Over the the next couple days, Music Xray rolls out an automatic Artist to Fan matching feature that tells musicians the exact number of potential fans that we can identify for them from among the tens of thousands of fans who have already signed up to discover new acts.

If you’re a musician who has been with Music Xray for any length of time, you’re probably now very familiar with our Song to Opportunity (S2O) matching feature, which uses music analysis software to match artists’ music to the needs of industry professionals. That service has contributed enormously to the over 14,000 tracks industry professionals have selected for opportunities via Music Xray in the past 18 months.

Now, when music fans sign up on the site, they tell us what music they’re currently into and we observe their evolving tastes over time. Then we cross reference our fan database with the music uploaded by artists into Music Xray.

Beginning late this week, a number of related changes will roll out across the site. First, you will notice a change in the emails you receive. The weekly digest you receive that alerts you as to the opportunities that have been matched to your songs will now also include the number of potential fans we’ve matched to your tracks. Each week, you’ll be able to see how many new potential fans for your music have joined the site.

We will place a little button near your tracks (only visible to the owner of the track when you are logged in) that launches a new Fan match campaign for each track. The button will show you the number of potential fans immediately available.

This new feature is the icing on the cake to our recently launched Fan Match service, which helps musicians quickly add real music fans to their following.  For clarity, we’re not talking about ghost Facebook “likes” and fake Twitter followers. We’re talking about real, live breathing humans who have signed up on Music Xray solely for the purpose of hearing new music.

You can increase your odds on Music Xray by understanding how it works. You’ll have a competitive advantage over many other users of the site who are not paying attention to our blog. So, here’s to those of you who are.

The whole site makes sense if you understand the following: We help musicians do three things and three things only.

1. Get deals.
2. Get fans.
3. Get better.

You can go anywhere else for the other services you need to advance your career. But when it comes to these three things, Music Xray is second to none. Yes, we know our site could use some love from our design team and that there are a few rough edges. We’ll address that soon. But the far more important thing is that our products work; that they get results. You see, everything we say, every tool we make, every feature we add is to help with one of those three things.

Say it with me again. What do we help you do? “Get deals. Get fans. Get better.”

The next thing you need to know about Music Xray is that the difference between musicians who are successful and those who are not is not luck. It’s not a lottery. It’s not a game of chance. It’s got very little to do with odds. Musicians and songwriters who are successful have better music (or their music is a better fit for a particular opportunity) than that of others.

Music Xray gets you to the table with industry professionals and fans but once you’re there, you’re going to get the the kind of unvarnished feedback the industry is known for. Our platform is populated with real music fans and real professionals. If they like your music, you’ll know quickly. The same is true if they don’t.

But here’s the good thing about that; no one is going to have to spend months or years seeking the kind of real-world feedback they can get very quickly via Music Xray.

That said, the ideal way to use Music Xray is as follows:

1. Upload your entire catalog to Music Xray.

This enables Music Xray to analyze all your music and keep it on file. You will be alerted immediately and any time in the future industry professionals seek music like yours.

2. Fill out all the metadata for your songs, including the section called “search related data”.

We know. It’s not intuitive but that’s why reading this puts you at an advantage over other users. Filling out the genre and the similar artist section enables us to identify potential fans for you. It also gives your tracks an advantage when industry professionals use our internal search engine.

3. Submit your best tracks to 10 to 15 different opportunities each.

I know. That seems like a lot. You don’t have to do it all at once. You can do it over time. In fact, I’d advise against making more than five or six submissions at a time for a single song. Some tracks are selected immediately but from what we’ve observed, tracks that are eventually selected for an opportunity tend to have been submitted to multiple opportunities. You have to combine persistence with a thoughtful submission strategy. Pay close attention to the ratings you receive from the industry professionals. We alert you each time your track is rated but we only show you the ratings after you’ve received five. So, after your fifth or sixth submission, you’ll get to see the average of the ratings. This will tell you whether or not to continue submitting that particular track to other opportunities. If the ratings are high go for it. If they are low, consider trying with another track.

4. Pick your best track and run a Fan Match campaign.

Don’t run a large one. It’s probably best to not spend more than $50 to $150 on your first campaign – but you can spend as little as $20. By the time the campaign is over (once your song has been heard by a group of potential fans) you’ll see how many people become a direct fan of yours. If the results are good, run another campaign. You should acquire as many fans as you can. During and after your first campaign, on your dashboard you’ll see how much each fan cost you (we divide the dollars you spent by the number of fans you acquired minus any tips you received from the new fans). Then, you’ll know if running further campaigns is worth it to you. You’ll know that by knowing how much a fan is worth to you over the course of a year and over the course of your career.

5. If you’re getting good results, just keep repeating steps 1 through 4. If you’re getting bad results go to step 6.

6. Get better.

Improve by submitting your tracks to the myriad of industry professionals, hit songwriters and the occasional celebrity artists who are on Music Xray only to help you make improvements, offer sincere song critiques, and even direct and personal career coaching.  After completing step 6, go back to step 1.

This cycle is infallible.  If you simply follow these steps, you will get deals and fans successfully.

If you’ve read this, you’ve got an advantage.

Mike McCready

co-founder & CEO

Music Xray

In the first 24 hours after the roll-out of Fan Match, over 1,000 fans have been acquired by Music Xray artists! Here’s a look at a few successful campaigns. These are fans that artists can actually contact, add to their mailing lists, and even monetize immediately.



First, we have The Incredible Kicks. They’ve acquired 21 fans out of 31 people who have listened to their track. They have received a $10 tip from one of their new fans which brings the cost per fan acquired to $0.01.

And these campaigns for artist Billy Phillips are also very interesting. He has a campaign for two different songs and he can observe which song is more compelling to potential fans. One of his songs has been heard by eight potential fans and seven of them have jumped on board! That’s an astonishing percentage and not only speaks to the strength of the song among its intended audience but also speaks to how well we’re able to target potential fans based on their music taste. Strong songs are doing very well with Fan Match!

His other song isn’t doing quite as well. It’s been heard by 17 people and has helped him acquire eight new fans.


That’s still very good and paying $0.70 per acquired fan is excellent and very cost effective. If a fan isn’t worth a lot more to a musician over the course of their career, they’re doing something wrong.

Lastly, we’ll take a look at a campaign being run by a metal band called Teach her Treason. Their campaign has helped them acquire 23 new fans in the last 24 hours at a cost of just $0.30 per fan.

One of the interesting aspects of Fan Match is that the more compelling your music is to your target audience, the less it will cost you to acquire new fans. After you run your first campaign, you’ll know roughly how much each new fan will cost you through the platform. As long as you have a good strategy for monetizing your fan base in the future by selling them concert tickets, music, merchandise, and other items, your fans should be worth far more to you than they cost to acquire. If not, you may need to change who you are targeting or improve your music. It’s hard to argue with the results you get.

And that’s the point to all of Music Xray! It’s exactly the same when you submit your music to industry professionals via the site. You are choosing the professionals and the opportunities to whom you submit. Presumably, you are choosing professionals who are seeking your style and genre. You are carefully choosing your song and putting your best foot forward. You’re still going to be passed over more often than not. That’s just the nature of the business. But if you’re never being selected and if after five submissions you see the ratings you’re being given by the professionals are low, it’s a bit hard to deny that it must have something to do with your submission strategy or your music.

You see, Music Xray isn’t about pumping you up with false hope. It’s not about taking your money by charging membership fees and encouraging you to keep banging your head against the wall. Music Xray is about helping you advance your career and about providing you real feedback along the way. And when you’re not getting the results you are hoping for, we enable you to get in touch with real professionals who can give you serious song critiques and career coaching.

And we’re committed to providing these services in ever-improving ways. Music Xray is simply about helping you get deals, get fans, & get better!

As part of Music Xray’s new Fan Match service, every artist account will now have its very own tip jar. The tip jar will have it own URL so you can link to it from anywhere, tweet it, post it on Facebook, mail it… you name it – and you’ll be able to set it along side any one of your tracks when you send it to your fans to hear.

In other words, whenever you send a new song out to your fans, your tip jar can go right along beside it.

If fans decide to tip you, instead of simply choosing a dollar amount (which might result in 50 cent tips), there is a dropdown menu with fun little icons that represent items we musicians like to receive, and the typical cost of those items, including the average cost of a song submission to an industry professional via Music Xray.

Yes. Now your fans can help you offset the cost of forwarding your career! They can even set their tips to recur monthly!! We thought you’d like that!

You see? It’s a fun and nice way to encourage those who support to, well, show their support.

You can customize your tip jar as well by disabling items you don’t want to appear as tipping options. You can rename the cheeseburger to veggie burger if you’d like. It’s a fun little way of passing the hat online that we think can really make a difference each time you send a new song to your fan base. Hey, we all know how hard it is to make a living these days as a musician and we think your true fans will be more than happy to show you a little love in the form of an occasional tip.

It’s important for us to manage expectations, so we want to be up front with you that PayPal charges about 5% for transaction costs. You know, because they make it possible for people to tip with their credit and debit cards. Don’t worry, we’re working with them to keep costs to a minimum. It’s also not free to keep the lights on here at Music Xray and feed our developers who build this complex stuff. But, we’ve figured out a way whereby we also don’t have to take more than 5%. Hey, if PayPal can make it work with such a small margin, we figure we can too. Now, we know no one likes to give up 10% of their tips but it’s not a bad deal when you figure it provides you with a way to pass the hat (uh, make that “jar”) worldwide.

We’d love to know what you think so leave us some comments.  We’ll be launching it in a few days. Would you use it when introducing a new song or perhaps when circulating an old favorite to your fans?