If you have an account of any type on Music Xray, you have an affiliate code. Log in, go to your account settings and you will see your affiliate code on the right side of the page.

If you add your affiliate code to the end of any Music Xray URL, anyone who clicks on it will be tracked as having reached Music Xray through you. Even if they leave the site without signing up and then come back a month later, they will still be tagged as someone you referred. You get paid 15% of our margin for every transaction the person you referred conducts on Music Xray – FOREVER. Not just the first transaction but rather every transaction for as long as they have an account on the site.

Your earnings are reflected in your account balance which you’ll see on your dashboard when logged in.

If you don’t want to bother customizing an email and tacking your affiliate ID on the end of URLs, you can just click one of the buttons within your account to invite artists, fans or industry professionals and an email is automatically sent to them with your affiliate ID already included. BUT, if you want to do it, it works like this (see below for ideas on how to most effectively use affiliate ID’s):

Grab any URL from the site that you think someone might be interested in. For example, let’s say you know someone who might have a perfect song for Trace Adkins. At the time of this writing, Torrez Music Group is conducting a search for such a song and the drop box is found at this URL: http://www.musicxray.com/profiles/626. HOWEVER, if you want to get credit for sending someone to that URL, you should tack your affiliate code onto the end of it and instead send them a URL that looks like this:

http://www.musicxray.com/profiles/626?afid=55f8e620e868012c5dc81231390a1e12

Be sure to use your own affiliate code and not mine or I’ll get the credit instead of you. Also, notice that between the end of the URL and your affiliate code you have to put “?afid=”. That’s just telling our system that the numbers that follow are the affiliate code and not something else. You can see how that’s explained on your settings page and in the image above.

Also, note that you do not have to send people long ugly URLs. You can simply embed that long URL into a link like in the following example:

…..

Hey Bill, I saw that Trace Adkins is seeking music and I thought you might want to send him one of your songs. Click here.

…..

You will notice that the link I embedded in the words “click here” includes my affiliate code.

Hi there and welcome to day two of our communication with our awareness team. If you missed day 1, there’s a link in today’s email where you can see it. It’s important.

Ok. Today is where we raise the bar a little bit. Now, as I mentioned yesterday, we’re going to treat our awareness team like VIPs and offer all sorts of advantages that will make Music Xray a one of a kind experience for each of you. We want to make sure this is worth your time and effort to invest in this relationship.

To begin with, this awareness team has a 3 month life cycle. If you can make a commitment until June 15th to help us grow, we’ll make it worth your while. So we’re asking for a short window of your time.

But, we’re going to be very selective about who we enable to stay in this group and who will be removed. Eventually, we’re going to ask you to help us generate awareness for Music Xray among other musicians, the media and the public in general. We’ll request specific actions and we’ll ask for your ideas too. You won’t have to participate in each action to keep your good standing in our awareness team, but you will need to demonstrate a consistent level of activity, or it doesn’t make sense for us to reward you with perks and advantages and it wouldn’t be fair to you if we allow your fellow members of the awareness team to get a free ride while you’re working your tail off. So, I just want to be clear that this needs to be a reciprocal relationship. It’s not simply a VIP club where the only effort to belong is to sign up.

So, if you can already tell that this isn’t going to be for you, please click the unsubscribe link in the footer of the email you just received. You can remain a member of Music Xray of course, just not the awareness team.

So, here’s your two-step non-optional task to complete between today and the end of the day on Friday. By non-optional, I mean that not completing these tasks will result in your removal from the awareness team. Yesterday we gave you a promocode and on Saturday we’ll have something better for you, but we need to see who is serious about this and who isn’t.

1. learn how to use your Music Xray affiliate code. It’s easy. There’s a link in your email with complete instructions about how to do it. Having an affiliate code you use whenever you invite someone to Music Xray will enable us to track and credit your activity.

2. Invite one other musician to Music Xray and once they’re signed up, ask them to join the awareness team by having them enter their email address on the awareness team sign-up page, just like you did.

So, either invite them via the invite button on your settings page or send the, a link with your affiliate code included. Once they’re in, have the sign up to the awareness team.

Here’s the kicker, this is a pretty easy task and you’ve got 48 hours. So, our first weeding out phase will come on Saturday where we will simply remove anyone from the group who has not invited one new artist user.

Ok. The next time you’ll hear from me will be Saturday, and we’ll have a little perk for those of us who remain (and for the new people you invite).

I am really looking forward t working with you and to making some music tech start-up history with the only user awareness team in the business.



Mike McCready
Co-founder & CEO
Music Xray

Hello from New York,

I’m Mike McCready, the co-founder & CEO of Music Xray and I’m so happy you signed up to be part of Music Xray’s awareness team. Pardon the mass email. Believe me, if it were possible, I’d be having coffee or sitting down for a meal with each one of you. You’re getting this email because you signed up to be part of Music Xray’s awareness team. I’m certain many of you signed up because we promised a Music Xray experience unlike any other, and that’s what we plan to do.

But more generally, you and I will be the foundation of what we will build into a larger awareness team. There are currently about 200 of us. The first thing we’re going to do is build this to a group of about 600. But I’ll come back to that in tomorrow’s message. Don’t worry, generally, you’ll hear from me no more than once per week and probably less, but here at the beginning, we’re going to work hard to make sure we have a real team and that together we can make some noise and shake some things up. Are you ready to help me do that?

By participating in this special group of users you will receive early access to opportunities and even special access to exclusive opportunities that will only be available to you. You will have a direct line of sorts right to me and you will be identified by our customer service team as a member of our awareness team. Think of it as sort of Music Xray VIP treatment.

You will be able to have input to shaping products, testing new features and helping us continue to make Music Xray the best in the business, the most useful to you and an important pillar of the new music industry. And in the meantime, we’ll do our part to help you get what you want out of this. Are you with me?

Before I sign off, let me tell you a little bit about me and what inspired Music Xray…

I grew up in a very small town in the middle of Nebraska, a state right in the middle of the country (for those non-Yankees on this team). To get to a larger town, you had to drive several hours. I’m talking remote. My family didn’t know anyone who knew anyone on either coast of the US. I played bass in a couple bands and we thought we were pretty good, but we had no way of accessing anyone who could help us. Music Xray would have been the answer to our wildest dreams. We would have certainly been rejected at first, but we would have learned from that experience and we would have come back better and better until we got a deal. Of that I am certain. We only needed access to an eco-system that would have helped us get deals, get fans, and get better.

Now, Music Xray is useful to musicians from all walks of life and circumstances, even established acts with a track record of success are using Music Xray as the best way to get their music to the right people without all the follow up hassle that usually goes with that. There are so many other reasons Music Xray makes sense. Stick with me over the next few days this week and we’ll get started.

Catch you tomorrow,

Mike

Once you begin accumulating fans you can contact, you need to start thinking about how to best manage those fans, keep them engaged, and monetize them (earn money). In the end, it’s your fan base that sustains you, enables you to earn a living from you music, and who propel you to the next level.

The best way to monetize and manage your fan base can differ a lot depending what kind of artist you are and the relationship you want to have with those who love your music. There is no “one size fits all” method, so for the time being, we’re simply going to link to some good resources we’ve found:

Proper email etiquette for communicating with your fans.

Don’t think of your fans as simply a list of email addresses.

Get your 1000 true fans.

Want to get a quick overview of the fees artists pay on Music Xray? Here’s the scoop:

Want to get a preliminary glimpse of Diagnostics? Here’s the scoop:

Sometimes people want to how Music Xray is different from other companies. Here’s the scoop:

Sometimes people want to understand why Music Xray’s business model works the way it does. We wanted to give you a thoughtful reply:

Sometimes Facebook does not have enough information about your music tastes for us to be able to know which music we should send you. When that happens, fans can enter their taste information manually (and change it as often as they please).

To do so, please follow the information in this short instructional video:

We’re going to be rolling out some new features and we’d like to tell you about them.

 

Our new Music Xray Diagnostics will help you track your progress toward success and if a song is likely to have a tough time getting a deal we’ll let you know right up front because no one wants to just spin their wheels and not get anywhere.

 

In short, we want to insure no one spends more time, effort, and money pursuing deals than is absolutely necessary. At the same time, we wouldn’t want anyone to give up right before they’re likely to see success. Diagnostics is like a GPS for your music because it tells you where the song stands, how many submissions it’s likely to take before a deal is secured, and how powerful a song is in helping you attract fans.

 

Which is your best song? Now you can know. Which one is most compelling to potential fans upon their first listen? Now you can know. How does your song stack up against others? Now you can know.

 

Starting in a few weeks, this is what you’ll see. Read below for an explanation…

 

You will see where the song stands.

 

We’ll show you how your song is perceived by the industry and how its rating compare to all the other songs on the site.

 

Next, we’ll show you the average number of times songs that were rated similar submitted before being selected for an opportunity. From now on, you’ll know what the path to getting a deal for your song looks like.

 

We also show you the song’s fan appeal and whether it’s good, fair, or not so good. You’ll know exactly what new fans are costing you to acquire using this song – and of course you’ll always know how many potential fans we’ve pre-identified for you.

 

Then, we show you an activity chart which is updated daily. Each day you will know if your song is dormant, pacing or if it is advancing your career, based around the attention and activity it is receiving on the site, and you’ll always know what you can do to improve the results for this song.

 

We’ll be back soon with all the details about how this will work and how to access this information in your account.

In the meantime, if you like what we’re doing here at Music Xray, please like this post on Facebook, tweet about it and leave us any feedback (positive or otherwise) below. Here are some current opportunities on the site.