Awareness Team

The Key To Understanding Music Xray is Understanding “Diagnostics”

Posted by Mike McCready | October 26th, 2015 | No responses

 

Music Xray’s primary job is to find the needles in the haystack. A needle is any song or act deserving of being selected for any opportunity throughout the industry. Diagnostics insures we gather the information to enable us to do our best.

What is Diagnostics? Diagnostics is a one-time per song purchase that costs $10 and must be purchased for each song that is submitted directly to any opportunity or any industry professional on the site. Once Diagnostics has been purchased for a song it becomes “Diagnostics Exempt” and may be submitted to an unlimited number of opportunities without ever being required to purchase Diagnostics again.

Diagnostics serves two purposes:

1. It tells you where your music stands compared to other music that may be competing for similar opportunities. It generates recommended next steps based on the industry and fan reaction. And perhaps most importantly, it shows you the likelihood your music will be selected for an opportunity via the site, assuming you employ a best-practices submission strategy.

2. It tells the industry where your music stands and how to find it. Because Diagnostics enables us to gather enough information about your music to make it easily searchable for industry professionals in our industry-only search & discovery engine called Needlestack. This increases the chances your music has of being discovered by industry professionals who conduct searches for music with specific characteristics, such as high production quality, interesting hooks, mood, topic, etc.

We cover both purposes in detail below.

Purpose 1: To tell you where your music stands…

See the key for each item below the graphic:

A. The number of professionals who have heard and rated this song (at least 5 professionals rate the song upon your first submission – serious professionals from among our over 1500 professional users currently seeking songs and talent, so if the song blows one of them away, a deal or relationship may ensue and often does).

B. The average of the ratings received from industry professionals.

C. Where the song stands among all other songs that have been rated on Music Xray (hundreds of thousands).

D. The percentage of potential fans who after hearing the song for the first time became a direct fan (which provides that fan’s email address and Facebook profile link to the musician). As part of your first transaction with us, we send the song to a pool of 20 potential fans we’ve identified based on the fan’s music taste. We have a pool of tens of thousands of fans (and growing fast) who have signed up on Music Xray to discover new bands and songs.

E. Typically, we target potential fans from that pool for you (when there’s a match between the song and the fan’s taste profile) for $0.33 per fan. If 100% of those fans convert to direct fans of yours, the cost per acquired fan would be $0.33, but at a 35% conversion rate, that cost is $0.92 per acquired fan. A 35% conversion rate is not bad at all! The cost reflected here is what real contactable fans will likely cost you if you were to continue targeting fans on Music Xray. It’s up to you to decide what is acceptable to pay per acquired fan, based on your ability to monetize their fan base.

F. Based on the information in A. B. C. D. & E., we tell you the likelihood your song will be selected for an opportunity on the site. To reach this result, Music Xray uses machine learning algorithms and statistical probability calculations. It also requires the artist to employ a “best practices submission strategy”. To learn what that is and how we calculate the results, click here.

G. Based on the information in A. B. C. D. & E., we provide recommended next steps for submissions to opportunities and the industry professionals behind them. If the results are not encouraging, we recommend not to submit the song to further opportunities and sometimes we recommend you get song help improving the song. We make many top industry professionals on the site available to offer song critiques and career coaching.

H. Based on the information in A. B. C. D. & E., we provide recommended next steps for fan acquisition. If the data is not encouraging, we often recommend not continuing using the song to acquire fans.

I. This is the song activity chart that tells you what is happening with your song on the site at any time. Did you acquire a new fan? Was your song heard by an industry professional? Was your song displayed in a search result etc.

Purpose 2: To make your music searchable for the industry…

Music Xray offers industry professionals access to a sophisticated search engine called Needlestack Music Search.

Every day professionals use this search engine to find the best new music on the site. They usually do this by first seeking certain characteristics such as mood or a certain lyric phrase, or bpm – which are things you enter as meta data for your song. But then they filter for quality, so they look for songs that at least a few industry professionals have heard and that obtain good ratings on things like composition, productions, and hit potential. Each professional can decide which attributes are important and adjust the filters accordingly to find they songs that match their criteria.

Most professionals set the filters in Needlestack to display only the songs that have been heard by at least 5 industry professionals.

In other words, if your song hasn’t been heard by at least 5 professionals, it is unlikely to be found. That’s why Diagnostics obtains 5 industry ratings for your song, upon your first transaction on the site. And this is showing results. About half the deals between artists and the industry on Music Xray occur due to Needlestack music search.

Below is an image of Needlestack. Notice the search criteria settings. This particular search is showing:

All the energetic pop songs sung by females with a BPM range between 10 and 300 that in the past month have been heard by at least 5 industry professionals and that have received average ratings of at least 4 out of 5 stars on all criteria (composition, production, arrangement, performance, and hit potential.

Show me all the energetic pop songs sung by females with a BPM range between 10 and 300 that have been heard by at least 5 industry professionals in the past week and that get an average rating of 4 out of 5 stars on all criteria.

Show me all the energetic pop songs sung by females with a BPM range between 10 and 300 that have been heard by at least 5 industry professionals in the past week and that get an average rating of 4 out of 5 stars on all criteria.

 

Communication to awareness team 03

Posted by Mike McCready | March 21st, 2013 | No responses

Hi awareness team,

If you’re getting this message, it’s because you’re still with us, so a big thank you to you for hanging out.

I’ve asked our team to credit each of your accounts with $10 so you can get Music Xray Diagnostics for one of your tracks. It will be in your account by Monday evening. However, we can only identify you if you are subscribed to the awareness team newsletter (the email address where you got this message) with the same email address that you use for your Music Xray account. If that’s not the case, you should unsubscribe from this newsletter and re-subscribe using the email address you use for your Music Xray account. You can do that here: http://www.musicxray.com/help-us-grow

So here’s your next task.

As you know, we’ve been great about bringing in great opportunities from a lot of high profile places, like Columbia Records, Interscope, Mercury, MTV etc. But Music Xray is also used by a lot of indie labels, radio stations, publishers etc.

We investigate and approve each professional account before it can go live on the site. But there are a lot of professionals out there that don’t yet know us. We’d like to reach more curators and taste-makers and have then open industry professional accounts on the site.

Many of you know local music journalists that are always looking for bands to write about. You know influential podcasters, influential music bloggers, local radio station programmers that offer slots to independent artists. You know people at small independent labels who are always seeking new songs and talent.

I want to ask you to take a minute or two and send out one or two emails to them to make them aware of Music Xray today. Can you do that? We’ll even give you some suggested text. Feel free to tweak it to make it your own voice, but it would go something like this:

..

I wanted to send you a quick note to suggest you check out Music Xray. It’s a site that uses some clever music analysis technology combined with the collective filtering power of over 1500 industry professionals to identify high potential (or opportunity-appropriate) songs and talent. You could use it to identify music and artists that you may be interested in featuring, playing, showcasing etc.

It’s being used by many of the major labels, MTV, radio stations, indie labels, publishers, radio program directors etc. About a dozen additional professionals apply for membership each day. You should check it out here: http://musicxray.com

….

Please be careful though. We do not allow professionals who are simply interested in reaching musicians so they can pitch their own services. These must be professional that have either commercial or exposure opportunities for music and artists.

Also, when you send them the link to the site, be sure it includes your affiliate code so you’ll get credit and on-going revenue.

Thanks guys. I’ll be in touch again soon. Remember to check your account after Monday evening to make sure you got your $10 credit!

Thanks and see your soon.

Communication to Music Xray’s Awareness Team 02

Posted by Mike McCready | March 13th, 2013 | No responses

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

Communication to Music Xray’s Awareness Team 01

Posted by Mike McCready | March 12th, 2013 | No responses

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