THE FAME HOUSE STACK Technology for Thenew Musicindustry the FAMEHOUSESTACK Marketing &E-Commerce

1 THE FAME HOUSE STACK Marketing & E-Commerce Technology for the New Music Industry STACK STACK THE FAME HOUSE FAME THE 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 01. Introduction 04. The Fame House E-Commerce Stack 12. Marketing Stack Spotlight: Social Contesting 06. Make Commerce Simpler for Everyone 13. Marketing Stack Spotlight: Email Marketing 07. The Fame House Marketing Stack 15. Fame House Stack Case Study: DJ Shadow - 09. The Mountain Will Fall The Fame House .NET Album Release Web Development Stack STACK STACK 10. 19. Marketing Stack Spotlight: Marketing Technology Analytics Lessons FAMEHOUSE THE FAME HOUSE FAME THE 01 INTRODUCTION By Mike Fiebach, Founder & CEO IN THE SIX YEARS SINCE I founded Fame House, a lot has changed. The rapid pace of digital innovation has transformed how artists build and activate their audiences, steering the industry away from traditional, album cycle-driven marketing strategies toward a 365 days a year, omni-channel approach. The emergence, proliferation, and mass adoption of direct to consumer tools and social media have enabled this shift. We are now firmly in the era of the music and technology industry—where comprehensive digital audience growth, management, and monetization is king. In an era where new digital platforms emerge regularly, the medium itself is often as important as the message, and the message must speak to a broader artist-driven storyline that translates across platforms. To thrive in this new paradigm, artists, labels, and managers must embrace a technology-agnostic strategy, combined with an omni-channel digital branding approach. This may sound like a lot of jargon, but I believe the substance behind these buzzwords is the foundation for success in the new music industry. What does it mean to be technology-agnostic? It is a strategy that Fame House has employed since day one and is something I learned through five years of working with DJ Shadow; it means that in this era, we TO THRIVE IN THIS NEW must remain nimble when it comes to tech. There are new platforms and tools that emerge almost daily, and PARADIGM, ARTISTS, LABELS, we need to build our businesses to adapt to the ever- evolving digital landscape. AND MANAGERS MUST EMBRACE What does it mean to have an omni-channel digital A TECHNOLOGY-AGNOSTIC STACK STACK branding approach? This is also something we have STRATEGY, COMBINED WITH utilized at Fame House since the early days of our company. It means that the artist’s brand itself reaches AN OMNI-CHANNEL DIGITAL beyond any singular medium. The goal of any company represented in this digital age should be to build a brand BRANDING APPROACH. that transcends the platforms themselves. THE FAME HOUSE FAME THE 02 If you implement the cutting edge use of digital tools, the messages they convey through their art would be while integrating a consistent brand approach across much less powerful if that art were initially exhibited platforms, you will set yourself up for success to grow, in a museum, rather than on a wall on the street. The engage, and monetize your audience. innovation can derive from the medium (of course, I must give credit where credit is due for the “Medium The medium as a powerful tool is one of the primary is the Message” theory generally). The artists and reasons tech companies have had so much impact on early adopters who utilize new technology in innovative the music business; at a certain early-adoption point, ways benefit from using the medium as the message. they brought something to the table that did not exist elsewhere. These new tools and platforms become Fame House expands upon the “medium as the a necessity to an artist’s marketing, branding—and, message” strategy by working with artists and their increasingly, their monetization portfolio. Simple teams to ensure they properly engage, grow, and examples of this pattern include Snapchat releasing manage their entire digital presence with a consistent a disappearing message for the first time, Musical.ly strategy. When an artist has a holistic approach to innovating with UGC-powered short form video synced brand and voice across their properties, they are in with music, and even going back to Twitter releasing an optimal position to resonate with their audience 140-character text-based broadcasting, Medium comprehensively. How a single social media tool is innovating in-stream blog commenting, Instagram utilized is inherently very different from how other releasing everyday photography tools, and Spotify social media platforms, tools, email lists, websites, and others enabling on-demand music streaming. An and web stores are leveraged; but the visual and tonal expansion of this concept is Instagram building upon representation should be consistent across all of its foundation to release 15-second, then 60-second them. The ultimate leverage artists and digital brands video; Instagram releasing their version of “stories;” and have over the tech companies is the fact that they Facebook implementing 360 video and photos. Each (the artists and brands) own and control their voice medium can have new media-delivery tools to expand on and their brand regardless of the medium; they are the initial technological competency, thus broadening its the only representatives who can convey how their brand is communicated within the specific platform STACK STACK use cases for creators and consumers. or message mechanism. Without those unique Fame House's expertise in how each platform is voices, brands, and their engaged followers, the tech specifically utilized enables our clients to leverage companies’ platforms would be useless. Fame House each tool uniquely. This is a strategy that can calls this the “storytelling paradigm”—the profiles enable the technology medium itself to become the controlling this paradigm are the artists and message in certain instances, which can be incredibly brands themselves. powerful. I analogize it to Banksy or Shepard Fairey— THE FAME HOUSE FAME THE 03 The combination of the medium-as-the-message strategy and the storytelling paradigm enables artists, Check out our Fame House Music Marketing & managers, labels, and their marketers to break out of E-commerce Stack on Product Hunt Here the shell of outdated approaches. This is no longer about an album cycle—it is about the Artist Cycle. Now, Follow Fame House on Medium for more updates more than ever, that cycle never stops and is constantly and insights from our team. evolving. As the Artist Cycle moves forward, the cutting edge, technology-adaptive businesses that optimize engagement through the use of technology and branding will generate ongoing revenue opportunities for direct to consumer commerce, streaming, and sponsorship. WE ARE IN THE ERA OF AUDIENCE MONETIZATION Access to the audience is more direct than ever. We are in a world where the enablers of the connection to the audience are mighty tech companies, but because of that intermediary, the artist and rightsholders control their voice, brand, and destiny more than ever. Those who build a technology-agnostic strategy while prioritizing omni-channel storytelling and brand marketing are the entities that will succeed in the new model. I am just happy that Fame House is a key part of this ride. We believe we are innovating and defining what it means to be a digital agency focused on audience monetization in the new music business. Fame House is sharing some of the lesser known pieces of our music marketing and e-commerce stack by releasing this @Product Hunt collection in an effort to share some of our technology tools beyond our walls, and to open a dialogue with other marketers and artists about the tools they are using within this new paradigm. If you have experience with any alternatives to these tools, or if you are a founder with a new tool that you think is best-in-class, drop me a line: twitter.com/mfiebach STACK STACK THE FAME HOUSE FAME THE 04 THE FAME HOUSE E-COMMERCE STACK By Dan Conway, Director, D2C FAME HOUSE HAS THE in-house capabilities to build, manage, and evolve an artist’s entire e-commerce operation, including: store management, store design and development, product design and production, warehousing, order logistics, and customer service. Utilizing our tech-agnostic approach, we’ve built a commerce stack that is nimble and adaptive to meet the needs of emerging artists, superstars, and brands alike. "ONE OF THE PRIMARY BENEFITS OF SHOPIFY IS ITS OPEN API..." Throughout the years, we’ve managed artist commerce on nearly every major platform out there. In the early Fame House days, TopSpin was a favorite for its expertise in the music business. We’ve also used Woocommerce, Drupal Commerce, Bandcamp, Magento, Miva, Gumroad, Clickly, custom platforms, and more. Currently, Shopify is our primary commerce platform solution for its perfect mix of solid core commerce functionality coupled with a flexible environment. We’ve invested in a custom robust technology stack built on top of Shopify that allows us to customize themes, layouts, styling, purchase flow, and overall user experience to match the aesthetic and goals of each STACK STACK client. Our custom Shopify stack is built to be nimble across the needs of artists, entertainers, and brands alike, and is so flexible that in some instances we are able to spin up a store in under 24 hours, if necessary. THE FAME HOUSE FAME THE 05 One of the primary benefits of Shopify is its open API, which has led to an enormous library of pre-built applications and resources. This gives us the ability to cater to specific client needs without having to always build custom solutions each time. Some of our go-to applications on Shopify are: Sendowl, which powers digital content delivery; Shipstation, which manages the communication and logistics of customer orders with our many warehouses; Jakprints, which gives us the ability to print apparel on-demand as orders come in; and Zendesk, which powers our customer service operation.

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