself, controlling the gate and setting your own revenue model.

For this model, we’ll suppose that, of the 1000 in each state who purchased the album, around 56% end up attending the concert.

1000 x 55.56% = 555 attendees

Now, it doesn’t matter how the 555 get broken down, be it 2, 3, or 100 concerts in each state, but, the price must be set at a constant $15.00 rate. At this rate we’ll be looking at a gate of $8,325 in each state.

555 attendees x $15.00 admission= $8325.00

Quantify this in the 40 states and it adds up rather quickly.

$8325.00 (gate) x 40 states = $330,000

Now, if we’ve been good stewards and haven’t been dipping into the cookie jar, you should have a substantial amount of income from album sales and touring.

$600,000 (album sales) + $330,000 (touring)= $933,000.00 gross

Okay, so now we’re at $933,000 with a somewhat modest base (by general standards) of 40,000 fans. Let’s see where we’re at on the road to millionairedom [new word!]

$1,000,000.00 – $933,000.00 = $67,000.00

Merchandise

With $67,000.00 left to accumulate on the road to millionaire status, merchandise is the most viable route and also the one least sought after in the real market of Christian acappella music. Sure, every artist puts out the $15 cd, and everyone goes out on the road, but, how many actually have extension items [souvenirs] ready for distribution? Looking back at our concert formula with 555 attendees in each state, we need only 66 of those to purchase a souvenir t-shirt at the ever modest rate of $15.00 each.

$15.00 T-shirt cost x 66 purchasers = $990.00

We can expect to generate $990.00 in each state we tour in, but remember, we’re quantifying this by the 40 states we tour in.

$990.00 shirt revenue x 40 = $39,600.00

After we add these numbers up, we are now even closer to achieving our stated goal.

$933,000.00 gross + $39,600 added revenue= $972,600.00

And then we subtract….

$1,000,000.00 – $972,600.00 = $27,400

27,400! This is where it get’s kind of interesting. Why? simply put, if we were to reverse things and follow the current standard of pressing a thousand albums and selling them at the standard rate of $15, and if we did a concert say, every other weekend, covering costs and taking home a tad less than $500 for each show, then this is the number we’d be looking at come years end, and in truth, this is more realistic than the million dollar number, but, since we’re here to build a model, let’s look at the last component.

With 27k and change left to generate, we look to the time tested tradition of the poster. I mean, when I was a kid I had nothing but Four Christian Stars posters in room, but then again, I got them for free and i generally drew on the back of them. But, for most people, the Poster is a great way to commemorate the experience.

At the current industry rate, we’re going to say that 18% of all concert attendees will purchase a poster, or about 100 in each state. If we set the price at a very marginally sound $6.00, then we can expect about $600 at each location. Once again, we’re looking to quantify here, so..

100 sold x $6.00= $600.00 x 40 (states)= $24,000

Current tally

$972,600.00 current gross + $24,000= $996,600.00

And Furthermore, The remaining amount.//

$1,000,000 – $996,600.00= $3,400.00

Money left on the table

Well, we end with $3,400.00 needing to be accumulated. Why haven’t I build a function to gain this money? I think we should leave a little amount that would most likely be gained through appearance fees or some other function not seen here. One would have to suggest that If you came this close to $1 million dollars in a year, that you would probably end up finding a bevy of ways to accumulate other revenues, be it through the sale of ringtones, of through licensing or publishing, or most likely through extended album sales.

Conclusion

So, what have we learned throughout this whole thing? Well, the question of whether it can happen is an astounding yes. The more realistic question is whether it would happen given the fact that it hasn’t been done. The more appropriate question, even still, is whether there will be an artist who will take the time and effort to actually attempt to build a grassroots effort that would bring any legitimate amount of success?

What Do You Think?

Okay, let’s recap this whole CAMA Management process for those who are just tuning in:

This is work from September and October, 2009

CAMA Planning // Week 1

At the close of the week, I figured I’d post some sort of update on the status of the 2010 Christian Acappella Music Awards. The past 2 weeks have been very productive in terms of overall strategic development.

In short, the following are what have been accomplished this week:

• We’ve secured the site for the 2010 show, and, in addition have also worked out plans to have a backup site in the event that we need extra seating.
• The Hotel contract has been signed. The event will be held at the beautiful Hyatt Regency Atlanta.
• A Tentative weekend event schedule has been written, and a more substantial event schedule is currently being produced.
• We’ve begun mapping out our marketing strategy for the weekend.
• We’ve decided that 2010 CAMA Marketing campaign will debut at the Southeastern Lectureship in this October.

In addition to those things, I began looking at a pretty simple pricing strategy, based on single priced tickets and tiered pricing for various dates of tickets purchased. Just like 2008 where we gradually raised the price of tickets as the year went on, I think a similar strategy will work fine on 2010. The one major concern will be the distribution and the processing of ticket orders in 2010, but we’re still a few months away from that being the major issue going forward.

Overall, I feel that we’re off to a pretty decent start. Seeing that we have a little more than 14 months to plan and manage the entire weekend, I like where we stand today. The next week will see hopefully a couple of things occur, namely, our first drafts of the advertising for the ’10 show ['10 just doesn't feel the same as perhaps a '09, or an '08... Oh well] as well as a possible reworked pricing structure for the entire event.

I am working on revised copy of the CAMA Media Guide with information from the ’08 show reflected, and this should be completed by Tuesday at the latest, in addition to a couple of changes to the official site before we totally redesign in for November, ’09. So, we should be busy for a few weeks until we get the committees together who will work on the show. Until then, God Bless.

Good Times!

CAMA Planning // Week 2

In last week’s post, I ran down the list of accomplishments for the week, looking at the things we had begun to do in the planning of the 2010 Christian Acappella Music Awards. This week, I figured I’d write about the things we didn’t quite get a handle on, and our ability to reconcile those problems that are seemingly on the horizon.

In terms of show planning there is generally a sense of wanting to simply take the formula that worked and duplicate that over and over again. The shows in 2006 and 2008 were overwhelming successes in terms of planning and execution, and so there is that desire to place the same emphasis on those things that worked for us. The main problems with doing so are 1. The Logistics suggest that we’re playing with a different beast in Atlanta, and, most importantly 2. Show #10 has to be our best. I state point number two, not because it’s seems over the top, but because there really is no room for a slip up in planning or executing CAMA 2010. It really does need to be our best program.

I’ve begun to dissect the map of Georgia [click graphic to enlarge], breaking down every one of the 159 counties and developing a strategy for marketing in those areas that have the highest concentration of congregations. I plan to develop similar maps of Florida and Tennessee, though those will be secondary to the Georgia map and rely primarily on information that I already have stored. In the past 6 months I’ve been able to collect an extensive amount of information on churches in the South and Northeast regions of the United States and hopefully this will suit us in our future planning.

Now, going forward, there is a need to begin looking at the management of the promotions at The Southeastern Lectureship as well as some local marketing opportunities in Jacksonville in November and other concerts in the northern part of Florida. As I continue to develop the protocol for submissions for 2010, I already know that there will be 30 categories in 2010, including the Rubal Lifetime Achievement Award, Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, and Song of the Year. Outside of those, I think every other category is in play at this point as we look at the best fits for 2010.

As I continue to redevelop the new Media guides for 2010, here are the guides from 2006-2008. They’re in PDF Format, for easy downloading

In addition, I also produced a first edition music ministry guide on the behalf of NACAMA that was not released. We decided to continue developing material and produce a greater volume. But here is what was created.

Good Times

CAMA Planning // Week 4

And so, the dog days of summer are nearing a close, and that means that we’ll be in full-scale working mode in the next few weeks. Until then, however, we’ve begun looking at various projects to take on while we are planning our Fall/Winter marketing rollout.

A couple of drafted Ads were submitted this week to the Southeastern Lectureship, happening next month in Valdosta, Georgia. Plans are also being finalized for the printing of simple promotional pieces. I’m beginning to work on developing our color scheme and possibly a logo set for the CAMA 10 show that will coincide with the website. But, we’ll see. In the mean time, I am planning to continue to develop the master list of committees and projects that need to begin coming together.

CAMA Planning // Week 6

We’ve reached a general milestone in the planning of the 2010 show – our 6 week planning progress stop. Quite a lot has happened in the last 6 weeks as far as the planning for CAMA is concerned. In addition, we’ve made some great strides when it comes to the overall strategic push we look forward to readying for next month.

In terms of task planning, there have been quite a few stops along the way for us when looking a what exactly we are going to undergo first.

In terms of developing a true operations strategy, we’ve decided to develop a few RFP’s to deliver in the next month or so. When completed, we looked to try to contract for a show producer, a vendor relations manager, as well as a printer.

In the short term, there is the Power of One concert that we should be attending on the 26th of this month, as well as the Southeastern Lectureship that should have representation.

Until then, Good Times!

CAMA Planning // Week 7

Okay, the last week found us in Nashville, Tennessee for the first leg of the Power of One Tour, sponsored in part by NACAMA. It was an exceptionally great concert, with Durant, Straight Company, The Committed Acappella Chorus, Southside Singers, C3, and Dorian Paul Williams. We got there Saturday morning after taking a 5:45 am flight out of Fort Lauderdale and made it there in time to get to the hotel and rest up a bit before the events of the day.

[Read more]

If you have a music ministry, then it’s time for you and your group to get out there and start making things happen. With all of the resources out there, there is no excuse for your group to lag in these particular areas.

This particular list is simple a starting point, as I intend to continue to push forward with ways in which every ministry can thrive and become what they envision themselves being.

On to the List…

1. Start tracking your sales

This is probably going to be the easiest of all the things to do this year, but it is also the most essential to your particular ministry. Sales tracking is important to ministry management because, when done correctly, it can provide a snapshot of the ministry at any given point. Tracking can be as simple as writing on a sheet of the paper the following:

1. Date
2. Location
3. Name of Product (in the case of multiple products)
4. Number of Products sold.
5. Price of Products
6. Net Profit

Now, the key to keeping good records is to take the data as it is collected and input it into a spreadsheet that can keep track of various sets of information. The Type of information collected will determine the scope of the research you can do in the future.

2. Build an Identification System

One of the great things about your music ministry is individuality. I’ve personally gone to concerts where two groups can sing the same song but sound totally different. Individuality is what makes your ministry what it is, and there is nothing more impor-tant to the cause of being seen as an individual than to have an identity system.

For the local group, an identity system is essential as its components are basically the first things that people will see when looking at your brand. A standard identity system consists of a coordinated letterhead, envelope and business card. In expanding upon this idea, you could go ahead and develop a logo to really bring home the nature of your brand.

3. Develop an Internet Presence

Now, there was a time not too long ago when having a web presence meant just having a website. These days, with the emergence of social networking sites, it is not that necessary to have a top-level domain site of your own [i.e. nacama.com], in-stead, there are a number of options available so that you can have a genuine presence on the internet. Sites like myspace© and facebook™ are perfectly alright when used properly, but, with a little more research, you can find plenty of niche sites that offer ample space to host photos and other things. The Key is to put together an internet strategy for your group beforehand and don’t be quick to just post a profile on every site you see. A simple plan to follow to get started is this:

• E-Mail Address – This can be as simple as yourgroupname@host.com, or for a little money, management@yourgroupname.com. The second can be achieved by purchasing a domain name and utilizing free services like google apps to host your dedicated mail. The Best thing about having your own domain name is that every member of the group can have their own personal email address pointing to your-groupname.com. Gmail.com is probably the best for groups to use. They’re free and offer basically limitless space to save your email.
• Personal Website – Blogs are really big these days, and actually, for groups, this is probably the best way to go. You can keep fans informed by posting photos from concerts as well as info on future concert dates, and ticket information. With a little help, you can also setup a shop to sell your products online directly from your site.

  Perhaps the best thing about a blog is that most are free to host and simple to maintain. Sites like wordpress.com and blogspot.com offer free websites and for a little extra, you can have the blog point to yourgroupname.com. For those who are a little more advanced, there’s wordpress.org and joomla that offer DIY solutions for groups that want to produce their own site. Whatever you choose, look at what best fits in to your overall strategy.

• Photo Sharing – These days, it’s not good enough to just be heard, people want to see the action also. You can host all of your photos online for fans too see and comment on at various site. Flickr is a site that offers the ability to group photos and connect with other users. They offer a free service that allows you to post up to 200 photos, or a premium service for $24.99 annually that allows for unlimited uploads and also the posting of short videos. Other sites for sharing photos include:

  SmugMug – fee-based photo sharing site [smugmug.com]

  Flickr – Offers free and Premium photo sharing solutions [flickr.com]

  Snapfish – offers free image hosting and sharing [snapfish.com]

• Video Hosting – Pretty much everyone knows of Youtube™, the site that allows for posting and sharing videos, but there are many others out there that are infinitely better.

  Youtube – Offers video hosting and broadcasting. Strong emphasis on video channels. [youtube.com]

  Vimeo – Offers hosting of HD quality videos. [vimeo.com]

4. Start A Fan Club

This Is the Year to start a fan club for all your fans. Now, it’s fairly easy to dismiss the idea of having a fan club if you only think in terms of young pop star fan societies. But, the reality is that a ‘fan’ club is an intriguing marketing opportunity that will allow you to engage fans on a more intimate basis. Another thing to consider is that this doesn’t have to be a paid fan club, no, you’re simply trying to stay connected and relevant in the mind of those who follow you.

One good place to get started is at the community portal site, ning.com. At ning.com, you can start your very own social network, allowing members of your particular network to have their very own profile page that ties directly into your network. The good thing is that this will allow you to disseminate information across a more broad cross-section of followers.

Now, you’re probably asking how this is different from just having a website. Well, while a website is a great promotional tool, they tend to be static in nature, that is to say, they don’t tend to be updated as often as maybe even a conventional blog would. This creates a problem in that sites that don’t generate content as often are generally unable to continue to draw fans back in after the initial visit. A social net-working site, on the other hand, has the built-in feature of allowing interactivity through the creation of fans individual profiles. So, while your content may not change for a few days or weeks, or even months, the fans investment into the network will continue to bring them back to the site. Add to this the ability to host the network at a top-level domain, say, club-mygroup.com, or some other neat name, and you have the continuous stream of people who, every time they visit your site, pay to you the name recognition that you’ve built. That’s equity!

5. Start Planning A Tour

Note: Since the publication of the Music Ministry Guide back in March, I’ve decided to rename this “Start Planning a Tour”, instead of Plan a Tour. The Start planning change is reflective upon the fact that it is tough work attempting to travel the road, much more difficult than I gave credit to initially. As Such, I plan to devote an entire article to tour planning as well as introduce some tools that will hopefully assist in the execution of the tour. Ok, as you were…

The Last thing you should be doing this year is planning to go on tour. Touring is a time honored tradition that dates back to, well… I have no idea, and yet still, touring is something that every group should aspire to do at some point.

Now, planning a tour involves a number of factors, not the least of which is building a budget for your excursion. A lot of your planning will deal with the aspects that you can control;

• Housing Expense
• Food Expense
• Travel Expenses – Including Gas and vehicle rental if necessary.
• Outlay for Promotional Materials – Written in the previous section was the idea of producing your own promotional materials.

Well then, I hope this was informative and that someone was enlightened by these simple nuggets of info. I am currently planning to expand on each one of these areas in a future post, providing links to even more resources and ideas for your ministry.

Agree? Disagree? Let me know; leave a comment.

Good Times

I’d been planning on developing a single page dedicated to the Christian Acappella Music Awards for some time, and perhaps now I’ll finally get around to preparing that page as a followup to this particular post. Having recently decided that my main desire for the Christian Acappella Music Awards is to be a program that is self-managed, I’ve been looking for solutions that will allow such a thing to occur; that is to say, all of the pre-planning that is done in the non-CAMA years lends itself to smooth sailing in the year of each CAMA program. So, while I understand that situations arise that are out of the control of the planners and those who execute those plans, to this point, we’ve been blessed to be able to handle chaos pretty well; and not even chaos, but rather the minor occurrence here or there along the way.

For the Christian Acappella Music Awards, the most important aspect of the operation is the marketing of the program. For a show that moves around for every show, the reality is that we have to run as tight a marketing operation as possible to see that the show will be a success from an attendance standpoint. From there, everything else would flow smoothly as long as the numbers were there.

Pricing the Weekend

One of the biggest elements of the marketing process for CAMA is the pricing strategy for all events and subsequent revenue sources [i.e. souvenir booklets, vendor space]. Now, before we can look at the pricing of the 2010 Christian Acappella Music Awards, there are a couple of things that are important to understand in the management of events. First, you never want to have a price set so as to need to reduce it later on after setting it in response to a lack of sales. It is important that we price the show so that we can live with the result from the time tickets go on sale in Mid-August to show night in Late-November.

We ended on a price point of $67.50 for the entire weekend which basically breaks down into the following:

1. The 2010 Christian Acappella Music Awards // $35.50
2. CAMA Friday Night Live // $9.00
3. CAMA Saturday Matinee, presented by Trinity One Studio // $7.00
4. The CAMA Pre-Show // $6.00
5. CAMA Friday Matinee Concert // $5.00
6. CAMA Thursday Kickoff Concert // 5.00

In terms of ticket prices, our plan is always to run campaigns throughout the year that will allow people to purchase tickets at reduced rates right up to the release of the nominees in Late-August, when our ticket price will officially stand at $67.50. In addition to the reduced ticket prices throughout the first half of the year, we also run group sales for both performing artists and attending parties of 10 or more people.

Campaign Management

For 2010, we wanted to try to better understand where sales were coming from. In 2008, we were able to move tickets based on our various ad campaigns that dictated the price of tickets at any given time. For 2010, we wanted to further build upon that strategy by utilizing our ability to marketing to certain segments and distributing discount codes that would allow the customer a reduced rate, while also allowing us to see exactly where our ticket purchases were coming from.

1. Campaign 01 // February – Our kickoff campaign. We asked people to input the code “february” at checkout to receive a discount of 40% on their tickets to the 2010 Christian Acappella Music Awards. This campaign lasted from February 5-28.
2. Campaign 02 // Spring – Our March campaign. After the
3. Campaign 03 // Previous Purchasers – Utilizing our database of past year ticket purchasers, we produced an e-mail campaign that would allow them to purchase their tickets at a flat rate of $40.00 for the month of March.
4. Campaign 04 // Ladies Retreat – The code of “ladies” brought a 35% discount at checkout. We printed 500 postcards with this promotional code for the 2010 Ladies Retreat
5. Campaign 05 // Rogersville Homecoming – The code of “rogersville” brought a 35% discount at checkout. We printed 500 postcards with this promotional code for the 2010 Southside Church of Christ Homecoming in Rogersville
6. Campaign 06 // Summer – Our Summer campaign that we are currently running through the month of August. A discount of 30% on tickets purchased with the code “summer” through the online store. This is the most far-reaching of the all the campaigns as we have advertised this particular code in all of the souvenir booklets for events taking place during the months of June-August.

Early-Year Marketing

Marketing is a huge part of any program, but especially so with a program that moves around to different locations, while only occurring every two years. I have been privileged over the past few years to handle much of the marketing of the event and much of it has involved finding ways to develop a report with people, while striking the correct chord that will allow us to accomplish our set sales goals.

In January, we created a campaign to kickoff our marketing efforts in Los Angeles for an Acappella music workshop. We created postcards, as well as a promotional poster for the occasion. The Los Angeles afforded us a unique opportunity to begin marketing the program to a new audience in a new location. I had done some marketing work in Los Angeles in 2004 at the National Singles Lectureship, but the scope was rather small, and we hadn’t geared the campaign towards them. The promotional materials weren’t printed specifically with LA in mind, but rather as a beginning point in our overall marketing program. At the same time we produced the printed collateral, our early-year website was created and an online store was opened for ticket sales.

Part 1a – Our Internet Marketing Strategy

// Website – nacama.com

A rather large part of our marketing strategy is our internet strategy, consisting of our website, our online store, as well as a small social networking strategy to coincide with the website. The website is a static site that houses the archived information of past recipients, audio and video from select shows, as well as information concerning the 2010 weekend.

Campaign Management // Redux

In March we began planning for both the Ladies Retreat and the Homecoming in Rogersville, Alabama. We produced postcards, as well as supplied the promotional video that was played at all events.

There is a whole lot more to be said about CAMA Marketing, so i’ll probably produce another article, but in the mean time, I hope this provided at least a little insight into the marketing practices of the National Academy of Christian Acappella Music Artists